Coltivando l’asfalto: la filologia urbana di Walter Benjamin

PALA, MAURO

2007-01-01

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Abstract

Benjamin’s Denkbild or condensed image may be seen as the point of departure for a lasting preoccupation with the city. His metropolitan topographies devise an innovative method of representing the city which is also a way of coping with the quintessential phenomenon of modernity through a philological approach which comprises mythology, physiognomy, phenomenology, politics and text. Architecture and action shape each other, and the metropolis provides a theatre for activity. The physiognomic reading of the city mirrors the way in which social forms and patterns can be condensed in specific images.