Presentation of the book 'The destruction of paradise?' by Lluís Costa and Bruno Ferrer at the Lluís Coromina Foundation

The Lluís Coromina Foundation is hosting, on June 4 at 7pm at the Espai Isern Dalmau in Barcelona, the presentation of the book The destruction of paradise? Ibiza, Walter Benjamin and the first tourist development of Lluís Costa and Bruno Ferrer next Tuesday, June 4, at 7 p.m., at Espai Isern Dalmau in Barcelona. A book edited with the collaboration of the Fundació Lluís Coromina and bonart cultural that contains a selection of Walter Benjamin's fictional writings on an Ibizan theme or setting that allows us to grasp indirectly, on the one hand, his experience of the island and, on the other hand, how in these stories the thought and theoretical reflection of its author is reflected.

In 1932, Walter Benjamin wrote: "But there are already unfinished hotel buildings in Ibiza and Sant Antoni, in which foreigners are promised running water. Time until their completion has become precious." These reflections are the product of his stays on the island in 1932 and 1933. When he wrote these words, tourism was only beginning to develop in Ibiza in a timid way. In the same year 1932, new and modern hotels were inaugurated and things began to change little by little. Back in 1933, Sant Antoni became expensive and unbearable and he thought of running away from that colony of foreign tourists.

Without theorizing specifically about tourism, Walter Benjamin pointed out interesting reflections on travel, on means of transport or on tourism, among other issues. The analysis of the preserved documentation, as well as the press of the time, allows an approach to how the island was being transformed and to the debates that were intimately established there (the need to build new hotels, the material heritage and the its conservation, the disappearance of folklore and typical Ibizan clothing, etc).