This article examines the concept of utopia in Walter Benjamin’s Arcades Project (Das Passagen-Werk), where utopia appears to be progressively replaced by the term “phantasmagoria”. Through an analysis focused on the preparatory texts, it illustrates how Benjamin considers utopia as a non-neutral category that should not be confused with the related concept of phantasmagoria, which represents an ideological distortion of reality through illusory and deceptive representations. For Benjamin, phantasmagoria is the way in which capitalism and modern culture, caught up in the process of commodification and fetishisation, create illusory visions that distance the possibility of making critical use of perceptions of reality. Utopia, on the contrary, offers a vision of emancipation, but appears to be undermined by mythical and irrational elements. In an epoch full of irrational dangers, Benjamin distances himself from both through the dialectic of awakening, whereby criticism operates a sceptical and necessary distancing from the dream, while preserving the utopian drive for emancipation.

Published online: 15 October 2025