THE ARCADES PROJECT Translated by Howard Eiland and Kevin McLaughlin PREPARED ON THE BASIS OF THE GERMAN VOLUME EDITED BY ROLF TIEDEMANN THE BELKNAP PRESS OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS, AND LONDON, ENGLAND Copyright © 1999 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America FIrst Harvard University Press paperback edition, 2002 TIlls work is a translation of Walter Benjamin, Das Rtssagen-l#rk, edited by RolfTIedemarm, copyright © 1982 by Suhrkamp Verlag; volume 5 of Walter Benjamin, Gesanm:1te Sdniften, prepared widl the co operation of 111eodor W. Adomo and Gershom Scholem, edited by RolfTIedemarm and Hermann Schweppenhauser, copyright © 1972, 1974, 1977, 1982, 1985, 1989 by Suhrkamp Verlag. "Dialectics at a Standstill;' by RolfTIedemarm, was first published in English by MIT Press, copyright © 1988 by the Massachusetts Institute of1eclmology. Publication of this book has been supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humani ties, an independent federal agency. Publication of this book has also been aided by a grant from Inter Nationes, Bonn, Cover photo: Walter Benjamin, ca. 1932. Photographer unknown. Courtesy of the Theodor W. Adorno Archiv, Frankfurt am Main. Frontispiece: PassageJouffroy, 1845-1847. Photographer unknown, Courtesy Musee Carnavalet, Paris. Photo copyright © Phototheque des Musees de la Ville de Paris. Vignettes: pages i, 1, 825, 891,1074, Institut Fran~s d'Architecture; page 27, Hans Meyer-Veden; page 869, Robert Doisneau. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Benjamin, Walter, 1892-1940, [passagen-Werk. English] The arcades project I Walter Benjamin; translated by Howard Eiland and Kevin McLaughlin; prepared on the basis of the Gennan volume edited by Rolf TIedemann, p. cm. Includes index. ISBN O~674~04326-X (cloth) ISBN O·674-00802~2 (pbk.) I. Tiedemann, Rolf, II. Title. PT2603.E455 P33513 1999 944' .361081-dc21 99~27615 Designed by Gwen Nefsky Frankfeldt CONTENTS T"anslators' Foreword ix Exposes 1 "Paris, the Capital of the Nineteenth Century" (1935) 3 "Paris, Capital of the Nineteenth Century" (1939) 14 Convolutes 27 Overview 29 First Sketches 827 Early Drafts "Arcades" 871 "The Arcades of Paris" 873 "The Ring of Saturn" 885 Addenda Expose of 1935, Early Version 893 Materials for the Expose of 1935 899 Materials for "Arcades" 919 "Dialectics at a Standstill;' by Rolf Tiedemann 929 "The Story of Old Benjamin;' by Lisa Fittko 946 Translators' Notes 955 Guide to Names and Terms 1016 Index 1055 Illustrations Shops in the Passage Vera-Dodat 34 Glass roof and iron girders, Passage Vivienne 35 The Passage des Panoramas 36 A branch of La Belle Jardiniere in Marseilles 47 The Passage de I'Opera, 1822-1823 49 Street scene in front of the Passage des Panoramas 50 Au Bon Marche department store in Paris 59 Le Pont des planetes, by Grandville 65 Fashionable courtesans weming crinolines, by Honore Daumier 67 Tools used by Haussmallll's workers 134 Interior of the Crystal Palace, London 159 La Casse-tete-omanie} au La Fureur du jour 164 The Paris Stock Exchange, mid-nineteenth century 165 The Palais de I'Industrie at the world exhibition of 1855 166 Le Triomphe du kaifidoscope, au Le tombeau du jeu ,hinou 169 Exterior of the Crystal Palace, London 185 Charles Baudelaire, by Nadar 229 The Pont-Neuf, by Charles Meryon 232 Theophile Gautier, by N adar 242 The sewers of Paris, by Nadar 413 A Paris omnibus, by Honore Daumier 433 A page of Benjamin's manuscript from Convolute N 457 A gallery of the Palais-Royal 491 A panorama under construction 529 A diorama on the Rue de Bondy 534 Self-portrait by N adar 680 Nadar in his balloon, by Honore Daurnier 682 The Origin qfP ainting 683 Rue Transnonain, Ie 15 avril 1834, by Honore Daurnier 717 Honore Daurnier, by Nadar 742 Victor Hugo, by EtielIDe Carjat 747 L'Artiste et {'amateur du dix-neuvieme siecie 750 L'Homme de {'art dans I' embarras de son metier 751 Alexandre Dumas pere, by Nadar 752 L'Etrangomanie blamee, ou D'Etre Fran,ais il nya pas d'ajfront 783 Actualite, a caricature of the painter Gustave Courbet 792 A barricade of the Paris Commune 794 The Fourierist missionary JeanJoumet, by Nadar 813 Walter Benjamin consulting the Grand Dictionnaire universe! 888 Walter Benjamin at the card catalogue of the Bibliotheque Nationale 889 The Passage Cboiseul 927 Translators' Foreword T he materials assembled in Volume 5 of Walter Benjamin's Gesammelte Schriflen, under the title Das Passagen-Werk (first published in 1982), repre sent research that Benjamin carried out, over a period of thirteen years, on the subject of the Paris arcades-Ies passages-which he considered the most important architectural form of the nineteenth century, and which he linked with a number of phenomena characteristic of that century's major and minor preoc cupations. A glance at the overview preceding the "Convolutes" at the center of the work reveals the range of these phenomena, which extend from the literary and philosophical to the political, economic, and technological, with all sorts of intermediate relations. Benjamin's intention from the first, it would seem, was to grasp such diverse material under the general category of Urgeschichte, signifying the "primal history" of the nineteenth century. This was something that could be realized only indirectly, through "cnnning": it was not the great men and cele brated events of traditional historiography but rather the "refuse" and "detritus" of history, the half-concealed, variegated traces of the daily life of "the collective;' that was to be the object of study, and with the aid of methods more akin-above all, in their dependence on chance-to the methods of the nineteenth-century collector of antiquities and curiosities, or indeed to the methods of the nine teenth-century ragpicker, than to those of the modern historian. Not conceptual analysis but something like dream interpretation was the model. The nineteenth century was the collective dream which we, its heirs, were obliged to reenter, as patiently and minutely as possible, in order to follow out its ramifications and, finally, awaken from it. This, at any rate, was how it looked at the outset of the project, which wore a good many faces over time. Begun in 1927 as a planned collaboration for a newspaper article on the arcades, the project had quickly burgeoned under the influence of Surrealism, a movement toward which Benjamin always maintained a pronounced ambiva lence. Before long, it was an essay he had in mind, "Pariser Passagen: Eine dialektische Feerie" (paris Arcades: A Dialectical Fairyland), and then, a few years later, a book, Paris, die Hauptstadt des XIX. Jahrhunderts (Paris, the Capital of the Nineteenth Century). For some two-and-a-half years, at the end of the Twenties, having expressed his sense of alienation from contemporary G<:rman writers and his affinity with the French cultural milieu, Benjamin worked inter mittently on reams of notes and sketches, producing one short essay, "Der