February 20, 2011

The Production of Space

Henri Lefebvre

 

For several weeks I have been struggling with the concepts of space and how movement effects space. During my research I came across several names of individuals that either had written about such topics or were heralded as experts on these subjects. Henri Lefebvre's name came up quite often. Many writers of the subject of space used quotes from Henri Lefebvre's book, The Production of Space, to back up their own discourse. My own discourse is not yet written, but I hope in its creation that I also will be able to utilize some profound statement from my own understanding and interpretation of Lefebvre's, The Production of Space.

 

    It takes something earth shattering to cause us to reevaluate our beliefs. We saw such an event occur with Charles Darwin's, Origin of Species. Its intent was not to challenge religion, but to document an evolutionary process. However, it had a staggering effect on Western thought. In the same manner, Henri Lefebvre's analyzation of space shakes the foundation of human meaning. It is an awakening.

    Space in its simplest sense of the word is "an empty area." I have been trying to define space so that by understanding it, I could yield power over it in order to interpret movement. To me it is "an empty area" full of possibilities. To me space is something to play with; to Lefebvre, who explores the many facets of the understanding of space though the eyes of philosophers, scientists, writers and artists, space exemplifies life.

    In the first section ("Plan of the Present Work") of The Production of Space, Lefebvre highlights the development of space as a concept:

    

    Euclidean Space - based on mathematical concepts and equations.

    Aristotelian Space - Space and time help define the senses.

    Platonism Space - Philosophical concept based on human understanding.

    Descartes Space - Space cannot existing without a body. SUBJECT versus OBJECT.    

    Kantian Space - Space belongs to the realm of consciousness and is subjective.

    Hegelian Space - Space is in general pure quantity in and of itself

    Chomsky Space - Linguistic understanding of Mental Space giving form to orientations.

 

Time Line of Space Concepts

 

 

 

 

These concepts provide insight into space but do not give tangible knowledge of its existence. Like the Missing Link, Lefebvre indicates that knowledge of space did exist at one time in the form of a code which allowed space, "not only to be 'read' but also to be constructed." This code was utilized between the sixteenth century and the nineteenth century and was a "common" language. Lefebvre does not mean a literal language but an intrinsic understanding of space formulated by the people of this time period. It is one of the author's goals to find out how and why this code disappeared from common knowledge.

    It wasn't until I continued reading through Lefebvre's dialogue that I began to understand the importance of this Missing Link. In finding how and why that intrinsic knowledge of space disappeared, it could help us understand its present state.

     Influenced by World War I (and I do not mean to simplify his concepts into one broad sweeping statement, but for the sake of time, I am shrinking down this huge body of information he has presented!) and Marxist theories, Lefebvre systematically and brilliantly reveals that space has become a social arena whereby products are repetitiously made and overseen by a state of Neo-Capitalism. Space as we know it today- physical, mental and social-is being used for the purpose of production.

    In section two, "Social Space," using the city of Venice as a case in point, Lefebvre explains its origins and its evolution in space.

 

"Let us return now to the exemplary case of Venice. Venice is indeed a unique space, a true marvel...It was born of the sea, but gradually, and not, like Aphrodite, in an instant. To begin with, there was a challenge (to nature, to enemies) and an aim (trade). The space of the settlement on the lagoon, encompassing swamps, shallows and outlets to the open sea, cannot be separated from the vaster space, that of a system of commercial exchange which was not yet worldwide but which took in the Mediterranean and the Orient. Another prerequisite of Venice's development was the continuity ensured by a grand design, by an ongoing practical project, and by the dominance of a political caste, by the 'thalassocracy' of a merchant oligarchy. Beginning with the very first piles driven into the mud of the lagoon, every single site in the city had of course to be planned and realized by people - by political 'chiefs', by groups supporting them, and by those who performed the work of the construction itself. Closely behind practical responses to the challenge of the sea...came public gatherings, festivals, grandiose ceremonies...and architectural inventiveness. Here we can see the relationship between a place built by collective will and collective thought on the one hand, and the productive forces of the period on the other. For this is a place that has been laboured on. Sinking pilings, building docks and harbourside installations, erecting palaces - these tasks also constituted social labour, a labour carried out under difficult conditions and under the constraint of decisions made by a caste destined to profit from it in every way. Behind Venice the work, then, there assuredly lay production."

 

In the context of the construction of Venice, Lefebvre notes that a great part of Venice preserves the ideal of work, that is, a singular creative event while other parts could be described as products. The differences between work and product can best be described as one of relationship. As Lefebvre explains, "Each work occupies a space; it also engenders and fashions that space. Each product too occupies a space, and circulates within it." In several instances the product becomes a item of repetition within a space and this becomes the defining point of space as a product. If the space is "reproducible" and it is the result of a "repetitive action" (such as a highway, street, sidewalk or airport) then the space is "produced." One of the aspects or code of a produced space is that it is quite visible. This visibility hides its inherent quality of repetitiveness.

    Thus one of the problem of space is a "result(s) from a growth in the forces of production." Looking at the space in which I live, I begin to understand how my family has contributed to the production of space in the sense that Lefebvre has explained. Our house is connected to city utilities as well as phone, radio and television and is similar to the machine that Lefebvre explains must be maintained. Our home is no longer a place where we experience living but a space of production.

    Another subsequent problem of space is its segmentation and the failure of mankind to perceive this segmentation. Thus space becomes an illusion. This illusion has "strange effects" on spatial truth.

 

For one thing, it unleashes desire. It presents desire with a 'transparency' which encourages it to surge forth in an attempt to lay claim to an apparently clear field. Of course this foray comes to naught, for desire encounters no object, nothing desirable, and no work results from its action. Searching in vain for plenitude, desire must make do with words, with the rhetoric of desire. Disillusion leaves space empty - an emptiness that words convey. Spaces are devastated - and devastating; incomprehensibly so....'Nothing is allowed. Nothing is forbidden'...Spaces are strange: homogeneous, rationalized, and as such constraining; yet at the same time utterly dislocated. Formal boundaries are gone between town and country, between centre and periphery, between suburbs and city centres, between the domain of automobiles and the domain of people....And yet everything...is separated, assigned in isolated fashion to unconnected 'sites' and 'tracts'; the spaces themselves are specialized just as operations are in the social and technical division of labour."

 

    In this aspect of segmentation, space not only accepts certain actions and thoughts but also excludes things. The facade of a building and its openings demonstrate the actions acceptable by space such as waving from a balcony or looking down from a street. The facade of a building hides those acts behind its walls that are condemned. In this manner, man begins to understand that there is something "not right" about who they are, so that there becomes an internal struggle in mankind. As Lefebvre notes, "Such formulations serve to divert attention from the criticism of space...these theses can deem society as a whole and 'man' as a social being to be sicknesses of nature...(and) leads necessarily to nihilism.

    Interestingly enough, the way space is constructed and compartmentalized suggests that a great deal of thought is given to the operations of a city and the handling of the human fabric. Prohibiting encounters seems to be an underlying phenomena in the design of space, though Lefebvre reflects that it is a strategy that may be either "conscious or unconscious." He notes that symbolism also goes hand - in - hand with the creation of space. Take for instance, the skyscraper. Lefebvre explains its construction as the "need to impress." It conveys a symbol of authority and power to the spectator, so that the tenant willing accepts the small box apartment within its envelope. Man understands somehow their relationship to the larger society.

    Through the second section, "Social Space," Lefebvre recounts and analyzes what the production of space is, and he continues to cross-references with Marxist theories as well as his own insights and understandings. This is the earth-shaking insight of which I described earlier. It is the awakening. With the ground shaking, Lefebvre begins to offer glimpses of new ideas and ideals that may be possible within the context of space. One such insight is given during a dialogue on Capitalism. He indicates that eventually, as space seeks to overcome its limits, it must "rise to a new mode of production which is neither state capitalism nor state socialism, but the collective management of space, the social management of nature, and the transcendence of the contradiction between nature and anti-nature." Henri Lefebvre's final understanding is that "life should be lived as a project and that the only intellectual and political project that makes sense is a life."

 

 

movement + architecture = something that expresses the spirit of human performance.

Dance like Architecture can be regarded as a form of nonverbal communication between humans. It is a silent encounter with a space.