Koolhaas rem delirious_new_york_a_retroactive_manifesto_for_manhattan

download Koolhaas rem delirious_new_york_a_retroactive_manifesto_for_manhattan

If you can't read please download the document

description

 

Transcript of Koolhaas rem delirious_new_york_a_retroactive_manifesto_for_manhattan

  • 1. I o ST 8A P k t~ .. !Il"0AMBA' , m Lt lj"'- h H O' I I o ;p 11 ~ I 0 , ! ", 0: >, ~ "- D--~----- ------ -, -- -7:i)r/'''''$ ""9" tC ,,-. '"Jh!r. ~ ,,---~--- " __ u;:I.;3 .r.- _. CIIAPH I " l'fI' ,-@I~ ':1 , 11I'>,, ' ,,~ f! ~:, '- .. :l " "J T E , R",~ " ,~ 0- , 'H' ~ OJ ' .Il What all the men on the committee have in common is their involvement In the previous unconscious stages of Manhattan; In different degrees, they are responsible for developing Manhattan's already existing architecture. Now they have to carve the fmal Manhattan archetype from the invIsible rock of Its zoning envelope in a campaign of speCIfication: each InVisible fragment will have to be made concrete in terms of activity, form, matenals, servicing, structure, decoration, symbolism, fmance. The Mountain must become architecture. COMPETITION At the begmning each of the ASSOCiated Architects is asked to develop a private scheme in competition with the others. This ploy creates an overabundance of architectural images and energy for partial inclusion In the diagram while it drainS ego from the indiVidual members. The two most famous of the ASSOCiated Architects, Corbett and Hood, the only theoreticians, propose retroactive versions of earlier, aborted projects. Corbett sees a chance finally to impose hiS 1923 traffiC/Island metaphor to cure congestion by turning Manhattan into a "very modernized Venice." Ferriss' renderings bring only the Venetian elements of Corbett's scheme IOta sharp focus: a Bridge of Sighs spans 49th Street; San Marco-like colonnades and a stream of shiny black limousines monopolize the atten tion. The other outlines of the scheme disappear in a mist of charcoal particles. Corbett's Rockefeller Center, located on a synthetiC midtown Adriatic, redeems a subconscious promise made as long ago as Dreamland's Canals of Venice. INTERSECTION Hood's proposal too is testimony to the persistence of his obseSSion; since the three blocks of the site frustrate his intention finally to implant one of his mega-Mountains on a major intersection, he creates within the 185 184. "Proposal for the Development of Metropolitan Square," plan at elevated arcade level, Corbett Hamson & MacMurray, 1929. or "The Persistence of Memory (1)." Corbett's private project tor Rocke1eller Center IS the apotheosis of his plan nmg tflfough metaphoi. a last attempt to create "a very modernIzed VenIce" In hIs IIfetome. present ed as a logIcal senes 01 ,mhoongestlOn mea sures. The three blocks 01 RadIO CIty are treated as ,slands"; the center ot the mIddle ,sland IS occupIed by the Metropolitan Opera. surrounded by seven Skyscrapers. As to be expected. the essence of his scheme is the separation at vehic ular trafllc -aSSIgned to the ground - and pedestrians, for whom he creates a contmuous elevated network on the second floor; ItS arcades ~ne the full penmeter of the outer blocks and form. at the core 01 the scheme. a Square around 186 the Opera, a metropolitan ambulatory whose Cir- CUIt is completed by haltarcaded bndges _ the width at the plaza Itself-across 49th and 50th streets. From the Square, SUbsidiary bndges lead to side entrances in the Opera. The arcade net- work also gIves access to the recessed lobbies ot the seven SlIyscrapers -three on the outer blocks and one. the taYest. west 01 the ()pe4' "hangll'lf! gardens on the roof land scaped roof!, ....lltowef above the a.ea lorrnerly devoted to the Elgm BotanICal Gardens." plan (John Wenrich, rendering), Bridges connect t!1I) parks on each of the three blocks: pubhe lind enlerl,lIllmenl laoht,l!'S are scattered thrOl.lgh the parks Pale areas are hlh rise towers: Of _are marching towards the deYelopmenl of a new SOCllll order. trusting In the I'ght 01 history. In the clear, ral,onal, omnipo tent method 01 dls of the Mach,ne Age. -This c,ly 15 the result of all the research by urbal1lsts allover the world II consists of a sll1gle 100 story skyscraper at Its center thai Will accommodate all the servICes of the fulure clly. Vast avenues Will oflgll1ate from this cenlral bUlldll1g toward the gardens. parks and sportmg fields... " (F,al'lCe-Sou. Augusl 25. 1938.) After years of relenlless Modernist propaganda. orchestraled by the Museum of Modern Art. Democrac>ty represents tile collapse 01 Manhat- tanlsm. the ex()ct moment when Manhattan's arChitects surrender the" own version of the Skyscraper as sublime mstrument of controlled irrationality and therewith their own vision of llle Metropolis as headquarters of a Culture of Congestion to trade it for a Vision of Towers in a Park Insp. red moslly by Le Corbusler Only the fact that the central Skyscraper has 100 floors betrays a lingenng trace of Manhatfan,sm, "6 274. The Needle of the Trylon - a triangular pylon - is empty. The Globe IS the largest ever built in the history of mankind: its diameter is 200 feet. exactly the width of a Manhattan block. The Perisphere is nothing but the pure archetype of Manhattan's Sky- scraper: a Globe tall enough to be a Tower. "Eighteen stories high, It IS as broad as a city block, its interior more than tWice the size of Radio City Music Hall. ...~ The Perlsphere's location at the Fair, In Flushing Meadows, should be regarded as provisional, or at least displaced. It should be rolled over to Manhattan to assume ItS definitive posItion. Unlike the Globe Tower, the Perisphere is not subdivided into floors. Its interior IS hollow and contains an elaborate model of the elUSive City of the Machme Age: "Democraclty.~ At Its center stands a single 100story Tower, Implanted not in the Grid but In a meadow. It is flanked by rows of subordinate towers - all Idenhcal- and surrounded by a ~perfectly Integrated 'garden city of tommorrow.' not a dream city but a practical suggestion of how we should be living today, a city of light and air and green space as It would appear from 7,000 feet. ...~~ The center of the cIty accommodates the arts, bUSiness administration, the higher schools of learning and the amusement and sports centers. The population lives In satellite lowns connected with the center by efficient public transport. "This is not a city of canyons and gasoline fumes, It is one of simple func- tional buildings - most of them low - all of them surrounded by green vegetation and dean air... ." Through intermediaries, Le Corbusier has won. The city in the first and last Globe Tower is the Radiant City. From his monitoring positIOn in Paris, he proudly daims credit. "By the way, even American architects realize that the unguided Skyscraper is a nonsens. "For those who see far, New York is no longer the city of the Future, but of the past. "New York, with its random, unspaced towers without sufficient air, that New York will, from 1939 onward, enter the middle ages... :'36 DENOUEMENT World War II postpones the denouement. After the holocaust. the concept of a United Nations revives with a new urgency. America offers 10 finance 115 home base. An international deSign committee is set up to advise Wallace Harrison. who is to build the new headquarters; Le Corbusler represents France. 277 275. II UN SIte torn oN the map: le Corbusler's prey III his grasp 278 last crilical totervcnt,on 01 Manhattan's i1utom