Agoraphobia: Spatial Estrangement in Georg Simmel and Siegfried Kracauer Author(s): Anthony Vidler Reviewed work(s): Source: New

German Critique, No. 54, Special Issue on Siegfried Kracauer (Autumn, 1991), pp. 31-45 Published by: New German Critique Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/488425 . Accessed: 15/08/2012 10:17
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in Agoraphobia: SpatialEstrangement and Simmel Siegfried Kracauer Georg

Vidler Anthony
in The street theextendedsenseofthewordis notonlythearena and chanceencounters a place where but of fleeting impressions the flowof lifeis bound to assertitself. Again one will have to thinkmainlyof the citystreet withits ever-moving anonymous The kaleidoscopic crowds. sights shapes minglewithunidentified visual complexes and cancel each other out, and fragmentary the following anyof theinup thereby preventing onlookerfrom offer. numerable Whatappearsto himare notso suggestions they individuals much sharp-contoured engagedin thisor thatdefinaindeterminate ble pursuitas loose throngsof sketchy, figures. is Each has a story, the story not given.Instead,an incessant yet and near-intangible flowof possibilities meaningsappears. This or even creates him.Thefldneur flowcastsitsspelloverthe fldneur the withlifein the street lifeeternally is intoxicated dissolving whichit is about to form. patterns "Once Againthe Street"' Kracauer, Siegfried It is well known thatthe rapid growthof big European citiestoward of the end of the 19th century,the transformation the traditionalcity or metropolis,engendered not intowhat became known as dieGrofJstadt, only a vital culture of modernism and avant-garde experiments but
1. Siegfried The Kracauer, Reality TheoryFilm: Redemption (New Yorkand ofPhysical of London: OxfordUP, 1960) 72.

31

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in Simmel Kracauer and Estrangement Spatial

also a culture interpretation of dedicatedto thestudy and explanation of these new urban phenomemaand theirsocial effects. The disciof urban sociologyand social psychology were only two acaplines of whichconcentrated attention theradits on demicresults thiseffort, and temporal conditions presented thebig cities. by icallynew spatial WorldWarhad become a wordthatimplied "Metropolis"bytheFirst or both a physical and a pathological site state, which,forbetter for worse(Carl Schorske, has the Nietzsche, characterized sentiechoing ment"beyondgood and evil"),epitomizedmodernlife.2 In thisessay,I am concernedwithone aspectof thismetropolitan the in of discourse, spatialand thearchitectural, thecontext a developin the of Grofistadt writings GeorgSimmeland of ingpsychopathology Kracauer they as searchin related different forphysbut Siegfried ways the of ical clues forunderstanding social conditions modernity. will It withthe spatialsociologyof Simmel, that,starting be my argument in and developing theparadigmatic and spacesidentified described by a of his student, Kracauer, unique sensibility urban space is worked used as an illustration socialhistory seen is of nor out,one that neither as a mechanicalcause of social change,but rathera conceptionof This sensibility with was interdependent society. space as reciprocally itsverynatureattached certain to kindsof social spaces thatwere, by for social critics, relatedto the social estrangement that inherently the realm.In thissense,thecritical seemed to permeate metropolitan from their of was intimate associatstrength spatialparadigms derived and psychological withthematerial conditions ion, ifnot complicity, of whatGeorgLukacsdubbed the "transcendental of homelessness" themodernworld.Forourwriters, existed thetangible as indeed,they and residualforms such alienation. of On one level,of course,it is alreadya commonplaceof intellectual to role in anhistory notethefundamental ofspatialform thecultural like Theodor Adorno,Siegfried and Kracauer, alysesof social critics WalterBenjamin.The intbrieur Adorno,the site of his critiqueof of theHotelhalle Kracauer, to hisreading thedetecof of Kierkegaard; key tivenovel as itself readingof modernsociety; a Benjamin'sParisian the of of as passage, central figure his interpretation the 19thcentury the prehistory the 20th century: of these emblematicspaces haunt
2. Carl E. Schorske, "The Idea of theCityin EuropeanThought," Historian The and the eds. M.I.T., 1966) 95-114. City, Oscar Handlinand JohnBurchard (Cambridge:

Vidler 33 Anthony texts symbolizing the their as every aspectofthenomadism, consumer and of fetishism, thedisplacedindividualism modem lifein thegreat cities.Kracauer'soften-cited that"spatialimages[Raumobservation, the dreamsof society. Wherever hieroglyphics these the of are bilder] one the accuimagescan be deciphered, finds basis ofsocial reality,"" of thespecialnature thesespatialevocations: hierolike captures rately dreams, these spaces stand glyphsand theirmodern counterparts, to be deciphered. nor Neither illustrations fully ready analyzed simple seemto hoverin a deliberately maintained state halfof examples, they now glimpsedclearly, now lost in a cloud of metaphor. reality, Andyetitis truethat central the of in position thesespatial paradigms the development critical of has more often than not been obtheory scured theequal and sometimes roleoftemporality,these of by opposite theorists' concern historical with dialectics. owncritique Thus,Adorno's ofBenjamin's tendencies toward with reification, spatial together a tendon the part of critics followBenjamin'spreoccupation to with ency and post-Bergsonian has worked itself the memory philosophy, against nuancedinterpretation any dominant of also, spatialimages.Perhaps, theseimagesarethemselves almost self-evident, overdetermined too too to be noticedas particular in "constructions" theirown right. When to or to refers arcades, Kracauer a hotel we tendtoassoBenjamin lobby, forms with and historical physical ciatethese referents, immediately their and thedegreeofartifice careful that articulation distinguishes ignoring or we ourselves Benjamin'spassage Kracauer's lobbyfrom that might any For haveknown. in a realsensethesearepurely textual spaces,designed, so to speak,bytheir of authors; own, they possessan architectonicstheir all themoreparticular itsambiguous for between status textual and social domains;theyare buildings thatthemselves inserveas analytical Here theappelation struments. "Kracauer architect" bothderives from and exceedshis actualcareeras a designer.
Agoraphobia

the themeunderlying reIfwe wereto searchfora common,explicit of ofwriters socialcritics thebigcities the 19thcentury, and to sponses
3. "ilber Arbeitsnachweise," 17 Zeitung June 1930, ctd. in Karsten Frankfurter NewGerman Kracauer's'The Mass Ornament,"' Cri"Introduction Siegfried to Witte, 5 tique (Spring1975): 63.

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in Simmel Kracauer and Estrangement Spatial

in of the itwouldperhaps found thegeneral be concept "estrangement": of and enlargoftheinhabitant a city rapidly too changing estrangement of in the from terms; estrangementclasses ingto comprehend traditional of fromindividual, individual fromself,of each other,of individual from from work. Theserefrains constant Rousseauto Marx, are workers of to The commonplace romantic and selfBaudelaire Benjamin. irony of ofcapital, idea as theleitmotif themarxist the as critique inquiry, well ofestrangement, with wereseenas both alienation, together itscognate, FromBaudelaire's and condition. laments over a psychological a spatial of of thedisappearance old Paris("theform a city alas, more changes, of thana man's heart")to Engels'swholesalecritique whathe rapidly of was thephysical fabric thecity identified called"Haussmannization," Here the of and alienation. as the instrument a systematized enforced of of urbanredevelopment forced thegrowth cities by critique political of conservatives the with came together thenostalgia cultural lamenting of a general senseofdistantness, loss oftheir familiar quarters, creating movfrom mechanical, the individual mass-oriented, isolation, rapidly ing,and crowdedmetropolis. This "spatial pathology"of the city,alreadyfullypresentin the of and novelists realist, naturalist alike, metaphors romantic, organicist in thelastquarter the of scientific newand apparently support gained of of withthegradualemergence thedisciplines sociolo19thcentury The was and gy,psychology, psychoanalysis. space ofthenewcity now to scrutiny a possiblecause of an increasingly as identified subjected alienation theViennacirclewas to call it "de-realizapsychological and as tion" - ofthemetropolitan individual, further, an instrument behaviorof the crowd. the potentially dangerous favoring of well begina sociopsychological In thiscontext, might we history of the in theyear1871,notso muchwith events the space metropolitan as Commune (although the first againstHaussmanuprising political but rather withthe without thiseventis hardly nization, significance) ofa short article theBerlin Carl in that by psychologist year publication of for identified thefirst timea condition urone OttoWestphal, which This thathe named agoraphobia.4 psychological ban anxiety condition,
4. Carl Friedrich Otto Westphal, "Die Agoraphobie, eine neuropathische 3 (1871): 138-61. Trans. in Archiv Psychiatrie Nervenkrankheiten und Erscheinung," fitr "Die UP 1988);see intro.,"The (Lanham,Maryland: ofAmerica, Westphal's Agoraphobie" All of by Knapp and MichaelT. Schumacher. subBeginnings Agoraphobia," TerryJ. refer thistranslation. to sequentreferences

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the symptomsof which included palpitations, sensationsof heat, fearofdying, extreme and ocblushing, trembling, petrifying shyness, curredwhenWestphal'spatients werewalking across open spaces or or suchan experience witha dread streets, anticipated through empty ofensuinganxiety. Patients' fears wereto a certain extent alleviated by but of exacerbated the dimensions companionship wereseriously by thespace,especially whenthere to seemedto be no boundary thevisual field.Agoraphobia was,so to speak,an essentially spatialdisease a yearbefore, Benedikt or had dubbed it Platzschwindel, indeed,only dizzinessin public places. In lateryearsit was variously be called to horreur vide, de fear. Platzangst, d'espace, peur topophobia,and street Now theidentification sucha phobia in theearly1870swould beof of but significant enoughin thehistory urbanpathologies, itsrolein the ofmetropolitan was to proveevenmoreinterestills spatial description into wereinquiring itsetiology ing.For at thesame timeas thedoctors its urbanists itas uniquely and writing pathographies, saw characterizing condition themodemcity a whole, disease, of thepsychological as a that and itseffects. no more thaneighteen endemicto urbanism is, Thus, after publication Westphal's the of was years paper,agoraphobia identinot simply an affliction themodem city fied as of dweller as proof but form forhealth. Thisconthat cities bad very contemporary werein their on tention occursin one of theseminalattacks 19th-century urbanism, toArtistic in CamilloSitte's Planning City According Principles, published Viof well-known broadsideagainst development the enna in 1898. Sitte's of of the RingstralSe, couched in terms an aesthetic analysis the comqualitiesof traditional public spaces,foundcommoncause positional in the the with psychologist seeing wide-open by spacescreated modem functional monumental and demandsas essentially anti-human: disorder beendiagnosed "agohas a Recentlyuniquenervous exNumerous aresaidtosuffer it,always from people raphobia." a certain or discomfort whenever haveto anxiety they periencing walkacross vastempty a is newand place.Agoraphobia a very in small, plamodern ailment. naturally very One feels old cozy zas.... On ourmodem with their gigantic yawning plazas, emptisufnessandoppressive the of old ennui, inhabitants snug towns fer attacks this of fashionable agoraphobia.5
toArtistic trans. 5. CamilloSitte, Planning City According Principles, GeorgeCollinsand CrasemannCollins (New York:Random House, 1965) 45. Christiane

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in Simmel Kracauer and Spatial Estrangement

this it of Underlining pointbycouching in theform an aesthetic prinof monumentalscale, Sitteproposed wittily thateven statues ciple suffer from out thisdisease,"thatalso some people formed of might are stoneand metal,on their monumental by pedestals, attacked this to choose a little plaza rather and thusalways thana old malady prefer one fortheir trend location."The "universal permanent largeempty of the time,"concludedSitte, was thefearof open spaces.6 of Sitte would,no doubt,havebeenhappytoreadthereport a lifelong of sometwenty one sufferer this modemdisorder later, who,while years to to work hisfear crowds, of continued nevertheless through managing "An be adversely affected spaces and theirsurrounding by buildings: or bluff me withdread. However, fills immensebuilding a highrocky of the of thearchitecture thebuilding muchto do with sort sensation has the intensifies fear."The authorof greatly produced.Uglyarchitecture sixteen after Sitte's incorthis had evidently account, death, writing years thelessonsoftheViennese intohisownself-analysis: "I planner porated if wouldremark I havecome to wonder there realartin manyof that is in theso-called from the for, 'improvements' some ofour cities, judging constitute art."'7 effect produceon me, they bad they thenew psychology "prove" to Sitte was,of course,ironically using an observation thathad become commonplacein the aesthetic criofurbanism sincethebrothers Goncourt had complainedofthe tique "American deserts"createdbythecutting themodernboulevards. of in of and psychological But such a merging aesthetic criteria orderto thequalitiesofmodernurbanspace was,bytheend ofthe 19th judge of and psychologists a century, seriouspreoccupation philosophers of withtheapparently deleterious concerned effects scale,movement, on and density the populationof the metropolis. SpatialEstrangement in ofMoney, Writing ThePhilosophy GeorgSimmelsaw such nervous of diseasesas pathological as characteristicsmodem cities; David Frisby he has observed, stagedthe"sensitive nervous and modem person"in front the backdropof "jostling of crowdedness motley and disorder," and arguedthatan innerpsychological a was barrier, distance essential
6. Sitte45. 7. "Vincent: of Confessions an Agoraphobic American Victim," Journal Psychology of 30 (1919): 297.

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for protectionagainst despair and unbearable intrusion.The "pathological deformationof such an inner boundary and reserve," Simmel noted, "was called agoraphobia: the fearof coming into too close a confor tactwith objects, a consequence of hyperaesthesia, which everydirectand energeticdisturbancecauses pain."8 Simmel's diagnosis was at once spatial and mental: the real cause of the neurosis was not, as Westphal and Sittehad implied, solely spatial. Rather,he argued, itwas moods of a product of the rapid oscillation between two characteristic too life:the over-closeidentification withthings,and, alternately, urban greata distance fromthem. In both cases, as well as withthe symptoms of agoraphobia, the question was spatial at root, the resultof the open spaces of the city,those verylarge expanses in which the crowds of the metropolis find their"impulsiveness and enthusiasm."9 For Simmel, however,agoraphobia was only one of the new and profoundlydisturbingillnesses to beset the inhabitantof the metropolis, exacerbated by its spatial and temporal conditions. In "Metropolis and Mental Life" ("Die Gro~stadt und das Geistesleben,"),he characterizes the "psychological foundation,upon which the metropolitanindividuof alityis erected ... the intensification emotional lifedue to the swift of and continuous shift externaland internalstimuli" as formedby the of the city: veryspace concreates thesepsychological To theextent thatthemetropolis of withthe tempo and ditions- witheverycrossing the street, and sociallife- itcreates of multiplicity economic,occupational, of in the sensory foundations mentallife,and in the degree of as awarenessnecessitated our organization creatures depenby more hawiththe slower, a dentupon differences,deep contrast of bitual, more smoothlyflowingrhythm the sensory-mental Therebythe essentially phase of small townand ruralexistence. beof intellectualistic character the mentallifeof the metropolis as over againstthatof the small town,which comes intelligible restsmore on feelings and emotionalrelationships.'0
Tom Bottomore and David Frisby trans. 8. GeorgSimmel,The ofMoney, Philosophy (London: Routledgeand Kegan Paul, 1978) 474. und 9. Simmel, Verwaltung Volks"Soziologie des Raumes,"Jahrbuchfiir Gesetzgebung, inthe TheoriesModernity 27 Fragments of ofModernity: wirtschaft(1903) 27-71,ctd.in Frisby, and Work Simmel, Kracauer, Benjamin (Cambridge:M.I.T., 1986) 77. of derGeheDie und das Geistesleben," GrofJstadt.Jahrbuch 10. Simmel, "Die Grolstadt and ed. on Simmel Individuality Social EdwardA. Shils,Georg 9 Forms, Stiflung(1903); trans. Donald N. Levine(Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1971) 325.

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in and Kracauer SpatialEstrangement Simmel

as will Thus themetropolitan inhabitant be visualand intellectual oporal and emotionalcountry-dweller; reasonwilltakethe posed to the the habits place ofemotion;theconsciouswilldominate unconscious; rather thanrootedand apparently willbe adaptableand shifting, eterthe distance willovertake personal;and objective theimpersonal nal; willreplacesubjective empathy. of mustance "slight WhatSimmelsees as thecharacteristic aversion, and of the to tualstrangeness repulsion" one to another, attempt display in that leadsto "thestrangest difference a setting promotes onlyleveling, to of eccentricities,specifically metropolitan extravagances self-distanciaof those ofcaprice, fastidiousness," "forms 'beingdifferent' of of tion, to be notedbyBenjamin thefigure in later oneself noticeable," making of thedandyand the that fjdneur. Again,Simmelinsists is this of themetropolis theproper arenafor type culture which Hereinbuildings eduhasoutgrown personal element. and every in of cational and institutions,thewonders comforts space-conin of life quering technique, theformationssocial and intheconof is sucha tremendous crete institutionstheState to be found richness crystallizing, of cultural depersonalized accomplishments that personality so tospeak, itself the maintain inthe can, scarcely

faceof it."

Simmel a causeofthesedifferences thenature in identifiedfundamental thespeeded-up of metropolitan of lifeitself its and temporality, tempo to of and regulation according thestandards "punctuality, calculability, in But thisshift livedtimetookplace in space,and it was exactness." of the through reading urbanspace thatSimmelproposedto comprehend therelationships between individuals groupsin theGrofJstadt. and 1908]), entitled"Der Raum und die raumlichenOrdnungender Gesellschaft" ("Space and the Spatial Organizationof Society"), of Simmeloutlines theory spatialreading. his a of Overturningcentury of beliefin the formative character space, he asserted:"Whatcreates or is the characteristic phenomenaof neighborliness strangeness not
11. Simmel,"Die Grogstadt" 338. The 12. Simmel,Soziologie, chap. 9, cited in NicholasJ. Spykman, SocialTheory of Simmel Georg (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1925) 144.

In the last section of his Soziologie. der iiber Untersuchungen die Formen Studiesof theFormsof Societalization Vergesellschaftung [Sociology. [Leipzig,

spatial proximityor spatial distance but a specific psychological content."'2

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of is, Space as theexpression social conditions then,open to thesociologicalgaze, as he notedin his excursuson "The Stranger": "Spatial on relations onlythecondition, theone hand,and thesymbol, are on the other,of human relations."'' As effects humanactivities, of indications spaces are thusimportant of of social processes,of the interaction human beingsconceivedof and experiencedas space-filling. space betweenindividuals, The conbecomesimmediately ceivedas empty filled and animatedbythe space, In relations individuals. thiswaya conceptsuch as between reciprocal "between" becomes both a spatial and a functional concept. As of Nicholas Spykmanhas noted,Simmel's understanding the functionalreciprocity between individuals itself two locatedbewas spatial, or tweenthetwopointsin space occupiedbytheelements individuals in "it itself space,and thespatialform becomes themselves: manifests of as characteristic the reciprocity a whole."'4 therefore of thisnotionbyexamining mutualconcepts the Simmelelaborates and Some social forms, such spatialexclusivity spatialnonexclusivity. in manifest themselves a unique and localized space that as the state, of forms the excludesthepossibility other inhabiting same space. Othsuch as the church, not so dependentupon locaare er institutions, for of on tionalfixity, allowing thepossibility otherchurches operating Such thesame territory. an analysis providedSimmelwiththemeans social elements a scale fromsocially on exclusive to of characterizing supraspatial. of In thiscontext, nature sociological the boundaries becomesimporof the thatdefine limits such territorial the tant, boundaries groupings; unities that coincident maybe identified are framed borders by spatial of of socialgroups.The spatialexpression withthelocations particular and functional theseborders wereconceived alike, unity by sociological of as social Simmel intersecting spacelikea network imaginary boundary runsthus: Simmel'sargument lines.As summarized Spykman, by a similar that to Thisborder has forthegroup significance line It of has a the functionsepwhich frame for picture.fulfills double a it itself. itfrom outside world ofclosing within The and the arating to that the line frame announces within border is a world subject
The KurtH. "The Stranger," SociologyGeorg 13. Simmel, Simmel, trans, ed., intro. of Wolff (Glencoe,Illinois:FreePress,1950) 402.
14. Spykman 145.

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in Simmel Kracauer and Estrangement Spatial from world It its divorced the outside. symboownnorms entirely ofthe A lizestheself-sufficiency picture. group similarly is characis extension conceived as of terized an internal ifitsspatial as unity line. bordered a boundary On theother thefunctional hand, by from the finds between elements resulting thereciprocities unity in that itsspatial frame.'5 expression surrounding

as Such frames sociological or and change,are boundaries, theyshift thenindicative thecharacter socialrelationships anymoment of at of beand children, members and nonmembers clubs, of tween, say,parents A city and their hostcountries, states and their like diplomats territory. for circumscribed an extremely narrow finds Venice, example, frame, by of its Whether release and conquest. expansion trade through wide-flung or nota specific socialgroupis tiedto a fixed location thenbecomesimin the between nomadicand sedentary portant analyzing difference peotheoperations mobileas opposed to fixedcapital, relation of the ples, between thosewho are truly "homeless"and thosewho are rootedin a "home." "Home" thenemerges as a concept property as a less of than thatexpresses unity the group social and psychological the of locality also strengthens preserves Simmelgivestheexampleof and that and it. the"men'shouse" in tribal which bothexpression is and communities, in of one groupformation thetribe. objectification Out of thisunderstanding the spatialdimensions social order, of of a theory estrangement is closely Simmel of that tied goes on to construct to thespace ofmetropolis. the in Defining place and roleofindividuals as seen in theirspatialrelations proximity of and distance, society Simmel a of treats number characteristic "types" thepoor,theadventhe stranger as indicative thepowerof space to determine of turer, the is role.Ofthese, last, stranger, mostexemplary. Simmel the If, states, from wandering equals theliberation every givenpointin space and is hencetheconceptual then of form oppositeoffixation, thesociological in thestranger combines thesetwocharacteristicsone: that thestranis, who comestodayand goes tomorrow the but geris notthe"wanderer comestoday and stays who tomorrow." Fixedwithin particular a person the is from beginthe spatial group, stranger one who has notbelonged Simmelconcludes, "are organized unity the of ning."In thestranger," and nearness remoteness every of humanrelation," sucha waythat in in
relationto the stranger, "distance means thathe who is close by is far,
15. Spykman 147.

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and strangenessmeans that he who also is faris actuallynear."''6 Here Simmel anticipates Freud's reflectionson that form of estrangement knownas the uncanny,where relationsof the familiar and the unfamiliar - heimlich and unheimlich become ambiguous and merge with one another. Simmel, the epitome of the stranger,cultivated,urban, and Jewish,who was forthisreason excluded fromthe normal academic career of his contemporariesWeber and Dilthey,thus definesthe role of in and estranged themoney economy ofcapitalism. being at once strange in But estrangementis not confined to the strangers the metropolis. For Simmel, the verynature of social relationsforcesdistance and thus alienation, for reasons of everydayfunctioningand self-defense.Disand foremosta product of the omnipotence of sightin the tance is first city; as opposed to the knowledge of individuals based on intimacy and oral communication in a small community,metropolitanconnections are rapid, glancing, ocular: Social lifein the largecityas comparedwiththe townsshows a thanto hear of people. great preponderance occasionsto seerather railroads and streetcars the Before appearanceof omnibuses, ... wherefor men werenot is a situation in the nineteenth century, could or mustlook at each other ofminutes hoursthey or periods to without talking one another. the whichcharacterizes personwho only The greater perplexity us to sees,as contrasted theone who onlyhears,brings to probin of lemsoftheemotions modernlife;thelackoforientation the that and collective thesenseofutter lonesomeness, thefeeling life, on is the individual surrounded all sides by closed doors.'7 into its Here the agoraphobia of the public realm becomes transformed naturalcomplement,claustrophobia,now no longerconfinedto the private realm: the metropolitandwelleris equally a prisonerof both.

TheHotelLobby
Of all Simmel's students and followers,it was Siegfried Kracauer who, himself an architect,most profoundly absorbed the lessons of
402. 16. Simmel,"The Stranger" 17. Simmel,"Sociologyof the Senses [Exkursfiberdie Soziologie der Sinnen]," W. tothe eds. 646-51;Introduction Science Sociology, RobertE. Parkand Ernest of Soziologie Burgess(Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1921) 360.

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in and Kracauer SpatialEstrangement Simmel

of of formations and especially theanalysis spatial apspatialsociology of Fromhis student experiplied to theunderstanding estrangement. ence in Berlinin 1907, when he had attendedSimmel'slectureon in to of detailed "The Problem Style Art," notes, thecompletion taking of his stillunpublishedmonographon Simmel in 1917, Kracauer And while, as foundin Simmela methodological guideto thepresent. we shallsee, his architectural designsbetween1916 and 1918wereby no meansinfused when witha direct "distance," certainly sociological of in recounted thecontext theautobiographical Ginster, tookon they towardwhatErnst of the character momentsin a slow development Bloch would recognizeas the personality "the detachedhero conof and entirely without cernedabout nothing pathos."'8 Memorial Cemetery, Thus, the celebratedMilitary designed in in Frankfurt 1916,was,in Kracauer's a of recollection, moment transia on of tionbetween reliance traditional models- thecemetery Genof oa and thecathedral Milan- with ofmystery their and implications toward ironicand distanced an thelabyrinthine visionof picturesque, thecharacter to modernity, a modernity and appropriate deeplyimpliof cated in theforms war: like this To hidethetombs Easter seemed soft too for eggs, project of war. these times general Suchtimes called a cemetery for where In their horror wouldbe reflected. placeofusing he sketches had until Ginster elaborated system a cemea of then, . developed that to of tery wassimilar a project military organization. Hence Ginster lined tombs designedthe"scientifically up," rectilinear set at right cut allees lined up by geometrically foliage, angles along a cube with stepped-back served display to the quasipyramidal that top names of the dead: "duringtheseyearsof war,the keywordforthe

a funerary that of monument tooktheform an elevated surrounding so "wassimplicity." cemetery His classes," Kracauer observed, ruling wouldfollow precepts themilitary the of is Hay: strategist "Victory a of organization." "his cemetery fulfilled also question Accordingly, in it of Hay'srequirements that prevented sort secrecy."'9 any oftheSiedlung Osnabriick, thehomely at deSimilarly, "prettiness"
its detachedhousesand gardens signedin November1918,with "little
18. Siegfried Kracauer, Ginster. Von ihm selbstgeschrieben (1928; Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1973). 19. Kracauer, Ginster 106.

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seemedto "Ginster-Kracauer" be premature with to at roofs," pitched the veryleast: in the presentconditionsof war, he observed,"they be and houseswould would inevitably destroyed," ifnot,thesepretty in the become theobjectsofdestruction a newwar,attaching workers one could nothouse to their defense. Kracauer concluded:"Certainly in to workers holes,butitwouldbe perhapsmoresuitable place tombfrom to stonesin the gardens."'0Similartransformations symbolism rationalism were to be tracedin the projectsof the Swiss architect and between1919 and 1923: Hannes MeyerforSiedlungen cemeteries estatenear Basel, 1919-21,withits"Palladian," the Freidorf Housing almostneoclassicallayout,albeitwithpitchedroofs;and the project in forthe central cemetery Basel, 1923,whichseemsto echo theconof in architecture thelate 18th interest the"revolutionary" temporary even though to mirror projectsof Kracauer, the century, apparently would have been "new objectivity" Meyer'slatermove towardthe condemnedby Kracauer. from accountof his self-distancing architectural Kracauer's practice of awareness the disseems to have been accompaniedby a growing or by space itself, rather, an awareness tancing powersofarchitectural as a powerful emblemofsocialestrangeof ofthepotential space to act his ment.Kracauerin 1919 had characterized essayon Simmelas an In itto thoseof Simmelhimself. "existential comparing topography," was the his subsequentwritings conceptof an inhabited topography to with extendedliterally, theaid ofSimmel'ssociology, the spaces of became thefocusofanother modernlife:thehotellobby,which essay of novelin 1922-25;the"pleasurebarracks" thecafes on thedetective of on and musichalls,describedin his study thewhitecollarworkers exthe with theirdespondentcounterparts, unemployment 1930, changes; and the boulevardsor "homes for the homeless,"which of formthe setting his lifeof Offenbach publishedin 1937. Of these, as seen thehotellobby(Hotelhalle), byKracauer theparadigmatic space the ofthemoderndetective novel,and thusas epitomizing conditions is and of modem lifein theiranonymity fragmentation,perhapsthe Kracauercomparesthe modem most Simmelianin its formulation. for church theone a shelter thetransihotellobbyto thetraditional of Usfor the entand disconnected, other thecommunity thefaithful. the elaborates Kracauer of Simmel'scategories spatialdescription, ing
20. 197. Kracauer, Ginster

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in and Kracauer SpatialEstrangement Simmel

distinction betweenwhat he termserfiillter Raum,or the "inhabited of Verkniipfung and the void or emptyspace of (communion), space" the and ofcourseoftheratio, rationalized or sciences, physics, abstract modem life.Shutout ofthereligiously bonded community, modthe ern urban dweller can relyonlyon spaces "whichbear witness his to nonexistence." Detachedfrom atomswithno life, everyday individual connectionsave theirabsoluteanonymity, hotel guestsare scatthe teredlikeatomsin a void,confronted "nothing"(vis-a-vis rien); with de strandedin theirarmchairs, guestscan do no more than finda the "disinterested the pleasurein contemplating world."In thisway,"the civilization whichtendstowardrationalization loses itself the elein club chair,"in the ultimate of indifference. silenceof The gant space thesetting of Kracauer againparodiesthat thechurch. quotesThomas Mann from Deathin Venice: thisroom therereigned religious "In a silencewhichis one ofthedistinctive marks grandhotels. of The waiters servewithmuffled hearsthe noise of a cup or teasteps.One hardly or a whispered word." Kracauercontinues: pot, of Rudiments individuals in thenirvana relaxation, slide of faces are lostbehindthenewspaper, theuninterrupted and artificial illumines mannequins. is a coming going unIt and of light only knowns who are changed intoempty forms forgetting their by and like shadows. passwords, whoparade, imperceptible, Chinese Ifthey an interiority, had itwouldhaveno windows. The privileged ofthedetective site of novel,themystery thelobby,is no longerreligiousbut base, a mystery the masks;Kracauer among citesthe detective novel by Sven Elvestad, Der Todkehrt Hotelein ins Enters Hotel): the "One sees thusonce againthat grandhotelis a a (Death worldapart, and this worldresembles rest thebigworld.The clithe of entswanderherein their and carefree summer without suslife, light whatstrange evolveamong them."2'" "pseudoThe pecting mysteries individuals"thatare guestsspread themselves like moleculesin,"a desertwithout neverdestinedto come together, even limits," spatial whencompressed within Grofistadt. onlylink, writes, inthe Their he is the different enough - what he calls, suggestively, strategic grand
21. Kracauer, "Die Hotelhalle," Das Ornament der Masse (Frankfurt/Main: from DetektivDer Suhrkamp, 1963) 157-70, esp. 168, 169.This is an excerpted chapter Roman I (Frankfurt/Main: [1922-1925], publ. in Kracauer, Schriften 1971). Suhrkamp,

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of Elsewherehe will speak ubiquitously these routesof convention. thevoid" or,morepreciseofpassage" as "highways through "spaces ly,as "boulevardsforthe homeless." his Kracauer was in New York, Some twenty later, writing anayears in of thefilmic had in his that, techniqueand substance, history lysis of eyesgivenriseto thebirth theNazi propagandafilm.One of these the visitof Hitlerand his architect films, Speer to the condepicting to Sitte's of seemeduncannily fulfill original prophequered city Paris, that would becomethemodem diseasepar excellence: agoraphobia cy is the TheFiihrer visiting conquered European capital butishe he is Paris as quietas a grave. While inspects its really guest? ..... The site shutsitseyesand withdraws. touching of Paris,Parisitself
life thisdeserted thatonce pulsedwithfeverish mirrors ghostcity Nazi propagandabuilt thevacuumat thecoreoftheNazi system. withmanycolors,but at the same iridescent up a pseudo-reality These colors of timeit emptiedParis,the sanctuary civilization. veileditsown emptiness.22 scarcely

In thisvision of a vast,emptyParis,and in the veryimage of the "void" behind the propaganda, we sense the destinyof metropolitanmodernthe traditionalcity into ism in general, as it ineluctablytransformed

a hotel atrium. of Kracauer's triumphant:gigantic nightmare rationalism

Film to A From 22. Kracauer, Historythe Caligari Hitler: Psychological of German (Princeton: Princeton 1947) 307. UP,