The production of space

Spatial practice
Representations of space
Representational spaces

Lefebvre, Henry (1991). The Production of Space. Oxford, Cambridge: Maxwell. S.33.

A conceptual triad has now emerged from our discussion, a triad to which we shall be returning over and over again.

  1. Spatial practice, which embraces production and reproduction, and the particular locations and spatial sets characteristic of each social formation. Spatial practice ensures continuity and some degree of cohesion. In terms of social space, and of each member of a given society’s relationship to that space, this cohesion implies a guaranteed level of competence and a specific level of performance.
  2. Representations of space, which are tied to the relations of production and to the ‚order‘ which those relations impose, and hence to knowledge, to signs, to codes, and to ‚frontal‘ relations.
  3. Representational spaces, embodying complex symbolisms, sometimes coded, sometimes not, linked to the clandestine or underground side of social life, as also to art (which may come eventually to be defined less as a code of space than as a code of representational spaces).