A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of stumbling across Walter Benjamin's Archive, a book published by Verso earlier this year. The text consolidates material pertaining to a fall 2006 exhibition at the Akademie der Künste in Berlin which cataloged a variety of Benjamin related ephemera for public display. This material included notebooks, postcards, drafts and scribbles, project outlines and photography. Given Benjamin's obsession with the analysis of historical waste, it follows that his legacy would inspire a rigorous archival project. This gorgeously designed text provides a side-door into his life and work enables a proximity that is both fascinating and somewhat melancholic.

The text is organized into thirteen short chapters which cover a diverse range of topics including collecting, traveling, graphic forms, puzzles and Benjamin's time in Paris researching the Arcades Project. Each of these sections is comprised of a selection of documents, many of which are extensively annotated and a few of which are translated. The chapters are also accompanied by introductory texts by Ursula Marx, Erdmut Wizisla and Michael and Gudrun Schwarz which frame specific interests, obsessions and spans of time in Benjamin's life. There is some great material pertaining to his interest in toys, his linguistic adventures in parenthood and several plans and outlines analyzing the life and work of Franz Kafka.

What is so interesting about this project, is rather than approach Benjamin as the subject for a standard biographical profile, this text employs his research and writing methodology to dissect and taxonomize his interests. In many ways, working through this text felt like a continuation of a reading of the Arcades Project as all the content is fleeting, self-contained and schematic. Despite the fragmentary nature of this collection, the whole is indeed more than the sum of the parts and a very vital, humane impression of Benjamin shines through this (curated) marginalia. Beyond the content of the text, Benjamin was a steady-handed craftsman when it came to writing - his research, documents and notebooks are meticulous constructions with the potential to inspire both scholars and designers.

Review originally published on Serial Consign ( )