The German-Jewish philosopher Walter Benjamin—a pioneer in the cultural study of memory and the philosophy of place—was among the first to suggest that urban life intensifies feelings of isolation and atomization. Over the years, he composed *Denkbilder* ("thought-images")—short texts capturing urban landscapes in which the city appears as a puzzle or a mythical labyrinth: an impressionistic essay on Naples (1925), a portrait of the Soviet capital (1926–1927), and the piece "Hashish in Marseille" (1932). Yet the central place in Benjamin’s constellation of cities is held by Berlin, where he grew up, and Paris, which briefly sheltered him from anti-Jewish pogroms.