“Living in a glass house is a revolutionary virtue par excellence”: Walter Benjamin and the passion for the “porous” city and history

Abstract

Walter Benjamin wrote a lot about cities and architecture as we can see in his lifework. We find then in the canter of his thoughts in his travel diaries, in essays dedicated to some specific urban formations, in autobiographical texts, in his flâneur and in his esthetical theory. His ideal city was not classical and “beautiful” but rather characterized by the people circulation, by “interpenetration” (Durchdringung) and “porosity”. This pierced city is metamorphosed inside his history philosophy where he imagines a porous time.