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The Production of Space
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 a 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 which Donald Nicholson-Smith's sensitive translation precisely captures.
The book is a search for a 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 which Donald Nicholson-Smith's sensitive translation precisely captures.
464 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1974
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7437 people want to read
About the author
Henri Lefebvre
159 books421 followersHenri Lefebvre was a French sociologist, Marxist intellectual, and philosopher, best known for pioneering the critique of everyday life, for introducing the concepts of the right to the city and the production of social space, and for his work on dialectics, alienation, and criticism of Stalinism, existentialism, and structuralism.
In his prolific career, Lefebvre wrote more than sixty books and three hundred articles. He founded or took part in the founding of several intellectual and academic journals such as Philosophies, La Revue Marxiste, Arguments, Socialisme et Barbarie, Espaces et Sociétés.
Lefebvre died in 1991. In his obituary, Radical Philosophy magazine honored his long and complex career and influence:
the most prolific of French Marxist intellectuals, died during the night of 28–29 June 1991, less than a fortnight after his ninetieth birthday. During his long career, his work has gone in and out of fashion several times, and has influenced the development not only of philosophy but also of sociology, geography, political science and literary criticism.
In his prolific career, Lefebvre wrote more than sixty books and three hundred articles. He founded or took part in the founding of several intellectual and academic journals such as Philosophies, La Revue Marxiste, Arguments, Socialisme et Barbarie, Espaces et Sociétés.
Lefebvre died in 1991. In his obituary, Radical Philosophy magazine honored his long and complex career and influence:
the most prolific of French Marxist intellectuals, died during the night of 28–29 June 1991, less than a fortnight after his ninetieth birthday. During his long career, his work has gone in and out of fashion several times, and has influenced the development not only of philosophy but also of sociology, geography, political science and literary criticism.
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Displaying 1 - 29 of 88 reviews
May 15, 2021
Brilliant, stunning, dense, provocative. Lefebvre, one of the finest dissident voices in French Marxism, explores the subtle experiences of space, the ways it is represented in language and practice, and the fundamental role of capitalism's ordering of space and place to shape our world and the ways we experience it as a constraint, as a thing to be struggled against, and as a way into those struggles.
His notion of three forms of space: of spatial practice where space is produced and reproduced as specific locations and sets of relationships that ensure both continuity and an element of cohesion - often taken as perceived space, its material form; of representations of space grounded in and linked to a specific societies relations of production and to the order they impose - often discussed as conceived space or the ways it is planned; and of representational spaces in which people live and struggle to make their own meanings in opposition to the constaints imposed by the order flowing from the relations of production - otherwise referred to as lived space, that is affective space resulting from the lived experience of the other two spaces. Crucially, these spaces are not hierarchical or sequential, but concurrent and in their existence co-extensive (part of my problem with Ed Soja's postmodern spin that seen lived space as 'Thirdspace'). Lefebvre's model here is exceptional - although he bases his notion of space in the material world he also recognises the social character of both the structures in which we live and the agency we bring to meaning making within those structures.
Lefebvre's work is becoming increasing recognised in English language scholarship (not that some users of his ideas, such as Ed Soja with his postmodernist obscurantism, help make sense of the meaningful political struggles Lefebvre sought to build). This is a fine example of the philosophical significance of the everyday and of useful ways to build and incorporate subjectivities in philosophies of political struggles without getting taken down the psychoanalytic detour of much of what passes as grounded contemporary political philosophy (much as I enjoy and appreciate Žižek).
It is, to my mind, one of the great political and philosophical texts of the twentieth century, but Lefebvre's poetic, circuitous, at times contradictory style (less obvious in this case than some other pieces of his work such as Introduction to Modernity) means that multiple or revisited readings may be necessary
His notion of three forms of space: of spatial practice where space is produced and reproduced as specific locations and sets of relationships that ensure both continuity and an element of cohesion - often taken as perceived space, its material form; of representations of space grounded in and linked to a specific societies relations of production and to the order they impose - often discussed as conceived space or the ways it is planned; and of representational spaces in which people live and struggle to make their own meanings in opposition to the constaints imposed by the order flowing from the relations of production - otherwise referred to as lived space, that is affective space resulting from the lived experience of the other two spaces. Crucially, these spaces are not hierarchical or sequential, but concurrent and in their existence co-extensive (part of my problem with Ed Soja's postmodern spin that seen lived space as 'Thirdspace'). Lefebvre's model here is exceptional - although he bases his notion of space in the material world he also recognises the social character of both the structures in which we live and the agency we bring to meaning making within those structures.
Lefebvre's work is becoming increasing recognised in English language scholarship (not that some users of his ideas, such as Ed Soja with his postmodernist obscurantism, help make sense of the meaningful political struggles Lefebvre sought to build). This is a fine example of the philosophical significance of the everyday and of useful ways to build and incorporate subjectivities in philosophies of political struggles without getting taken down the psychoanalytic detour of much of what passes as grounded contemporary political philosophy (much as I enjoy and appreciate Žižek).
It is, to my mind, one of the great political and philosophical texts of the twentieth century, but Lefebvre's poetic, circuitous, at times contradictory style (less obvious in this case than some other pieces of his work such as Introduction to Modernity) means that multiple or revisited readings may be necessary
March 5, 2008
OK - this should be prefaced by the fact that I am a huge grad school nerd and largely read books that contribute to rhetorical theory or criticism. That being said, Henri Lefebvre is a crazy, circuitous, uber-french thinker whose ideas about space and how we use/make it are interesting for anyone who questions life in our modern age. Spaces don't just exist anymore he says, they're produced in/by the overarching bureaucracy. However, spaces aren't products like sugar or hair brushes because they also shape action and interaction. Space is both product and producer. The 'natural' space has all been used up, he says. And think about it; even the national parks have been sectioned off, advertised and produced in a sense. This isn't a bad thing, it's just what is. So: how do we buck the system when even where we eat and sleep is part of the system (the system for him is Capitalism, since he was a Marxist but criticized his fellow Marxists for thinking too much on means of productions for goods, rather than space)? First, we have to be aware that this is what's going on; critical sensibility is the most important leap we take. Then, we can actively draw others' attention to it (say, in Google Reads reviews) and start building/producing our own spaces or reappropriating those spaces designed to create 'organized complacency' by the big guys in charge. Lefebvre is weird and his book cyclically says the same thing for 400 pages, but his ideas are great, if a little gloomy.
September 17, 2024
Return after three years.
After multiple readings, I can say that Lefebvre constantly gets lost in digressions, jumping from one topic to another and generally not presenting his theses clearly. This work resembles someone who truly has a wealth of knowledge attempting to throw all their thoughts together at once, but in doing so remains quite unclear, sometimes making it difficult to determine whether they are defending a thesis or not. At one moment, they start to defend a thesis, only to later contradict themselves.
Lefebvre constantly balances between appearing particularly thoughtful and even profound, and coming off as entirely unclear. It’s hard to challenge someone if throughout the entire work one has to verify certain theses in multiple places.
Honestly, while reading secondary literature about this work, I found myself repeatedly wondering whether we are reading the same book, as it seemed that they continuously latch onto less important parts of Lefebvre's text. So much so that one might question whether any of them have actually read the book in its entirety, or if they've simply decided to conclude that it is genius to avoid confronting it directly.
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I will admit that I lack philosophical knowledge. Half of the stuff he talked about just went over my head. I did not understand lots of things to do with old philosophies because I never learned them in depth. What I did understand did not impress me much. It just seemed like something easy to understand and it did not make me go wow. Space being produced... Is that really a surprise? But then again, I come from the literature perspective where everything is produced from the language and is always trying to represent reality never completely succeeding but at the same time succeeding more than it is ever expected. What I do feel is that there are way too much random ideas which do connect to the point he is making, but just go so much overboard that I forget what he was talking about. Apsolute space thing... I have some problems with it but the author himself addressed his own struggles with it so I have nothing to say against.
Anyways, I knew just enough to see how much I do not know but I believe it was enough to understand the main points and they were not mind shattering.
After multiple readings, I can say that Lefebvre constantly gets lost in digressions, jumping from one topic to another and generally not presenting his theses clearly. This work resembles someone who truly has a wealth of knowledge attempting to throw all their thoughts together at once, but in doing so remains quite unclear, sometimes making it difficult to determine whether they are defending a thesis or not. At one moment, they start to defend a thesis, only to later contradict themselves.
Lefebvre constantly balances between appearing particularly thoughtful and even profound, and coming off as entirely unclear. It’s hard to challenge someone if throughout the entire work one has to verify certain theses in multiple places.
Honestly, while reading secondary literature about this work, I found myself repeatedly wondering whether we are reading the same book, as it seemed that they continuously latch onto less important parts of Lefebvre's text. So much so that one might question whether any of them have actually read the book in its entirety, or if they've simply decided to conclude that it is genius to avoid confronting it directly.
--------------------------------------------------------------
I will admit that I lack philosophical knowledge. Half of the stuff he talked about just went over my head. I did not understand lots of things to do with old philosophies because I never learned them in depth. What I did understand did not impress me much. It just seemed like something easy to understand and it did not make me go wow. Space being produced... Is that really a surprise? But then again, I come from the literature perspective where everything is produced from the language and is always trying to represent reality never completely succeeding but at the same time succeeding more than it is ever expected. What I do feel is that there are way too much random ideas which do connect to the point he is making, but just go so much overboard that I forget what he was talking about. Apsolute space thing... I have some problems with it but the author himself addressed his own struggles with it so I have nothing to say against.
Anyways, I knew just enough to see how much I do not know but I believe it was enough to understand the main points and they were not mind shattering.
September 16, 2025
This wasn't an easy read at all. But a necessary one by all means.
January 25, 2011
“In the beginning was the Topos. Before – long before – the advent of the Logos, in the chiaroscuro realm of primitive life, lived experience already possessed its internal rationality; this experience was producing long before thought space, and spatial thought, began reproducing the projection, explosion, image and orientation of the body.” (p. 174)
In Henri Lefebvre’s terms, living things “produce” space simply by moving. What he meant was that an animal’s or plant’s “gestures,” that is, the movements of its body relative to other things, create new spatial relationships of left and right, above and below, in front and behind, inside and outside. Of course these spaces are all created within another, larger Topos including things that do not move on their own, and others that do -- what we call the natural environment. The human beings must adapt themselves to it (when they run into immovable objects) as they try to adapt it to themselves.
In short, humans had to domesticate their environment, beginning perhaps by domesticating each other – establishing the hierarchies and other rules that made it easier for them to live together -- and then domesticating some plants and animals, long before they had sufficient experience to reflect on what they were doing or its probable consequences. Brilliant.
In Henri Lefebvre’s terms, living things “produce” space simply by moving. What he meant was that an animal’s or plant’s “gestures,” that is, the movements of its body relative to other things, create new spatial relationships of left and right, above and below, in front and behind, inside and outside. Of course these spaces are all created within another, larger Topos including things that do not move on their own, and others that do -- what we call the natural environment. The human beings must adapt themselves to it (when they run into immovable objects) as they try to adapt it to themselves.
In short, humans had to domesticate their environment, beginning perhaps by domesticating each other – establishing the hierarchies and other rules that made it easier for them to live together -- and then domesticating some plants and animals, long before they had sufficient experience to reflect on what they were doing or its probable consequences. Brilliant.
February 11, 2020
A dense whirlwind of ideas, some more carefully explicated than others, from which no intellectual movement du jour is spared, not even those Marxist currents in post-war French philosophy with which Lefebvre's name is often associated.
The Production of Space, perhaps his representative work, seeks to critique Western thought's dogmatic occultation of concrete, lived experience through its vigilant and exclusive attention paid to the mental-linguistic realm. Within Lefebvre's own day, the legacy of transcendental subjectivity was carried on in star-studded fashion by the structuralism of Barthes, Althusser, and others, for whom social and physical realities were seen as subsidiary to and over-determined by semiotic codes. This mode of thought, wherein conditions of experience are objectified, was not restricted to philosophy alone. Discourses of pure, abstract space flourished especially in mid-century design, with Le Corbusier's austere urban planning (and indirect realization in Brasilia) representing an apotheosis for a historical tendency to conceive of space as a pre-given thing over which production is super-imposed.
Space, for Lefebvre, resists the subject / object dichotomy, as it is a production of social activity preceding intellectual reflection. It is not the case that one navigates the rarefied space of St Mark's Square as a pure Ego enmeshed within a hermeneutical matrix subjected to one's "personal code". What occurs is rather the very production of space through an embodied passage of tropisms and affectivity. Space is the epiphenomenon of rhythmic, repetitive action, directed or otherwise, from which culture and meaning emerge. It is non-intentional spatial production which Lefebvre centers upon as key to the reproduction of social relations, and despite his outwardly humanist ties, the spatial conception of ideology presented here does seem to me verging closely on a structuralist one.
As famously studied by Jane Jacobs, the organicity of urban life could not be the result of any top-down planning; it is rather an immanent process of social rhythms and feedback. Urban space more than any other reveals the latent antagonisms of space -- its dual and co-existent tendencies for homogenization and fragmentation, its contradictions between planned space and lived space -- and thus is for Lefebvre the locus par excellence, whence his proclamation of "the right to the city", which rests upon this notion of the city as a space created by its inhabitants.
Given his time of writing, Lefebvre can only hint at the unprecedented spatial production of information and communication technology. It took others in his wake, like David Harvey and Fredric Jameson, to contemporize some of these ideas in an era of unfettered globalization, and it will take others still to carry out the entirety of the implications herein.
I would also like to recommend anyone interested in this text to first consult Juhani Pallasmaa's The Eyes of the Skin, which offers an immensely more readable critique of intellectualized architectural space, and also James Holston's The Modernist City, which gives a thorough and material analysis of the myth of Brasilia (and its associated urban theory) from an anthropologist's perspective.
The Production of Space, perhaps his representative work, seeks to critique Western thought's dogmatic occultation of concrete, lived experience through its vigilant and exclusive attention paid to the mental-linguistic realm. Within Lefebvre's own day, the legacy of transcendental subjectivity was carried on in star-studded fashion by the structuralism of Barthes, Althusser, and others, for whom social and physical realities were seen as subsidiary to and over-determined by semiotic codes. This mode of thought, wherein conditions of experience are objectified, was not restricted to philosophy alone. Discourses of pure, abstract space flourished especially in mid-century design, with Le Corbusier's austere urban planning (and indirect realization in Brasilia) representing an apotheosis for a historical tendency to conceive of space as a pre-given thing over which production is super-imposed.
Space, for Lefebvre, resists the subject / object dichotomy, as it is a production of social activity preceding intellectual reflection. It is not the case that one navigates the rarefied space of St Mark's Square as a pure Ego enmeshed within a hermeneutical matrix subjected to one's "personal code". What occurs is rather the very production of space through an embodied passage of tropisms and affectivity. Space is the epiphenomenon of rhythmic, repetitive action, directed or otherwise, from which culture and meaning emerge. It is non-intentional spatial production which Lefebvre centers upon as key to the reproduction of social relations, and despite his outwardly humanist ties, the spatial conception of ideology presented here does seem to me verging closely on a structuralist one.
As famously studied by Jane Jacobs, the organicity of urban life could not be the result of any top-down planning; it is rather an immanent process of social rhythms and feedback. Urban space more than any other reveals the latent antagonisms of space -- its dual and co-existent tendencies for homogenization and fragmentation, its contradictions between planned space and lived space -- and thus is for Lefebvre the locus par excellence, whence his proclamation of "the right to the city", which rests upon this notion of the city as a space created by its inhabitants.
Given his time of writing, Lefebvre can only hint at the unprecedented spatial production of information and communication technology. It took others in his wake, like David Harvey and Fredric Jameson, to contemporize some of these ideas in an era of unfettered globalization, and it will take others still to carry out the entirety of the implications herein.
I would also like to recommend anyone interested in this text to first consult Juhani Pallasmaa's The Eyes of the Skin, which offers an immensely more readable critique of intellectualized architectural space, and also James Holston's The Modernist City, which gives a thorough and material analysis of the myth of Brasilia (and its associated urban theory) from an anthropologist's perspective.
February 13, 2014
Space is political, that's the premise. And by god, that ideology extends to everything. Life-changing read.
February 18, 2009
A classic treaty on humans and space. The main idea being that space is a social product.
Perceived (first), Conceived (second), and Lived (third). Perceived space is the materiality of space. Conceived space is the ways in which space is planned; normative representations of space. Lived space is the emotional experience of space that develops through the imaginary and through lived experience of the first two spaces.
His insights are central to much of human geography. Harvey and Massey have taken these ideas, like many other authors, to work on their own influential theories.
Perceived (first), Conceived (second), and Lived (third). Perceived space is the materiality of space. Conceived space is the ways in which space is planned; normative representations of space. Lived space is the emotional experience of space that develops through the imaginary and through lived experience of the first two spaces.
His insights are central to much of human geography. Harvey and Massey have taken these ideas, like many other authors, to work on their own influential theories.
April 22, 2011
A classic work by the French Marxist-humanist scholar on the political economy and social construction of urban spaces. Prolix, yes, and more than a bit meandering--- but a brilliant work that repays the reader's effort. Lefebvre is indispensable in considering the relationship between political economy and the organisation of cities and what "space" means... Highly recommended.
January 1, 2020
I attempted this book because it is referred to as a source by other writers whom I have admired. I found that it cannot simply be read through; it has to be worked with.
I have picked out some quotes below which hopefully demonstrate the presence of many provocative and beautifully composed remarks; for these alone it is easy to see why Lefebvre is so useful a source of quotes for other writers; I may well find opportunities to quote him myself. The truth is that some of these passages are sufficiently rich to justify taking them as the kicking off point for an essay of my own; regardless of the purpose they may serve in the text and in the author's own line of thinking or argument. As a minimum, it would be a fine challenge to write a commentary on the text, if only for my own benefit. In other words, the book is highly readable and stimulating, and worth reading, or even dipping into and browsing, for that reason alone.
It is a very laborious task, however, to discover and then keep a firm hold on the thread of its major arguments. I was often lulled by the soporific effect of its language, only to find I had covered quite a number of pages without proper comprehension. Going back over it, reviewing the passages I had marked with pencil, making notes, I saw no other way to progress. I cannot claim, after over two months with this book, that I actually have a clear idea in my own mind, or could convey to others, what the book is finally saying. I have tried verbally - it is like plaiting fog. Some of the material seems impressive on the page but becomes far less convincing when I try to explain it to someone else and that suggests I need to pin down areas of disagreement before proclaiming myself a convert.
This is a bit like saying that the book works well as poetry but is more troublesome as prose. I am putting it aside without completing the task. I will still have it on a shelf nearby to browse periodically and I may return to it when I am better prepared or perhaps if I find a decent guide. Maybe I just need a few months for the ideas to ferment. In the meanwhile I have at least had the chance to form my own impression of what many consider a highly creative, original and influential thinker.
Quotes
If space is produced, if there is a productive process, then we are dealing with history. [p46]
Those who produced space (peasants or artisans) were not the same people as managed it, as used it to organise social production and reproduction; it was the priests, warriors, scribes and princes who possessed what others had produced, who appropriated space and became its fully entitled owners. [p48]
In connection with abstract space, a space which is also instrumental (i.e. manipulated by all kinds of ‘authorities’ of which it is the locus and milieu), a question arises ... It concerns the silence of the ‘users’ of this space. Why do they allow themselves to be manipulated in ways so damaging to their spaces and their daily life without embarking on massive revolts? Why is protest left to ‘enlightened’, and hence elite, groups who are in any case largely exempt from these manipulations? Such elite circles, at the margins of political life, are highly vocal, but being mere wordmills, they have little to show for it. How is it that protest is rarely taken up by supposedly left-wing political parties? ... Has bureaucracy already achieved such power that no political force can successfully resist it? [p51]
There is no doubt that medieval society ... created its own space. ... Manors, monasteries, cathedrals – these were the strong points anchoring the network of lanes and main roads to a landscape transformed by peasant communities. ... Capitalism and neocapitalism have produced abstract space, which included the ‘world of commodities’, its ‘logic’, and its worldwide strategies. As well as the power of money and that of the political state.. [p53]
...do sets of non verbal signs and symbols, whether coded or not, systematized or not, fall into the same category as verbal sets, or are they rather irreducible to them? Among non-verbal signifying sets must be included music, painting, sculpture, architecture and certainly theatre, which in addition to a text or pretext embraces gesture, masks, costume, a stage, a mise-en-scéne – in short, a space. Non-verbal sets are thus characterized by a spatiality which is in fact irreducible to the mental realm. There is even a sense in which landscapes, both rural and urban, fall under this head. To underestimate, ignore and diminish space amounts to the overestimation of texts, written matter, and writing systems, along with the readable and the visible, to the point of assigning to these a monopoly of intelligibility. [63]
Why do I say that nature does not produce? ... it is one of its defining characteristics that it creates. What it creates, namely ‘individual beings’, simply surges forth, simply appears. Nature knows nothing of these creations... A tree, a flower or a fruit is not a ‘product’ – even if it is in a garden. A rose has no why or wherefore; it blooms because it blooms. In the words of Angelus Silesius, it ‘cares not whether it is seen’. It does not know that it is beautiful, that it smells good, that it embodies a symmetry of the nth order. ... Nature cannot operate according to the same teleology as human beings. The ‘beings’ it creates are works; and each has ‘something’ unique about it, even if it belongs to a genus, and a species: a tree is a particular tree, a rose a particular rose, a horse a particular horse. Nature appears as the vast territory of births. ‘Things’ are born, grow and ripen, then wither and die. The reality behind these words is infinite. As it deploys its forces, nature is violent, generous, niggardly, bountiful, and above all open. Nature’s space is not staged. To ask why this is so is a strictly meaningless question: a flower does not know that it is a flower any more than death knows upon whom it is visited... To say ‘natural’ is to say spontaneous. But today nature is drawing away from us, to say the very least. It is becoming impossible to escape the notion that nature is being murdered by ‘anti-nature’ – by abstraction, by signs and images, by discourse, as also by labour and its products. Along with God, nature is dying. ‘Humanity’ is killing both of them – and perhaps committing suicide into the bargain. [p70]
Social space is not a thing among other things, nor a product among other products... Itself the outcome of past actions, social space is what permits fresh actions to occur, while suggesting others and prohibiting yet others. [p73]
‘To produce space’: this combination of words would have meant strictly nothing when the philosophers exercised all power over concepts. The space of the philosophers could be created only by God, as His first work. [p73]
Consider the case of a city – a space which is fashioned, shaped and invested by social activities during a finite historical period. Is this city a work or a product?... Take Venice for instance... Who conceived the architectural and monumental unity which extends from each palazzo to the city as a whole? The truth is that no one did – even though Venice, more than any other place, bears witness to the existence, from the sixteenth century on, of a unitary code or common language of the city. [p73] ... Could it be that the space of the finest cities came into being after the fashion of plants and flowers in a garden – after the fashion, in other words, of works of nature, just as unique as they, albeit fashioned by highly civilized people? [p74]
There is no need to subject modern towns, their outskirts and new buildings, to careful scrutiny in order to reach the conclusion that everything here resembles everything else. ... It is obvious, sad to say, that repetition has everywhere defeated uniqueness, that the artificial and contrived have driven all spontaneity and naturalness from the field, and in short that products have vanquished works. Repetitious spaces are the outcome of repetitive gestures (those of the workers) associated with instruments which are both duplicatable and designed to duplicate: machines, bulldozers, concrete-mixers, cranes, pneumatic drills, and so on... At all events, repetition reigns supreme. Can a space of this kind really be described as a ‘work’? There is an overwhelming case for saying that it is a product strictu sensu: it is reproducible and it is the result of repetitive actions. Thus space is undeniably produced even when the scale is not that of major highways, airports or public works. [p75]
A social space cannot be adequately accounted for by nature (climate, site) or by its previous history. Nor do the forces of production give rise in any direct way to a particular space or a particular time. ... Social space contains a great diversity of objects, both natural and social, including the networks and pathways which facilitate the exchange of material things and information. Such ‘objects’ are thus not only things but also relations. Social labour transforms them... [p77]
The successful unmasking of things in order to reveal (social) relationships – such was Marx’s great achievement. ... merely to note the existence of things, whether specific objects or “the object” in general, is to ignore what things at once embody and dissimulate, namely social relations and the form of those relations. [p81]
Cutting things up and rearranging them, decoupage and montage – these are the alpha and omega of the art of image-making. Error insinuates itself into the very objects that the artist discerns, as into the sets of objects that he selects. Wherever there is illusion, the optical and visual world plays an integral and integrative, active and passive part in it. It fetishizes abstraction and imposes it as the norm. It detaches the pure form from its impure content – from lived time, everyday time, and from bodies with their opacity and solidity, their warmth, their life and their death. After its fashion, the image kills. In this it is like all signs. [p97]
Perhaps it would make sense to decide without further ado to seek inspiration in Marx’s Capital – ...in the sense of following Capital’s plan in dealing with space... Marx uncovers an (almost) pure form, that of the circulation of material goods, or exchange.... The form of social space is encounter, assembly, simultaneity. But what assembles, or what is assembled? The answer is: everything that is in space, everything that is produced either by nature or by society, either through their cooperation or through their conflicts. Everything: living beings, things, objects, works, signs and symbols. Natural space juxtaposes – and thus disperses: it puts places and that which occupies them side by side. It particularizes. By contrast, social space implies actual or potential assembly at a single point, or around that point. It implies, therefore, the possibility of accumulation (a possibility that is realized under specific conditions). ... Urban space gathers crowds, products in the markets, acts and symbols. It concentrates all these and accumulates them. [p101]
...capitalism and the bourgeoisie have a broad back. It is easy to attribute a multitude of misdeeds to them without addressing the question of how they themselves came into being... [p109]
Productive operations tend in the main to cover their tracks; ... When construction is completed, the scaffolding is taken down; likewise, the fate of an author’s draft is to be torn up and tossed away, while for a painter the distinction between a study and a painting is a very clear one. It is for reasons such as these that products, and even works, are further characterized by their tendency to detach themselves from productive labour. So much so, in fact, that productive labour is sometimes forgotten altogether, and it is this ‘forgetfulness’ – or, as a philosopher might say, this mystification – that makes possible the fetishism of commodities: the fact that commodities imply certain social relationships whose misapprehension they also ensure. / It is never easy to get back from the object (product or work) to the activity that produced and/or created it. It is the only way, however, to illuminate the object’s nature, or, if you will, the object’s relationship to nature, and reconstitute the process of its genesis and the development of its meaning. All other ways of proceeding can succeed only in constructing an abstract object – a mode. ... we need to generate an object in its entirety – that is, to reproduce, by and in thought, that object’s forms, structures and functions. [p113]
Traversed now by pathways and patterned by networks, natural space changes: one might say that practical activity writes upon nature, albeit in a scrawling hand, and that this writing implies a particular representation of space... Paths are more important than the traffic they bear, because they are what endures in the form of the reticular patterns left by animals, both wild and domestic, and by people ... [p117,8]
Like any reality, social space is related methodologically and theoretically to three general concepts: form, structure, function. In other words, any social space may be subjected to formal, structural or functional analysis. Each of these approaches provides a code and a method for deciphering what at first may seem impenetrable. [p147]
I have picked out some quotes below which hopefully demonstrate the presence of many provocative and beautifully composed remarks; for these alone it is easy to see why Lefebvre is so useful a source of quotes for other writers; I may well find opportunities to quote him myself. The truth is that some of these passages are sufficiently rich to justify taking them as the kicking off point for an essay of my own; regardless of the purpose they may serve in the text and in the author's own line of thinking or argument. As a minimum, it would be a fine challenge to write a commentary on the text, if only for my own benefit. In other words, the book is highly readable and stimulating, and worth reading, or even dipping into and browsing, for that reason alone.
It is a very laborious task, however, to discover and then keep a firm hold on the thread of its major arguments. I was often lulled by the soporific effect of its language, only to find I had covered quite a number of pages without proper comprehension. Going back over it, reviewing the passages I had marked with pencil, making notes, I saw no other way to progress. I cannot claim, after over two months with this book, that I actually have a clear idea in my own mind, or could convey to others, what the book is finally saying. I have tried verbally - it is like plaiting fog. Some of the material seems impressive on the page but becomes far less convincing when I try to explain it to someone else and that suggests I need to pin down areas of disagreement before proclaiming myself a convert.
This is a bit like saying that the book works well as poetry but is more troublesome as prose. I am putting it aside without completing the task. I will still have it on a shelf nearby to browse periodically and I may return to it when I am better prepared or perhaps if I find a decent guide. Maybe I just need a few months for the ideas to ferment. In the meanwhile I have at least had the chance to form my own impression of what many consider a highly creative, original and influential thinker.
Quotes
If space is produced, if there is a productive process, then we are dealing with history. [p46]
Those who produced space (peasants or artisans) were not the same people as managed it, as used it to organise social production and reproduction; it was the priests, warriors, scribes and princes who possessed what others had produced, who appropriated space and became its fully entitled owners. [p48]
In connection with abstract space, a space which is also instrumental (i.e. manipulated by all kinds of ‘authorities’ of which it is the locus and milieu), a question arises ... It concerns the silence of the ‘users’ of this space. Why do they allow themselves to be manipulated in ways so damaging to their spaces and their daily life without embarking on massive revolts? Why is protest left to ‘enlightened’, and hence elite, groups who are in any case largely exempt from these manipulations? Such elite circles, at the margins of political life, are highly vocal, but being mere wordmills, they have little to show for it. How is it that protest is rarely taken up by supposedly left-wing political parties? ... Has bureaucracy already achieved such power that no political force can successfully resist it? [p51]
There is no doubt that medieval society ... created its own space. ... Manors, monasteries, cathedrals – these were the strong points anchoring the network of lanes and main roads to a landscape transformed by peasant communities. ... Capitalism and neocapitalism have produced abstract space, which included the ‘world of commodities’, its ‘logic’, and its worldwide strategies. As well as the power of money and that of the political state.. [p53]
...do sets of non verbal signs and symbols, whether coded or not, systematized or not, fall into the same category as verbal sets, or are they rather irreducible to them? Among non-verbal signifying sets must be included music, painting, sculpture, architecture and certainly theatre, which in addition to a text or pretext embraces gesture, masks, costume, a stage, a mise-en-scéne – in short, a space. Non-verbal sets are thus characterized by a spatiality which is in fact irreducible to the mental realm. There is even a sense in which landscapes, both rural and urban, fall under this head. To underestimate, ignore and diminish space amounts to the overestimation of texts, written matter, and writing systems, along with the readable and the visible, to the point of assigning to these a monopoly of intelligibility. [63]
Why do I say that nature does not produce? ... it is one of its defining characteristics that it creates. What it creates, namely ‘individual beings’, simply surges forth, simply appears. Nature knows nothing of these creations... A tree, a flower or a fruit is not a ‘product’ – even if it is in a garden. A rose has no why or wherefore; it blooms because it blooms. In the words of Angelus Silesius, it ‘cares not whether it is seen’. It does not know that it is beautiful, that it smells good, that it embodies a symmetry of the nth order. ... Nature cannot operate according to the same teleology as human beings. The ‘beings’ it creates are works; and each has ‘something’ unique about it, even if it belongs to a genus, and a species: a tree is a particular tree, a rose a particular rose, a horse a particular horse. Nature appears as the vast territory of births. ‘Things’ are born, grow and ripen, then wither and die. The reality behind these words is infinite. As it deploys its forces, nature is violent, generous, niggardly, bountiful, and above all open. Nature’s space is not staged. To ask why this is so is a strictly meaningless question: a flower does not know that it is a flower any more than death knows upon whom it is visited... To say ‘natural’ is to say spontaneous. But today nature is drawing away from us, to say the very least. It is becoming impossible to escape the notion that nature is being murdered by ‘anti-nature’ – by abstraction, by signs and images, by discourse, as also by labour and its products. Along with God, nature is dying. ‘Humanity’ is killing both of them – and perhaps committing suicide into the bargain. [p70]
Social space is not a thing among other things, nor a product among other products... Itself the outcome of past actions, social space is what permits fresh actions to occur, while suggesting others and prohibiting yet others. [p73]
‘To produce space’: this combination of words would have meant strictly nothing when the philosophers exercised all power over concepts. The space of the philosophers could be created only by God, as His first work. [p73]
Consider the case of a city – a space which is fashioned, shaped and invested by social activities during a finite historical period. Is this city a work or a product?... Take Venice for instance... Who conceived the architectural and monumental unity which extends from each palazzo to the city as a whole? The truth is that no one did – even though Venice, more than any other place, bears witness to the existence, from the sixteenth century on, of a unitary code or common language of the city. [p73] ... Could it be that the space of the finest cities came into being after the fashion of plants and flowers in a garden – after the fashion, in other words, of works of nature, just as unique as they, albeit fashioned by highly civilized people? [p74]
There is no need to subject modern towns, their outskirts and new buildings, to careful scrutiny in order to reach the conclusion that everything here resembles everything else. ... It is obvious, sad to say, that repetition has everywhere defeated uniqueness, that the artificial and contrived have driven all spontaneity and naturalness from the field, and in short that products have vanquished works. Repetitious spaces are the outcome of repetitive gestures (those of the workers) associated with instruments which are both duplicatable and designed to duplicate: machines, bulldozers, concrete-mixers, cranes, pneumatic drills, and so on... At all events, repetition reigns supreme. Can a space of this kind really be described as a ‘work’? There is an overwhelming case for saying that it is a product strictu sensu: it is reproducible and it is the result of repetitive actions. Thus space is undeniably produced even when the scale is not that of major highways, airports or public works. [p75]
A social space cannot be adequately accounted for by nature (climate, site) or by its previous history. Nor do the forces of production give rise in any direct way to a particular space or a particular time. ... Social space contains a great diversity of objects, both natural and social, including the networks and pathways which facilitate the exchange of material things and information. Such ‘objects’ are thus not only things but also relations. Social labour transforms them... [p77]
The successful unmasking of things in order to reveal (social) relationships – such was Marx’s great achievement. ... merely to note the existence of things, whether specific objects or “the object” in general, is to ignore what things at once embody and dissimulate, namely social relations and the form of those relations. [p81]
Cutting things up and rearranging them, decoupage and montage – these are the alpha and omega of the art of image-making. Error insinuates itself into the very objects that the artist discerns, as into the sets of objects that he selects. Wherever there is illusion, the optical and visual world plays an integral and integrative, active and passive part in it. It fetishizes abstraction and imposes it as the norm. It detaches the pure form from its impure content – from lived time, everyday time, and from bodies with their opacity and solidity, their warmth, their life and their death. After its fashion, the image kills. In this it is like all signs. [p97]
Perhaps it would make sense to decide without further ado to seek inspiration in Marx’s Capital – ...in the sense of following Capital’s plan in dealing with space... Marx uncovers an (almost) pure form, that of the circulation of material goods, or exchange.... The form of social space is encounter, assembly, simultaneity. But what assembles, or what is assembled? The answer is: everything that is in space, everything that is produced either by nature or by society, either through their cooperation or through their conflicts. Everything: living beings, things, objects, works, signs and symbols. Natural space juxtaposes – and thus disperses: it puts places and that which occupies them side by side. It particularizes. By contrast, social space implies actual or potential assembly at a single point, or around that point. It implies, therefore, the possibility of accumulation (a possibility that is realized under specific conditions). ... Urban space gathers crowds, products in the markets, acts and symbols. It concentrates all these and accumulates them. [p101]
...capitalism and the bourgeoisie have a broad back. It is easy to attribute a multitude of misdeeds to them without addressing the question of how they themselves came into being... [p109]
Productive operations tend in the main to cover their tracks; ... When construction is completed, the scaffolding is taken down; likewise, the fate of an author’s draft is to be torn up and tossed away, while for a painter the distinction between a study and a painting is a very clear one. It is for reasons such as these that products, and even works, are further characterized by their tendency to detach themselves from productive labour. So much so, in fact, that productive labour is sometimes forgotten altogether, and it is this ‘forgetfulness’ – or, as a philosopher might say, this mystification – that makes possible the fetishism of commodities: the fact that commodities imply certain social relationships whose misapprehension they also ensure. / It is never easy to get back from the object (product or work) to the activity that produced and/or created it. It is the only way, however, to illuminate the object’s nature, or, if you will, the object’s relationship to nature, and reconstitute the process of its genesis and the development of its meaning. All other ways of proceeding can succeed only in constructing an abstract object – a mode. ... we need to generate an object in its entirety – that is, to reproduce, by and in thought, that object’s forms, structures and functions. [p113]
Traversed now by pathways and patterned by networks, natural space changes: one might say that practical activity writes upon nature, albeit in a scrawling hand, and that this writing implies a particular representation of space... Paths are more important than the traffic they bear, because they are what endures in the form of the reticular patterns left by animals, both wild and domestic, and by people ... [p117,8]
Like any reality, social space is related methodologically and theoretically to three general concepts: form, structure, function. In other words, any social space may be subjected to formal, structural or functional analysis. Each of these approaches provides a code and a method for deciphering what at first may seem impenetrable. [p147]
June 4, 2024
I understood like half of this, but it's so fun and so provoking.
June 24, 2012
This book definitely requires a working knowledge of Marx's theories to understand his argument. While I found many of his ideas interesting, he does seem to suffer from a top-down approach to power and a heavy reliance on structure as defining social relationships. In this context, he spreads his theory too far, attempting to make the power capitalism holds over space universal and thereby neglects the other, non-European areas of the world and how their experiences may have differed from that of Europe, especially France. The work also suffers somewhat in Lefebvre's failure to question some of the terms he uses. For example, he frequently talks about nature, yet fails to really define it; in some places, he seems to be referring to the environment and its resources and in other areas, he seems to be referring to the Euro-centric, classically colonial notion of the other. I will not, however, deny the importance of this book, for without it there would be no space for criticism; he was the first to really look at the links between capitalism and space and his ideas have sparked ideas for my own work. However, it needs to be read with a certain amount of knowledge of both Marxism and anthropological studies that have been written since the 70s which question many of his presuppositions.
December 22, 2018
You are a body: a space within a space which is producing space. Other bodies are walking mirrors, reflecting your space in a space to arrange a new space, which is then experienced simultaneously as perceived, conceived and lived. There are numerous spaces - mental, abstract, absolute, social, philosophical, and many more - but you shouldn't get lost in trying to comprehend in which one do you live since all of them do contribute towards a coherent spacial experience. A space where Gods used to live is now inhibited by commodities, a space which appears homogeneous is actually full of contradictions, a space which is seemingly stable is very much in constant flux, a space which looks transparent is totally opaque. Confusing? Indeed. I feel like a fish who is trying to speak about water.
December 23, 2007
Fascinating analysis of how political and economic orders produce urban and rural spaces the both reinforce and subvert their founding values.
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April 30, 2021Good grief - that was one beefy boy. I'm going to need to read this about three more times before I try to incorporate the theories into my thesis but it's one hell of a landmark text for spatiality.
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April 4, 2023Así, habría un pseudo-sujeto aparente, impersonal, el Se abstracto del espacio social moderno -y oculto en él, velado por su transparencia ilusoria, el auténtico «sujeto», el poder estatal (político)-. En este espacio y sobre él, todo se declara abiertamente: todo es dicho o escrito. Salvo que hay poco que decir y menos aún que vivir. Lo vivido se aplasta y cae derrotado por lo concebido. La historia se vive como nostalgia y la naturaleza como pesar, como un horizonte que queda detrás.
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Tanto como un poema o una tragedia, un monumento metamorfosea en esplendor el temor ante el paso del tiempo, la angustia ante la muerte. Sin embargo, la «durabilidad» monumental puede ser una ilusión por completo. Lo durable no es sino la voluntad de durar, la perennidad monumental porta una marca, la de la voluntad de poder.
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Tanto como un poema o una tragedia, un monumento metamorfosea en esplendor el temor ante el paso del tiempo, la angustia ante la muerte. Sin embargo, la «durabilidad» monumental puede ser una ilusión por completo. Lo durable no es sino la voluntad de durar, la perennidad monumental porta una marca, la de la voluntad de poder.
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May 13, 2025fundamental to understand the "spatial turn" in history... necessary for the context of my dissertation.... absolutely had a terrible time.
June 9, 2025
One of those mind blowing books that just shifts your thinking in new directions. Along with Raymond Williams work on culture, this is key.
April 24, 2023
“Before producing effects in the material realm (tools and objects), before producing itself by drawing nourishment from that realm, and before reproducing itself by generating other bodies, each living body is space and has its space: it produces itself in space and it also produces that space” (170).
May 15, 2012
This book is so magisterial, so essential, and such a hot mess that it's nearly impossible to review. As many have noted, the beginning and end are astonishingly brilliant, while the middle is contradictory, unclear and not terribly useful. Still, anyone interested in technology and society, architecture and urban design, contemporary philosophy, or powerful ideas generally really needs to read this book (skipping the middle chapters if necessary).
That an orthodox French Marxist writing a deeply Eurocentric work about modernism and urban space in 1970 could produce such a timeless, insightful, revolutionary set of intellectual tools that applies as well to postmodern Los Angeles and "cyberspace" as to 1968 Paris is absolutely astonishing. Lefebvre transcends his own limitations of time and space to produce an absolutely essential analysis.
Many may take issue with his writing style: I enjoyed it. I found the density of his prose, backed with an acerbic wit, necessary and clear for his subject matter: he's as difficult as need be to make his points, and not at all intentionally or accidentally obscure. He's no typical French philosopher: he's scathing about his contemporaries who believe that just saying shit counts as theory.
The Production of Space was a wonderful intellectual challenge, and should be required reading in any social science graduate program.
That an orthodox French Marxist writing a deeply Eurocentric work about modernism and urban space in 1970 could produce such a timeless, insightful, revolutionary set of intellectual tools that applies as well to postmodern Los Angeles and "cyberspace" as to 1968 Paris is absolutely astonishing. Lefebvre transcends his own limitations of time and space to produce an absolutely essential analysis.
Many may take issue with his writing style: I enjoyed it. I found the density of his prose, backed with an acerbic wit, necessary and clear for his subject matter: he's as difficult as need be to make his points, and not at all intentionally or accidentally obscure. He's no typical French philosopher: he's scathing about his contemporaries who believe that just saying shit counts as theory.
The Production of Space was a wonderful intellectual challenge, and should be required reading in any social science graduate program.
November 1, 2011
I started this a few years ago, got half way through, and put it down. It's a lot of theory and I understood some of it, but not nearly all. Pretty interesting look at how space is constructed via many different perspectives. In some areas it reminded me of Debord's Society of the Spectacle with all that goes into the construction of shared physical space and how authoritative readings of that space are not the totality of the space. It can change and be appropriated into whole other uses. A dense, long, read—there were certainly parts that got my mind ticking. The only other problem with the book was that it was a bad printing and left out nearly 100 pages. :-( I can only imagine what the full text reads like.
ps. thanks caitlin!
ps. thanks caitlin!
February 9, 2020
Bitirdiğime inanamıyorum :d Notların üstünden geçip buraya güncel bir yorum yazmak isterdim ama günler oldu hala geçemedim. Ağır bir okuma, lütfen geniş zamana yaymadan bitirmeye çalışınız yoksa uzadıkça uzuyor. Lefebvre'den okuduğum ikinci kitap oldu, entelektüel birikimini yalın bir dille aktarmasını çok seviyorum. Sağ olsun biz cahiller de anlıyoruz neyin ne olduğunu. 😅 Şaka bir yana mekan çalışmak isteyen herkese tavsiye ederim. Keşke lisanstayken hocalar okutup üstünden ödev falan isteseydi, eminim şimdiye daha sağlam okumalarla gelmemi sağlardı. Mimarlık fakültesindeki her öğrenci mutlaka edinmeli, geciktirmeden okumalı.
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June 4, 2008First off, a warning: this is a very difficult read, even by theory standards. If you can handle dense, turgid prose though, this is strongly recommended. Whereas most spatial theory comes from a more explicitly sociological or geographic perspective, this provides a perspective more grounded in sheer philosophy, which makes it an unusual and highly influential work, and one from which so much contemporary geography is derived.
December 13, 2012
i agree with some of the reviews that it's dense, but i hardened my soul, grit my teeth and managed to read and trying to understand through it all .... cause this was the foundation of my thesis. i love the guy though and planning to move it all through my dissertation too (when and if i ever started the dissertation)
February 16, 2014
good god! breathtaking, groundbreaking, monumental.
February 6, 2015
how many books is this?
September 3, 2025
Extremely insightful, but at times also quite painful to read. This is mainly due to the author relying on very particular concepts, often from the Hegelian and Marxist tradition. I should also say that I only read the intro chapter and the conclusion.
The book's main idea, however, is as simple as it is revolutionary: space is a social product. More particularly, the space that a society produces is deeply related to its historical situation, and specifically its relations of economic production (p. 31). Each society, in Lefebvre's view, produces its own space. And this is intuitively true: the spaces produced by capitalist societies, for example, seem to resemble each other in particular ways (e.g., US cities, as particularly exemplary of capitalism, overwhelmingly follow classic grid structures, etc.). The introduction charts the historico-material development of space in Lefebvre's view, starting with "absolute space" (characterized by natural characteristics; e.g., caves, mountains, etc.) which gave way to "historical space" (a space that began to accumulate wealth and resources, incl. knowledge, technology, money, art, symbold). After this came "abstract space" which i basically understood as the capitalist spaces of contemporary societies, it includes plazas, commercial centres, empty spaces of the state and military, in short "the disappearing of nature" (p. 50). Abstract space ultimately carries within itself the seeds of what he calls "differential space". The introductory chapter has some really interesting analyses about these different kinds of spaces and their logics. Later, the author will go on to argue (in line with his Marxist perspective) that a real, successful socialist revolution will necessarily involve the production and emergence of a new kind of space.
Overall, a really interesting read with some revolutionary insights about how "space" itself is historically produced. But I'd intuitively say that the introduction and conclusion contain the book's main points in sufficient depth. Life seems a little too short to read these 400 pages, especially if one isn't that familiar with Hegelian/Marxist theory...but might return at some point in the future.
The book's main idea, however, is as simple as it is revolutionary: space is a social product. More particularly, the space that a society produces is deeply related to its historical situation, and specifically its relations of economic production (p. 31). Each society, in Lefebvre's view, produces its own space. And this is intuitively true: the spaces produced by capitalist societies, for example, seem to resemble each other in particular ways (e.g., US cities, as particularly exemplary of capitalism, overwhelmingly follow classic grid structures, etc.). The introduction charts the historico-material development of space in Lefebvre's view, starting with "absolute space" (characterized by natural characteristics; e.g., caves, mountains, etc.) which gave way to "historical space" (a space that began to accumulate wealth and resources, incl. knowledge, technology, money, art, symbold). After this came "abstract space" which i basically understood as the capitalist spaces of contemporary societies, it includes plazas, commercial centres, empty spaces of the state and military, in short "the disappearing of nature" (p. 50). Abstract space ultimately carries within itself the seeds of what he calls "differential space". The introductory chapter has some really interesting analyses about these different kinds of spaces and their logics. Later, the author will go on to argue (in line with his Marxist perspective) that a real, successful socialist revolution will necessarily involve the production and emergence of a new kind of space.
Overall, a really interesting read with some revolutionary insights about how "space" itself is historically produced. But I'd intuitively say that the introduction and conclusion contain the book's main points in sufficient depth. Life seems a little too short to read these 400 pages, especially if one isn't that familiar with Hegelian/Marxist theory...but might return at some point in the future.
July 29, 2019
Es el libro perfecto para descansar en verano y pasar un buen rato...
Fuera de bromas, un libro indispensable para cualquier interesado en la cuestión espacial/urbana desde una perspectiva pluridisciplinar (integral, contra las departamentalizaciones de la ciencia). Llevaba años queriendo leer este libro, pero temía que la magnitud de la obra me abrumase. Probablemente sea el libro más complejo que haya leído jamás, pero también es uno de los libros más completos, críticos y sugerentes. Su disección de los espacios de la sociedad burocrática de consumo dirigido (su análisis y crítica de encuentra en La vida cotidiana en el mundo moderno), como su exposición de la génesis desde el espacio Absoluto al Abstracto/abstrayente que pretende dominar los ritmos y usos mediante un orden espacial totalizante (o centralizado). Por último, su trabajo para la transducción de una orientación para la apropiación de los espacios (véase El derecho a la ciudad para el germen o potencialidades de lo urbano) es útil para cualquier planificador urbano crítico. Todo esto atravesado por el estudio del espacio como resultado -y actor- de la actividad productiva, hacen de este libro un trabajo inmenso de actualización de la teoría marxista que rompe con los dogmatismos de su época (tanto el de Althusser, como el del comunismo pro-stalin que acabó por desterrarle del PCFrancés) y amplía su mirada a diferentes aportaciones y aproximaciones teóricas.
Recomiendo leer este libro una vez familiarizado con los conceptos y la escritura del autor. No solo con su producción teórica de la época urbana, sino también con su crítica a la vida cotidiana, y sus aportaciones al materialismo dialéctico.
Fuera de bromas, un libro indispensable para cualquier interesado en la cuestión espacial/urbana desde una perspectiva pluridisciplinar (integral, contra las departamentalizaciones de la ciencia). Llevaba años queriendo leer este libro, pero temía que la magnitud de la obra me abrumase. Probablemente sea el libro más complejo que haya leído jamás, pero también es uno de los libros más completos, críticos y sugerentes. Su disección de los espacios de la sociedad burocrática de consumo dirigido (su análisis y crítica de encuentra en La vida cotidiana en el mundo moderno), como su exposición de la génesis desde el espacio Absoluto al Abstracto/abstrayente que pretende dominar los ritmos y usos mediante un orden espacial totalizante (o centralizado). Por último, su trabajo para la transducción de una orientación para la apropiación de los espacios (véase El derecho a la ciudad para el germen o potencialidades de lo urbano) es útil para cualquier planificador urbano crítico. Todo esto atravesado por el estudio del espacio como resultado -y actor- de la actividad productiva, hacen de este libro un trabajo inmenso de actualización de la teoría marxista que rompe con los dogmatismos de su época (tanto el de Althusser, como el del comunismo pro-stalin que acabó por desterrarle del PCFrancés) y amplía su mirada a diferentes aportaciones y aproximaciones teóricas.
Recomiendo leer este libro una vez familiarizado con los conceptos y la escritura del autor. No solo con su producción teórica de la época urbana, sino también con su crítica a la vida cotidiana, y sus aportaciones al materialismo dialéctico.
November 4, 2023
A fascinating and tantalizing book, philosophically complicated under its innocent writing, this book marks one of the peaks of Henri Lefebvre as an intellectual. Lefebvre posed a question — uncommon at the time — of the silence of space in social theory. For him space is simply not a place, a container, a background, a theater, to which social action happens. Instead it is produced by its users via spatial practice and in turns govern its users.
This book is most famous for containing the Lefebvre trialectics of space: perceived (spatial practice), conceived (representation of space) and lived (representational space). However, it is not just that, and this book contains much more. What Lefebvre tried to illuminate in this book is how space is made neutral, reduced to object, as things unrelated to social practice. A long process, that is traced by Lefebvre from antiquity to modern era, which were facilitated by philosophy, by a certain thinking, namely analytical reduction common to nearly all kinds of sciences. Capitalism and state adopted this thinking, and in their pursuit of accumulation and control created abstract space. Abstract space, space of modern world, which were constructed out of nature by philosophical reduction, a space which appears homogenous and objective yet conceals differences underneath it, a space that is made possible by reduction in analysis, by reducing 'real' space into mental space, severing the 'real' from the symbolic and elevates the symbolic, signs as the true driver of social action.
This book is most famous for containing the Lefebvre trialectics of space: perceived (spatial practice), conceived (representation of space) and lived (representational space). However, it is not just that, and this book contains much more. What Lefebvre tried to illuminate in this book is how space is made neutral, reduced to object, as things unrelated to social practice. A long process, that is traced by Lefebvre from antiquity to modern era, which were facilitated by philosophy, by a certain thinking, namely analytical reduction common to nearly all kinds of sciences. Capitalism and state adopted this thinking, and in their pursuit of accumulation and control created abstract space. Abstract space, space of modern world, which were constructed out of nature by philosophical reduction, a space which appears homogenous and objective yet conceals differences underneath it, a space that is made possible by reduction in analysis, by reducing 'real' space into mental space, severing the 'real' from the symbolic and elevates the symbolic, signs as the true driver of social action.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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