Focusing on Koolhaas and his “Delirious New York” I couldn’t help but notice how masterful of a job he did putting this together to describe Hood’s architecture. Each subsection further explained Hood and rationalized his unique decisions. Focusing in further to the climax of the article it is easy to see Hood’s personality through his theory. There was one sentence in particular that can easily go unnoticed, yet, for me it makes everything so much clearer and allows me to see architecture and the city through Hood’s eyes. “The businessmen have to agree: Manhattanism is the only program where the efficiency intersects with the sublime” (Koolhaas 1978, pg. 174) It’s modest but it takes an interesting angle at solving the solution of defining architecture.
The duality within Manhattanism is obvious through its origin and definition. But what if we applied that same duality to architecture as a whole? This is what Hood was experimenting with in both the “City of Towers” and “The City under a Single Roof.” It was fully realized when Hood created the Central Methodist Episcopal Church. This opportunity gave Hood an advantage that few architects have, the opportunity to create your own city. Koolhaas mentions the symbolism of the building being significant to Hood being able to realize Manhattanism and his theories, but I think he undersold the bigger picture behind the building. After thinking about this I have come to the conclusion that buildings such as this are essential to the study of architecture and when they are actually created they must be closely studied in order to understand cities as a whole. This further enforces the importance of Le Corbusier’s Ville Contemporaine and The Smithsons’ Golden Lane Housing as examples of raw, materialized architecture. Their theories exactly line up with Hood and the idea of the duality and struggle of finding the balance between efficiency and sublime. Architecture that provides an efficient and logical solution to the cities’ complicated problems whilst understanding the effect it has on the observer and the user.
Koolhaas, excerpts from Delirious New York (1978)
Great summary on Koolhaas’ take on Manhattanism, more so because you connect some of its ideas to moments in LC and the Smithson. To extend the discussion, it would be great to hear of specific ideas/works of theirs that resonate with Hood’s narrative. With regards to the idea of the intersection between efficient and the sublime, what makes such a visual that much more fascinating is that the sublime is being used within the context of capital and industry.