"In his 1974 book, The Production of Space, French Marxist thinker Henri Lefebvre outlines a theory of space in which he breaks with the geometric or architechtural understanding of the term as an empty area enclosed by a material shell and moves to an understanding of space as a social category and a means of production. . ."
"For Lefebvre, "space is not a thing but rather a set of relations between things." His intricatey layered and dynamic model is based on the concept of social space, which he defines as follows: "Itself the outcome of past actions, social space is what permits fresh actions to occur, while suggesting others and prohibiting yet others." Social space becomes "simultaneously, both a field of action (offering its extension to the deployment of projects and practical intentions) and a basis of action (a set of places whence energies derive and whither energies are directed)"
from the essay "Alternative: Space" by Martin Beck included in Julie Ault's "Alternative Art New York: 1965-1985"
Posted by delpesco at April 10, 2004 03:25 PM