Ornaments of the Metropolis Siegfried Kracauer and Modern Urban Culture

by Reeh, Henrik; Irons, John

• ISBN13: 9780262681636
• ISBN10: 0262681633
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-09-08
• Publisher: The MIT Press

Summary

For Siegfried Kracauer, the urban ornament was not just an aspect of design; it was the medium through which city dwellers interpreted the metropolis itself. In Ornaments of the Metropolis, Henrik Reeh traces variations on the theme of the ornament in Kracauer's writings on urbanism, from his early journalism in Germany between the wars to his "sociobiography" of Jacques Offenbach in Paris. Kracauer (1889-1966), often associated with the Frankfurt School and the intellectual milieu of Walter Benjamin, is best known for his writings on cinema and the philosophy of history. Reeh examines Kracauer's lesser-known early work, much of it written for the trendsetting newspaper Frankfurter Zeitungin the 1920s and early 1930s, and analyzes Kracauer's continuing reflections on modern urban life, through the pivotal idea of ornament. Kracauer deciphers the subjective experience of the city by viewing fragments of the city as dynamic ornaments; an employment exchange, a day shelter for the homeless, a movie theater, and an amusement park become urban microcosms. Reeh focuses on three substantial works written by Kracauer before his emigration to the United States in 1940. In the early autobiographical novel Ginster, Written by Himself, a young architect finds aesthetic pleasure in the ornamental forms that are largely unused in the profession of the time. The collection Streets of Berlin and Elsewhere, with many essays from Kracauer's years in Berlin, documents the subjectiveness of urban life. Finally, Jacques Offenbach and the Paris of His Timeshows how the superficial-in a sense, ornamental-milieu of the operetta evolved into a critical force during the Second Empire. Reeh argues that Kracauer's novel, essays, and historiography all suggest ways in which the subjective can reappropriate urban life. The book also includes a series of photographs by the author that reflect the ornamental experience of the metropolis in Paris, Frankfurt, and other cities.

Author Biography

Henrik Reeh is Associate Professor in the Department of Comparative Literature and Modern Culture at the University of Copenhagen.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	vii
Preface	ix
Abbreviations	x
Introduction	1	(14)
PART I From Everyday Life as an Architect to Urban Consciousness	15	(74)
The Resubjectivization of Modern Urban Culture	19	(18)
The Everyday Life and Urban Perception of the Architect	37	(18)
Beyond Functional Space: The Ornament	55	(18)
Discovering the City as a Reflective Space	73	(16)
Conclusion to Part I	83	(6)
PART II From Individual City Cognition to the Encounter with the Metropolitan Crisis of Memory	89	(76)
Ornament, Ratio, and Reason	93	(14)
Urban Ornaments and Subjective Experience	107	(16)
Space Analysis and Social Critique	123	(12)
Improvisation and Memory	135	(30)
Conclusion to Part II	161	(4)
PART III The City---A Sphere for Collective Memory	165	(28)
History and Urban Collectivity	167	(26)
Conclusions and Perspectives	193	(20)
Notes	213	(26)
Bibliography	239	(4)
Index	243