DELIRIOUS NEW YORK
Delirious New York and Manhattanism can play the subversive first steps in this endeavor. As cities around the globe continue to house more and more people, it is important to design not to entice further congestion but to address it. An understanding of how New York developed, through his montaged realities and deluded visions, could deepen the understanding in how cities should be built. New York may have been born out of fantasy and luxury, yet, it now stands as a beacon of how congestion in urban centers can transform and evolve.
by Karen Tillada
Written by Dutch Architect Rem Koolhaas in 1978, Delirious New York offers itself as a "retroactive manifesto", a critical and foundational understanding of how Manhattan has transformed into a gargantuan maze of steel and concrete from its early days up until the late 1960s. Koolhaas, a writer and a journalist prior to being an architect, dissected this volume in accordance to the city's grid. He traced the built and rebuilt history of city blocks, from the fantasyland that was Coney Island to the controlled environs surrounding Rockefeller Center, and loosely tied together by a whimsical conclusion focused on the architectural and urbanist plurality encased within the island of Manhattan.
New York may have been born out of fantasy and luxury, yet, it now stands as a beacon of how congestion in urban centers can transform and evolve.
Delirious New York is not an easy read. It is excessive and overwhelming. If the expectation is to read a book about famous buildings in New York, pick another. If the expectation is to absorb technical know-hows on the scale and complexity of constructing in Manhattan, put the book down. Koolhaas, instead, offered a conceptual attempt to theorize the urban landscape of New York, an introduction to Manhattanism: a starting point in the creation of megacities. Delirious New York is a histographic endeavor of the plural concepts present in the city, of which continued to prove difficult until the end of the volume.
Yet, to an extent, the writing did capture the grandeur, opulence, and deluded qualities of the city landscape. Koolhaas opted to produce short paragraphs topped with a word prompt, in a way to thematically encase concepts of various buildings and trends that evolved within Manhattan. It also captured how decisions, accidents, and lack of forethought, created the conditions for Manhattan's pluralist and congested environment. Coney Island, initially conjured as a resort for the rich, became a fantasy land flocked by the masses to relieve themselves of daily life stresses. To appeal to its wider audience, it became a competition of gaudy tricks and rides encapsulated through fantasy worlds: giving birth to the amusement park. The harsh grid system developed in 1811, offered limited lots and rejected expansion. This initial decision, later fueled with the invention of the elevator, propelled the skyward development of buildings that Koolhas creatively referred to as lot extrusions. However, it is not solely the geospatial that enabled the congested grandeur of New York. Greed and ego from lot owners, developers, and architects fueled the rising necessity to prove themselves through architectural prowess. From building the next tallest skyscraper to erecting the most visionary creation, it is this delusion for grandeur that truly ignited the pluralist identity of New York. Koolhaas noted the concepts from the most pragmatic to the entirely absurd, critically pointing out that each developer honed in to perfect their own vision and that the city continued to build without any attempts to plan holistically. Skyscrapers towered Manhattan, each with its own vision, transforming Manhattan into a multiplicity of concrete non-conforming nations.
Despite the initial conceptual-driven (or ego-driven) development of skyscrapers in 1930s New York, the absurdity of skyward construction has now turned into a pragmatic reality. With over 8.5 million people residing in New York in 2023, and the city becoming a melting pot of its own, the concrete towers of the 1960s now serve as apartments and offices rather than airplane pit stops and amusement centers. The development of space has led to an exodus of space-seekers--and Manhattanism, in its creation of identity through congestion, has led to the New York we know today. Forty-five years since its publication, Delirious New York is more critical than ever. Globalization and rapid urbanization has given birth to 35 megacities, and by 2050, almost 70% of the world's population is expected to live in a city. The rapid need for space remains inequitable to available land, and the skyward erection of buildings have glorified multiple congested environments such as Hong Kong, Manila, Delhi, Dhaka, and Tokyo. New York, despite its deluded beginnings, has influenced the development of fellow megacities--partly fueled by grandeur and more by need. Urban centers have become central points of commerce and economic trade, and also, internal migration. This perpetuates an increasing demand for space. Unlike Manhattan, with its island-type geography and rigid urban planning, most of these megacities do not have the restrictions that dissuade urban sprawl. Understanding how the built environment fosters congestion may be a solution towards addressing it.
Yet, to an extent, the writing did capture the grandeur, opulence, and deluded qualities of the city landscape.
Delirious New York and Manhattanism can play the subversive first steps in this endeavor. As cities around the globe continue to house more and more people, it is important to design not to entice further congestion but to address it. An understanding of how New York developed, through his montaged realities and deluded visions, could deepen the understanding in how cities should be built. New York may have been born out of fantasy and luxury, yet, it now stands as a beacon of how congestion in urban centers can transform and evolve.
a book reviewed by an architect