The Production of Space (Paperback)

~ (Author) "Not so many years ago, the word 'space' had a strictly geometrical meaning: the idea it evoked was simply that of an empty area..." (more)
Key Phrases: strategic hypothesis, spatial practice, monumental space, New York, Middle Ages, Georges Bataille (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The Production of Space reveals Lefebvre at the height of his powers: imaginative, incisive and immensely suggestive." Derek Gregory, University of British Columbia

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Product Description

Henri Lefebvre has considerable claims to be the greatest living philosopher. His work spans some sixty years and includes original work on a diverse range of subjects, from dialectical materialism to architecture, urbanism and the experience of everyday life. The Production of Space is his major philosophical work and its translation has been long awaited by scholars in many different fields. The book is a search for reconciliation between mental space (the space of the philosophers) and real space (the physical and social spheres in which we all live). In the course of his exploration, Henri Lefebvre moves from metaphysical and ideological considerations of the meaning of space to its experience in the everyday life of home and city. He seeks, in other words, to bridge the gap between the realms of theory and practice, between the mental and the social, and between philosophy and reality. In doing so, he ranges through art, literature, architecture and economics, and further provides a powerful antidote to the sterile and obfuscatory methods and theories characteristic of much recent continental philosophy. This is a work of great vision and incisiveness. It is also characterized by its author's wit and by anecdote, as well as by a deftness of style that Donald Nicholson-Smith's sensitive translation precisely captures.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 464 pages
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell (April 15, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0631181776
• ISBN-13: 978-0631181774
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.9 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #41,039 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

64 of 69 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Space is produced by, and produces, society, July 31, 2002

By	H-S (Brooklyn, NY) - See all my reviews

Thinkers have long analyzed things in space, but it is time to analyze space itself and "the social relationships embedded in it" according to Lefebvre. He wants to analyze the form, structure, and function of something he calls "social space" and explore how such spaces have been produced.

"Social space" partly consists of a certain configuration of actual space in actual time. Space also encompasses and includes physical objects that participate in discourse (as Foucault would say). Thus, space is also a container of relationships. It is also the receptacle of history, "the outcome of past actions." Lefebvre uses the example of a mountain. It does not have to have been produced or even physically altered by human hands to be considered a social space. Lefebvre's mountain participates in many relationships. The mountain space participates in a dialectic with humans, other spaces (social, representational, and represented), and history (it is produced in history and plays a role in history). It is at once a locus, a node on a network, a path, and place of potentials (i.e. of possible material exchange). "Its `reality' [is] at once formal and material." In short, the mountain cannot be reduced to a simple object, writes Lefebvre.

Space is powerful. Space, according to him, is anything but the "passive locus of social relations." It has an "active-operational or instrumental role," it is "knowledge and action." It instructs. It is also nothing less than a new mode of production. It contributes to "the establishment...of a system" and those in power (the bourgeois, most recently) frequently have made use of it. Space produces society, writes Lefebvre. He writes, "a decisive part is played by space in this continuity [of the reproduction of society]."

At the same time space produces society, space is produced. What Lefebvre sets out to do is identify "the actual production of space," to bring the different kinds of space and the modes of their production into a theory. Space is not "produced in the sense that a kilogram of sugar or a yard of cloth is produced." Nor is it produced like an aspect of superstructure. Social space is produced by (and produces) power to serve its goals.

Lefebvre laments that, in the work of philosophers, there has been an "abyss" between mental ("ideal") space and real space, between the internal "sphere", the realm of mental categories, and the external, physical, social. Lefebvre rejects the res cogitans/res existensa duality of Descartes, and separating mental space from real space strongly reinforces this. Lefebvre's belief that real minds in real bodies inhabit real space-at the same time spaces participate in the mental realm-is the most basic reason The Production of Space is useful for environmental historians. His ideas hint at new opportunities to bridge the culture/matter gap.

Lefebvre also believes that physical environments have histories and humans are a part of them. "In short, every social space has a history, one invariably grounded in nature, in natural conditions that are at once primordial and unique in the sense that they are always and everywhere endowed with specific characteristics (site, climate, etc.)." He even sounds like an environmental historian at times. "The departure point for this history of space is not to be found in geographical descriptions of natural space, but rather in the study of natural rhythms, and of the modification of those rhythms and their inscription in space by means of human actions, especially work-related actions. It begins, then, with the spatio-temporal rhythms of nature as transformed by a social practice."

Criticisms: Lefebvre frequently returns to a critique of the space produced by capitalism, a powerful (abstract) space that spans the globe and has left few pockets free from it. The space produced by something like capitalism is extremely powerful because one can not choose but be obedient to it; to live in it is "lived obedience." That is, to follow its dictates, move about in it in an orderly fashion, to be directed in some paths, prohibited from others, is to follow its instruction. This space is totally concerned with reproducing (bourgeois-serving) social relationships at the cost of "[creative] works, ...natural reproduction, over nature itself, and over natural time."

His point is well taken, but I think these frequently tangential moments detract from his exposition of a new analytical tool. I get tired of hearing that the point of this analysis is to uncover the social relationships latent in spaces for the ostensible purpose of inspiring revolution. I'd rather he left such an analysis to a historian employing Lefebvre's idea rather than having Lefebvre try to make his exposition of a theoretical tool double as a manifesto. (I am also really weary of his defending himself against hardcore Marxists-his concentration is greatly lessened for the effort. I understand that he is fighting personal battles with his old friends at these moments.)

22 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Engaging and intellectually nourishing, July 25, 2001

By	"gerbracht" (Wantagh, NY United States) - See all my reviews

The Production of Space is a thick yet engaging introduction to Postmodern spatial theory, providing insights to a variety of philosophical concepts centering on how we perceive, construct, and reproduce both physical and mental spaces. While complex and eclectic, Lefebvre's book provides ample food for thought for those interested in the means by which we as human beings understand space in the world and how we negotiate and transpose it in our minds.

Overall, it's damned good stuff. I read this book and the idea for my Masters thesis came exploding out of me like one of those creatures from "Alien."

5 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars an open book, November 13, 2008

By	ingonyama "ingonyama" (Berkeley, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This is a fragmented and speculative work, from which readers (e.g. Soja, Harvey, Elden and Shields) have been able to draw rather contradictory and diverse conclusions. In part, that's because there's a lot in here, but it's not terribly consistently or coherently presented. I've read most of it twice and parts several times more -- there are lots of intriguing sketches of ideas, and the reader can fill them in in lots of different ways, but I'm not convinced it's worth it.