The "Rosetta Stone of the 20th century": Manhattan. Its architectural transformations, the utopian urban fragments, the irrational phenomena, in the controversial interpretation of Rem Koolhaas.
Delirious New York: a retroactive manifesto for the city of Manhattan. Published for the first time in 1978 and now reprinted, the book documents, with the lively, polemical tones of Rem Koolhaas, the urban program of the great American metropolis, a project so outrageous that to be completed it had to survive and grow without any official communication.
Starting in 1850 the strong, sudden increase in population, information and technology made Manhattan a sort of laboratory for the birth of a particular style of metropolitan life: “the culture of congestion”.
The volume describes, in a unique, engaging manner, the intriguing reality of the American metropolis, illustrated with brilliant watercolors and drawings, photographs and plans in which the visionary analysis of Manhattan reflects the vibrant energy of the city itself.