Henri Lefebvre The Production of Space

Henri LefebvreThe Production of Space

Henri LefebvreThe Production of Space 法國哲學家／社會學家昂希．列斐伏爾的空間理論，極度深遠地影響著很多著名的西方都市理論家。最初期之作品《空間之生產》(1974)是以批判資本主義生產模式來開導身體在日常生活空間之拓展（同時也是空間自身之拓展）過程的透視／詮釋。列氏晚期之著作則集中在以「節奏」為主導概念之空間理論。列氏對時空之定位，最明顯的是將時空視為人體可接觸到的，也因而開展成為有機性、物質性的時空。空間與受文化淘冶的身體，互相滲透、互為啟動、互為衍生，成為「節奏」。　

Henri Lefebvre, the most prolific of French Marxist intellectuals, was born in 1901. 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.

Born in the Landes of South-West France in 1901, Lefebvre went to study philosophy in Paris at the age of twenty, and soon became attracted to Marxism, which was certainly not taught at the university, but was being espoused by many young intellectuals in the aftermath of the October revolution.

Lefebvre joined the French Communist Party (PCF) in 1928 and for most of the next thirty years, he secured a margin of tolerance for his rather heterodox interpretation of Marxism.

Lefebvre read widely in German philosophy, finding particular affinities with Friedrich Nietzsche, but also with Friedrich Schelling and Martin Heidegger. Lefebvre affirmed the superiority of Friedrich Hegel's dialectic over formal logic, based on the dialectic's attempt to achieve a synthesis of the concept and its content, and therefore a synthesis of thought and being.

Henri LefebvreThe Production of Space From 1930 - 1940 Lefebvre was a professor of philosophy; in 1940 he joined the French resistance. From 1944 - 1949 he was the director of Radiodiffusion Française, a French radio broadcaster in Toulouse.

In 1958 Lefebvre was expelled from the PCF. During the following years he was involved in the editorial group of Arguments, a New Left magazine whose "chief merit lay in having enabled the French public to become familiar with the experiments in revisionism carried out in Central Europe in the twenties and thirties."

Henri LefebvreThe Production of Space In 1961 Lefebvre became professor of sociology at the University of Strasbourg, before joining the faculty at the new university at Nanterre in 1965. He wrote in French, English, and German. Lefebvre died in 1991.

In his obituary, Radical Philosophy magazine wrote: the most prolific of FrenchMarxist 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.

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.

Lefebvre seeks 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.

In The Production of Space (1974), Henri Lefevre contends that there are different levels of space, from very abstract, crude, natural space ('absolute space') to more complex spatialities whose significance is socially produced ('social space).

In Lefebvre's argument, the space is a social product, or a complex social construction (based on values, and the social production of meanings) which affects spatial practices and perceptions. He further argues that this social production of urban space is fundamental to the reproduction of society, hence of capitalism itself.

The notion of hegemony as proposed by Antonio Gramsci is used as a reference to show how the social production of space is commanded by a hegemonic class as a tool to reproduce its dominance. Social space is a social product - the space produced in a certain manner serves as a tool of thought and action. It is not only a means of production but also a means of control, and hence of domination/power. Lefebvre argues that every society and every mode of production produces its own space.

The city of the ancient world had its own spatial practice, making its own space. Lefebvre argues that the intellectual climate of the city in the ancient world was very much related to the social production of its spatiality. In this sense, every society produces not only its own space, but also its very peculiar abstraction incapable of escaping the ideological or even cultural spheres.

Based on this argument, Lefebvre criticizes Soviet urban planners, on the basis that they failed to produce a socialist space, having just reproduced the modernist model of urban design. In the context: "Change life! Change Society!” these ideas lose completely their meanings without producing an appropriate space in society.

Lefebvre makes distinguished and widely read contributions to both urban and rural sociology, to sociolinguistics, and to the sociology of everyday life. To some extent he is now regarded as having been a founder in French sociology.

Lefebvre's many works reached a much wider audience during the 1970s, and began to be translated into English as well as other languages. He and those with whom he had worked during the late fifties and sixties (Morin, Chatelet, Axelos, Goldmann, Castoriadis, Fougeyrollas and others) became the senior figures of the non-communist Marxist revival.

In many occasions, Lefebvre claims that the organization of the urban time and space to fit the lived experience of its citizens and residents could become the focus for a renewal of direct democratic relationships in modern society.

As an assertive and energetic Marxist to the very end of his long life, Lefebvre believes that a reading of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels provide the best framework for understanding the nature and development of society, and a revolutionary project offers the best chance of assisting positive human development through the reverses and uncertainties of history.

In The Production of Space (1974), Lefebvre tries to establish a critical review of the relationship between the capitalistic mode of production and the space of everyday life as constructed, configured and maintained by the spontaneous and cultivated human body.

In his later stage, Lefebvre focuses the study under the theme of “Rhythm.” The theory of space is the review of the synthetic act of re-inscribing the living body into space, and thus space is perceived, articulated and acted upon in an organic and material context.

Lefebvre's works hold a unique position in the intellectual history of Marxism and in the way this history became appropriated by geographers from the late 1960s onward.

Lefebvre's works stand out in several ways. First, his views depart significantly from the official Marxist doctrine by the French Communist Party (PCF) in the 1950s and 1960s, but are highly critical of the humanist Marxism.

Second, Lefebvre's views also depart from both Althusserian Marxism and post-structuralist thinkers such as Foucault, Derrida, and Barthes. However, he emphasizes the importance of reproduction, discourse, text, and representation.

Lefebvre addresses the relationship between the concept of space and experiential social space. He explains that the discursively constructed representation of space and lived space are not independent of each other, but that the separation of these spaces in scientific practice serves distinct ideological purposes.

The perceived, conceived, and lived aspects of social space cannot be captured or understood by reducing space merely to a coded message and a representation of that code. Viewing the knowledge of lived space as a reading and representation of these codes provides a generative process through which this coding is constructed, or produced.

Lefebvre argues that we need to discover or construct a theoretical unity linking different spaces in our society, i.e., physical space (nature), mental space (the discursive construction of space), and social space (or experienced, lived space).

This aim suggests that we have to decode, or read, space (concepts, codes, and messages). The reading of space, then, becomes the construction and reconstruction of the process of signification through social-spatial practices.

First of all, social space is a social product. This social space embraces a multitude of intersections, which gives meaning to places.

Then, space is produced through the conflictual unity of a spatial triad: the perceived, the conceived, and the lived. The perceived is captured as spatial practices, which embrace production and reproduction and are expressed in daily routines, and in the practice of everyday life.

The conceived embodies representations of space, which are tied to the relations of production. It is the conceptualized and discursively constructed space used and produced by planners, architects, geographers, and social engineers, which codify, textualize, and hence represent space.

Lived space, or representational space, embodies complex symbolisms. It is the space of symbols and images, which the imagination continuously seeks to change and appropriate. The perceived, conceived, and lived space constitute a unity, but not necessarily a coherence. Each of these categories is deeply conflictual and contradictory, and thus deeply political.

Furthermore, social space incorporates social actions and constitutes a process--a process of creation, and a process of production. We must, therefore, shift from the study of things in space to the actual production of space.

Besides, the understanding of space as a process of production is that space is historical. Each combination of forces and relations of production constitutes its own appropriate space. Hence, transformative socio-spatial practices (social or class struggle) produce new spaces.

Lefebvre further states that it is class struggle, inscribed in space, that prevents the totalizing, homogenizing and abstract force of capital from eliminating differences. Class struggle, broadly defined as acts of social resistance to the totalizing force of commodities and money, has the capacity to differentiate and generate differences.

The Theoretical Background of Chapter 1 in The Production of Space The traditional philosophy of space (categories of an immanent order), and science of space (mathematics) (pp. 1-3) The present discourse on space and its multiplicity: Society as a whole continues in subjection to political practice, that is, state power. (pp. 3-8)

Space and capitalist hegemony: Many facets of capitalism; the hegemony of one class; and space serving as an active locus of relations (pp. 9-11) Lefebvre's theoretical position: a unitary theory of physical, mental and social space: each of these two kinds of space involves, underpins and presupposes the other. (pp. 11-14)

The aim of Lefebvre's theoretical : The project I am outlining does not aim to produce a discourse on space, but rather to expose the actual production of space by bringing the various kinds of space and the modalities of their genesis together within a single theory.

The Production of Space aims to foster the confrontation between those ideas and propositions of space which illuminate the modern world and to treat them as prefigurations lying at the threshold of modernity. (p.24)

The dialectical character: Instead of emphasizing the rigorously formal aspect of codes, Lefebvre stresses on their dialectical character in the theory of space. Codes will be seen as part of a practical relationship, as part of an interaction between subjects, their space and surroundings.

Lefebvre's critique of two illusions: The illusion of transparency and the realist illusion (pp. 27-30) · The illusion of transparency -- space appears as luminous, as intelligible, as giving actions free rein. It is related to the ideology which privileges speech and writing has a kinship with philosophical idealism. ·

·The realist illusion: The belief that things have more of an existence than the subject, thought and desires. · Lefebvre’s argument: Social space is a social product. It’s implication: Every society and, hence, every mode of production has its subvariants and produces a space, its own space. (p. 30)

Social space contains: (1) The social relations of reproduction, i.e. the bio-physiological relations between the sexes and between age groups, along with the specific organization of the family; and (2) The relations of production, i.e. the division of labor and its organization in the form of hierarchical social functions.

Three interrelated levels in capitalist society: (1) Biological reproduction (the family); (2) The reproduction of labor power; (3) the reproduction of the social relations of production. (p. 32)

If space is a product, our knowledge of it must be expected to reproduce and expound the process of production. The object of interest must be expected to shift fromthings in spaceto the actual production of space. (pp. 36-37)

Lefebvre's spatial triad: the perceived, the conceived, and the lived (pp. 38-39) 1. Spatial practice embraces production and reproduction. Spatial practice ensures continuity and some degree of cohesion. (p. 33) The spatial practice of a society secretes that society's space; it propounds and presupposed it, in a dialectical interaction; it produces it slowly and surely as it masters and appropriates it. (p. 38)For example, in the Middle Ages, the cities embraced not only the network of local roads, but also the main roads between towns and the great pilgrims’ ways.

2. Representation of space: The conceptualized space, the space of scientists, planners, urbanists, technocratic subdiverders and social engineers identify what is lived and what is perceived with what is conceived. For example, in the Middle Ages, the Earth, the world, and the Cosmos were fixed spheres within finite spaces, diametrically bisected by the surface of the Earth; below is Hell, and above the Firmament.(p. 38)

Henri Lefebvre The Production of Space