ABSTRACT
The previous four chapters have explored Benjamin’s relevance to architecture
and urban design through interrelated themes: metropolitanism, radicalism,
modernism and utopianism. What should be readily apparent at this point is the
extent to which Benjamin’s thinking on art and architecture is regulated
fundamentally by social and political concerns. Benjamin’s take on modernism,
for example, centres on his appraisal of the social impact of modern technology
and this impact is grasped as an opportunity for revolutionary social change. So
too in the case of utopianism: the utopian impulse is not rejected as the source
of so many baseless flights of fancy, but rather appreciated as a necessary
element of any political perspective that holds out the hope of overcoming the
systemic social pathologies brought about by advanced capitalism.
