The Journal of Architecture

ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rjar20

Walter Benjamin’s topology of envelopes and

perspectives

Laurence Kimmel

To cite this article: Laurence Kimmel (2020) Walter Benjamin’s topology of envelopes and
perspectives, The Journal of Architecture, 25:6, 659-678, DOI: 10.1080/13602365.2020.1800791

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/13602365.2020.1800791

Published online: 08 Oct 2020.

Submit your article to this journal

Article views: 11

View related articles

View Crossmark data

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at

https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=rjar20
 659 The Journal
of Architecture
Volume 25
Number 6

Walter Benjamin’s topology of

envelopes and perspectives

This article identifies conditions for architecture as political agency. It dis- Laurence Kimmel
cusses how the spatial organisation of architecture can be strongly influ-
enced by a broader social context. Conversely, it also discusses how Faculty of the Built Environment
architecture affects the social behaviour of its users and exerts political University of New South Wales
meanings. The theoretical proposition of this article is based on Walter Sydney, Australia
Benjamin’s identification of a strong interaction between spatial organ- laurence.kimmel@unsw.edu.au
isation and social context. In this light, Benjamin analysed pervasive
architecture, such as the bourgeois interior, and publicly accessible build-
ings that welcome large crowds. He argued that this interaction is
especially visible in the intertwining of interior and exterior, public and
private, individual and collective spaces. Jean-Louis Déotte later analysed
Benjamin’s examples of architecture as ‘apparatuses’ that significantly
affect social life via their spatial characteristics, and thus acquiring politi-
cal agency. Building on Déotte’s philosophy, this article examines further
conditions under which ‘architectures as apparatuses’ both reveal and
affect social life in a way that echoes Benjamin’s earlier descriptions. I
start by interrogating conventions of ‘envelopes’ and ‘perspective’ in
the spatial organisation of architecture to propose both a new method-
ology of analysis and radical redefinitions. I then apply this new method-
ology to analyse Benjaminian examples from the past, such as the city of
Naples, Andrea Palladio’s Teatro Olimpico, and the iconic example of the
Parisian arcades. This analysis demonstrates key characteristics of ‘archi-
tectures as apparatuses’ and interrelations between (individual, or
groups of) users that are orchestrated by the case studies’ spatial organ-
isation. Finally, I revisit the widely discussed Yokohama Ferry Terminal
project by Foreign Office Architects (FOA) to present it as a contemporary
example of ‘architecture as apparatus’.

Jean-Louis Déotte’s reading of Benjamin: architecture as a metaphor

for society

Among the extensive scholarship on architecture’s capacity to both express and

affect social life, Walter Benjamin’s illuminating observations on an extraordi-
nary array of architectures and cities stand out. His work showcased relations
between concrete and material characteristics, signs and spectacles, commod-
ities and constructions, spatial organisations and social life. Benjamin’s writings
on architecture and the metropolis in a capitalist context at the time of industri-
alisation and ‘the age of mechanical reproducibility’ have been widely discussed
by architects and academics. Departing from traditional analyses of Benjamin’s

# 2020 RIBA Enterprises 1360-2365 https://doi.org/10.1080/13602365.2020.1800791

660 Walter Benjamin’s topology of envelopes and perspectives
Laurence Kimmel

work, this article builds on the reflections of Jean-Louis Déotte, and especially his
book Walter Benjamin et la forme plastique (2012), which is scantly known
outside of the French-speaking scholarly world.
Through his novel critical reading of Benjamin’s work, Déotte argued that
Benjamin’s examples of architecture are metaphors for changes in society. As
metaphors, they do not reflect the state of things but the ‘dialectics’ and recon-
figuration of our public and private lives. This premise acts as a theoretical basis
for this article, which argues for architecture’s capacity to significantly affect
social life and to acquire political agency. It resonates with Déotte’s reading
of ‘architectures as apparatuses’ through Benjamin’s writings. Building on the
work of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Karl Marx, Theodor Adorno and
Walter Benjamin developed philosophical methodologies to analyse such ‘dia-
lectics’ in artworks. They traced ‘dialectics’ in the tension or opposition
between interacting forces or elements in one work, experience, or situation.1
Adorno’s definition emphasised the dichotomy of two interacting forces. In
architecture, this could be the opposition and interaction between public and
private spaces. Benjamin’s definition was similar to Adorno’s, but placed less
emphasis on the dichotomy of tensions. Instead, Benjamin focused on the
ways in which complex social forces determine architectural forms. The follow-
ing quote from Déotte’s ‘Introduction’ in Walter Benjamin et la forme plastique
explains how Benjaminian architecture acts as a metaphor for changes in
society:
In his writings […] on Baudelaire, Benjamin gives details about the apparatuses
that explain the cultural production of an era such as the nineteenth century:
essentially, the urban passage […] [T]he urban passage introduces to the
eminent political question of urbanism as matrix of the collective dream, generat-
ing all the dreams of the nineteenth century. The urban passage is the main aspect
of the configuration of the original dream of the nineteenth century, that the
twentieth century will inherit. […] W. Benjamin, through the Copernican-like revo-
lution he claims for history, […] brings this ‘technical unconscious’ and these
materials into the sphere of the collective dream. To put it more politically, the
redefinition of history is for him in the service of action.2
Déotte traced links between ‘technique’, ‘instruments’, ‘apparatus’, ‘social
context’, and the ‘political’ in Benjamin’s writings. But these links remained
undefined. This article seeks to clarify the links between these concepts in Ben-
jamin’s writings. To do so, it relies on a series of definitions of three ‘levels’ of the
apparatus.
The first level of the apparatus is linked to the categories of ‘techniques’
and ‘instruments’. Here, ‘technique’ refers to technologies of construction
(in metal, glass, concrete, and other materials, including prefabricated
modules). ‘Instruments’ refer to optical devices (such as perspective) that
affect the perception of reality and the experience of space.3 In architecture,
‘instruments’ also include drawings and other projecting techniques, such as
perspectives applied to built forms or, in our current time, computational
design. By applying techniques and instruments to designs, architectures
become first-level apparatuses.4
 661 The Journal
of Architecture
Volume 25
Number 6

The second level of the apparatus is linked to the category of ‘social context’.
Here, ‘social context’ refers to the behaviours and social constructs of the urban
that are exemplified in the nineteenth-century flânerie, dandyism, spleen, pros-
titution, ennui, fetishism of merchandise, capitalism, universal exhibitions, and
in our time by the current tropes of late capitalism. The second level of the
apparatus is evidenced in architecture affected by the diffuse characteristics
of social contexts. Museums, passages or arcades, cinemas, and theatres are
examples of second-level apparatuses. The social context also affects spatial
characteristics, such as the links between interior and exterior, and between
public and private space.5
The third level of the apparatus is linked to the category of ‘the political’. Here,
‘the political’ refers to architecture’s capacity to foreground its technical and
social characteristics into the conscious collective experience and, more impor-
tantly, into the unconscious collective experience, i.e. the collective dream for
social change.6
In addition to these definitions, Benjamin’s concept of the ‘singular’ in archi-
tecture is key here. Benjamin developed his philosophical analysis of einzigartig
(singular) artworks with reference to Charles Baudelaire.7 For Benjamin, archi-
tecture is ‘singular’ when it cannot be reduced to an ‘interiority’ or ‘exteriority’,
a private or a public space, or an individual or collective space. The ‘singular’ can
be both widespread and popular, such as the Parisian arcades. But it was these
arcades’ characteristic irreducibility, their intertwining of interior and exterior
spaces, that distinguished them as a metaphor for the social and political
changes from the nineteenth to the twentieth century. This is why Benjamin
analysed them as metaphors for change in the modern period.8
Based on Benjamin’s definitions of ‘dialectics’ and the ‘singular’, this article
presents two key hypotheses. First, a ‘singular’ architecture comprises a dialec-
tic, and it is this dialectic that renders an architecture ‘singular’. Secondly, if a
‘singular’ architecture affects the crowd, then it becomes political. A ‘singular’
dialectical architecture that significantly affects the crowd is an ‘apparatus’.
These architectures are diverse. They include publicly accessible collective archi-
tectures (such as the arcade) and predominantly private architectures (such as
the bourgeois interior).9
If new apparatuses exist beyond Benjamin’s examples, do they present a
similar intertwining of interior and exterior to his ‘architectures as apparatuses’?
Addressing this question, the article offers a novel methodology for analysing
the sociopolitical significance of architectures past and present, based on their
instantiation of an interior/exterior dialectic.

Benjamin’s dialectics of ‘singular’ architecture: identification of clusters

The focus on the category of ‘singular architecture’ can be traced back to Ben-
jamin’s analysis of the split between the individual and the collective in western
society in the modern period. Benjamin highlighted the distinction that arose
between the individual sensibility (how one dreams and possesses a willpower)
and the collective sensibility (of the urban crowd). In ‘The Narrator’, he described
662 Walter Benjamin’s topology of envelopes and perspectives
Laurence Kimmel

how this divergence signalled the end of oral tradition as the catalyst between
the individual and the collective, leading to the global impoverishment of experi-
ence.10 Benjamin’s point resonates with the work of philosopher Gilbert Simon-
don who theorised how the experience of the private sphere became
disconnected or ‘dephased’ from the experience of the collective sphere in
the modern period.11 This has also led to the dissociation between the psychol-
ogy of the individual on the one side, and the sociology of the collective on the
other. In The Interpretation of Dreams (1900), Sigmund Freud also argued that
the perceptive system that was used for collective life had by then been disso-
ciated from the recording of individual mnemonic traces.12
Since this mid eighteenth-century split between the individual and the collec-
tive, cities cannot be simply understood through the symbolic sense of their
shapes. They need to be analysed through their dialectics. For Benjamin, the
architecture of defined types, shapes, styles, geometries, and functions does
not contribute to one’s knowledge about a society. This is what only a ‘singular’
space or building can do, and in so doing, it also overcomes the split. Such
examples are important for the collective, because these ‘singular’ spaces are
shared by the crowd. They are therefore significant to the lives of a wide
range of people. For Benjamin, architecture is not defined by its (individual or
collective) function, or (public or private) status. In his ‘singular architectures’,
these conventional dichotomies are intertwined. As such, these architectures
manifest socially and politically productive spatial relations within the built
fabric as envelope. A ‘singular’ architecture meets the following criteria: (a)
neither strictly individual nor strictly collective, it offers a scope of shared func-
tions and mix of individual uses; (b) neither strictly private nor strictly public, it
features ambiguous and flexible boundaries that enable temporary changes in
its status, which can be negotiated between private and public parties.13
This concept of ‘singularity’ can be traced in the conditions of ‘interiority/
exteriority’ that are manifested by the built fabric as envelope. An absolutely
interior space typically aligns with a private status for an individual function,
while an absolutely exterior space typically aligns with a public status for a col-
lective function (Fig. 1). This is the spectrum of Benjamin’s ‘singular’ architec-
ture, from the interior to the exterior extremes. Each example is represented
by a circle that is relatively sized to reflect the level of dialectics described in Ben-
jamin’s writings.
The ordinate represents the level of dialectics for each example (Fig. 1). For
Benjamin, dialectics can recall the lost unity between the individual and the col-
lective in ‘singular’ architectures, such as the cinema, the museum, the theatre,
and the arcade. To cite just one example, the theatre is both a place of social
gathering and offers an individual experience of the play. That boxes were set
like interiors in Parisian theatres of the nineteenth century is not coincidental.14
Two primary clusters emerge in this ‘spectrum of singular architecture’. The
‘interior cluster’ is centred around the bourgeois interior, with views towards
the street and with accumulations of objects from all over the world (an ‘interior
as exterior’). The ‘exterior cluster’ is centred around the arcade as a pocket of
public space inside a Parisian block (an ‘exterior as interior’). For Benjamin,
 663 The Journal
of Architecture
Volume 25
Number 6

the arcades exemplified the dialectics between the collective and the individual Figure 1.
through their instantiation of a Durchdringung of the interior and the exterior. Spectrum showing the array of
Benjamin utilised this term in numerous writings about urban space. He had main architectural examples studied
by Walter Benjamin, drawn by
borrowed it from Sigfried Giedion’s book Bauen in Frankreich.15 The English
Laurence Kimmel
translation of Durchdringung is ‘interpenetration’. More precisely, Durchdrin-
gung is composed of the German prefix ‘durch-’ that means ‘through’, and
by the suffix ‘dringen’ that means ‘to penetrate’. By the association of both
words, the meaning of durchdringen is ‘to interpenetrate’, or ‘to penetrate
into all parts of a space by virtue of strength, intensity, or similar’.16 In architec-
tural terms, this would mean that space A penetrates space B, and space B sim-
ultaneously penetrates space A. The resulting shape of these spaces can be
configured in various ways. The two clusters display a Durchdringung
between interior and exterior. In arcades, this Durchdringung is created as the
open space of the city extends inside the block to penetrate into the shops
within. The space of private apartments is also situated above shops that are
directed towards the arcade, allowing for the life of the arcade to penetrate
into the interior of the apartments.17
Some examples in the middle of the spectrum may fall outside of these clus-
ters. These bear low dialectical value because their public and private spaces are
quasi-continuous. Such examples would include the use of curvature that
blurred boundaries between interior and exterior in the architecture of Art
Nouveau, or large glass windows of Le Corbusier’s villas that connect interiors
directly to the exterior space. Finally, the two ends of the spectrum (absolute
interiors or absolute exteriors) do not bear dialectics. Theoretically speaking,
the architecture of the ‘absolute exterior’ end of the spectrum is a line, and
the architecture of its ‘absolute interior’ end is an enclosed envelope (a
sphere, a cube, or any other shape).
This schema provides a critique of approaches that present the history of
architecture as a linear and progressive succession of architectural styles.
Social characteristics position ‘singular architecture’ on the spectrum,
664 Walter Benjamin’s topology of envelopes and perspectives
Laurence Kimmel

determining topologies of interconnecting and porous envelopes that represent

dialectics of public and private spaces. Upon further philosophical reflection, the
aesthetics of architecture are not based on appearance, but on fundamental
spatial characteristics that are linked with social aspects.

Étui-man: ‘singular’ architecture as topology of envelopes

In his conclusion, Déotte referred to Benajmin’s redundant topological percep-

tion of architecture in his (and Asja Lacis’s joint) writings.18 Embarking from
Déotte’s conclusion, this section explores the possibility of a generalised topolo-
gical analysis of architectures. Benjamin describes architecture through Aristotle’s
philosophy of topos, or places defined by their envelopes on the one hand, and
three-dimensional perspectives on the other.19 Before they can be combined in a
topological method, these two aspects need to be addressed distinctly.
Edward Casey used the words ‘boundary’ and ‘limit’ to translate Aristotle’s
topos. The three-dimensional equivalent of Casey’s ‘boundary’ and ‘limit’ is
the ‘envelope’.20 Benjamin’s writings on architecture presented a complex top-
ology of envelopes, in this Aristotelian sense. In his texts, Benjamin often pre-
sented a nineteenth- or twentieth-century apartment as an étui, a lined
receptacle that forms a kind of protective shell. He also described Naples as mul-
tiple envelopes whose individual and collective spaces were intertwined to
create a ‘porous’ city. ‘As porous as this stone is the architecture. Building
and action interpenetrate in the courtyards, arcades, and stairways. In every-
thing, they preserve the scope to become a theatre of new, unforeseen constel-
lations.’21 Benjamin considered envelopes in terms of their topological relations.
He studied their ‘geometrical properties and spatial relations unaffected by the
continuous change of shape or size of figures’.22 But Benjamin’s notion of top-
ology transgressed this mathematical definition of neutral spaces. By extending
these definitions of envelope and topology to embrace spatial characteristics, he
arguably linked the topology of architecture and cities with social life. In top-
ology, the relation between shapes can be the same, while other geometrical
aspects are different (to cite just one example, the sphere, the cube, and the
pyramid are topologically equivalent). As topology emphasises properties and
spatial relationships, it remains ‘disinterested’ in the transformation of shapes.
This disinterest enables topology to detach the issue of shape from that of struc-
ture and form. Henceforth, I will therefore use the term ‘form’ to describe a
shape with a defined topology. This redefinition of form, as both built fabric
and structure, retains the transformative characteristics of the topology that
creates it.
A topological approach relies on spatial characteristics, rather than geometry
and architectural styles. As Daniel Payot has also argued, a city is defined by a
‘mode of spacing’, rather than geometries.23 Euclidean geometry does not
account for the ‘surface discontinuities’ that result from Durchdringung. Con-
sidering non-Euclidean envelopes, topology enables one to study these
‘surface discontinuities’ and what is effectively regarded as the interior and
exterior of architecture.
 665 The Journal
of Architecture
Volume 25
Number 6

The transformative aspect of topology links architecture with processes that

Benjamin would associate with the ‘collective dream’. Like a kaleidoscope,
architecture becomes an optical instrument that could transform the way a col-
lective sees or dreams of the city.24 A topological approach reveals the charac-
teristics of architecture as apparatus. Georges Teyssot has also built on Déotte’s
writings to describe architectures that enable a kind of ‘topological transform-
ation of an interior into an exterior’, to create a ‘dreamlike’ interior and a
‘dreamlike’ city. But he did not proceed to consider specific architectural
spatial topologies, as this article attempts to do in what follows.25

Intertwining envelopes and multiple perspectives

Although Benjamin’s concept of the ‘singular’ applies after the split between
the individual and the collective, the potential of architectures to have a political
meaning before and after this ‘split’ is based on the complex spatial and tem-
poral meanings of intertwined envelopes.
The experience of enclosed envelopes can be categorised as follows. First, an
enclosed envelope creates the sense of the present, uniting a concrete materi-
ality with a tangible purpose. Benjamin called this the ‘concrete tactile proximity’
of architecture that objectifies the place where one stands, and links the obser-
ver to reality.26 The envelope is mainly objective and graspable. Second, an
enclosed envelope encapsulates the past. Benjamin used the term étui-man
(Behälter in German) to describe the idea of encapsulating objects from the
past for conservation.27 The French word étui is used in the English translation
and means ‘container’ or ‘case’. Third, an enclosed envelope has no access to
the future. The absence of access and outward view does not enable any meta-
phorical sense of action in space.
Benjamin privileged a ‘hierarchy of places that envelop each other’ to describe
some architectures in the premodern era.28 Although these architectures are
not ‘singular’ and dialectic in the sense of the modern period, they do have a
political meaning. This is why I have included the example of Naples in the dia-
grammatic spectrum. Benjamin and Lacis’ description of Naples is neither in the
middle, nor an example of one cluster; it occupies two places on the spectrum
(Fig. 1).29 This means that Naples is not the necessary endpoint of a linear pro-
gression. Benjamin and Lacis’ philosophical account of Naples expands the
complex notion of architecture as topology to the everyday reality of a whole
city. Through the multiple intertwined envelopes that constitute Naples, the
architecture of the city displays complex temporal meaning. As such, it also
has a potentially political meaning.
On the right extreme of the spectrum, the ‘absolute exterior’ is a line that can
be seen as a perspective line. Perspective lines need to be included in the topo-
logical analysis, as perspective has played a dominant role as an instrument of
designing cities and architecture since the Renaissance.30 Among different
instruments that have been historically developed, Benjamin identified perspec-
tive as the most influential. It was an instrument that affected cities and archi-
tectures primarily as a tool of projection in space. The theoretical model of
 666 Walter Benjamin’s topology of envelopes and perspectives
Laurence Kimmel

Figure 2.
The theoretical models of the
envelope and the perspective line,
drawn by Laurence Kimmel

the perspective line as ‘absolute exterior’ indicates an absence of dialectics. But

this does not mean it is also exempt from complexities concerning its temporal
meaning. The experience of the perspective line can be described in the three
following ways. First, it is an idealised projection towards the future. Perspective
lines historically became analogous to the progressive line towards the future.
The one-point perspective is an illusionistic device that ‘charms the eye’ and con-
structs an ideal, infinite, and abstract convergence towards a distant future.
Second, it serves as a possible link between past and future. Perspective is a pro-
jective device that constructs knowledge of the past for the future by imposing
geometry upon the matter of the city. It also objectifies ideas by distancing
subject and object. As Déotte has also noted, ‘[p]erspectives on the past, thus
objectivations that can only have sense from the present, the only one who
can deliver a tactile proximity’.31 Third, it is an arrested moment of the
present. Rendering things visible in an instant, perspective also invents ‘the con-
temporaneity of the moment’ within the symbolic sense of infinity (in time and
space).32
The complex spatial and temporal meaning of the perspective line is revolu-
tionary in relation to the experience of envelopes (Fig. 2). The objectivity of
the envelope has often been combined with the idealism of perspective. The
arcade and the panorama are good examples of intertwined perspectives and
envelopes. Designed through perspectives, the arcade is also an enveloped
interior. Representing continuous urban perspectives of cities or battlefields,
the panorama also acts as an envelope. Benjamin also noted how Le Corbusier
used multiple perspectives to develop a Cubist approach to dwellings in the
twentieth century.33 Their complex temporal meaning influences perception
of these examples. Shaped by the instruments that created it, architecture
becomes a first-level apparatus.
Following Benjamin’s philosophy, the new way to experience the world is not
through a direct objectification of things, but via distancing from reality. This
experience consists of using perspective and other visual instruments to
combine illusions and dream with a concrete materiality and a tangible percep-
tion of the envelope and its tactile proximity.34 This intertwining enables a new
 667 The Journal
of Architecture
Volume 25
Number 6

kind of objectifying and linking with the present. Benjamin’s reinvention of the
concept of perspective reversed the philosophical system of the purely ideal per-
spective. ‘For Marx, theory must straighten the initially inverted relation: only a
good perspective could act this way and straighten the wrongs of ideology!’35
But for Benjamin, perspective must bear the reality of the dialectics of the
modern city. Perspective acquires an additional revolutionary status when its
characteristics are combined with envelopes. Through this combination, a mul-
tiplicity of distant and near sensations creates a continuously variable experi-
ence. It is an intertwining in space and time that plays on the far and the
near. It functions like a collection of moments that engages the past and the
present to enable a projection into the future. Through the temporal meaning
of their experience, the observer encounters a delayed moment of truth.36
This new paradigm unsettles the hierarchy between observer and environ-
ment that either prescribes the dominance of the observer over the environ-
ment, or the effect of the environment on the observer’s experience. The
observer has varying degrees of control on his environment. These fluctuate
between the overview (which is less extreme than the perspective line) and a
limited sight of the environment (which is less extreme than the enclosed envel-
ope). In this new paradigm, the topology of architecture, and the experience of
the observer, is not hierarchical; it is structured in a new way.37 The shape of the
curve on the spectrum shows that there is no hierarchy between different
examples (Fig. 1). The curve for the historical period analysed by Benjamin is
defensible as an outcome of his philosophy: the same topological relations
can be realised in variable shapes, as opposed to defined ‘types’. These vari-
ations can result from discontinuities from one topology to another.
Since the diagrammatic curve reflects aspects of Benjamin’s philosophy, it
cannot be understood as universal. One could study other philosophies to
explore the potential for a wider application of Benjamin’s theory.38 But it is
sociologists who have further explored the continuing split between the individ-
ual and the collective. To cite just one example, Richard Sennett’s research has
focused on the inhabitation of private spaces. Sennett has demonstrated how
this directly affects collective and publicly accessible architectures. Exploring
the dialectics between public and private spaces in the city, he has pointed
out the ways in which a capitalist society reinforces one’s desire of protection
behind sealed boundaries of private places.39 Sennett has shown how intense
and everchanging social transformations have created a collection of enclosed
family units, or a disparate and conflictual collection of individuals at the
urban scale. As the city becomes a mosaic of secluded individuals or micro-com-
munities, public life and public spaces gradually disappear. The lack of dialectics
between public and private spaces results in neutral, sterile, and homogeneous
living environments. The extremes of the spectrum (enclosed interiors and
neutral open space) are enhanced.
To address this homogeneity, the clusters in the diagrammatic spectrum offer
opportunities to recover a sense of collectivity in interiors and a sense of indivi-
duality in public space, by connecting interiors and exteriors. Hence, ‘interior as
exterior’ and ‘exterior as interior’ are ‘singularities’ and not agents of forces that
668 Walter Benjamin’s topology of envelopes and perspectives
Laurence Kimmel

homogenise spaces in the city. These clusters on the spectrum and the variable
curve that describes generalised tendencies would continue to provide con-
ditions for new ‘singular’ architecture. The shape of the curve will probably
be less pronounced in the future. It will also display more secondary variations
that will mirror the image of an increasingly fragmented and diverse western
society.

Singular architecture as complex topology: Teatro Olimpico, Naples,

arcades, and the new Benjaminian example of the Yokohama Ferry Terminal

This section explores four examples of ‘singular’ architecture as complex top-

ology, and their potential consideration as ‘instruments’ of perception and
‘apparatuses’. The Parisian arcades are a form of collective publicly accessible
architecture. The Teatro Olimpico is an example of semi-publicly accessible
architecture. Finally, both collective and individual architectures are to be
found in Naples. These three examples exemplify the overarching theory of
architecture as metaphor for society.
The ‘singular’ architecture of Andrea Palladio’s Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza
(1580–1585) manifests a complex topology of envelopes (Fig. 3). In Benjamin’s
words,
behind the archway, a very wide perspective on a street appears. An extraordi-
narily powerful perspectival illusion has been achieved by gradually elevating
the stage floor […] Its beauty becomes evident in its transition from the street
to the hall and onto an open stage.40
The Teatro Olimpico functions as a first-level apparatus through the instrument
of perspective. This is applied to the built forms in the trompe l’oeil onstage
scenery, which was designed by Vincenzo Scamozzi to create the impression
of long streets receding into a distant horizon. Benjamin described this as a
topological intertwining of spectators and stage. The hall and the stage are
the main topological envelopes, while the ramp acts as a buffer zone that
results from the intersection of these two envelopes. Through its effect on
the spectators, the Teatro Olimpico acts as an early apparatus of the modern
period.
While the Teatro Olimpico is an apparatus, the theatre itself is a weaker pol-
itical agent than a freely accessible public interior. In theatre spaces, the public is
static and there is limited freedom for the spatial reconfiguration of people. In
contrast to the Teatro Olimpico, Naples as a city and the arcades as architecture
are freely and fully accessible by the public, and people have more freedom to
move in these spaces. The political agency of these two examples on the life of
people are more important. In Naples, Benjamin and Lacis described buildings in
terms of theatre stages.
Buildings are used as a popular stage. They are all divided into innumerable, sim-
ultaneously animated theatres. Balcony, courtyard, window, gateway, staircase,
roof are at the same time stage and boxes […] What is enacted on the staircases
is a high school of stage management. The stairs, never entirely exposed […] erupt
 669 The Journal
of Architecture
Volume 25
Number 6

fragmentarily from the buildings, make an angular turn, and disappear, only to
Figure 3.
burst out again.41 Andrea Palladio and Vincenzo
Benjamin and Lacis emphasised flexible spaces as a buffer between large-scale Scamozzi, Teatro Olimpico,
public spaces and private envelopes. These could be potentially inverted at Vicenza, 1580–1585,
photographed by Laurence Kimmel
different times of the day. In Georges Teyssot’s words, ‘here the membrane
acts as a place of exchange. The whole city is porous, and allows for multiple
penetrations, offering unique opportunities of interchange and transaction.
Such porosity is what architecture could or should offer’.42 At the scale of the
city, Benjamin’s topological approach enables one to consider the intertwining
of envelopes (with different shapes and degrees of openness) and perspectives.
These create the complex topological system of the urban fabric. The whole
process unfolds like a physics of envelopes that evolve in time through a field
of forces that affects them and produces the city. This evolution of the topology
of architecture in time is facilitated by social life (as in the ways in which people
use the balconies of Naples, to cite just one example). Conversely, as the evol-
ution of these topological characteristics in space and time affects social life,
Naples as a city exerts an impact and acquires a political meaning.
The concept of architecture as a topology of envelopes can be broadly applied
along the spectrum (Fig. 1), hinting at a potential generalisation of Benjamin’s
underpinning philosophy. In this topology, it is rather impossible to dissociate
the content from the container. Benjamin illustrated this with the visual
symbol of the ‘inside-out sock’ that implicitly links the Teatro Olimpico, the
balcony in Naples, and the Parisian arcade.43 As a child, he was fascinated by
this object, with its ambiguous links between interior and exterior.44 The top-
ology of the ‘inside-out sock’ represents the philosophy of the Durchdringung
between content and container.
Benjamin’s framing of specific characteristics of the arcades are obviously
linked to this metaphor. Architectural topologies that relate to the ‘inside-out
sock’ can potentially serve as a productive matrix of images that address the
unconscious. As such, the arcade can potentially initiate dreams and reflections
670 Walter Benjamin’s topology of envelopes and perspectives
Laurence Kimmel

on public and private spaces. Making public space an interior is linked to strat-
egies of merchandising that make one captive to prompt purchases. The arcade
is both consistent with this and differs from an enclosed department store. The
arcade’s continuity with other public spaces enables more freedom of action
and thought. Aligned with Benjamin’s philosophy of a non-hierarchical position-
ing of observer and environment, the arcade enables this relation, as does any
topology equivalent to the ‘inside-out sock’ (Fig. 4). Continuously occupied or
traversed by the public, the arcades directly address the unconscious of the
crowd socially and politically. They reinforce the dialectics between the
captive customers and their freedom to act and think. The ‘inside-out sock’ is
an apt metaphor for a society whose spatial dialectics between interior and
exterior are temporally invertible.
The symbolism of the ‘inside-out sock’ for Benjamin’s theory of architecture
as metaphor for society leads one to consider its relevance for the topologi-
cally similar contemporary example of the Yokohama Ferry Terminal (YFT).
This project was designed by the former practice of Alejandro Zaera-Polo
and Farshid Moussavi, Foreign Office Architects (FOA), in 1995. Completed
in 2002, the building forms part of the Port of Yokohama, which is consti-
tuted by multiple piers that stretch into Tokyo Bay. The undulating topogra-
phy of the deck and the different spaces of the Terminal offer constantly
changing perspectives towards the expansive sea and the sky above.
Special junctions and the convergence of decking with a mixture of ramps
and steps further complicate the gaze, as they act like supplementary per-
spective lines (Fig. 5). The architectural design of the building entices visitors
to move from earth to sea first on the outer deck, and then through the
building. The paths and entrances for both pedestrians and vehicles are
designed in continuity with the shore. The building seems to form part of
the topography of the area. The building is experienced as a succession of
spaces that have no strict boundaries. The general public coexists with the
passengers and the personnel of the Terminal who transit from the city to
the sea. They all pass through the open public space of the deck, which
includes public circulation and a car drop area. The Main Terminal is open
to the general public, as are the shops, restaurants, exhibition spaces, and
the Hall of Civic Exchange. It is only when visitors reach a transparent
window at the scale of the building that divides those who wish to board
a ferry from the general public that stays behind the threshold. These trans-
parent thresholds for the (National and International) Passenger Lobbies
create a visual connection towards the deck. Even where access is restricted,
the feel of a public space is thus retained. The edges of the triangular shapes
of the building act as perspective lines that lead the gaze from one space to
another. Triangulated surfaces can be considered as the merging of envel-
opes and perspectives.
At the initial stages of the design process, the architects referred to a field of
forces that represented the required social functions of the building, as outlined
in the client’s guidelines. Zaera-Polo expressed his sympathy with the ideological
stance of the editors of the book Grounds and Envelopes, ‘which revolves
 671 The Journal
of Architecture
Volume 25
Number 6

Figure 4.
around the notion that the processes of the built environment affecting grounds Jean Billaud, Galerie Colbert, and
and envelopes are determined by certain forces which transcend the local, and Francois Jean Delannoy, Galerie
yet are affected by it’.45 These forces include those from the natural context of Vivienne, floor plans, 1826–1827,
ecosystems and geologies, and from the social context of ‘economies, political Brown University Library, digital ID
1082050105953125
systems’46 (of ‘late capitalism’47). Cristina Díaz Moreno and Efrén García Grinda
have identified the transformation of processes of ‘urban conditions […] into
buildings’ in FOA’s architecture.48 FOA emphasised the importance of tech-
nique and instruments in their design process. ‘Technique arose as a natural
mediator, as an instrument that enables us to operate while remaining external
to the situation.’49 The interviewer for El Croquis identified a ‘very instrumental,
operative vision’ in FOA’s design process that centres on the production of a
new topological grid enabled by computational design tools.50 In this context,
Zaera-Polo highlighted FOA’s intention to
 672 Walter Benjamin’s topology of envelopes and perspectives
Laurence Kimmel

Figure 5.
Foreign Office Architects,
Yokohama Ferry Terminal, 1995–
2002, photographed by Laurence
Kimmel

shift from the parallel transversal grid of the competition entry to a new topologi-
cal grid. […] In moving from Cartesian space to one where the reference system
changes, the project overcame the outdated technique of parallel sections,
which had become cliché in attempts to capture the liquid spaces of late capitalism
[…] [T]he building was the outcome of a radical process of formal determination,
rather than mere deformation or sought-after aesthetic effects.51
Hence, according to the architects, the field of forces of the social context was
applied to ‘envelopes’ and ‘grounds’ through the use of ‘techniques’ and
‘instruments’, such as the topological grid.52 In other words, FOA clearly
intend to create architectures as second-level apparatuses.
For FOA, ‘envelope’ primarily means a single container for the whole architec-
tural project.53 But their use of the word ‘envelope’ is more sophisticated in their
other writings. To cite just one example, Zaera-Polo has considered four cat-
egories of external envelopes for buildings: the flat-horizontal envelope, the
spherical envelope, the flat-vertical envelope, and the vertical envelope.54
Grounds shape spaces in the same way that envelopes do. This shows that
there is no strict dichotomy between FOA’s buildings as envelopes, and build-
ings as grounds. If the notion of ‘ground’ is incorporated in the notion of ‘envel-
ope’, then the entire design process can be defined as a topology of envelopes.
My description of the YFT project suggests that the building manifests charac-
teristics I have earlier identified with ‘singular’ architecture. FOA have also
explained that types are important as a starting point,55 but through the
design process these types were eventually ‘erased’. As such, the final project
cannot be analysed through types. FOA have described the outcome of this
field of forces of urban conditions that is applied to envelopes as shapes that
 673 The Journal
of Architecture
Volume 25
Number 6

are not clearly defined as floor, walls, and ceilings. Nonetheless, the resulting
built fabric remains ‘structured’. Zaera-Polo has insisted that the shapes are
neither determinate nor indeterminate. Continuous envelopes are ‘formed’ so
as to ‘maintain distinct architectural traits’ of spaces.56
To further determine whether the YFT is an example of ‘singular’ architecture,
one needs to consider its ‘interiority/exteriority’, function, and status.
In terms of ‘interiority/exteriority’, the building is mainly experienced as an
‘exterior as interior’. The building’s cross-sections show more enclosed interiors,
such as these within the structure of lateral V-shaped pillars. There are also
reserves for interior places, such as hidden service trenches, but also publicly
accessible pathways. These more enclosed interiors do not affect the main pos-
ition of the building on the spectrum (Fig. 1). As noted by Toyo Ito, ‘in this
project the architecture is nothing more than a point of passage’.57 The building
has no façade.58 The YFT is ‘singular’ in terms of links between interior and
exterior. It forms part of the exterior cluster (Fig. 1).
In terms of function, the building is traversed by collective spaces of two kinds:
those that are accessible to the general public, and those that are reserved to
passengers. In both cases, the collective space presents areas that accommodate
individual uses: soft grass and some shaded areas on the deck, seating areas in
the Main Terminal and the Lobbies. In the Lobbies, which are not accessible to
the public, there are more areas for collective uses, less for individual uses,
waiting and other areas for small groups. These spaces and uses are defined
in an open and fluid progression. Through the constant links between open
public space and interior public spaces, visitors can regularly fluctuate and nego-
tiate between a collective and an individual experience.
In terms of status, the building predominantly comprises freely accessible
public spaces. The ‘Rooftop Square’ is the part of the deck that hosts public
events. The areas that are accessible only by passengers appear as proxy
public spaces, owing to their fluid connections with the exterior. As in
modern airports and transit areas, privately operated shops and restaurants
are connected to the main public pathways. The private places within the
lateral V-shaped pillars are positioned between the interior public spaces and
the exterior boarding decks. These private places are directly positioned
towards the public interiors and exteriors of the building, whether they also
connect with them or not. As such, YFT’s status is primarily public, but inter-
twined with private uses.
In conclusion, the YFT is an example of ‘singular’ architecture, as the building
cannot be defined by a single function or status. FOA have expressed their
general intention to design ‘specific’ architectures. They have suggested that
what is ‘of interest for us about the current situation is that we now have
these technologies that enable us to produce individuals out of generic
systems, and systems out of merging of individuals’.59 The use of Moebius
strip-like shapes enables them to arrange different spaces of ‘interiority/exterior-
ity’, function, and status in a continuous system. In this spatial organisation, con-
tainer and content are interpenetrated, or durchdrungen. Benjamin’s
philosophy enables one to consider the topology of the YFT as an ‘inside-out
674 Walter Benjamin’s topology of envelopes and perspectives
Laurence Kimmel

sock’. It is a spatial organisation that responds to the field of the natural and the
social, as it intertwines interior and exterior, functions, and status.60
The political agency of the YFT’s ‘singular’ architecture can potentially affect
the crowd. FOA have explained how the form of the YFT is a ‘mediating device’
that works like a ‘social machine’.
The artefact will operate as a mediating device between the two large social
machines that make up the new institution: the system of public spaces of Yoko-
hama and the management of cruise-passenger flow. The components are used
as a device for reciprocal de-territorialisation: a public space that wraps around
the terminal, neglecting its symbolic presence as a gate, decodifying the rituals
of travel, and a functional structure which becomes the mould of an a-typological
public space, a landscape with no instructions for occupation. [This de-territoriali-
sation counters] the effects of rigid segmentation usually produced by social
mechanisms, especially those dedicated to maintaining borders.61
Serving both as a mediating device and a political agent, this topology forms a
stage for the YFT. The project functions like an intertwining of stage spaces for
the different communities of visitors, ‘from local citizens to foreign visitor, from
flâneur to business traveller, from voyeur to exhibitionist, from performer to
spectator’.62 The reconfiguration of people in space emphasises the political
aspect of this architecture. The building is ‘an ideal battlefield where the stra-
tegic position of a small number of elements will substantially affect the defi-
nition of the frontier’.63 The negotiation between different communities of
visitors constitutes the politics of public and private space in the building.
Through a complex programme that intertwines public and private spaces,
and the use of fluctuant boundaries, these staged areas of non-hierarchical
relations between observers and the architectural environment are more soph-
isticated than those of the Parisian arcades. The topological work on envelopes
that fluctuates at different times of the day enables FOA to create a building
with a political meaning.
Zaera-Polo has argued that the field of forces symbolising the capitalist econ-
omic context tends to erase differences and set all shapes of our built environ-
ment in continuous varying curves. FOA has deliberately adopted this
characteristic with reference to modern capitalism as a way to turn the
process into an act of resistance. Their topology both enables and resists the
continuous flow of people by creating frictions between different communities
of visitors. ‘This is where a new discipline of the envelope becomes politically
operative.’64 Zaera-Polo has also referred the ‘politics of the envelope’, as he
believes that ‘the envelope [is] an optimal domain to explore the politicisation
of architecture’.65 In addition to the YFT, such intentions have also been put
to the test in FOA’s Meydan Complex project in Istanbul. Through their political
agency, these projects are ‘apparatuses’ in the full sense of the term.

Conclusion

Elaborating topologies as a combination of envelopes and perspectives

enables one to describe and analyse the political potential of architecture.
 675 The Journal
of Architecture
Volume 25
Number 6

This methodology differentiates the (non-political) complex shapes of architec-

ture from the (social and political) ‘singularity’ of architecture that radically inter-
twines interior and exterior space. Non-political and complex architectural
shapes are readily achievable today via computational design. The advancement
of computational design has the potential to enable topology in architecture to
relate to complex social and political contexts that would encourage critical
reflections on capitalism. Considering a multiplicity of parameters and data,
computational design is instrumentally suited to the abstract operations of
late capitalism. But while the instrument of computational design can arguably
affect and shape the resulting architectures, its utilisation is not sufficient per se
to create ‘apparatuses’. My research has identified one of its possible limits.
When computationally designed architectures lack singular structuring at the
level of ‘interiority/exteriority’, status, and use, they also lack social and political
resonance.
‘Singular’ architectures that affect the crowd are ‘apparatuses’; they are pol-
itical agents. This article has shown that new examples, such as FOA’s YFT
project, can be added to the list of Benjamin’s ‘singular’ architectures that func-
tion as ‘apparatuses’. Underpinned by Déotte’s observations on the omnipre-
sence of the topological approach in Benjamin’s writings, this article has
articulated a novel application of Benjamin’s philosophy. It has offered a meth-
odological framework that generates new insights into architecture’s capacity to
reflect and affect the sociopolitical life of contemporary urban societies.

Acknowledgements

I would like to dedicate this article as a tribute to the memory of Professor Jean-
Louis Déotte. His contribution to the interpretation of Walter Benjamin’s writing
ended too soon. I would also like to thank Professor Ludger Schwarte for an
exchange that took place just before this article was published. I would like to
thank Doreen Bernath for our rich exchanges to finalise the manuscript.

Notes and references

1. Theodor W. Adorno, ‘Lecture 1: 9 November 1965: The Concept of Contradiction’, in

Negative Dialectics, ed. by Rolf Tiedemann (Cambridge: Polity, 2008), pp. 337–668
(p. 461). Hegelian ‘dialectics’ involve some sort of contradiction between opposing sides
in an argument. See Georg W. F. Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit (Mineola, NY: Dover,
2003). I focus on architectures that enable and inspire such Hegelian ‘dialectics’.
2. See Jean-Louis Déotte, Walter Benjamin et la forme plastique (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2012),
pp. 8–12. Unless otherwise noted, all translations from the original sources in French and
German are by the author.
3. Famous Benjaminian apparatuses are photography and the camera obscura. They are not
directly related to architecture.
4. There is already a social aspect in the first level of the apparatus.
5. First and second levels are difficult to separate, as there is already a sense of the social
context in the techniques and instruments used to shape architectures.
676 Walter Benjamin’s topology of envelopes and perspectives
Laurence Kimmel

6. Social and political contexts are difficult to separate, as there are political aspects of the
social context, and social aspects in the way architecture shapes society.
7. Benjamin is attentive to singularities in his analyses of everyday life. See Walter Benjamin,
The Arcades Project (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), pp. 21–22. He is
especially interested in the ‘specificity’ and ‘singularity’ of Baudelaire’s poetry. Ibid.,
p. 806; Walter Benjamin, Gesammelte Schriften, 7 vols (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp,
1991), V, p. 405; 1233.
8. This article addresses developments of occidental culture. Benjamin’s notion of the
‘modern’ started from the mid-eighteenth century. There are other scholars that argued
the modern period can be traced back to the mid-sixteenth century. This debate on
when exactly to locate the modern period in history is beyond the scope of this article,
as it intentionally focuses on Benjamin’s definition of the modern period.
9. Benjamin, Gesammelte Schriften, V.
10. Walter Benjamin, ‘Der Erzähler’, in Gesammelte Schriften, II, pp. 438–65 (p. 438).
11. Georges Simondon, Sur le mode d’existence des objets techniques (Paris: Aubier, 1989),
p. 199.
12. Déotte, Walter Benjamin, p. 41.
13. Benjamin identified singular ‘characters’ that are not reduced to ‘types’ as these were
defined in Ernst Jünger’s work. For Benjamin, ‘type’ is too restricted to a function or
status as that of the ‘worker’. See Walter Benjamin, ‘Theorien des deutchen Faschismus:
Zu der Sammelschrift “Krieg und Krieger” Herausgegeben von Ernst Jünger’, in Gesam-
melte Schriften, III, pp. 238–50; Ernst Jünger, The Worker: Dominion and Form (Evanston,
IL: Northwestern University Press, 2017).
14. Déotte, Walter Benjamin, p. 142.
15. Sigfried Giedion, Bauen in Frankreich, Eisen, Eisenbeton (Leipzig: Klinkhardt & Biermann,
1928), p. 15.
16. Duden (Berlin: Dudenverlag, 2015).
17. Walter Benjamin, ‘Das Passagen Werk’, in Gesammelte Schriften, V, p. 493.
18. Déotte, Walter Benjamin, pp. 144–47.
19. Ibid., p. 142.
20. Casey has argued that, for Aristotle, place is ‘thought to be some such thing as a vessel’.
See Edward Casey, The Fate of Place (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1998),
p. 54; Aristotle, ‘Book IV Physics’, in Complete Works of Aristotle, ed. by Jonathan
Barnes, 2 vols (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991), I, pp. 50–78.
21. Walter Benjamin and Asja Lacis, ‘Naples’, in Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings, 1: 1913-
1926, ed. by Marcus Bullock and Michael W. Jennings (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press,
1996), pp. 414–21 (p. 416).
22. Oxford Complete Dictionary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), p. 3114.
23. Daniel Payot, Des villes refuges (La Tour-d’Aigues: L’Aube, 1992).
24. Walter Benjamin, ‘Paris, die Hauptstadt des XIX. Jahrhundert’, in Gesammelte Schriften, V,
p. 57.
25. Georges Teyssot has presented the concept of the ‘absolute monadic interior’ in opposition
to the ‘Deleuzian nomadic law’ (of spreading in an aleatory manner on a limitless space) as a
distribution without properties, with no enclosures or measurements. See Georges Teyssot,
‘A Topology of Thresholds’, Home Cultures, 2.1 (2015), 89–116 (p. 97; 106).
26. Benjamin, The Arcades Project, p. 845.
27. Ibid., p. 865.
28. Déotte, Walter Benjamin, p. 142.
29. For a basic classification of Benjamin’s singular examples, see Peter Schmiedgen, ‘Interiority,
Exteriority, and Spatial Politics in Benjamin’s Cityscapes’, in Walter Benjamin and the Archi-
 677 The Journal
of Architecture
Volume 25
Number 6

tecture of Modernity, ed. by Andrew Benjamin and Charles Rice (Melbourne: re.press,
2009), pp. 147–58.
30. Erwin Panofsky, The Perspective as Symbolic Form (New York, NY: Zone Books, 1991).
31. Déotte, Walter Benjamin, p. 143.
32. Ibid., p. 76.
33. See Fig. 88 in Sigfried Giedion, Construire en France: Construire en fer, construire en béton
(Paris: La Villette, 2000), p. 86.
34. Walter Benjamin, Gesammelte Schriften, V, p. 59.
35. Déotte, Walter Benjamin, p. 27.
36. Ibid., p. 37.
37. Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari explore the concept of a non-hierarchical and non-linear
structure, deployed in the three dimensions of the topological intertwining of envelopes
and perspectives. See Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, Capitalisme et schizophrénie:
Mille plateaux (Paris: Minuit, 1980).
38. The importance of in-between space, intersections of spaces, and borders of spaces, are
developed by several other philosophers, such as Jacques Derrida in his theory of the par-
ergon. See Jacques Derrida, ‘The Parergon’, October, 9 (Summer 1979), 3–41.
39. Richard Sennett, The Conscience of the Eye: The Design and Social Life of Cities (New York,
NY: Norton, 1992).
40. Walter Benjamin, ‘Autobiographische Schriften’, in Gesammelte Schriften, VI, pp. 213–544
(p. 276).
41. Benjamin and Lacis, ‘Naples’, p. 417.
42. Georges Teyssot, A Topology of Everyday Constellations (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2013).
43. Peter Osborne, Walter Benjamin: Appropriations (Abingdon: Taylor & Francis, 2005),
p. 346.
44. Walter Benjamin, ‘Der Strumpf’, in Walter Benjamin, Berliner Kindheit um 1900 (Frankfurt
am Main: Suhrkamp, 1987), p. 58.
45. Alejandro Zaera-Polo, ‘Foreword: Grounds and Envelopes’, in Grounds and Envelopes, ed.
by Michael U. Hensel and Jeffrey P. Turko (London: Routledge, 2015), pp. xiii–xiv (p. xiii).
46. Cristina Díaz Moreno and Efrén García Grinda, ‘Complexity and Consistency — A Conver-
sation with Farshid Moussavi and Alejandro Zaera’, in Foreign Office Architects 1996–2003
(= El Croquis, 115–116 (2003)), pp. 6–29 (p. 23).
47. Alejandro Zaera-Polo, ‘Foreword: Grounds and Envelopes’, pp. xiii–xiv (p. xiii).
48. Díaz Moreno and García Grinda, ‘Complexity and Consistency’, p. 26.
49. Ibid., p. 11.
50. Ibid., p. 13.
51. Alejandro Zaera-Polo, ‘Roller Coaster Construction Revisited’, in The Building, ed. by José
Aragüez (Zürich: Lars Müller, 2016), pp. 296–305 (p. 299).
52. Alejandro Zaera-Polo, ‘The Politics of the Envelope’, Log, 13/14 (Fall 2008), 193–207
(pp. 205–06).
53. Díaz Moreno and García Grinda, ‘Complexity and Consistency’, p. 10.
54. Zaera-Polo, ‘The Politics of the Envelope’, pp. 205–06.
55. Díaz Moreno and García Grinda, ‘Complexity and Consistency’, p. 23.
56. Michael U. Hensel and Jeffrey P. Turko, Grounds and Envelopes (London: Routledge, 2015),
p. 144.
57. Toyo Ito, ‘Yokohama International Port Terminal’, 2G Revista international de arquitectura,
16 (2000), pp. 84–87 (p. 87).
58. Ibid., p. 84.
678 Walter Benjamin’s topology of envelopes and perspectives
Laurence Kimmel

59. Díaz Moreno and García Grinda, ‘Complexity and Consistency’, p. 20. ‘Individuals’
describes their architecture better than the word ‘type’. Its use confirms that ‘types’ serve
as landmarks at the start of the design process.
60. Although Benjamin could not have foreseen this, the plasticity of envelopes he theorised
meets the principles of computational design today.
61. Farshid Moussavi and Alejandro Zaera-Polo, ‘Yokohama International Port Terminal’, 2G
Revista international de arquitectura, 16 (2000), pp. 88–105 (p. 88).
62. Ibid., p. 89.
63. Ibid., p. 93.
64. Zaera-Polo, ‘The Politics of the Envelope’, p. 203.
65. Ibid., pp. 197, 202. For the politics of the envelope, Zaera-Polo referred to Bruno Latour and
Peter Sloterdijk. For Latour’s politics of the envelope, see Douglas Spencer, The Architecture
of Neoliberalism: How Contemporary Architecture Became an Instrument of Control and
Compliance (London: Bloomsbury, 2016).