Delirium New York: A Retrospective Manifesto for Manhattan

"Delirium in New York" can be called one of the three most important books on modern architecture in the 20th century (the other two are "Toward Architecture" by Le Corbusier and "Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture" by Fan Qiuli). This Traditional Chinese version, authorized by Koolhaas himself, was finally released just as Koolhaas's important work in Taipei, the Taipei Performing Arts Center, is about to be completed. If the "Taipei Performing Arts Center" is regarded as one of the top ten most anticipated buildings in the world this year by CNN, a global news media, then the traditional Chinese version of "Delirium in New York" may also be regarded as one of the top ten events in Taiwan's publishing industry this year. Not an exaggeration. This year in Taiwan, Koolhaas’s two works are a building that was built twelve years ago, and a Chinese version of a classic book that first came into being forty-four years ago, "Taipei Performing Arts Center" and "Delirium". New York" are highly anticipated.

The book "Delirium in New York" uses an alternative perspective at the time of the rise of "postmodernism". It does not start with formalism, but treats modernism as "unfinished ambition" to pursue the architectural city and desire; it celebrates the "congested culture" of the metropolis. ” (Culture of Congestion); it does not take a top-down elite perspective, but takes a different approach, does not underestimate the surrounding living environment, and points out the inseparable relationship between residence and culture, architecture and reality.

Not only that, "Delirium in New York" is the young Koolhaas's exploration, questioning, projection and imagination of "What is architecture? What does architecture do? How does architecture do it?" Koolhaas's career in architectural creation was set by "Delirium in New York", and it is also the starting point that he often returns to when practicing architecture - including the Taipei Performing Arts Center.