Still Delirious
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Still Delirious 〰️
Delirious New York at 50: Still Delirious
Concept Campaign
Images generated with AI and not intended for commercial use.
Rem Koolhaas’s 1978 book “Delirious New York” is a seminal work on architecture, urban planning, and New York. With a deep love for cities, Koolhaas gave a theory to the city that was conceived “without a manifesto”: Manhattanism. A cult-like following has since developed for Rem and his office, OMA.
For the 50th anniversary edition (in 2028), we wanted to reintroduce Delirious New York as culturally and intellectually relevant for a younger audience, while welcoming back Rem’s longstanding followers.
For a moment of this sort, we would create an integrated campaign, centering on a book launch and signing in New York, including retain, social media, and a web campaign. It could also be accompanied by a game/app component that, if properly built out, could attract younger audiences, and introduce them to RK’s vision of New York.
The original cover for the book (left) featured a whimsical drawing (right) by Madelon Vriesendorp of the Empire State Building and the Chrystler building sleeping in a skyscraper.
Engaging with the whimsical aspect of the original work with a more modern cultural reference allows us to access both core audiences for RK: his long-devoted admirers as well as younger audiences with an interest in architecture, urban planning and design.
The idea for this campaign takes root in a popular Instagram series called “Subway Takes” by Kareem Rahma (right).
an alternative
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an alternative 〰️
Another way into this campaign could lie in what we would imagine a new foreword would include, which, presumably, for a figure as accomplished as RK, would incorporate some of the projects he’s worked on since, most notably a 2020 exhibition at the Guggenheim entitled Countryside, the Future.
When Rem wrote DNY, it was a celebration of the city, as he says so himself in an interview with the NYT:
“’I have, as opposed to a love for architecture, an unconditional love for the city.’”
Nearly 40 years later, with Countryside: the Future, when the planet is overheating, the beating drum of activists and humanitarians goes unheeded, and policy fails to act, he states:
“the inevitability of Total Urbanization must be questioned, and the countryside must be rediscovered as a place to resettle, to stay alive; enthusiastic human presence must reanimate it with new imagination.”
The tension between the grandiosity of both of these achievements - giving a “theory to Manhattan” (when it never asked for one, although we’re grateful), and attempting to encapsulate how and why it is more urgent then ever to re-engage with the countryside and abandon the concept of mass urbanization - is what makes RK as complete/curious/engaging an artist as he is.
campaign
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campaign 〰️
Coney Island, its history, raison d’être, and the innovation it took to make it come to life occupy the first chapter of Delirious New York.
Still iconic today, using Coney Island as a launching pad for DNY’s 50th anniversary could lure in anyone curious about New York and its history, young and old.
