ABSTRACT
One of the most fascinating figures to have appeared, disappeared and subsequently reappeared in the landscape of Western culture has been the flaneur, the strolling urban observer. In the late-eighteenth and early nineteenth-century Europe, flanerie was considered more than a hobby; it was seen as an appropriate (indeed, perhaps the most appropriate) mode of viewing and negotiating the complexities of the city. With the changes in urban design wrought by industrialism (for instance, its imperative to accommodate vehicular traffic and maximize space efficiency), it was thought that the flaneur’s seemingly aimless ambulations and observations were doomed.
