Abstract

This article examines the Crystal Arcade, the project of a little-known architect, Andrés Luna, read through the lens of Walter Benjamin’s contemporaneous Passagenwerk, at the same time as it is described within the complex context of Luna’s own family history—one entangled with the tragic history of the First Philippine Republic. It uses Benjamin’s “literary montage” to conjure the spectral presence of the colonial-cosmopolitan subject within his manuscript. I contend that the Crystal Arcade cannot be properly understood outside of a transnational framework and network, or without considering the conditions under which a colonial-cosmopolitan consciousness formed. Situating the Crystal Arcade and the Passagenwerk within this transnational milieu is intended to allow the reader to locate an often too marginalized history within the heart of the nineteenth-century global metropolis while at the same time allowing us to place that history at the forefront of the theorization of the global city.

摘要

本文考察了水晶拱廊，一个鲜为人知的建筑师 Andrés Luna 的项目，通过 Walter Benjamin 同时代的Passagenwerk的镜头阅读，同时在 Luna 自己的家族历史的复杂背景下描述它 - 一个纠缠于菲律宾第一共和国的悲惨历史。它使用本雅明的“文学蒙太奇”在他的手稿中召唤出殖民世界主义主题的幽灵般的存在。我认为，在跨国框架和网络之外，或者不考虑殖民世界主义意识形成的条件，就无法正确理解水晶拱廊。定位水晶拱廊和Passagenwerk在这个跨国环境中，旨在让读者在 19 世纪全球大都市的中心找到一段经常被边缘化的历史，同时让我们将这段历史置于全球城市理论化的前沿。