by Rem Koolhaas
32.Advertisement in New York Herald, May 6, 1906. (back)
33.Quotes about Globe Tower are from Brooklyn Union Standard, May 27, 1906, and Brooklyn Daily Eagle, May 19, 1907. (back)
34.Article, New York Herald, February 22, 1909. (back)
35.Gorky, “Boredom.”(back)
36.Pilat and Ransom, Sodom by the Sea, p. 169. (back)
37.Ibid., p.172. (back)
38.Text on back of postcard. (back)
39.Pilat and Ransom, Sodom by the Sea, text on book jacket. (back)
40.McCullough, Good Old Coney Island, p. 331. (back)
41.Ibid., p. 333. (back)
THE DOUBLE LIFE OF UTOPIA: THE SKYSCRAPER
1. Life, October 1909.(back)
2. King's Views of New York (New York: Moses King, Inc., 1912), p. 1.(back)
3. Benjamin de Casseres, Mirrors of New York (New York: Joseph Lawren, 1925), p. 219.(back)
4. Text on back of postcard.(back)
5. W. Parker Chase, New York-The Wonder City (New York: Wonder City Publishing Co., 1931), p. 185.(back)
6. Louis Horowitz, as quoted in Earle Schultz and Walter Simmons, Offices in the Sky (Indianapolis and New York: Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1959), p. 80.(back)
7. Ibid., p. 177.(back)
8. All quotes about the 100-story building are from an article in the New York Herald, May 13, 1906, sec. 3, p. 8.(back)
9. Manna Hatin, The Story of New York (New York: The Manhattan Company, 1929), p. xvi.(back)
10. Chase, New York—The Wonder City, p. 184.(back)
11. Andy Logan, New Yorker, February 27, 1965.(back)
12. This section is based on various Hippodrome programs; on Murdock Pemberton, “Hippodrome Days-Case Notes for a Cornerstone,” New Yorker, May 7, 1930; and on “Remember the Hippodrome?" Cue, April 9, 1949.(back)
13. Henri Collins Brown, Fifth Avenue Old and New—1824-1924 (New York: Official Publication of the Fifth Avenue Association, 1924), pp. 72-73.(back)
14. S. Parker Cadman et al., The Cathedral of Commerce (New York: Broadway Park Place Co., 1917).(back)
15. All quotes about Murray's Roman Gardens from Chas. R. Bevington in New York Plaisance—An Illustrated Series of New York Places of Amusement, no. 1 (New York: New York Plaisance Co., 1908).(back)
16. This building was first discovered by Robert Descharnes and published in his superb Gaudí; I am very grateful for his collaboration in securing the illustrations reproduced here.(back)
17. Hugh Ferriss, The Metropolis of Tomorrow (New York: Ives Washburn, 1929).(back)
18. Hugh Ferriss, Power in Buildings (New York: Columbia University Press, 1953), pp. 4-7.(back)
19. Howard Robertson, as quoted on book jacket of Ferriss, Power in Buildings.(back)
20. Ferriss, The Metropolis of Tomorrow, pp. 82, 109.(back)
21. Ferriss, Power in Buildings.(back)
22. Thomas Adams, assisted by Harold M. Lewis and Lawrence M. Orton, “Beauty and Reality in Civic Art,” in The Building of the City, The Regional Plan of New York and Its Environs, vol. 2 (New York, 1931), pp. 99-117.(back)
23. As quoted in ibid., pp. 308-10.(back)
24. "Fête Moderne: A Fantasie in Flame and Silver,” program for the Beaux-Arts Ball, 1931.(back)
25. Article, New York Herald Tribune, January 18, 1931.(back)
26. "Fête Moderne.”(back)
27. Pencil Points, February 1931, p. 145.(back)
28. Empire State, A History (New York: Empire State, Inc., 1931).(back)
29. Edward Hungerford, The Story of the Waldorf-Astoria (New York: G. P. Putnam & Sons, 1925), pp. 29-53, 128-30.(back)
30. Frank Crowninshield, ed., The Unofficial Palace of New York (New York: Hotel Waldorf-Astoria Corp., 1939), p. x.(back)
31. Hungerford, The Story of the Waldorf-Astoria.(back)
32. Empire State, A History.(back)
33. William F. Lamb, “The Empire State Building, VII: The General Design,” Architectural Forum, January 1931.(back)
34. Empire State, A History.(back)
35. Paul Starrett, Changing the Skyline: An Autobiography (New York: Whittlesey House, 1938), pp. 284-308.(back)
36. Empire State, A History.(back)
37. Architectural Forum, 1931.(back)
38. Lucius Boomer, “The Greatest Household in the World,” in Crowninshield, Unofficial Palace, pp. 16-17.(back)
39. Ibid.(back)
40. Kenneth M. Murchison, “The Drawings for the New Waldorf-Astoria,” American Architect, January 1931.(back)
41. Ibid.(back)
42. Texts on back of postcards.(back)
43. Kenneth M. Murchison, “Architecture,” in Crowninshield, Unofficial Palace, p. 23.(back)
44. Francis H. Lenygon, “Furnishing and Decoration,” in ibid., pp. 33-48.(back)
45. Lucius Boomer, as quoted by Helen Worden in “Women and the Waldorf,” in ibid., p. 53.(back)
46. Clyde R. Place, “Wheels Behind the Scenes,” in ibid., p. 63.(back)
47. Boomer, “The Greatest Household.”(back)
48. B. C. Forbes, “Captains of Industry,” in Crowninshield, Unofficial Palace.(back)
49. Worden, “Women and the Waldorf,” pp. 49-56.(back)
50. Elsa Maxwell, “Hotel Pilgrim,” in Crowninshield, Unofficial Palace, pp. 133-36.(back)
51. See “The Downtown Athletic Club,” Architectural Forum, February 1931, pp. 151-66, and “The Downtown Athletic Club,” Architecture and Building, January 1931, pp. 5-17.(back)
52. Arthur Tappan North, Raymond Hood, in the series Contemporary American Architects (New York: Whittlesey House, McGraw-Hill, 1931), p. 8.(back)
53. Chase, New York—The Wonder City, p. 63.(back)
HOW PERFECT PERFECTION CAN BE: THE CREATION OF ROCKEFELLER CENTER
1. For much of the biographical information on Raymond Hood, this chapter has relied on Walter Kilham, Raymond Hood, Architect—Form Through Function in the American Skyscraper(New York: Architectural Publishing Co., 1973), and on further details generously provided by Kilham in personal interviews.(back)
2. Kilham, Raymond Hood, p. 41.(back)
3. "Hood,” Architectural Forum, February 1935, p. 133.(back)
4. See Howard Robertson, “A City of Towers-Proposals Made by the Well-Known American Architect, Raymond Hood, for the Solution of New York's Problem of Overcrowding,” Architect and Building News, October 21,1927, pp. 639-42.(back)
5. North, Raymond Hood, introduction.(back)
6. Hugh Ferriss, The Metropolis of Tomorrow, p. 38.(back)
7. Kilham, Raymond Hood, p. 174.(back)
8. North, Raymond Hood, p. 14.(back)
9. Kilham, Raymond Hood, p. 12.(back)
10. "Hood,” Architectural Forum, p. 133.(back)
11. North, Raymond Hood, p. 7.(back)
12. Ibid., p. 8.(back)
13. Ibid., p. 12.(back)
14. All quotations from Raymond Hood are in F. S. Tisdale, “A City Under a Single Roof,” Nation's Business, November 1929.(back)
15. Published in “New York of the Future,” special issue of Creative Art, August 1931, pp. 160-61.(back)
16. "Rockefeller Center,” Fortune, December 1936, pp. 139-53.(back)
17. Raymond Hood, “The Design of Rockefeller Center,” Architectural Forum, January 1932, p. 1(back)
18. Merle Crowell, ed., The Last Rivet (New York: Columbia University Press, 1939), p. 42.(back)
19. David Loth, The City Within a City: The Romance of Rockefeller Center (New York: William Morrow & Co., 1966), p. 50.(back)
20. Hood, “The Design of Rockefeller Center,” p. 1.(back)
21. Wallace K. Harrison, “Drafting. Room Practice,” Architectural Forum, January 1932, pp. 81-84.(back)
22. Hood, “The Design of Rockefeller Center,” p. 4.(back)
23. Kilham, Raymond Hood, p. 120.(back)
24. Rockefeller Center (New York: Roc
kefeller Center Inc., 1932), p. 16.(back)
25. Ibid., p. 7.(back)
26. Text on back of postcard. (back)
27. Rockefeller Center, p. 38.(back)
28. Kilham, Raymond Hood, p. 139.(back)
29. See Loth, The City Within a City, p. 27, and “Off the Record,” Fortune, February 1933, p. 16.(back)
30. The Showplace of the Nation, brochure published to celebrate the opening of Radio City Music Hall.(back)
31. "Debut of a City,” Fortune, January 1933, p. 66.(back)
32. Showplace of the Nation.(back)
33. Kilham, Raymond Hood, p. 193.(back)
34. "Off the Record.”(back)
35. "Debut of a City,” pp. 62-67.(back)
36. Bertram D. Wolfe, Diego Rivera - His Life and Times (New York: Alfred. A. Knopf, 1943), p. 237.(back)
37. Alfred Kurella, as quoted in ibid., p. 240.(back)
38. Diego Rivera, “The Position of the Artist in Russia Today,” Arts Weekly, March 11,1932.(back)
39. Wolfe, Diego Rivera, p. 337.(back)
40. Ibid., p. 338.(back)
41. Ibid., p. 354.(back)
42. Diego Rivera, as quoted in ibid., pp. 356-57.(back)315
43. Ibid., p. 357.(back)
44. Ibid., p. 359, and Diego Rivera, Portrait of America (New York: Covici, Friede, Inc., 1934), pp. 28-29.(back)
45. As quoted in Wolfe, Diego Rivera, p. 363.(back)
46. Rivera, Portrait of America, pp. 26-27.(back)
47. Caption in The Story of Rockefeller Center (brochure, New York: Rockefeller Center, Inc., 1932).(back)
48. Rockefeller Center Weekly, October 22, 1937.(back)
49. As quoted in “Now Let's Streamline Men and Women,” Rockefeller Center Weekly, September 5, 1935.(back)
50. Kilham, Raymond Hood, pp. 180-81.(back)
51. Harvey Wiley Corbett, “Raymond Mathewson Hood, 1881-1934,” Architectural Forum, September 1934.(back)
EUROPEANS: BlUER! DALI AND LE CORBUSIER CONQUER NEW YORK
1. Salvador Dalí, “New York Salutes Me!,” Spain, May-23, 1941.(back)
2. Le Corbusier, as quoted in New York Herald Tribune, October 22, 1935.(back)
3. Salvador Dalí,La Femme visible (Paris: Editions Surrealistes, 1930).(back)
4. Salvador Dalí, “The Conquest of the Irrational' appendix of Conversations with Dalí (New York: Dutton, 1969), p. 115.(back)
5. This “theory” was actually put into practice, as described in Robert Sommer, The End of Imprisonment (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976), p. 127.(back)
6. Especially important reinforcement for Dalí's theses was provided by the dissertation of the psychiatrist Jacques Lacan, “De la psychose paranoiaque dans ses rapports avec la personalité.” (back)
7. Dalí, La Femme visible.(back)
8. Salvador Dalí, Journal d'un genie (Paris: Editions de la Table Ronde), entry for July 12, 1952.(back)
9. For a more complete record of all the permutations, see Salvador Dalí, Le Mythe tragique de l'Angélus de Millet (Paris: Jean Jacques Pauvert, 1963).(back)
10. Geoffrey T. Hellman, “From Within to Without,” parts 1 and 2, New Yorker, April 27 and May 3, 1947.(back)
11. Le Corbusier, La Ville radieuse (Paris: Vincent Fréal, 1964), caption, p. 129.(back)
12. Le Corbusier, When the Cathedrals Were White—A Journey to the Country of Timid People (New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, 1947), p. 89.(back)
13. Ibid.(back)
14. Le Corbusier, La Ville radieuse, p. 133.(back)
15. Ibid., p. 127(back)
16. As quoted in Hellman, “From Within to Without.”(back)
17. Ibid.(back)
18. Le Corbusier, La Ville radieuse, p. 207.(back)
19. Ibid., p. 134.(back)
20. Hellman, “From Within to Without.”(back)
21. Le Corbusier, La Ville radieuse, p. 220.(back)
22. Ibid., diary entry for Sunday, July 22, 1934, p. 260.(back)
23. Quotations are from Salvador Dalí, The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí (New York: Dial Press, 1942), pp. 327-35.(back)
24. Dalí, “New York Salutes Me!"(back)
25. Hellman, “From Within to Without.”(back)
26. See New York Herald Tribune, October 22, 1935.(back)
27. to Corbusier, When the Cathedrals Were White, p. 197.(back)
28. Ibid., p. 92.(back)
29. Ibid.(back)
30. Le Corbusier, “What is the American Problem?,” article written for The American Architect, published as appendix to When the Cathedrals Were White, pp. 186-201.(back)
31. Le Corbusier, When the Cathedrals Were White, p. 78.(back)
32. Quotes from Dalí, The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí, pp. 372-75.(back)
33. Hugh Ferriss, Power in Buildings, plate 30.(back)
34. Frank Monagan, ed., Official Souvenir Book, New York World's Fair (New York: Exposition Publications, 1939), p. 4.(back)
35. Official Guidebook, New York World's Fair.(back)
36. Paris Soir, August 25, 1939.(back)
37. For Le Corbusier's description of the UN design process, see Le Corbusier, UN Headquarters (New York: Reinhold, 1947).(back)
38. Interview with author.(back)
39. Ferriss, Power in Buildings, plate 41.(back)
Acknowledgments
This book would not exist without the support of: the Harkness Fellowships, which sponsored my first two years in the USA; the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies, which offered a base in Manhattan; and the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts in Chicago, which awarded a grant to complete it.
In ways known and unknown to them, Pierre Apraxine, Hubert Damisch, Peter Eisenman, Dick Frank, Philip Johnson, Andrew MacNair, Laurinda Spear, Fred Starr, James Stirling, Mathias Ungers, Teri Wehn and Elia Zenghelis have stimulated this book’s progress without, in any way, being responsible for its contents.
James Raimes and Stephanie Golden have contributed to the book through their critical interventions in the text, but even more through their continuous moral support.
Without Georges Herscher, Jacques Maillot, Pascale Ogee and Sylviane Rey the book would never have become a physical reality.
Walter Kilham, Jr., has been exceptionally generous in sharing his original materials and his recollections.
Active collaborators at various stages of the work-all of them invaluable-have been Liviu Dimitriu, Jeremie Frank, Rachel Magrisso, German Martinez, Richard Perlmutter, Derrick Snare and Ellen Soroka.
The Appendix is a collective production of MadeIon Vriesendorp, Elia and Zoe Zenghelis and myself, working together in the Office for Metropolitan Architecture.
Above all, Delirious New York owes a special debt of inspiration and reinforcement to Madelon Vriesendorp.
R.K., January 1978
Credits
Illustration Credits
Avery Architectural Library, Columbia University: 109, 111, 115, 121, 122, 124, 167 bottom, 186, 187, 196, 278 bottom, 280 top, 286 right top, 286 right middle, 286 right bottom, 288
Cooper-Hewitt Museum of Design, New York: 112
Robert Descharnes, Paris: 106, 239
Mrs. Jean Ferriss-Leich: 280 bottom
Herb Gehr, Life Picture Service: 209, 212, 218 top, 218 bottom
Mrs. Joseph Harriss: 116
Walter Kilham, Jr.: 167 top, 168, 175, 179, 180 top, 188, 189, 190
Library of Congress, Division of Maps and Charts: 12
Life Picture Service: 180 bottom
Museum of Modern Art, New York: 268 Museum of the City of New York: 14, 16, 18-19, 244 bottom
New York Public Library: 22 left
Regional Plan Association, New York: 118 Rockefeller Center, Inc.: 193, 202-3, 205, 206, 290
Salvador Dail Museum, Cleveland: 242 bottom right, 244 top
Eric Schall, Life Picture Servi
ce: 274 bottom
Waldorf-Astoria Hotel: 149
Appendix
City of the Captive Globe:
Rem Koolhaas with Zoe Zenghelis.
Hotel Sphinx:
Elia and Zoe Zenghelis.
New Welfare Island:
Rem Koolhaas with German Martinez, Richard Perlmutter; painting by Zoe Zenghelis.
Welfare Palace Hotel:
Rem Koolhaas with Derrick Snare, Richard Perlmutter; painting by Madelon Vriesendorp.
Between 1972 and 1976 much of the work on the Manhattan projects was produced at the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies in New York, with the assistance of its interns and students.