Aesthetic Delirious Urbanism – Rem Koolhaas

Abstract

According to Rem Koolhaas, the ’70s had a great impact on the western economic life. It was the beginning of two twin systems: financial and political, the liberalism and the globalisation. During this decade, New York is the stage of the decaying show of organised crime, drugs and social and financial crisis. In 1977, in an attempt to save the city, the campaign “I ♥ NY” is launched. It emphasises the possibilities of New York´s urban and frenetic life. The city proclaims itself as the centre of the world, at least of the western world. As a consequence, driven by a blind patriotism, or even delirious, Manhattan´s architects took possession of the most obvious characteristics of the city´s architecture of the period before the Second World War. A new old city develops. According to Rem Koolhaas, it is an architecture made of money “shots”. In 1978, Koolhaas publishes his retroactive manifesto “Delirious New York”, where, in due course, he draws attention to the constant relation between the city and the new all over the centuries. In this manifesto, Koolhaas reveals his fascination with the modernity and urbanity. His work depicts Manhattan’s evolution since its “Prehistory” – before the European’s occupation – as an experience of modernity. An island that is a pioneer in the problems that affect the main capitals of the world today, but also a pioneer in the attempts of solving, or at least maintaining, the chaos that it contains. The aim of this written essay is to analyse and clarify how the fascination with the new technology, and the way this relates to what is banal – urban – delirium – represent aesthetic criteria in Koolhaas’s work.