anything in functionalism that might be considered suspect by capitalism, let alone
oppositional: the New Objectivity fitted in perfectly with capitalist logic and did not
offer any hints of any other possible sort of culture.
Nonetheless, Bloch’s judgment was extremely strict, not to say partisan. He
clearly lost sight of the fact that utopian goals and radical political ideas played a role
in the New Objectivity just as they did in expressionism. Of course, it is true that in
the actual practice of construction, doctrinal purity did not always survive intact, but
it was a considerable overstatement to say that the New Objectivity was simply a
tool of capitalism. In this respect other Marxists such as Alexander Schwab had a
more balanced opinion.^139 Schwab talked of the two-faced character of modern ar-
chitecture, which he described as being both high bourgeois and proletarian, capital-
ist and socialist. It was responsible for emblems of capitalism such as department
stores, office blocks, and villas, as well as for buildings that foreshadow a socialist
society, such as the Siedlungen, factory buildings, schools, and clubhouses. For
Bloch the latter category was apparently not really relevant; his criticism above all has
to do with the fact that the aesthetic language of the New Objectivity is perfectly
suited to the cool rationalism of the capitalist order. What he misses in it is not just
everything that is fragmentary and fissured, but also the warmth and the fantasy that
were present in expressionism.
In the end, Bloch’s assessment of modernism differed fairly drastically from
that of Benjamin—although in his comments on montage he approximated him very
closely. The difference was that Benjamin had much more faith in qualities such as
sobriety, transparency, and functionalism. Benjamin took the idea of Umfunktion-
ierungmuch more literally than Bloch: he saw it as a definite possibility that stylistic
coldness and rationality could lead to revolutionary change, and that it could con-
tribute to building a genuinely humane society. For a radical thinker such as Ben-
jamin, the modernist aesthetics of montage, which is concerned with exteriority and
with surfaces, was intended less to “redeem” elements of the old order than to
make room for a radically new form of living. Benjamin rejected the symbol, a mode
that is based on an assumption of an intimate relationship between inner and outer.
Instead he gave priority to allegory, montage, and destruction. He likewise dis-
claimed every appeal to creativity as well as all mention of warmth and security be-
cause he interpreted these qualities as representing a false humanism.
Benjamin’s radical negativity and his posthumanist stance cannot be found to
the same extent in Bloch’s work. Bloch sees fantasy and creativity as vital qualities;
warmth and seclusion are definitely positive values for him. The metaphorical oppo-
sition between full and empty that Benjamin wants to transcend remains an essen-
tial element in Bloch’s discourse. He refers to capitalist space as being “hollow,” its
surfaces concealing nothing but an inner void. Pieces of technical apparatus with
their cold shine and their lack of any adornment also have a “hollow” sound for him,
and he considers the claim to rationality of the New Objectivity “hollow” too, since
it failed to form any relationship with the warm glow of the revolution. The “fullness”
3
Reflections in a Mirror