!

"#$%&"#' )&*+*,#&
German cultural theorist SiegIried Kracauer (18891966) is known principally Ior his
later writings on Iilm theory, such as Theorv of Film and From Caligari to Hitler. Recent
attention to his earlier work, however, has revealed him as wide-ranging cultural theorist,
prominent within intellectual circles oI Weimar Germany. Educated under Georg
Simmel, Kracauer himselI taught Theodor Adorno, and was a close acquaintance oI
various associates oI the FrankIurt School, notably Walter Benjamin. Kracauer
abandoned a career in architecture to become a journalist with the FrankIurter Zeitung.
Forced out in 1933 under the growing anti-semitism, he subsequently Iled to America
where he made a name Ior himselI as a Iilm theorist.
Under the inIluence, no doubt, oI Simmel, Kracauer Iocused his early articles on
phenomena oI everyday liIe, such as hotel lobbies, shopping arcades, cinemas and dance
halls. Kracauer`s observations oI seemingly mundane subjects were under-pinned by a
thoroughly considered philosophical position. As Kracauer himselI commented, The
surIace-level expressions.by virtue oI their unconscious nature, provide unmediated
access to the Iundamental substance oI the state oI things. Conversely, knowledge oI this
state oI things depends on the interpretation oI these surIace-level expressions.`
1
Above
all, architectural space, Ior Kracauer, was a medium through which to understand society.
Spatial images are the dreams oI society. Wherever the hieroglyphics oI any spatial
image are deciphered, there the basis oI social reality presents itselI.`
2
Thus, Ior example,
Kracauer reads the employment agency, the barren space which acts as a warehouse Ior
the temporary rejects oI society, as the embodiment oI the empty despair oI the
unemployed, who are reduced to the level oI objects oI hygiene.
A central theme within Kracauer`s work was the impoverishment oI contemporary
existence, which had been emptied oI all meaning. For Kracauer modernity was
characterized by a Iorm oI transcendental homelessness, which was embodied in the hotel
lobby, the space where silence reigns and where guests bury themselves in their
newspapers to avoid exchanging glances. Kracauer blames this condition on the
ascendency oI capitalist ratio. This was not reason itselI, but a murky Iorm oI reason`.
Ratio is cut oII Irom reason and bypasses man as it vanishes into the void oI the
abstract`.
3
In his Iamous analysis oI the Tiller Girls, Kracauer expands on how capitalist
ratio was expressed in the mass ornament oI the synchronized cabaret dance routine, an
abstracted Iorm oI rationality that had taken on various mythic traits. However, Kracauer
was not critical oI rationality per se. Rather he saw that rationality had been robbed oI its
progressive potential`. The problem oI the contemporary condition Ior Kracauer was not
an excess oI rationality. In Iact he believed that more rationality was required in order to
complete the disenchantment oI the world. Kracauer thereIore oIIered a qualiIied
endorsement oI modernity.
-./#!
1 SiegIried Kracauer, The Mass Ornament` in The Mass Ornament, Thomas Y.Levin (trans.),
Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1995, p. 75.
2 Kracauer, On Employment Agencies`, p. 60.
3 Kracauer, The Mass Ornament, p. 84.
/0# 0./#1 1.223
.In the house of God, which presupposes an already extant community, the
congregation accomplishes the task oI making connections. Once the members oI the
congregation have abandoned the relation on which the place is Iounded, the house oI
God retains only a decorative signiIicance. Even iI it sinks into oblivion, civilized society
at the height oI its development still maintains privileged sites that testiIy to its own non-
existence, just as the house oI God testiIies to the existence oI the community united in
reality. Admittedly society is unaware oI this, Ior it cannot see beyond its own sphere;
only the aesthetic construct, whose Iorm renders the maniIold as a projection, makes it
possible to demonstrate this correspondence. The typical characteristics oI the hotel
lobbv, which appears repeatedly in detective novels, indicate that it is conceived as the
inverted image oI the house oI God. It is a negative church, and can be transIormed into a
church so long as one observes the conditions that govern the diIIerent spheres.
In both places people appear there as guests. But whereas the house oI God is
dedicated to the service oI the one whom people have gone there to encounter, the hotel
lobby accommodates all who go there to meet no one. It is the setting Ior those who
neither seek nor Iind the one who is always sought, and who are thereIore guests in space
as sucha space that encompasses them and has no Iunction other than to encompass
them. The impersonal nothing represented by the hotel manager here occupies the
position oI the unknown one in whose name the church congregation gathers. And
whereas the congregation invokes the name and dedicates itselI to the service in order to
IulIil the relation, the people dispersed in the lobby accept their host`s incognito without
question. Lacking any and all relation, they drip down into the vacuum with the same
necessity that compels those striving in and Ior reality to liIt themselves out oI the
nowhere toward their destination.
The congregation, which gathers in the house oI God Ior prayer and worship,
outgrows the imperIection oI communal liIe in order not to overcome it but to bear it in
mind and to reinsert it constantly into the tension. Its gathering is a collectedness and a
uniIication oI this directed liIe oI the community, which belongs to two realms: the realm
covered by law and the realm beyond law. At the site oI the churchbut oI course not
only herethese separate currents encounter each other; the law is broached here without
being breached, and the paradoxical split is accorded legitimacy by the sporadic
suspension oI its languid continuity. Through the ediIication oI the congregation, the
community is always reconstructing itselI, and this elevation above the everyday prevents
the everyday itselI Irom going under. The Iact that such a returning oI the community to
its point oI origin must submit to spatial and temporal limitations, that it steers away Irom
worldly community, and that it is brought about through special celebrationsthis is
only a sign oI man`s dubious position between above and below, one that constantly
Iorces him to establish on his own what is given or what has been conquered in the
tension.
Siegfried Kracauer 51
Since the determining characteristic oI the lower region is its lack oI tension, the
togetherness in the hotel lobby has no meaning. While here, too, people certainly do
become detached Irom everyday liIe, this detachment does not lead the community to
assure itselI oI its existence as a congregation. Instead it merely displaces people Irom the
unreality oI the daily hustle and bustle to a place where they would encounter the void
only iI they were more than just reIerence points. The lobby, in which people Iind
themselves vis-a-vis de rien, is a mere gap that does not even serve a purpose dictated by
Ratio (like the conIerence room oI a corporation), a purpose which at the very least could
mask the directive that had been perceived in the relation. But iI a sojourn in a hotel
oIIers neither a perspective on nor an escape Irom the everyday, it does provide a
groundless distance Irom it which can be exploited, iI at all, aestheticallythe aesthetic
being understood here as a category oI the nonexistent type oI person, the residue oI that
positive aesthetic which makes it possible to put this non-existence into relieI in the
detective novel. The person sitting around idly is overcome by a disinterested satisIaction
in the contemplation oI a world creating itselI, whose purposiveness is Ielt without being
associated with any representation oI a purpose. The Kantian deIinition oI the beautiIul is
instantiated here in a way that takes seriously its isolation oI the aesthetic and its lack oI
content. For in the emptied-out individuals oI the detective novelwho, as rationally
constructed complexes, are comparable to the transcendental subjectthe aesthetic
Iaculty is indeed detached Irom the existential stream oI the total person. It is reduced to
an unreal, purely Iormal relation that maniIests the same indiIIerence to the selI as it does
to matter. Kant himselI was able to overlook this horrible last-minute sprint oI the
transcendental subject, since he still believed there was a seamless transition Irom the
transcendental to the preIormed subject-object world. The Iact that he does not
completely give up the total person even in the aesthetic realm is conIirmed by his
deIinition oI the sublime`, which takes the ethical into account and thereby attempts to
reassemble the remaining pieces oI the Iractured whole. In the hotel lobby, admittedly,
the aestheticlacking all qualities oI sublimityis presented without any regard Ior
these upward-striving intentions, and the Iormula purposiveness without purpose`
1
also
exhausts its content. Just as the lobby is the space that does not reIer beyond itselI, the
aesthetic condition corresponding to it constitutes itselI as its own limit. It is Iorbidden to
go beyond this limit, so long as the tension that would propel the breakthrough is
repressed and the marionettes oI Ratiowho are not human beingsisolate themselves
Irom their bustling activity. But the aesthetic that has become an end in itselI pulls up its
own roots; it obscures the higher level toward which it should reIer and signiIies only its
own emptiness, which, according to the literal meaning oI the Kantian deIinition, is a
mere relation oI Iaculties. It rises above a meaningless Iormal harmony only when it is in
the service oI something when instead oI making claims to autonomy it inserts itselI into
the tension that does not concern it in particular. II human beings orient themselves
beyond the Iorm, then a kind oI beauty may also mature that is a IulIilled beauty, because
it is the consequence and not the aimbut where beauty is chosen as an aim without
Iurther consequences, all that remains is its empty shell. Both the hotel lobby and the
house oI God respond to the aesthetic sense that articulates its legitimate demands in
them. But whereas in the latter the beautiIul employs a language with which it also
testiIies against itselI, in the Iormer it is involuted in its muteness, incapable oI Iinding
the other. In tasteIul lounge chairs a civilization intent on rationalization comes to an end,
Rethinking Architecture 52
whereas the decorations oI the church pews are born Irom the tension that accords them a
revelatory meaning. As a result, the chorales that are the expression oI the divine service
turn into medleys whose strains encourage pure triviality, and devotion congeals into
erotic desire that roams about without an object.
The equalitv oI those who pray is likewise reIlected in distorted Iorm in the hotel
lobby. When a congregation Iorms, the diIIerences between people disappear, because
these beings all have one and the same destiny, and because, in the encounter with the
spirit that determines this destiny, anything that does not determine that spirit simply
ceases to existnamely, the limit oI necessity, posited by man, and the separation, which
is the work oI nature. The provisional status oI communal liIe is experienced as such in
the house oI God, and so the sinner enters into the we` in the same way as does the
upright person whose assurance is here disturbed. Thisthe Iact that everything human
is oriented toward its own contingencyis what creates the equality oI the contingent.
The great pales next to the small, and good and evil remain suspended when the
congregation relates itselI to that which no scale can measure. Such a relativization oI
qualities does not lead to their conIusion but instead elevates them to the status oI reality,
since the relation to the last things demands that the penultimate things be convulsed
without being destroyed. This equality is positive and essential, not a reduction and
Ioreground; it is the IulIilment oI what has been diIIerentiated, which must renounce its
independent singular existence in order to save what is most singular. This singularity is
awaited and sought in the house oI God. Relegated to the shadows so long as merely
human limits are imposed, it throws its own shadow over those distinctions when man
approaches the absolute limit.
In the hotel lobby, equality is based not on a relation to God but on a relation to the
nothing. Here, in the space oI unrelatedness, the change oI environments does not leave
purposive activity behind, but brackets it Ior the sake oI a Ireedom that can reIer only to
itselI and thereIore sinks into relaxation and indiIIerence. In the house oI God, human
diIIerences diminish in the Iace oI their provisionality, exposed by a seriousness that
dissipates the certainty oI all that is deIinitive. By contrast, an aimless lounging, to which
no call is addressed, leads to the mere play that elevates the unserious everyday to the
level oI the serious. Simmel`s deIinition oI society as a play Iorm oI sociation` is entirely
legitimate, but does not get beyond mere description. What is presented in the hotel lobby
is the Iormal similarity oI the Iigures, an equivalence that signiIies not IulIilment but
evacuation. Removed Irom the hustle and bustle, one does gain some distance Irom the
distinctions oI actual` liIe, but without being subjected to a new determination that
would circumscribe Irom above the sphere oI validity Ior these determinations. And it is
in this way that a person can vanish into an undetermined void, helplessly reduced to a
member oI society as such` who stands superIluously oII to the side and, when playing,
intoxicates himselI. This invalidation oI togetherness, itselI already unreal, thus does not
lead up toward reality but is more oI a sliding down into the doubly unreal mixture oI the
undiIIerentiated atoms Irom which the world oI appearance is constructed. Whereas in
the house oI God a creature emerges which sees itselI as a supporter oI the community, in
the hotel lobby what emerges is the inessential Ioundation at the basis oI rational
socialization. It approaches the nothing and takes shape by analogy with the abstract and
Iormal universal concepts through which thinking that has escaped Irom the tension
believes it can grasp the world. These abstractions are inverted images oI the universal
Siegfried Kracauer 53
concepts conceived within the relation; they rob the ungraspable given oI its possible
content, instead oI raising it to the level oI reality by relating it to the higher
determinations. They are irrelevant to the oriented and total person who, the world in
hand, meets them halIway; rather, they are posited by the transcendental subject, which
allows them to become part oI the powerlessness into which that transcendental subject
degenerates as a result oI its claim to be creator oI the world. Even iI Iree-Iloating
Ratiodimly aware oI its limitationdoes acknowledge the concepts oI God, Ireedom
and immortality, what it discovers are not the homonymic existential concepts, and the
categorical imperative is surely no substitute Ior a commandment that arises out oI an
ethical resolution. Nevertheless, the weaving oI these concepts into a system conIirms
that people do not want to abandon the reality that has been lost; yet, oI course, they will
not get hold oI it precisely because they are seeking it by means oI a kind oI thinking
which has repudiated all attachment to that reality. The desolation oI Ratio is complete
only when it removes its mask and hurls itselI into the void oI random abstractions that
no longer mimic higher determinations, and when it renounces seductive consonances
and desires itselI even as a concept. The only immediacy it then retains is the now openly
acknowledged nothing, in which, grasping upward Irom below, it tries to ground the
reality to which it no longer has access. Just as God becomes, Ior the person situated in
the tension, the beginning and end oI all creation, so too does the intellect that has
become totally selI-absorbed create the appearance oI a plenitude oI Iigures Irom zero. It
thinks it can wrench the world Irom this meaningless universal, which is situated closest
to that zero and distinguishes itselI Irom it only to the extent necessary in order to deduct
a something. But the world is world only when it is interpreted by a universal that has
been really experienced. The intellect reduces the relations that permeate the maniIold to
the common denominator oI the concept oI energy, which is separated merely by a thin
layer Irom the zero. Or it robs historical events oI their paradoxical nature and, having
levelled them out, grasps them as progress in one-dimensional time. Or, seemingly
betraying itselI, it elevates irrational liIe` to the digniIied status oI an entity in order to
recover itselI, in its delimitation, Irom the now liberated residue oI the totality oI human
being, and in order to traverse the realms across their entire expanse. II one takes as one`s
basis these extreme reductions oI the real, then (as Simmel`s philosophy oI liIe conIirms)
one can obtain a distorted image oI the discoveries made in the upper spheresan image
that is no less comprehensive than the one provided by the insistence oI the words God`
and spirit`. But even less ambiguously than the abusive employment oI categories that
have become incomprehensible, it is the deployment oI empty abstractions that
announces the actual position oI a thinking that has slipped out oI the tension. The
visitors in the hotel lobby who allow the individual to disappear behind the peripheral
equality oI social masks, correspond to the exhausted terms that coerce diIIerences out oI
the uniIormity oI the zero. Here, the visitors suspend the undetermined special being
which, in the house oI God, gives way to that invisible equality oI beings standing beIore
God (out oI which it both renews and determines itselI)by devolving into tuxedos. And
the triviality oI their conversation haphazardly aimed at utterly insigniIicant objects so
that one might encounter oneselI in their exteriority, is only the obverse oI prayer,
directing downward what they idly circumvent.
The observance oI silence, no less obligatory in the hotel lobby than in the house oI
God, indicates that in both places people consider themselves essentially as equals. In
Rethinking Architecture 54
Death in Jenice Thomas Mann Iormulates this as Iollows: A solemn stillness reigned in
the room, oI the sort that is the pride oI all large hotels. The attentive waiters moved
about on noiseless Ieet. A rattling oI the tea service, a halI-whispered word was all that
one could hear.` The contentless solemnity oI this conventionally imposed silence does
not arise out oI mutual courtesy, oI the sort one encounters everywhere, but rather serves
to eliminate diIIerences. It is a silence that abstracts Irom the diIIerentiating word and
compels one downward into the equality oI the encounter with the nothing, an equality
that a voice resounding through space would disturb. In the house oI God, by contrast,
silence signiIies the individual collecting himselI as Iirmly directed selI, and the word
addressed to human beings is eIIaced solely in order to release another word, which,
whether uttered or not, sits in judgment over human beings.
Since what counts here is not the dialogue oI those who speak, the members oI the
congregation are anonymous. They outgrow their names because the very empirical being
which these names designate disappears in prayer; thus, they do not know one another as
particular beings whose multiple determined existences enmesh them in the world. II the
proper name reveals its bearer, it also separates him Irom those whose names have been
called; it simultaneously discloses and obscures, and it is with good reason that lovers
want to destroy it, as iI it were the Iinal wall separating them. It is only the relinquishing
oI the namewhich abolishes the semi-solidarity oI the intermediate spheresthat
allows Ior the extensive solidarity oI those who step out oI the bright obscurity oI
reciprocal contact and into the night and the light oI the higher mystery. Now that they do
not know who the person closest to them is, their neighbour becomes the closest, Ior out
oI his disintegrating appearance arises a creation whose traits are also theirs. It is true that
only those who stand beIore God are suIIiciently estranged Irom one another to discover
they are brothers; only they are exposed to such an extent that they can love one another
without knowing one another and without using names. At the limit oI the human they rid
themselves oI their naming, so that the word might be bestowed upon thema word that
strikes them more directly than any human law. And in the seclusion to which such a
relativization oI Iorm generally pushes them, they inquire about their Iorm. Having been
initiated into the mystery that provides the name, and having become transparent to one
another in their relation to God, they enter into the we` signiIying a commonality oI
creatures that suspends and grounds all those distinctions and associations adhering to the
proper name.
This limit case we` oI those who have dispossessed themselves oI themselvesa
we` that is realized vicariously in the house oI God due to human limitationsis
transIormed in the hotel lobby into the isolation oI anonymous atoms. Here proIession is
detached Irom the person and the name gets lost in the space, since only the still unnamed
crowd can serve Ratio as a point oI attack. It reduces to the level oI the nothingout oI
which it wants to produce the worldeven those pseudo-individuals it has deprived oI
individuality, since their anonymity no longer serves any purpose other than meaningless
movement along the paths oI convention. But iI the meaning oI this anonymity becomes
nothing more than the representation oI the insigniIicance oI this beginning, the depiction
oI Iormal regularities, then it does not Ioster the solidarity oI those liberated Irom the
constraints oI the name; instead, it deprives those encountering one another oI the
possibility oI association that the name could have oIIered them. Remnants oI individuals
slip into the nirvana oI relaxation, Iaces disappear behind newspapers, and the artiIicial
Siegfried Kracauer 55
continuous light illuminates nothing but mannequins. It is the coming and going oI
unIamiliar people who have become empty Iorms because they have lost their password,
and who now Iile by as ungraspable Ilat ghosts. II they possessed an interior, it would
have no windows at all, and they would perish aware oI their endless abandonment,
instead oI knowing oI their homeland as the congregation does. But as pure exterior, they
escape themselves and express their non-being through the Ialse aesthetic aIIirmation oI
the estrangement that has been installed between them. The presentation oI the surIace
strikes them as an attraction; the tinge oI exoticism gives them a pleasurable shudder.
Indeed, in order to conIirm the distance whose deIinitive character attracts them, they
allow themselves to be bounced oII a proximity that they themselves have conjured up:
their monological Iantasy attaches designations to the masks, designations that use the
person Iacing them as a toy. And the Ileeting exchange oI glances which creates the
possibility oI exchange is acknowledged only because the illusion oI that possibility
conIirms the reality oI the distance. Just as in the house oI God, here too namelessness
unveils the meaning oI naming; but whereas in the house oI God it is an awaiting within
the tension that reveals the preliminariness oI names, in the hotel lobby it is a retreat into
the unquestioned groundlessness that the intellect transIorms into the names` site oI
origin. But where the call that uniIies into the we` is not heard, those that have Iled the
Iorm are irrevocably isolated.
In the congregation the entire community comes into being, Ior the immediate relation
to the supralegal mvsterv inaugurates the paradox oI the law that can be suspended in the
actuality oI the relation to God. That law is a penultimate term that withdraws when the
connection occurs that humbles the selI-assured and comIorts those in danger. The
tensionless people in the hotel lobby also represent the entire society, but not because
transcendence here raises them up to its level; rather, this is because the hustle and bustle
oI immanence is still hidden. Instead oI guiding people beyond themselves, the mystery
slips between the masks; instead oI penetrating the shells oI the human, it is the veil that
surrounds everything human; instead oI conIronting man with the question oI the
provisional, it paralyses the questioning that gives access to the realm oI provisionality.
In his all-too contemplative detective novel Der Tod kehrt im Hotel ein (Death Enters the
Hotel), Sven Elvestad writes:
Once again it is conIirmed that a large hotel is a world unto itselI and that
this world is like the rest oI the large world. The guests here roam about in
their light-hearted, careless summer existence without suspecting anything
oI the strange mysteries circulating among them.
Strange mysteries`: the phrase is ironically ambiguous. On the one hand, it reIers quite
generally to the disguised quality oI lived existence as such; on the other, it reIers to the
higher mystery that Iinds distorted expression in the illegal activities that threaten saIety.
The clandestine character oI all legal and illegal activitiesto which the expression
initially and immediately reIersindicates that in the hotel lobby the pseudo-liIe that is
unIolding in pure immanence is being pushed back toward its undiIIerentiated origin.
Were the mystery to come out oI its shell, mere possibility would disappear in the Iact:
by detaching the illegal Irom the nothing, the Something would have appeared. The hotel
management thereIore thoughtIully conceals Irom its guests the real events which could
Rethinking Architecture 56
put an end to the Ialse aesthetic situation shrouding that nothing. Just as the Iormerly
experienced higher mystery pushes those oriented toward it across the midpoint, whose
limit is deIined by the law, so does the mysterywhich is the distortion oI the higher
ground and as such the utmost abstraction oI the dangers that disrupt immanent liIe
relegate one to the lapsed neutrality oI the meaningless beginning Irom which the
pseudo-middle arises. It hinders the outbreak oI diIIerentiations in the service oI
emancipated Ratio, which strengthens its victory over the Something in the hotel lobby
by helping the conventions take the upper hand. These are so worn out that the activity
taking place in their name is at the same time an activity oI dissimulationan activity
that serves as protection Ior legal liIe just as much as Ior illegal liIe, because as the empty
Iorm oI all possible societies it is not oriented toward any particular thing but remains
content with itselI in its insigniIicance.
-./#
1 This hallmark phrase Irom Kant`s Critique of Judgement is put in quotation marks in the later
republication oI the essay.
.- #451.34#-/ *$#-+"#!6 /0# +.-!/&,+/".- .% *
!5*+#
Each social stratum has a space that is associated with it. Thus, that Neue Sachlichkeit
study, which one recognizes Irom Iilms but which oIten Iails to live up to the original,
belongs to the managing director. One is deceived by sensational literature: most oIten it
remains Iar behind reality in its inventiveness. As the characteristic location oI the small
dependent existences who still very much like to associate themselves with the sunken
middle class, more and more suburbs are Iormed. The Iew inhabitable cubic metres,
which cannot even be enlarged by the radio, correspond precisely to the narrow living
space oI this stratum. The typical space Ior the unemployed is more generously
proportioned but as a result is the opposite oI a home and certainly not a living space. It is
the employment agency. An arcade, through which the unemployed should once more
attain a gainIully employed existence. Today, unIortunately, the arcade is heavily
congested.
I have visited several Berlin employment agencies. Not in order to indulge the
enjoyment oI the reporter who commonly with a sieve creates things out oI liIe, but rather
in order to ascertain what position the unemployed actually occupy in the system oI our
society. Neither the diverse commentaries on unemployment statistics nor the relevant
parliamentary debates give any inIormation on this. They are ideologically permeated
and, in one sense or another, straighten out reality. In contrast, the space oI the
employment exchange is Iilled by reality itselI. Each typical space is brought into being
by typical social relationships that, without the distorting intervention oI consciousness,
express themselves in it. Everything that is disowned by consciousness, everything that
would otherwise be intentionally overlooked, contributes to its construction. Spatial
images are the dreams oI society. Wherever the hieroglyphics oI any spatial image are
deciphered, there the basis oI social reality presents itselI.
Siegfried Kracauer 57