Delirious New York: A Retroactive Manifesto for Manhattan

Delirious New York: A Retroactive Manifesto for Manhattan

Rem Koolhaas • Oxford University Press

This edition of Delirious New York

ISBN-10: 1885254008 · ISBN-13: 978‑1885254009 · 1978 · 1st Edition

Live offer for this book: 8 live copies of this book from $24.90 (as of 2026-08-14).

Dimensions: 9.4 × 7.3 × 1 in; 34.1 Oz

Canonical book record

Completeness 83

Cover quality: good

2manybooks editorial

Since its publication - Delirious New York (1978) has attained mythic status. Rem Koolhaas's celebration and analysis of New York depicts the city as a metaphor for the 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.

Book metadata

Marketplace observations

8 live copies of this book from $24.90 (as of 2026-08-14).

Other editions of Delirious New York

• Paperback · Revised Edition
• Paperback · First Edition (this edition)

Contributors

Community tags

Inferred themes

Machine-inferred from catalog text. Not verified subjects.

Stored catalog notes

Community signals

Have: 9 · Like: 2 · Rating: 3.8 / 5 (8)