Architecture and Modernity : A Critique

ecause it is an authentic expression of the “poverty” that is typical of this civilization,
thus foreshadowing the realization of a transparent and classless society. It is in
his vision of architecture that we find the quintessence of his ambivalent attitude toward
modernity. For a proper understanding of his ideas on this subject it is first necessary,
however, to look at his linguistic philosophy that underlies both his theory of
experience and his views on the theory of history.
Mimesis and Experience
Benjamin’s notions about language differ fundamentally from the ideas that are generally
current in semiotics. 47 In his opinion language is not based solely on the
conventional relationship between signifier and signified. In addition to this
communicative dimension of language, which he calls “semiotic,” he distinguishes
a second, “mimetic” dimension that he sees as the origin of language. This mimetic
level of language is less easy to locate than the semiotic one. The best way of describing
it is as an extrapolation of the onomatopoeic character of language: just as
words such as “cuckoo” and “tick-tock” resemble the thing that they denote, from
a broader perspective language as a whole can be seen as a sort of imitation (mimesis)
of the world.
Language as we know and use it, according to Benjamin, is a pale reflection of
an original language that named things on the basis of similarities. The essence of
this original language—and therefore of every language—is the name. This is the object
of a mimesis, and is therefore linked by a relationship of similarity to the thing or
person that bears this name. This mimetic structure, however, is no longer immediately
recognizable and present in current language: it is no longer expressed in every
individual word. Benjamin maintains nevertheless that, no matter how much it has
been diluted and diminished, the mimetic structure continues to determine what language
is. Not only can it be found between the spoken word and its meaning; it is
also present between the written word and its meaning, and between the written
word and the spoken. We become aware of this in the act of reading. Reading is
more than just stringing together simple verbal meanings. In the act of reading a sort
of abstract correspondence—Benjamin uses the term “unsinnliche Ähnlichkeit” 48 —
can be observed in the similarity between text and reality that is “illuminated” at the
moment one understands it. This nonsensuous similarity is embodied in the constellations
that words form in combination with each other: just as the constellations
of stars in the cosmos are interpreted by astrologers who can use them to make predictions,
so words with their mutual relations and interplay create a correspondence
with reality. Or, as Cyrille Offermans puts it:
For Walter Benjamin, as for Adorno, a text is a sort of force-field: an exchange
of semantic energy occurs in the words. A conscious use of language
..... amounts to creating such a force-field....... The more
3 Reflections in a Mirror