Delirious New York by Rem Koolhaas

Delirious New York is the book of Rem Koolhaas which talked about Rem Koolhaas’s ‘Retroactive Manifesto for Manhattan' assume New York as the arena for the terminal stage of Western culture. In the book, it wrote about remarkable history of the city and the ‘retroactive manifesto’ of the architecture and city planning. The content of the book is the special work of art which text work well with the illustration and many different types of writing.

Rem Koolhaas describes Manhattan as a ‘mythical island’ and declaring himself as the ghost writer of the city. For me, the most impressive thing in this book is he tells that the background of an urban experiment in which the city becomes a factory for man-made experiences, a laboratory to test the potential of modern life. Based on Rem Koolhaas, ‘Manhattanism’ is the one urbanistic concept that revels in ‘hyper density’ and is fuelled by the magnificence and suffering than come with the urban condition of man-made living. Using Manhattan as a example, this book is a blueprint of the congestion of culture.

The first part of the book talks about the overview history of the island that describes by a French artist as “A Utopian Europe” which regrouped from an existing component into a single location. The grid system in Manhattan predicted the future condition of the city; its restrictions gave way from two-dimensional to three-dimensional freedom, and the millions of people that it now houses were envisaged far before a tiny proportion were even present. That the area was filled up by the houses, shops even high rises has been divided by the road or street.

Written by Kong Yi Xuan, 1001852931

Delirious New York: Harsh Ecstasy

New York as we know it is a grid city with logical planning of avenues and street, a modern depiction of a cityscape. It optimizes tiny Manhatten maximum spaces with many modern designs and fast-paced movement happening. But in the end, nothing’s perfect and especially for Rem Koolhas who wrote “Delirious New York”. His writing on New York is harsh, it’s a very impactful piece to provoke thinking. To start, he stated New York as unrealized failures, with an expression full of ecstasy. An overwhelming pack of man’s wants and need is the embodiment of what New York is, pushing itself to a point of disconnect with reality.

Coney Island: the experimentation of our wildest dreams. It is such awe, as a physical representation of man's wildest dreams. To our generation, Coney island seems like a dated park, compared to many more popular theme parks with the latest design such as Universal Studio at Singapore or Tokyo Disneyland. With our childhood movies and favorite characters brought to life, it’s more known and attractive. But after knowing a bit of Coney’s history and with the input on Delirious New York, the pure desire of men to reach our fantasy has never shone brighter in history with such an achievement for that time.

Skyscrapers are evidence of elevated desires, elevated lives. Life was becoming more enriched in this Fantasy Pragnitism. Each skyscraper a city within a city with no concern of the nearing buildings. It reflects our modern society, where people can be self-centered and be fully submerged in their own bubble. But at the same time, all these all lead to a bombastic mass of culture, a culture of congestion. Such hyperdensity is a beautiful merge of personalities and emotions, the hopes and dream place into one entity.

For our project, one of the complaints by locals is the increasing amount of foreign workers. Many locals are not happy with how such huge masses have come into our country. The safety of their community has wavered. And it seems that there’s no proper solution figured out.

The theory of skyscraper as a utopian device, that allows life to be secluded but sufficient by the same entity. In my opinion, the idea is tempting to allow all parties to survive and to be able to choose there respective culture or surroundings they want to be in. It does quite dissolve the tension but complete place them out of each other’s sight. Such a system seems to be immoral or prehistoric what if the communities were not meant to mix or not even willing to be exposed to, is it right to push on such a social burden on the locals? The increasing crime rate has affected the local Chinese community near Pasar Sungai Chua, and mainly it's snatching incidents and love scams. Don’t they have a right to be peace on their own land? But would this solve the issue of tension or just ignite a new way of disconnect to life?

1001749034 Gwendolyn Chan Mei Yee

LECTURE 01

REM KOOLHAAS

Delirious New York: A retroactive manifesto for manhattan

New york is the most populous city in the United States which is great, astounding and miraculous place. New York—what visions of magnitude, variety and power the name New York conjures up for human comprehension. Buildings that house whole cities in themselves. We can say that New York is a wonderful city that made up my mind of all the exhilarating, diverse and inspiring things are here. It’s one of the hardest cities you’ll ever live in but if you survive you’ll never be able to live anywhere else.

New York City

This article is written about the bigness, power, drama and congestion, all of which, in Koolhaas's view are crucial to the city's identity. Congestion is in fact the vital key—it is the excitement and tension of crowding that are the leitmotifs for everything about New York, Koolhaas believes, inspiring both New York’s physical form and the way of life of its inhabitants.This also means that architecture generated the culture. Our site, Kajang is also developed gradually. Through my observation during weekends, the amount of transports coming to kajang are never ceased and there are more people taking the bus. I predict that kajang will developed into a new busy town with the culture and way of people's life now.

The City of Captive Globe

Through the simultaneous explosion of human density and an invasion of new technologies in New York, Manhattan became a mythical laboratory for the invention and testing of a metropolitan lifestyle: the Culture of Congestion and its architecture. This culture with the city block being the only source of organization amidst the chaos of rapid construction and change also reflects city of Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia now which is developed tremendously with high towers and skyscraper. Our bus stop near apartment Kajang Indah also have the culture of congestion during weekends compare to weekdays. One of the reason is the route of the bus is going to the MRT Kajang. The residents prefer going shopping or travelling around by free bus or cars during weekends.

Manhattan is testing which the entire city became a factory of man-made experience. We can see through the construction of some of its most well-known landmarks such as Central Park, Rockefeller Center and UN Building, there are mostly arranged or constructed in grid and repetitive that is prefabricated system. The Industralised Building System (IBS) in Malaysia is similar to the manhattanism that the city could be surrounded by the prefabricated items like the blocks in the future. Moreover, my understanding of Manhattanism is that it represents a reality in which extraordinary things happen when metropolitan density becomes extreme. In case of Manhattan, this effect is reinforced by a fixed space, on a micro level by the grid that surrounds the blocks.

Sunday at Sungai Chua Market

Koolhaas suggests that the “delirious” architecture of New York was irrational—fantasy was more important to the designers of New York’s great early skyscrapers than form following function. Koolhaas sets up styles as characters in a drama: New York is a flamboyant city whose architectural spirit is threatened by the powers of sober rationalism. I think fantasy become vital will increase the image of a city is no doubt but I still insist the function of the space and user experience must prior to the building form in design.

In a nutshell, instead of imposing some type of hyper rationalist, efficient, Utopian ideology on Manhattan, Koolhaas suggest that signs are essentially not read within an enlightenment sentiment anymore. It is about a flow of humanist desire. This may become a crisis in the future and you can imagine the whole country become a city of life that is extremely busy with robotic emotions. Our site Pasar Sungai Chua, Kajang is crowded with people in the recent year by the developed construction age. However, Kajang is still having a rural ambience compare to the city. I hope there is still naive in Kajang in the future because the robotic life will make the people become unconscious extremely with the behavior.


Written by Chiew Jing Yi, 1001644071

Delirious New York: A Retroactive Manifesto For Manhattan

The articles was written by Rem Koolhaas-an architect and a writer as well as a philosopher. Delirious New York is a retroactive manifesto of Manhattan's architectural enterprise. It unfold the theories, tactics and dissimulations that allowed New York's architects to establish the desires of Manhattan's collective unconscious in the Grid that we know today. Manhattan is the arena of the terminal stage of Western Civilization, thus it’s an economy hub to one of the world’s superpower nation, The United States.

The grid arrangement of Manhattan evoke a collection of blocks: Coney Island, The Skyscraper, Rockefeller Center and The Europeans which are known as the first 4 blocks. The grid was designed for utilitarian concern and for the conduct of business.

Coney Island is a resort for Manhattan inhabitants and a laboratory of the new technologies that would be applied in Manhattan. Coney Island became a revolutionary place that is ready to subvert the long-formed traditional culture. This urbanism is based on new technology which become a permanent conspiracy against the realities of the external world. In Coney Island there was a shortage of reality of outside world and nature. The masses of culture on Coney Island is unconscious while the modernist culture is conscious. 

The Skyscraper-is considered a virgin island because the architects have no control over the specific programs. The fact that Manhattan is separated from the continent by two rivers at each side, which excludes the possibility of expansion, the skyscraper is the only choice for the growing business demand. The skyscrapers are seen as repetition or perhaps reproduction of the site.

Rockefeller Center is the combination of beauty, utility, dignity and service. It is the fulfillment of the promise of Manhattan. It represents the multi-sided civilization of that time. The significant culture represented in Rockefeller Center is optimistic and bourgeois. It denies advice from other culture and other ideology.

When Koolhaas mentions about Le Corbusier and his adversary of Manhattanism, one of Koolhaas’ purposes of writing the book is revealed. He is the apologist of the commercial and pop culture that is behind the skyscrapers of Manhattan. Thus, as his nature, he should be opposed to the modernism Le Corbusier stands for. Koolhaas spends great effort to retrospect the history of Manhattan as an island whose area is so small but had to accommodate people’s requirement for a commercial center, in which skyscrapers have to be erected. When Koolhaas talks about that Corbusier undoes the Great Lobotomy, I think according to Koolhaas, the lobotomy is, as a matter of fact, a layer of velvet that hides the delirious activities of Manhattan.

CHUA CHYI SHYAN   1001542549

Delirious New York: A Retroactive Manifesto For 
Manhattan

Rem Koolhaas

Delirious New York has emphasized the signature architecture of Manhattan. The most trial topic is the ubiquitous “culture of congestion”. In this advanced technology era, people eager to run from the hustle and bustle of the city. On road, congestion has triggered the possibility of incident, delaying well-organized schedule and let users down. The negative effect caused by the urban development should be curb wisely or else physiology and social problems may occurred. The traffic flow nearby Jalan Sungai Chua, Kajang is not really smooth as there are branches of small lanes with one-way path separated from the main road. It means that the users may face the hardship of road congestion especially during the peak hours.

However, the city of New York is arranged in an orderly way by interconnecting the grid lines. Each block are corresponding to respective chapter which are Coney Island, Skyscraper, Rockefeller Centre and Europeans. The spirit of determination from Manhattan has reflected through his action―remove territory with the aim of protecting nature and humanity. In Taman Kajang Raya, the buildings have performed in a straight and uniform style to provide a sense of immaculate, shows interaction between components and harmonize the buildings.

Ecstasy is the primary element of Delirious New York. Manhattan was indulged in direct proportion but it was too distant. In short, the scenario of Delirious New York is boosted by greed. According to Rem Koolhaas, “In a laughing mirror-image of the seriousness with which the rest of the world is obsessed with Progress, Coney Island attacks the problem of Pleasure, often with the same technological means.” This has highlighted such fantastic power of the technological evolution could reach a peak in the future.

The application of Architectural Lobotomy impart a modernistic and cultural message to a certain building. By separating the interior and exterior design, visitors could experience two different architectural style as it is visually aesthetic. One of the best example is the Murray’s Roman Garden, which has apply grid system, promote metropolitan culture with the aid of modern technology inside and covered with ancient architectural façade.

Front Facade of  Murray’s Roman Garden

Interior of Murray's Roman Garden

Last but not least, the most significant things that I learned from Delirious New York is the manifesto, theory and spirit of Manhattan. Theory has reflects human perspective in addition to the reaction of nature. Ergo, the wisdom and inner characteristics of Rem Koolhaas obviously appeared through every phrases. Through this book, I have a deeper knowledge about urbanism, Manhattanism, historism and New York civilization. Theories are efficient as it able to lead the community to a higher level. However, it should not become the whole pie in lifestyle, theory is a reference of certain condition but not a regulation to fix every single kind of obstacles.

Written by Wong Rong Song,1001746688