Visual Vertigo, Phantasmagoric Physiognomies: Joseph Roth and Walter Benjamin on the Visual Experience of Architecture

Authors

  • Stefan Koller TU Delft

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.7480/footprint.10.1.960

Abstract

This paper scrutinises Benjamin’s interest in the urban fabric of nineteenth century Paris, and compares it to contemporary writings on Paris and on (more generally) new forms of urbanism in the journalistic work of Joseph Roth. It argues that both authors come to terms with the modern city through a shared set of observations and concepts, particularly the concepts of ‘expressionism’, ‘physiognomy’, and ‘phantasmagoria’. The paper clarifies how Roth and other writers in (or immediately before) the 1920s developed such concepts, and how Benjamin’s The Arcades Project builds on these writers. It shows that Benjamin’s specific contribution to this body of literature is the invention of a secular mythology, with a clear application to architecture in Benjamin’s focus on the ‘boundless interiorisation’ of glass and iron construction. The paper concludes that Benjamin’s contribution to architecture is considerable when compared to the materialist orientation of his main sources in The Arcades Project (especially Boetticher and Giedion), but that the purported improvements on Benjamin’s distinguished predecessors of architectural non-materialism are by comparison less impressive.

Author Biography

Stefan Koller, TU Delft

Stefan Koller, BA.Hons. BPhil. Oxon., PhD cum laude TU Delft with The Birth of Ethics from the Spirit of Tectonics. Gibbs Prize in Philosophy, Duns Scotus Prize in Medieval Philosophy, Exhibitioner Award, Scatcherd European Award, and more; all from the University of Oxford. Business Group Member of the International Society for the Philosophy of Architecture. Co-founder and co-editor of ArchitecturePhilosophy, an international journal to simultaneously pursue standards of research excellence and integrity in architecture and philosophy. Former Assistant Director of the 3TU.Center for Ethics and Technology. Koller’s research specialises on the philosophy of architecture and nineteenth century German architecture theory.

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Published

2016-04-18