With the discovery of flanerie in the 19th Century in the Arcades of Paris, a new attitude towards life emerged. The Arcades present a panorama of European Society analysed as a moment within a crystal enclosing copious events.

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Derived from Walter Benjamin’s legendary book “The Arcade Projects”, the characters of the Flâneur; the Collector, the Prostitute, the Player and the Bourgeoisie transform one of Hamburg’s most prestigious shopping arcades into a Parisian Theatre Stage. At the Hotel of Lonely Souls, set atop the Passage de l’ Opera in Paris – where the Surrealists hold their meetings – they cavort in the labyrinth of the city between euphoria, fashion, transience and the dream of awakening.


Walter Benjamin – philosopher, essayist and literary critic, is considered to be one of the most important voices of modern German literature. Exiled in Paris, he wrote his legendary “Arcades Project”. On the run from the Nazis, Benjamin chose death and died in the French- Spanish border town of Port Bou in 1940.

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