Municipal Area

The city portraits unfold a particular strand of Benjamin's theory of the image. In "Marseille," a series of short meditations, "Weichbild"-suburbs, banlieue-appears as a central notion. To be sure, Benjamin uses it in conformity with its judicial and political etymology, but he also gives the word a more common reading: a "Weichbild" thus becomes a feeble or blurred image that withdraws from a representational logic and gives way to further images. In short: "Weichbild" appears as an allegory of allegory, adapted to the conditions of urban modernity. The city portraits " Moscow," "Weimar," and "Naples" provide further evidence that " Marseille," in its working through of Surrealist motifs and techniques, provides a link between the Trauerspielbuch and the early stages of the Passagenwerk.