Instead of regarding space mathematically as an empty area or ideologically as the mental realm, Henri Lefebvre affirms the connection between social practice and space. In “Plan of the Present Work,” he endeavors to bridge the gap between the theoretical realm and the practical one by focusing on the importance of everyday life experiences and history. Not just being the genesis of different kinds of space or representations, history and its relationships, interactions and interconnections with space often play an influential role in the mode of production of space. From
Lefebvre’s perspective, “space” is a constructed product; that is, a mode of production.
Associating the remarkable spatial turn during recent years with the combined processes of urbanization and globalization, Christian Schmid reviews Lefebvre’s concept of producing space and points out:
(Social) space is a (social) product. [I]t is necessary, first of all, to break with the widespread understanding of space imagined as an independent material reality existing “in itself.” Against such a view, Lefebvre, using the concept of the production of space, posits a theory that understands
space as fundamentally bound up with social reality. It follows that space
“in itself” can never serve as an epistemological starting position. Space does not exist “in itself”; it is produced. (28)
Being the result of a production, space reveals social relations. As Foucault has pointed out, space, as a means of control or domination, is “fundamental in any exercise of power” (252). Power is therefore integrated with space. Jean-Michel Brabant, the editor of Hérodote, argues in response to Foucault’s question about
power and claims that “what characterizes power is the way that its internal
complexity goes hand in hand with a multiform intervention on the plane of space”
(Brabant 25). Arguing from a different perspective, Lefebvre tries to modify Foucault’s power discourse by emphasizing the impossibility of mastering place completely, for he thinks space would “escape in part from those who would make use of it” (The Production of Space 26). For Lefebvre, it is important to verify “the necessity of reversing the dominant trend towards fragmentation, separation and disintegration, a trend subordination to a centre or to a centralized power and
advanced by a knowledge which works as power’s proxy” (Lefebvre, The Production
of Space 9).
According to Lefebvre, the production of space should be considered at three interrelated levels: spatial practice, representations of space, and representational spaces, all of which deal with the relation between physical and social space. This triad is further elucidated by Schmid, who recognizes space as a constructed product.
In this light, he relates the production of space to three moments of production; that is, material production, the production of knowledge, and the production of meaning (Schmid 41). Both Lefebvre and Schmid emphasize the relationship between space and humans’ living activities. In the following paragraphs, I intend to elaborate the main ideas of these three levels of space, and then turn to focus on the importance as well as the resistant force of representational space.
First of all, according to Lefebvre, spatial practice is the perceived life, for it
“is revealed through the deciphering of its space” (The Production of Space 38) and has to do with “the everyday social/spatial patterns of people in particular spaces”
(Liggett 249). In short, spatial practice designates the social activities and interaction in people’s everyday lives and can only be perceived empirically. According to Schmid, perceived space is the
space [which] has a perceivable aspect that can be grasped by the senses.
This perception constitutes an integral component of every social practice.
It comprises everything that presents itself to the sense; not only seeing but hearing, smelling, touching, tasting. This sensuously perceptible aspect of space directly relates to the materiality of the “elements” that constitute “space.” (39)
Secondly, when talking about representations of space, Lefebvre identifies them as
conceptualized space, the space of scientists, planners, urbanists,
technocratic subdividers and social engineers, as of a certain type of artist with a scientific bent—all of whom identify what is lived and what is perceived with what is conceived. (The Production of Space 38; emphasis added)
Representations of space are consequently codified and institutionalized. Embodying power and knowledge, these abstract representations of space have intervened in social and political practices by way of construction. Architecture, even when it is still an envisioned project embedded in a spatial context, for example, is one of the typical modals for such representations. The panorama-city mapped out by urban planners or cartographers, in this light, is the model Lefebvre has in mind when thinking of representations of space. Michel de Certeau has once said that the panorama-city is a
“‘theoretical’ (visual) simulacrum” (93); it is a picture conceived firstly before
construction. Viewing space as a whole, the spatial planning specialists tend to divide space into separate segments, and recombine or assemble them at will with a view to
“valorizing, quantifying, and administering space, thereby supporting and legitimating the modes of operation of state and capital” (Goonewardena 137).
Thirdly, in contrast to the conceived space, Lefebvre regards the
representational space as “directly lived through its associated images and symbols”
(The Production of Space 39; emphasis added). Accordingly, it is the space not only
“of ‘inhabitants’ and ‘users,’ but also of some artists and perhaps of those, such as few writers and philosophers, who describe and aspire to do more than describe”
(Lefebvre, The Production of Space 39; emphasis added). Without obeying any rules of cohesiveness and without following the dominant conceptualization,
representational spaces are alive and have kept speaking the histories or the stories of the loci, the lived situation, their inhabitants, and of those inscribed both by time and space. Freeing themselves from the system of verbal signs, representational spaces are redolent with their associated imaginary and symbolic elements; “they have their source in history—in the history of a people as well as in the history of each individual belonging to that people” (Lefebvre, The Production of Space 41).
Like Lefebvre, de Certeau writes about the inseparable relation between history and space. He states: “There is no place that is not haunted by many different spirits hidden there in silence, spirits one can ‘invoke’ or not” (108), and only in “haunted places” can people live in (de Certeau 108). The sprits mentioned by de Certeau can be referred to the past of human beings, including their lived experiences, written histories, constructed systems, ancient customs, and whatever related to people’s activities. Since these past events are tinted with a hue of warmth and intimacy, people tend to regard one particular space they live in the early stage of their lives as their “home.” The places to which we tie through individual and collective memories can be seen as the lived spaces, the representational spaces. To get a sense of
representational spaces, people have to live, experience, and then decipher the coded (or not coded) cultural meanings. What’s more, we have to be aware of the
possibilities of resistance belonging to the lived space which would not “let itself be exhausted through theoretical analysis” (Schmid 40). Just as what Schmid reminds us
of, “There always remains a surplus, a remainder, an inexpressible and unanalysable but most valuable residue that can be expressed only through artistic means” (40).
Lefebvre’s spatial triad, rather than an integrated unity, may be regarded as the processes of assembly which are “dialectical, not discreet and oppositional” (Leggett 252). During the processes of molding, spatial practice, representations of space and representational spaces interconnect with one another. They are in an active sense, being incessantly produced and reproduced. To illustrate this dialectical relationship, Schmid analyzes Lefebvre’s scheme in the following way:
In the first, social space appears in the dimension of spatial practice as an interlinking chain or network of activities or interactions which on their part rest upon a determinate material basis (morphology, built
environment). In the second, this spatial practice can be linguistically defined and demarcated as space and then constitutes a representation of space. This representation serves as an organizing schema or a frame of reference for communication, which permits a (spatial) orientation and thus co-determines activity at the same time. In the third, the material
“order” that emerges on the ground can itself become the vehicle conveying meaning. In this way a (spatial) symbolism develops that expresses and evokes social norms, values, and experiences. (37)
Each of the spatial triad cannot be weeded out. Spatial practice, representations of space and representational spaces have their own idiosyncratic importance and
“contribute in different ways to the production of space according to their qualities and attributes, according to the society or mode of production in question, and according to the historical period” (Lefebvre, The Production of Space 46). Schmid furthermore emphasizes the impartible relations among the perceived, the conceived,
and the lived spaces. He claims:
The materiality in itself [space] or the material practice per se has no existence when viewed from a social perspective without the thought that directs and represents them, and without the lived-experienced element, the feelings that are invested in this materiality. (Schmid 41)
What’s more, the relations among the spatial triad are “never either simple or stable”
(Lefebvre, The Production of Space 46). These three levels of space are in a state of uncertainty, for they would keep changing and constantly bring influences upon one another in the production of space. They are in a wrestle, while also compromise and collaborate with one another to produce a space.