Abstract

The scholarly strength of Simmel as a “classical” of sociology and modern urban thinking revolves around the heuristic value that his reading grants to our ability to inquiry. The article in which we reflect on two powerful simmelian allegories - the Großtädte and the ruin - does not question Simmel. Instead, under the guidance of the German intellectual, we question the current metropolitan reality and the way how modernity and ruin mix together and share the eternal present of urbanity.