Delirious New York: A Retroactive Manifesto for Manhattan

Fascinating from start to finish. This is a gripping history of the city of New York, tracing its architectural evolution from the Dutch's rational plotting the grid of Manhattan to Coney Island's early extravagance as a showcase for the bizarre to the manical explosion of sky scrapers. Intriguing is the story of Coney Island serving as an incubator for Manhattan's themes and personality of forms. Koolhaas, now a starchitect, wrote this goregous work decades before he would create his own masterpieces of architecture such as the Seattle Library or Casa de Musica. In a word brilliant.

Here's an undergraduate architecture student's perspective: I really enjoyed this book! It's not difficult to get into but be prepared to venture into some pretty fantastical theories about New York. I couldn't help but think that some of the explanations and narrative were a bit forced to fit into some very memorable lines and titles. Just go with it though and you'll be glad you did; it's a captivating interpretation of New York that is certainly at least as valuable as whatever you'll find in a history book.

This classic is a must read for every architect, urbanist and New York aficionado. Although written may years ago, the essence of the city, which Koolhaas correctly sensed and wrote on its pages, make it one of the most quoted and takled about books about the urbanism and architecture of this unique city.

An insightful and original history of the coming into being of Manhattan, New York as a metropolis, by a great writer and (now) internationally revered Architect. Reading this, as an Architect, almost four decades after this has been put together for the first time, and being somewhat familiar with some of the works of the office he started (OMA), makes its' reading not without expectations in regards to learning about the practical applications of the lessons learned here. And to fast-forward to a tentative conclusion; these kind of expectations are not full-filled. The book, as a study is an exploration first and foremost; anything beyond is (and was) future, which we can now 'measure' or compare against actual production (of the author as Architect). The book itself then and its' structure; it starts off with a chapter on Coney Island, as being the laboratory for Manhattan; if one can make it through this first chapter, one is well positioned for the next chapters dealing with Manhattan's development, until the last one, where the author shifts gears suddenly, to get into the heads of two European celebrities of the Art & Architecture community, and basically finishes off the 'Manhattanism' process/period described in the previous chapters, thru the tales and eyes of these two. In terms of reading, a somewhat discontinuous experience, and asking the reader (once more), to find his/her bearing on a new 'platform' of thought(s) / thinking, this time centered around a newly introduced idea of a so-called 'Paranoia-Critical-Method', and the aspects of Paranoia itself. It is not quite clear why this shift is needed in view of the preceding chapters and history, and does not contribute to its core story, imho. The book is an intellectual and theoretical approach to Planning and Architectural history, where an objectivity has been maintained most of the time, albeit one cannot miss the at times sarcastic/sceptical/comical tones, when describing rather bizarre moments and ideas in the history of Manhattan. Almost every paragraph, headed by a short keyword of its content/subject, is concluded with a transcendental thought, a 'one-liner' providing a philosophical condensation of the evolving step in the process, which in themselves are the little pearls the writer adds on a string (of the story-line). One of the main values of the approach is that it puts Architecture, Planning and Design in an historical context that's including cultural, socio- and economic forces, as much, and most of the time, more than the Architecture, Planning and Design itself. What it tries to convey is a sense of processes beyond any one's control, where the Architect, Engineer and Designer are merely the ones providing the means to the forces that are occurring and shaping the processes. Their 'ideas' appear as makeshift, when seen against a 'bigger picture' background, their particular 'Architectural' approach or style more or less irrelevant. The book does include at the end, design proposals for Manhattan by the author / Architect around the time of writing / conception of the book (mid-seventies), that are presented as visual illustrations of the principles discovered and described in the book. However, partly due to the scale of the graphics included (small singular conceptual 3D images) and in part due to a listing of programmatic characteristics that one has been inundated with already a lot in the book, it doesn't really add to the story-line, imho. It seems that what one would expect, based on knowing what we know now in regards to the author and his career, that is a summarizing and a valuation of the principles in terms of how they would be made to guide one in projects for the future, is a missing stepping stone. As such, the shown projects in a way act more as a 'smoke-screen' than an unveiling of a future 'manifesto' (or set of rules), since it is not clear what is 'different' than what one has come to see before, nor what value, rejection or acceptance, is placed upon it. The Architect did not come out and valuate what the author has distilled. Perhaps that had not happened to the point of conclusion yet, but instead what is presented seems to represent a phase of mesmerizing and fascination with the subject. As such, the Architect and the subsequent work of the office remains a subject of study for me. One has to start somewhere, and this is most likely an obligatory starting point.

I read this book on the train, to and from work. I'm an architect in NYC, so it seemed like a perfect place to read this book. There are some interesting case studies that lead to an interesting comparison of Le Corbusier and Salvidor Dali with their respect to architecture. Oddly enough, I end up liking Dali as an architect more than Le Corbusier.

The book comes in great condition. Everything is intact. Compared with the price for a new book, this is def a good deal!

Lucidly written, it manages to be simultaneously clear yet poetic. The book manages to be cynical of the phenomenon that is New York while at the same time clearly being in admiration of it. Well worth a read for the romantics and the sceptics.

Very interesting socio-architectural retrospective on the "manhattanism" lifestyle that developed in conjunction with the imposed street grid system, the elimination of nature from the city, and the architecture of skyscraper buildings. Different approach to the history of the city.