A flaneur is an observing city stroller. In, The Man of the Crowd, Edgar Allan Poe is sitting in a coffee house observing the people walking by. In this, he first became obsessed with the details that separated individuals. These details were described in the way in which a person dressed, facial expressions, and the way people walked through the city. He compartmentalized people into classes. Describing the first group as hurried and restless beings quickly navigating themselves from beginning to end, he painted a jostled picture of the working class. The upper class men were described as well dressed individuals who demanded respectability not only through their dress but also their demeanor. The plethora of people illustrated included gamblers, drunkards, prostitutes and thieves as all who created the visual spectacle before him. As day passed into night, his inspection of individual faces, those of which seemed to imply that the orderly people of the day were replaced by the abrasive people of the night, was intensified by means of artificial light. Through the impressionistic glare of the window, he was drawn to a man with an expression on his face that captivated him. He perceived this man as being filthy and his clothes being ragged. He became enthralled with his countenance and decided to follow this man on his walk. Poe studied this man from street to street taking into consideration the pace of his step, expressions on his face, and the physical demeanor of his body language in relation to the space he encompassed. Poe was pursuing this man through a deconstructing walk in an attempt, essentially, to know him. His psychological conclusion is that this man was, “the man of the crowd.” Poe concluded that the man of the crowd was only happy when he was not alone. The man of the crowd is each and every man deconstructed and described at the start of the reading. Although moving through the city with a different style and at different paces, the man of the crowd is each and every person walking the streets of a city.
In reading The Flaneur, Walter Benjamin states that Charles Baudelaire first identified the flaneur as being an urban observer. He said that the advent of the arcades offered a psychological deconstruction of the aspects of a built environment. These aspects included the adaptation of people to large cities. He explored interpersonal relationships between people familiarizing to a modern, bustling environment. The invention of public transportation offers anonymity to the inhabitants of a large city. As a result, people move throughout a city alone within a crowd. Strolling through a city allows a person to evaluate behavior forming a way to move through an urban space. Being an urban observer not only becomes an analytical tool but it transcends into a certain lifestyle, as well. People can walk throughout the city of Chicago and remain undistinguished because the crowds, which populate the streets, offer a hiding place for personal attributes. Also, the city is stigmatized by the phenomenon of modernity, which propels the creation of urban planning and architecture. The political structuring of a city only furthers Benjamin’s findings that because of this, people remain unknown. But with the advent of photography, a person is identifiable. A photograph provides a record of a human being. Benjamin describes the man of leisure and the consumer as people who walk through a city creating his own series of photographs. He states that with the disappearance of the arcades came the disappearance of observance through the act of strolling.
Benjamin states that the arcades in which the flaneur strolled inconsequentially were replaced by department stores. He felt that the department store took the interior away from the stroller replacing the city streets with the idea of consumption through merchandise. In a department store, people become customers with a common connection void of any personal individuality. The non-verbal exchange in a department store thrusts a person toward consumerism. This consumerism is what presses people through a department store and people become intoxicated with it just as they have in the rigorous state of the city and thus the demise of the “inside.” (picure of department store)
The constant modernization of a city has the ability to isolate the man in the crowd therefore propelling him toward individuality. People walk past one another without a glance. This act only furthers a person’s sense of isolation in a crowd and heightens self-awareness.
In, The City of Modernity: Shifting Perspectives, Urban Transitions, Anke Gleber explores how technological advances affect the observer in a public space. She states that these advances have revolutionized the way a person perceives a city. Through technological advancements such as street illumination, industrialization, photography and moving film, a burgeoning city becomes a constant of visual domain. With the advent of streetlights, sections of a city were illuminated, drawing people to specific places. Advertising and media are also sources of these lights. Packaging design, billboards, posters and signs have become a sort of street art. Traffic via cars and railroad constantly change a person’s visual perceptions. Movies, television, radio, and the Internet are all examples of life in motion. We are a society inundated with constant visual provocations.
Gleber explains that the observer remains open to changes in society and remains deliberately non-judgmental. This outlook toward modernity creates a new stance toward a city’s advancement. Therefore, the flaneur favors the visual representations of modern technology and he is sensitive to the complexities of modern advancements. Because of these advancements, when a person walks down a street, he has a visual experience of multiple sources and proportions ultimately sharpening his senses.
These writers touched upon common ground and share the much of the same sentiments toward urban landscapes. The city dweller is a product of his environment, which is in constant motion. Perhaps he should take the stance of the flaneur and slow his pace enough to observe the world he inhabits.
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