Modernity of Interior in Walter Benjamin’s『The Arcades Project』- Focused on the 「The Interior, The Trace」 and 「The Collector」 -

This study is to identify the modernity characteristics of interior based on 「The Interior, The Trace」, 「The Collector」 in Walter Benjamin’s 『The Arcades Project』. The text was analyzed with an inductive research method through the perspective of seeing the interior as an object of spatial research and a place of design. The results are as follows. First, in the process of modernization in the 19th century, the interior was requested as a place to escape from the harsh reality of large cities. Accordingly, the transition to the inside takes on the form of a ritual, and the inside plays the role of a container to hold the dreams of the residents. Second, the bourgeois interior, unlike public facilities made of iron and glass, is closely related to the residents’ bodies, and the occurrence of surface finishes and traces by soft fabrics is a characteristic of modernity. Cloth satisfies the tactile value, and traces spatially support the presence of modern subjects by leaving temporary events on the surface. Third, through collection, 19th-century indoor residents build their own montage environment, an emotional system that is different from the rational functionality of the city. In this process, collectors spatialize memories by measuring the passage of time through the stylistic traces of functional objects. Fourth, collectors project a story that differs from the original functional meaning of objects in the objects collected by physiognomic procedures. This allegorical interpretation of objects is based on the shape and phenomenon of objects, and by signifying the difference in the nuances of the object’s appearance, objects are brought to a new level of formative reading.