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- A book like a time capsule: “Delirious New York” by Rem Koolhaas. (Publisher arch + / Getty Images / Tatiana Mezhenina)
Gregor Hens gives the book from 1978, which still depicts New York as a place of longing and a place of innocence, to his two-year-old daughter and hopes that one day it will fall into her hands and that it will function like a time capsule.
Koolhaas calls his book on New York a retroactive manifesto. He analyzes the city backwards. He outlines the history of your idea and formulates the program that underlies the city with all its contradictions. When the book appeared in 1978, it was a provocation.
City was a festival place for the irrational
For me, “Delirious New York” is a kind of time capsule. Back then, the city was still a place of longing and a place of innocence. You could – especially as a European – marvel at Manhattan with its endless traffic jams, its rushed people, the dirt, the steaming manhole covers and the ugly skyscrapers without any ulterior motives – and also interpret it.
It was the time of urban myths. It was said that crocodiles lived in the sewer system and that the city was a festival place for the irrational. Today Manhattan is efficient and clean and safe, where the World Trade Center once stood is now a fortress and you can stroll along the High Line.
Koolhaas’ manifesto springs from the fantastic. He describes Manhattan as an impossibility, an alternate reality that has actually become stone. You can open the book and pull out the blueprints that underlie the madness of the twentieth century the consequences of which we are suffering today.
Time capsule in another time capsule
I am giving the book to my daughter, who has just turned two. If one day it falls into her hands, it will be a time capsule with another time capsule in it. I believe that in twenty years time we will no longer travel to New York as naturally as we do today. It is important that she understands how important Manhattan was to my generation’s understanding of the world. Because the myths of their generation will be different.
Rem Koolhaas: “Delirious New York – A retroactive manifesto for Manhattan”
Arch + publishing house, Berlin 2006
328 pages, 25 euros– .
