Ornaments of the Metropolis: Siegfried Kracauer and Modern Urban Culture

M780003Front.qxd 4/5/05 12:04 PM Page 1 architecture/urban studies reeh henrik reeh is an Associate Professor in the “Henrik Reeh’s interpretation of Kracauer’s neglected urban writings is brilliantly argued from a humanistic Department of Comparative Literature and Modern perspective. Written as a series of variations on the theme of the metropolitan ornament, the book deftly === Culture at the University of Copenhagen. demonstrates how Kracauer’s urban investigations integrate the many-faceted ornament into the experience of modernity. Similarly, Reeh intricately weaves the strands of Kracauer’s own words and perceptions, the Ornaments ornaments of the experiences of both writer and reader, and the process of individual and collective memory into a subtle and metropolis admirable work. His illuminating perspective reveals how Kracauer extended the field of the ornament Siegfried Kracauer and Modern Urban Culture beyond the merely decorative and art-historical to include everyday items, the transitory and traumatic, henrik reeh vision and writing.” William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor, School of Architecture, m. christine boyer, For Siegfried Kracauer the urban ornament was not just an Princeton University aspect of design; it was the medium through which city of the dwellers interpreted the metropolis itself. In Ornaments of “Henrik Reeh’s Ornaments of the Metropolis uncovers the previously hidden history of Kracauer’s intellec- the Metropolis, Henrik Reeh traces variations on the theme tual development and provides an invaluable portrait of one of the key critics of twentieth-century Weimar of the ornament in Kracauer’s writings on urbanism, from Germany. In this clear and very well written account, Reeh shows Kracauer in all his complexity and bril- his early journalism in Germany between the wars to his liance as he wrestles with the emergence of the modern metropolis and modern urban mass culture.” Metropolis “sociobiography”of Jacques Offenbach in Paris. Kracauer (1889–1966), often associated with the Frankfurt School Graduate School of Architecture, Preservation and david grahame shane, and the intellectual milieu of Walter Benjamin, is best Planning, Columbia University known for his writings on cinema and the philosophy of history. Reeh examines Kracauer’s lesser-known early “The enduring importance of Siegfried Kracauer as writer, social critic, and urban theorist is amply confirmed work, much of it written for the trendsetting newspaper by Henrik Reeh’s Ornaments of the Metropolis, which is arguably the most intelligent and persuasive Frankfurter Zeitung in the 1920s and early 1930s, and ana- account of architecture as process, and one of the most incisive and subtle critiques of commodity culture lyzes Kracauer’s continuing reflections on modern urban in recent memory. At the same time, Reeh’s analyses open up intriguing possibilities for more balanced and life, through the pivotal idea of ornament. Kracauer deci- historically more richly nuanced reassessments of Kracauer’s contemporary, Walter Benjamin.” phers the subjective experience of the city by viewing frag- ments of the city as dynamic ornaments; an employment #780003 12/21/04 Department of the History of Art and Centre for Visual donald preziosi, exchange, a day shelter for the homeless, a movie theater, Studies, University of Oxford 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 mit press the ornamental forms that are largely unused in the pro- fession of the time. The collection Streets of Berlin and Massachusetts Institute of Technology Elsewhere, with many essays from Kracauer’s years in Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142 Berlin, documents the subjectiveness of urban life. Finally, http://mitpress.mit.edu Jacques Offenbach and the Paris of His Time shows 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 cover photograph: can reappropriate urban life. The book also includes a Henrik Reeh, New York City, 1990. series of photographs by the author that reflect the ornamental experience of the metropolis in Paris, Frankfurt, Book and jacket design by Derek George. 0-262-18237-8 and other cities. ,!7IA2G2-bicdhj!:t;K;k;K;k ornaments of the metropolis ' Ornaments of the Metropolis siegfried kracauer and modern urban culture = Henrik Reeh the mit press cambridge, massachusetts london, england This translation © 2004 Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This work originally appeared in Danish under the title Storbyens ornamenter. Siegfried Kracauer og den moderne bykultur, published 1991 by Odense University Press [now University Press of Southern Denmark], Odense, Denmark; © 1991 Henrik Reeh and Odense Univer- sitetsforlag. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any elec- tronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information stor- age and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher. MIT Press books may be purchased at special quantity discounts for business or sales promotional use. For information, please email [email protected] or write to Special Sales Department, The MIT Press, 5 Cambridge Center, Cambridge, MA 02142. This book was set in Stempel Garamond by Graphic Composition, Inc. and was printed and bound in the United States of America. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Reeh, Henrik. [Storbyens ornamenter. English] Ornaments of the metropolis : Siegfried Kracauer and modern urban culture / Henrik Reeh. p. cm. Translation of: Storbyens ornamenter. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-262-18237-8 (alk. paper) 1. Urban beautification. 2. Architecture and society—History—20th century. 3. Kracauer, Siegfried, 1889–1966—Criticism and interpretation. I. Title. NA9052.R44 2005 720′.1′030904—dc22 2004052418 Contents list of illustrations vii foreword ix abbreviations x introduction 1 part i From Everyday Life as an Architect to Urban Consciousness 15 Chapter 1 The Resubjectivization of Modern Urban Culture 19 Chapter 2 The Everyday Life and Urban Perception of the Architect 37 Chapter 3 Beyond Functional Space: The Ornament 55 Chapter 4 Discovering the City as a Reflective Space 73 Conclusion to Part I 83 part ii From Individual City Cognition to the Encounter with the Metropolitan Crisis of Memory 89 Chapter 5 Ornament, Ratio, and Reason 93 Chapter 6 Urban Ornaments and Subjective Experience 107 Chapter 7 Space Analysis and Social Critique 123 Chapter 8 Improvisation and Memory 135 Conclusion to Part II 161 part iii The City—A Sphere for Collective Memory 165 Chapter 9 History and Urban Collectivity 167 conclusions and perspectives 193 notes 213 bibliography 239 index 243 Illustrations Barcelona, 1993 6 Paris, 1994 11 Paris, 1993 11 Paris, 1987 15 Copenhagen, 1996 30 Copenhagen, 1996 30 Copenhagen, 1997 43 Frankfurt am Main, 1986 52 Frankfurt am Main, 1987 52 Paris, 1987 61 Berlin, 1999 66 Berlin, 1999 66 Venice, 1991 71 Venice, 1991 71 Paris, 1991 78 Paris, 1987 84 Paris, 1987 84 Paris, 1987 89 Paris, 1987 98 Los Angeles, 1990 98 Paris, 1991 111 Paris, 1988 116 Paris, 1988 116 Paris, 1987 127 Paris, 1987 127 Paris, 1987 138 Paris, 1987 147 Los Angeles, 1990 147 Paris, 1988 154 Paris, 1987 165 Paris, 1988 175 Paris, 1987 186 Paris, 1988 199 Berlin, 2000 207 Berlin, 1999 207 Paris, 1993 210 All photographs by the author. Foreword The idea for this book arose during a stay at the J. W. Goethe Universität in Frankfurt am Main in 1986–1987. It was there that I repeatedly came across Siegfried Kracauer’s compelling analyses of urban modernity. On every occasion, I was convinced of their vital yet overlooked power—not least because of the dynamic relationship between them and the essays on the urban by his friend Walter Benjamin, also written during the interwar years. Though I had originally envisaged a comparison of Benjamin and Kracauer, in the theoretical light of the former, I realized during my research that there was a distinctive, inner complexity in Kracauer’s writings worth the trouble of exam- ining in itself. Research was made possible thanks to grants from the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD) and the Carlsberg Foundation, to which I express my pro- found thanks. The original publication in Danish was given financial support by the University of Odense, to which I owe a deep debt of gratitude. I would like to express my particular gratitude to the university’s publication committee, under the chairman- ship of Carsten Nicolaisen, and its consultants, Annelise Ballegaard Petersen, Erik Strange Petersen, and Svend Erik Larsen. I would also like to mention Anne Elisabeth Sejten, whose thoughtful intuition helped me to dot the final i before the 1980s were a thing of the past. This study of Siegfried Kracauer’s writings on the modern city now appears in En- glish. I am highly grateful to the Department of Comparative Literature and the Fac- ulty of Humanities at the University of Copenhagen for generously supporting the translation, as well as to the MIT Press for welcoming the book. I also wish to sincerely thank Gwendolyn Wright, Peter Madsen, and Roger Conover for their extraordinary help, as well as John Irons and Alice Falk, Lisa Reeve, Susan Clark, Derek George, and Matthew Abbate, all of whom contributed to the present book in an always profes- sional and cordial manner. Abbreviations E=Siegfried Kracauer, Die Entwicklung der Schmiedekunst in Berlin, Potsdam und einigen Städten der Mark vom 17. Jahrhundert bis zum Beginn des 19. Jahrhunderts. FZ = Frankfurter Zeitung. G=Siegfried Kracauer, Ginster. I=Georg Simmel, Das Individuum und die Freiheit. M=Ingrid Belke and Irina Renz, eds., Siegfried Kracauer 1889–1966, special issue of Marbacher Magazin (no. 47).

Load more