Benjamin.

Walter Benjamin’s term, “wish images,” confused me a bit but when I re read it a couple times I realized the beauty in the idea. Then again, I could have read it completely wrong…seems to happen a lot with me.

He states that “wish images” are combinations of the old and the new…the old being Marxists? Notions…So we have this combination of the arcades that correspond with the idea of a “wish image.” The buildings carry the oldness of “the classical Greek sense” but are constructed by the new material: iron. So we have this co-mingling of iron; “a material used for the first time in the history of architecture” and the architectural premise of the Greeks.

I seem to be summarizing this one page people its what confused me the most. He seems to be in awe of this new use of Iron; since he compares it to the failure of its use by the Empire. He connects this to Napoleons failure of domination.

It is as though the buildings are in conjunction with government…which is totally understandable. Right? Here we have two foundations, that if build incorrectly, even if they miss a screw, they crumble. Iron seems to be this majestic material that brought these buildings into form. It as if Napoleon had missed his “iron.”

Ah, I don’t know…now I probably sound completely insane. Ah.

Back to “wish images.” We always have this back and forth in lit theory about the old against the new. How Formalists pushed out Romantics and how this patterns continuously pushed out another. The “wish image” could combine this new and old and make this glorious thing…this phenomena. (my 501 class is clearly controlling my brain, but hey, makes for interesting connections) ah but Benjamin’s Paris never received this utopian wish image…

Let’s go to Haussmann now. I have read and seen the structure of the Haussmanization in Paris. I have never heard it referred to as “Barricades” but what a perfect description of it. Here we see the definite connection between building and government. Just like in Manchester, the city with the poor in secluded areas and secret passages for the rich, Haussmanization is able to control the rich and poor just by design.

“The true goal of Haussmann’s projects was to secure the city against war” (12). That’s nice and all but the way it is structured keeps the rich in and the poor out. The more you travel outside of this elaborate sun rayed structured city, the “ghetto-er” it gets. Its reminds me of a elevator laying on its side. The higher the elevator goes, the higher the position of the worker (in a business, wall street type of way) so the “higher” you go into the city, the better the citizen.

What trips me out the most is how the French Revolution happened but the English one never did. It seemed to be way worse in Manchester than in Paris.

Maybe I made some sense. :]