Delirious New York : a retroactive manifesto for Manhattan / Rem Koolhaas.

Format:

• Book

Author/Creator:

• Koolhaas, Rem.

Contributor:

• Gotham Book Mart Collection (University of Pennsylvania)

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

• Architecture--New York (State)--New York.
• Architecture.
• New York (State)--New York.

Penn Provenance:

• Gotham Book Mart (former owner) (Gotham Book Mart Collection copy)

Physical Description:

317 pages : illustrations (some color) ; 24 cm

Edition:

New edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : Monacelli Press, 1994.

Summary:

"Since its original publication in 1978, Delirious New York has attained mythic status. Back in print in a newly designed edition, this influential cultural, architectural, and social history of New York is even more popular, selling out its first printing on publication. Rem Koolhaas's celebration and analysis of New York depicts the city as a metaphor for the incredible variety of human behavior. At the end of the nineteenth century, population, information, and technology explosions made Manhattan a laboratory for the invention and testing of a metropolitan lifestyle -- "the culture of congestion" -- and its architecture. "Manhattan," he writes, "is the 20th century's Rosetta Stone . . . occupied by architectural mutations (Central Park, the Skyscraper), utopian fragments (Rockefeller Center, the U.N. Building), and irrational phenomena (Radio City Music Hall)." Koolhaas interprets and reinterprets the dynamic relationship between architecture and culture in a number of telling episodes of New York's history, including the imposition of the Manhattan grid, the creation of Coney Island, and the development of the skyscraper. Delirious New York is also packed with intriguing and fun facts and illustrated with witty watercolors and quirky archival drawings, photographs, postcards, and maps. The spirit of this visionary investigation of Manhattan equals the energy of the city itself." http://catdir.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy0835/94076577-d.html.

Contents:

• Prehistory
• Coney Island: the technology of the fantastic
• The double life of Utopia: the skyscraper. The frontier in the sky ; The skyscraper theorists ; The lives of a block: the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel and the Empire State Building ; Definitive instability: the Downtown Athletic Club
• How perfect perfection can be: the creation of Rockefeller Center. The talents of Raymond Hood ; All the Rockefeller Centers ; Radio City Music Hall: the fun never sets ; Kremlin on Fifth Avenue ; 2 Postscripts
• Europeans: Biuer! Dalí and Le Corbusier conquer New York
• Postmortem.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 313-316).

ISBN:

• 1885254008
• 9781885254009

OCLC:

31765587

Online:

• Contributor biographical information
• Publisher description