The orchestration of chaos

A reality of chaos

In "Bigness" Koolhaas talks about an architectural theory of bigness both relating it to Delirious NY and as a theory in and of itself. One thing that caught my attention was part of his definition "...its aesthetic suggests the rich orchestration of chaos. In this landscape of dismemberment and phony disorder, each activity is put in its place."

Delirious NY and Learning from Las Vegas superimposed drawings

If you were to correlate that same phrase to Learning from Pop or the creation of Coney Island, it seems that this "reality" of bigness appears presents in both cases. The idea of an orchestrated chaos is shown in the development of Coney Island in an attempt to escape from the reality of the metropolitan city towards an artificial reality of -I would argue- different congestion. Yet the "bigness" of the skyscrapers with a tremendous amount of projects co-existing with each other suggest the same thing in a vertical superimposition that could be escaping from the "old way of living". In Learning from Pop, the idea of learning from local culture of slapping signs into buildings, having different shapes and sizes of buildings within the strip is another take on this "chaos" that is actually orchestrated by pop culture. So, how is it that even though these two places that have two different realities, there seems to be a correlation between them through a lens of chaos? Is it that their culture is similar enough that their chaos could be "managed" similarly or did they end up at this convergence because of different conditions? 

I am particularly fascinated on the idea of learning from realities given that it seems to me that everyone has a different take on what that is and how to address it (Point given on both authors). But, do we all agree on a reality once our own has reached chaos or is it because of something else? Is it possible that all previous architectural theories proposed throughout centuries have come from a common reality of chaos that arose from cultural, economic and political conditions? And when reality seems not to be in chaos, can an architectural theory be conceived? Is there a "common" reality within cultures that could be studied from and arrive to as a theory? Should we do that though or should they be looked at separately and fully acknowledge all of their complexities? This topic of "reality" has always intrigued me and made me question if both Koolhaas and Scott-Brown decided to narrow their theories into interpreting those specific location realities in order to take a stab at the greater question of "what is our reality"? or if that was even a topic for them.