The Beauty of the Metropolis

Originally published in 1908, The Beauty of the Metropolis is a homage to urban life, celebrating cities with a particular focus on Berlin. In this lyrical essay, German architect and theorist August Endell invites readers to perceive familiar environments in a new light, advocating for an emotional, unmediated response to the visible world inspired by Lipps’s theory of Einfühlung. He advocates seizing aesthetic ownership of urban surroundings, prefiguring our hypervisual culture. In his rhapsodic observations, Endell captures gaslight mingling with the last rays of sunshine, pedestrians moving in a ballet of unheard rhythms, and mist and rain casting fresh enchantment over familiar streets.

This new translation also features a selection of articles in which Endell introduces readers to aesthetic themes. He describes the greening of a tree with the urgency of true crime and anticipates the Bauhaus movement years before it becomes a reality. Reaching back to the close of the nineteenth century, these texts paradoxically serve as a rousing hymn to the present. With extensive notes and an afterword, this edition of The Beauty of the Metropolis offers a spirited inquiry into belonging and an engagement with culture that rejects unreflective nationalist pathos.