IntroductionPhilosophers and philologists should be concerned in the first place withpoetic metaphysics:that is,the science that looks for proof not in the externalworld,but in the very modifications of the mind that meditates on it.Since the world of nations is made by men,it is inside their minds that itsprinciples should be sought.-Giambattista Vico,Principles of a New Science,1759素Y2SMANIFESTOHow to write a manifesto-on a form of urbanism for what remains ofthe 20th century-in an age disgusted with them?The fatal weakness ofmanifestos is their inherent lack of evidence.Manhattan's problem is the opposite:it is a mountain range of evidencewithout manifesto.This book was conceived at the intersection of these two observations:itis a retroactive manifesto for Manhattan.Manhattan is the 20th century's Rosetta Stone.Not only are large parts of its surface occupied by architectural mutations(Central Park,the Skyscraper),utopian fragments (Rockefeller Center,the UN Building)and irrational phenomena(Radio City Music Hall),but inaddition each block is covered with several layers of phantom architecturein the form of past occupancies,aborted projects and popular fantasiesthat provide alternative images to the New York that exists.Especially between 1890 and 1940 a new culture (the Machine Age?)selected Manhattan as laboratory:a mythical island where the invention9
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