| Summary: | <p>In his methodology as well as his political thought Benjamin remains<br />faithful to the principle to proceed “always radically, never consistently”. Therefore,<br />the greatest challenge for a contemporary city researcher inspired by Benjamin is to<br />operationalise his materialist methodology. Benjamin’s anthropological materialism<br />cannot be reached within the fixed limits of any discipline, but rather places itself<br />“on the crossroads of magic and positivism” (Adorno); the dialectical image is not<br />a tool of his methodology but its culminating point where positivism turns to magic.<br />To reach this point, Benjamin conducts perceptive and analytical experiments that<br />can be treated as dialectical études, exercises in seeing. The paper examines some of<br />these techniques, exploring their philosophical context and testing them on a contemporary<br />example: the Ernst-Thälmann-Monument in Berlin.</p>
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