(Studies in German Literature Linguistics and Culture) Rolf J

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KARL IVAN SOLIBAKKE
would have a place here,” A1,1, translation modified). Erected at the
height of flânerie and during the adolescent years of bourgeois capitalism,
the Parisian arcades stimulated a new dogma of aggressive merchandising
and the first intimations of the voracious appetite for consumer goods
that characterizes today’s affluent societies. Nestled under glass roofs illuminated
by gaslights at night, they offered respite from the bustling traffic
and the vagaries of Parisian weather. The effortless transition from street
to covered passage kindled a heightened sensitivity for collective space, all
the more so since the constructions were neither completely indoors nor
fully outdoors, neither entirely interior nor exterior in character. Rather,
as interstitial spaces they conjured up liminal areas, in which people and
objects, nature and culture converged to form “eine Stadt, eine Welt im
kleinen” (GS V.1:45; “a city, a world in miniature,” AP, 3).
The enigmatic and captivating ambience of the arcades reflects three
developments that are central to Benjamin’s theory of cultural design at
the outset of the modern urban experience. As living quarters and public
spaces began to emulate one another, leaving one’s dwelling only meant
substituting the cosiness of the private for the diversion of urban topographies,
all the more mesmerizing in view of their marble backdrops and
stylish promenades. Blending civilization with natural environments, the
passages not only simulate bourgeois economic aspirations but also illustrate
the inclination to transform city surroundings into prosceniums for
collective representation. Benjamin writes:
Das Interieur trat nach außen. Es ist als wäre der Bürger seines
gefesteten Wohlstands so sicher, daß er die Fassade verschmäht, um
zu erklären: mein Haus, wo immer ihr den Schnitt hindurch legen
mögt, ist Fassade. . . . Die Straße wird Zimmer und das Zimmer
wird Straße. Der betrachtende Passant steht gleichsam im Erker.
[The domestic interior moved outside. It is as though the bourgeois
were so sure of his prosperity that he is careless of façade, and can
exclaim: My house, no matter where you choose to cut into it, is
façade. . . . The street becomes room and the room becomes street.
The passerby who stops to look at the house stands, as it were, in the
alcove. (L1,5)]
Just how dynamic this spatial ambivalence is can be deduced by replacing
the “passer-by” in the text cited with the flâneur, that agent of metropolitan
observation and interface, with his aptitude for scouting out
liminal spaces and scrutinizing them in their aggregate configurations.
What is more, the amalgamation of interiors and exteriors could only
come about as innovations in steel and glass were applied to municipal
design. In this respect, Convolutes E, F, G, P, and Q contain significant
contemplations on the early years of urban renewal and the technological