Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience

by Yi-Fu Tuan

A study of the ways in which people feel and think about space, how they form attachments to home, neighborhood, and nation, and how feelings about space and place are affected by the sense of time.“Since it is the breadth and universality of his argument that concerns Yi-Fu Tuan, experience is defined as ‘all the modes by which a person knows and constructs reality,’ and examples are taken with equal ease from non-literate cultures, from ancient and modern oriental and western civilizations, from novels, poetry, anthropology, psychology, and theology. The result is a remarkable synthesis, which reflects well the subtleties of experience and yet avoids the pitfalls of arbitrary classification and facile generalization. For these reasons, and for its general tone and erudition and humanism, this book will surely be one that will endure when the current flurry of academic interest in environmental experience abates.” Canadian Geographer

Genres: Architecture, Philosophy, Nonfiction, Geography, Theory, Sociology, Academic

496 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1977

About the author

Fu Tuan (Traditional Chinese: 段義孚, born 5 December 1930) is a Chinese-U.S. geographer.
Tuan was born in 1930 in Tientsin, China. He was the son of a rich oligarch and was part of the top class in the Republic of China. Tuan attended University College, London, but graduated from the University of Oxford with a B.A. and M.A. in 1951 and 1955 respectively. From there he went to California to continue his geographic education. He received his Ph.D. in 1957 from the University of California, Berkeley.

Reviews

[Uroš Đurković · Rating 5 out of 5]

Prava je šteta što je Ji Fu Tuan skoro pa sasvim nepoznat u našoj sredini. Imajući u vidu njegov značaj za antropogeografiju i humanističku geografiju, to je pomalo neobično. Tuan je napravio pravi mali obrt u istoriji geografije, povezujući je sa antropologijom, filozofijom, arhitekturom, sociologijom, etologijom, istorijom, ali i književnošću. Ishod je samosvojna mešavina koja više ima veze sa Bašlarom ili Rikerom, nego, na primer, sa bilo kojim udžbenikom geografije.

Kako to uglavnom zna da biva sa velikim misliocima, ključne ideje se čine gotovo banalnim. Razlikovanje prostora (space) od mesta (place) ne deluje kao neko spektakularno otkriće i deluje prilično samorazumljivo. Ipak, ono što je zaista važno dolazi tek nakon uspostavljanja razlikovanja. Iako naizgled upućuju na isto iskustvo, prostor i mesto su umnogome suprotnosmerni – prostor je neodređeno , apstraktno označavanje predstavljanja sveta, dok je mesto njegov konkretizovani oblik. Prostor je sloboda, dok je mesto sigurnost. Prostor je potencijal, dok je mesto jedan od njegovih realizacija. Granice prostora i mesta nisu samo bitne sa teorijske, nego i sa praktične strane. Prostor je jedan i zajednički, međutim, mesto je ono što, na primer, ostaje zabeleženo na karti. Preovlađujući doživljaj (geografskog) prostora danas upravo predstavljaju karte, a svima je jasno da interakcija sa sredinom i čitanje pripadaju potpuno drugim životnim sferama. Dodir sa svetom se ne nalazi u mapi, već u bivanju-u-svetu. Pritom, ono što ostaje kao kartografska činjenica, može u izvesnom smislu biti efemerno, odnosno, zavisi od definicije prostornih odnosa ili vrste mape. Svaka mapa ima svoje prioritetne strukture i u svakoj možemo pronaći nešto što se izdvaja. Poltička, klimatska, saobraćajna, privredna i klimatska mapa nose drugačije istine. Odabirom imenovanja preobražavamo prostor u mesto – ali svako mesto može sobom nositi prostor koji se i dalje može raščlanjivati. Tuan se tako, poput autora „Poetike prostora” bavi prostorima intime, ali i emocionalno obojenom odnosu prema prostoru. Patriotizam, na primer, tu ima zanimljiv status. On je ujedno i ljubav prema prostoru i prema mestu – od neodređenosti do neposrednog doživljaja. Rodoljublje nije samo ljubav prema svom kraju, svojoj ulici, svom gradu, nego i ljubav prema nečem apstraktnom, što može da bude sasvim odvojeno od doživljaja. Imajući to u vidu, za uspostavljanje nacionalne samosvesti može biti presudno ono što potpuno odudara od svakodnevice – vezivanje za teritoriju u kojoj osoba nikada nije bila, niti će biti. To vezivanje može biti intenzivnije nego ono usmereno na neposredni komšiluk – što nam pokazuje da je susret sa prostorom uvek i susret sa pričom. To je nužan proces, bivanje u prostoru i proces pravljenja mesta od prostora, odvija se bez obzira na našu volju. Osvešćivanje te okolnosti nije sitnica.

Zato je Tuanova knjiga preplavljena citatima iz književnosti. Od taoizma do Maksima Gorkog, Joneska, Simon de Bovoar, Tenesija Vilijamsa i, recimo, V. S. Najpola – Tuanova književna mapa je fascinantna. Suština doživljaja se, tvrdi Tuan, ne nalazi u izračunjivim podacima, nego u književnosti. Ipak, ovo izdvajanje nije isključujuće ili obavezujuće – književna građa može biti korektiv geografskih istraživanja, koja bez konteksta doživljaja kakav je prisutan u umetnosti, ostaje uskraćena za važna zapažanja. U svetlu razvijanja samosvesti, Tuan iznova pokušava da temeljno rasvetli mrežu između prirode i kulture, gde bi geografija imala utemeljujuće mesto. Kultura jeste na ovaj ili onaj način organizacija prostora.

Od Hopi Indijanaca, Eskima, drevne Kine ili Hadrijanovog Panteona, sve do specifičnosti arhitekture tržnih centara u odnosu na ideju otvorenosti/zatvorenosti prema spoljašnjoj sredini, Tuan je uspostavio uzbudljivo putovanje kroz prostor i vreme.
Ne pripadaju samo pesnici "neprekidnoj svežini sveta", već i sveznalice.

[Nicola · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book so much that I wrote a short review for Construction Magazine. Here's what I wrote:

Space and Place

I just finished a wonderful book. Though written in 1977, Yi-Fu Tuan’s Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience felt fresh and new; it revealed aspects about my experience that I have taken for granted.

For Tuan experience is both intimate and conceptual; it involves complex and often ambivalent feelings. Take the title and theme of the book: space and place. Tuan explains in the introduction that “place is security, space is freedom: we are attached to the one and long for the other.” But he quickly complicates these apparent dichotomies, explaining how space can become place as we gain familiarity with a space and “endow it with value.” Tuan continues, “the ideas ‘space’ and ‘place’ require each other for definition. From the security and stability of place we are aware of the openness, freedom, and threat of space, and vice versa. Furthermore, if we think of space as that which allows movement, then place is pause; each pause in movement makes it possible for location to be transformed into place.” I love how in this passage and throughout the book Tuan moves past the semi-obvious (though unnoticed and unheralded)—place and space inform each other—to the mind blowing, completely surprising revelation—place is pause.

After this introduction, Tuan proceeds to expand these definitions/perceptions of space and place in various ways. He investigates how a child experiences the two, how different cultures create spatial values, how “crowding is an awareness that one is observed,” how humans spatialize time, how nostalgia can be produced by a feeling of changes occurring too rapidly and without one’s control, and so much more.Tuan makes these and other concepts intimate through peopling his book with various cultures and ethnic groups (Eskimos, Shetland Isle cottagers, among many others) and finding examples from psychological studies and literature. Though I’m not entirely sure that I agreed with all of Tuan’s propositions, they were interesting and provocative, and expanded my awareness, making me hyper aware of my relationship to my surroundings.

Other books in a similar vein that might be of interest: Gaston Bachelard’s sumptuous The Poetics of Space and Italo Calvino’s intricate Invisible Cities.

[Andrew]

This suffers from the same problems as a lot of Tuan's work. It's far too reliant on the Eliade/Bachelard/Levi-Strauss school of structuralist reduction, and as a result is unable to stand outside of its own solipsistic sphere. While a lot of what Tuan has to say is really quite valuable, I can't ignore the overwhelming bullshit mysticism.

[Dominic Lawn]

“And here is the ultimate ambition of this essay… to increase the burden of awareness.” Consider me burdened.

[Gregory Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a classic among geographers, so I wanted to read it for consideration for a few geography courses I am teaching. My short review is that I think the book is largely theoretical and could work as a bright supplemental reading (especially excerpted) for larger conversations on place. The book is intriguing in a philosophical more than practical way, which I believe Yi-Fu Tuan would agree was purposeful from start to finish.

I found the fourth chapter on human-centered space to be the most helpful for me thinking about geography courses for undergraduates. It helps students orient themselves away from a more physical geographic mindset into a human geographic mindset. It's also helpful in framing the every day life and how much it is fabricated by human experience.

The ending of the book has a section on "increasing the burden of awareness" which is my strongest takeaway from the book. This is about realizing that the spaces we inhabit are crafted by others who have come before us. As a historian, I have often taken this for granted. But the book's charge is for us to consider these spaces and places categorically defined by our own identity. A working class man views a factory differently than a white collar man. This is only one category of difference. Adding in religion or language or height or strength or nationality or a million other categories would again alter the perception of the place.

I jotted down several quotes from the book that will make their way into lectures of mine in the future, but this is a book more like *Walden Pond* than a geography textbook. Its intention is to reorient the reader to the world. Think more about your surroundings and how they have been shaped by others. Also, logically, think about how you are shaping the environment. Think of how your decisions (even the decision I've made to write this review) informs the mind of the person who may read it. Since you have read this review, our relationship will never be the same again. You may associate me with "the guy who wrote the weird review of the Yi-Fu Tuan book" forever. Or, if you know me well, this is only one bit of information that you will categorize in remembering me as a quirky academic or an absent-minded professor. But even something like this review reorients space and place in your mind, on your bookshelf, and in the way that you understand space.

For those who have read Benedict Anderson's classic *Imagined Communities*, there's a strong parallel in the structure and logic of the book. I had the same "yes, exactly... but why does it matter?" feeling upon first reading both books. But the more I reflected on Tuan's expressive writing, the more I realized that my very reflection on the book proves the book's point. I have become more aware of the influences in how I understand the world. Those who came before me shaped my learning and those who follow my teaching will be similarly effected. It's so obvious but so profound all at once. Give it a go.

[Mike Bularz · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is basically a geography professor's philosophy of geography. Yi-FU Tuan analyzes how we perceive and experience ("the experiential perspective") space, distance, and time, and how we acsribe personal meanings to certain spaces.. therefore making them places. If what i'm saying seems vague or way out there, this is basically the same way the book flows, except its not that difficult to understand.
A lot of the work isn't very empirical in it's sourcing, but logically sound. For instance, using linguistic origins for words defining spatial concepts as evidence of this-and-that argument about how spatial expanses are perceived, or a certain tribe's or indigenous peoples' ways of thinking about the spatial attributes of their world as they see it to argue how primitive man, uncorrupted by a cultural perspective might view the world spatially.
The credibility of this "essay" is basically lax, and should not be taken as ultimate truth, rather, as food for thought. Tuan simply relies on his life's worth of reading a plethora of sources through a geographer's perspective; although his logic in his arguments is mostly sound, it is never free of the influence of bias (his geographical perspective of novels, plays, research and his other sources used in the work) it strives to avoid in the first place. In reality, this is an example of what could be called "the experiential perspective of a geographer on space & place". In all fairness, this is what the reader initially expects, and it is what they get.
Overall, this is not poorly written, not too lengthy, not too abstract for the most part, and a great read for anyone interested in these topics. 4.5 stars if i could.

[Michelle S · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really fascinating and well worth reading. I do feel like we need to move beyond use of "primitive" and "modern" as terms at all in comparison between human societies/culture as they denote more and less advanced and linear progression between different societies that do, in fact, live contemporaneously. The book did make nuanced recognitions of the term, however and was a thoughtful exploration of various cultures and societies. I'll mostly put the use of those terms in this book down to it being 25 years old and of a different academic era which utilised different terminology.

[Dominik · Rating 3 out of 5]

Najlepsze są te fragmenty, w których autor nie sili się na nadawanie swoim przemyśleniom charakteru naukowego. Taka książka sprawdziłaby się jako czysto literacki zbiór esejów. Wtłaczanie skądinąd bardzo ciekawych i inspirujących, ale abstrakcyjnych i niemierzalnych przemyśleń w sztywne ramy nauki naukowych tez wymagających dowodzenia jest nieporozumieniem.

[Wendy]

Foundational. This book moved my thinking about PLACE in writing -- and in our lives -- forward in so many ways. The many graphic representations of his ideas really help to digest the complicated material.

[Paola · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un libro che ho letto e riletto perché un terzo della mia tesi si basa su di esso. Un saggio estremamente interessante che parla del nostro rapporto con lo spazio e con il luogo (o meglio i luoghi).

[Caroline]

i'm officially a geographer

[Henrikas Ražanas · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a such good book to read! Author explained everything in so simple manner and provided so man beautiful examples...

This was my first encounter with Yi - Fu Tuan. I'm impressed by his knowlegde and insights about many cultures that at first glance have nothing in common.

This book in one way or another opened my eyes to the areas suchs as place memory or human attachment to the place.

Highly recommend it...

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book. An academic "geography" book is not my field at all, but I found it fascinating to read Yi-Fu Tuan's insight into space, place and time. What makes something a place, setting it apart from space?

There is a lot of research involving nonliterate peoples and nomadic tribes. It's fascinating from a sociological perspective to see how these people conceive of space and place compared to the postmodern western world.

In pointing out the shift from places (towns, cities, city-states) built around a centralized sacred place to modern cities which, to many are hardly "place" at all, it's easy to see parallels into the struggles I see in the church today to really conceive of the importance of place in missional-ecclesial life.

Some sections were more pertinent than others, but ultimately it was a fascinating and helpful read.

[Boryana Rusenova Ina · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book helped rethink my work as a visual artist, it was a hard read at times but I loved it. If you are mildly interested geography and the way 'spaces' become places, familiar and personal, you would love this book. I am currently rereading it, it takes some time to process all the information, but it is totally worth it.

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Theory is kinda my enemy, but this book is awesome. Tuan is accessible and brilliant and writes in such a kind and thoughtful voice. His ideas were instrumental in my thesis research. Love it.

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Far more poetic than I would expect from a geographer! This book drew my attention to how very personal our sense of geography can be.

[Chloe · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's not often one can genuinely describe an academic monograph as a pleasure to read, but I can wholeheartedly say that of 'Space and Place'. Any good communicator knows that their job is to explain complex ideas in language that is easy to understand. It can also be said that many academics struggle with this (myself included). Yi-Fu Tuan is an exemplar of communication for all scholars, whether you study architecture, geography, narrative, or something beyond his realm of expertise.

In essence, space is open and fluid; it evokes a sense of freedom. In comparison, space becomes place when fixed to a specific location with specific attributes that define the place. Both are neutral concepts. As Tuan states, 'A healthy being welcomes constraint and freedom, the boundedness of place and the exposure of space.' (54).

Of course the connotations of space and place have changed across time and culture. When we were hunter-gatherers, the openness of space was considered a threat, while the stable confines of place signalled safety. Likewise, to the claustrophobe or the agoraphobe, space and place may be attractive or repulsive. Tuan writes, 'culture and experience strongly influence the interpretation of the environment' (55).

Tuan goes on to explore how humans develop spatial awareness, how places and spaces become mythical, and the role of architecture and time in the creation of space and place among other things. He gives detailed examples from cultures and peoples around the world and provides helpful illustrations to cement understanding.

You could dip in and out of this book depending on your research interest, but I'd suggest reading it cover to cover as concepts do build on one another. Even if you're tight on time, Space and Place is a rewarding read.

[Billy Marino · Rating 4 out of 5]

Most accurately a 3.5 rating. Highly though provoking, and eloquently written, Tuan's work is no doubt a classic that should be read by anyone hoping to understand how people understand themselves and the world around them. That being said, it certainly suffers from some outdated ideas surrounding concepts such as "primitive" societies and "prehistory," the latter of which is slowly but surely being phased out of use because, well, it's not all that useful anymore. Still, this book is worth the read as an introduction to how cultural geographers began to conceptualize the relationship of people and their environment. Aside from its issues briefly mentioned above, the date of this book (1977) also means it can't account for the advances in science that occurred since its release. Hopefully scholars have taken up the task of updating these theories as neuroscience has slowly learned more about the brain and how it operates, which will certainly alter some details of Tuan's ideas about how the senses help people interpret space and place.

[Taylor Ellwood · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an intriguing book which emphasizes the importance of having an experiential relation with the spaces and places we live in. The author explores how people live in space and place and how that influences the way space and place is designed and navigated. This is a thought provoking read that will help you experience your own space and place differently as a result of reading the book. Perhaps the most essential lesson is that we can’t rely on a conceptual framework to understand space and place. We need to experience and embody it.

[Betül · Rating 1 out of 5]

Sometimes I wonder how many books I could have published back in the good old days when an academic study could be based entirely on personal experience, whatever that means. I don't want to be disrespectful or anything and I appreciate the book, but Tuan himself admits at the very beginning that his book is based on his experience of the world alone and although it may be a very significant contribution to spatial studies (no doubt on that), it is full of scattered ideas on space and other things in general and it is in no way a theory that can be used as a conceptual framework within a discipline. Be aware, fellow researcher who would like to be enlightened on the matters of space after reading this book, and tread carefully.

[Rita · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can never stop complimenting Yi-fu Tuan's work. Always clear and comforting! I do not do geography research while his books are always inspiring for my study on cognitive linguistics and linguistic landscapes.

This book is an illuminator if you would also like to explore your surrounding, your living area, your hometown, your dream place, your fear and your sense of safety, or other inexpressible feelings. He describes the feelings that I can hardly express while I have long been aware of.

[Ruth · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'd never read anything by Tuan when I picked up this book. His voice in the first page sounded like a dear friend to me, someone I've talked at length with over the course of many years. His theory of space and place is the one that I always come back to. I've begun to read his other books and they're excellent as well.

[A. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I reallllllly wanted to love this, and somehow just didn't quite. It felt both more detailed than I wanted in a lot of things, and too surface-level in others. I don't know; I don't know why I didn't love it, but it didn't give me what I was hoping for. (Still interesting!! But not the book I hoped to adore.)

[Arda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Notes from paper:

Very few people have delved into the grasp individuals have about space and place (Tuan, 1977)

Tuan, 1977, explains that the thoughts and senses, as experience, go past the self and reach outside.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is probably more a 3.5ish that I'm rounding up. There were some bits I really enjoyed and found through provoking and others that just seemed sorta out there. None of it was bad per se, but I wish there was less out there and more of the thought provoking.

[Pamela · Rating 5 out of 5]

This has come closest to capturing the ideas I am always chasing, about how we understand the world around us and how culture and instinct guide the ways we respond to space and architecture and landscape

[Sara Helin-long · Rating 4 out of 5]

For school

[Dagmar Santinge · Rating 3 out of 5]

amazing book which i read for my study. It gave me more inside in how we could look at our surroundings

[Julia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Honestly I started reading this because I thought it'd made me look more intellectual at the airport (3.5)

[Stuart Allison · Rating 4 out of 5]

A classic on how we make sense of place. I read and reread this book and always find something new.