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Henri Lefebvre and the Theory of the Production of Space
Henri Lefebvre’s was the major theorist of space and of the urban. This is the definitive book on Lefebvre.
Shortlisted for the Deutscher Memorial Prize 2023
This book presents an encompassing, detailed and thorough overview and reconstruction of Lefebvre’s theory of space and of the urban.
Henri Lefebvre belongs to the generation of the great French intellectuals and philosophers, together with his contemporaries Michel Foucault and Jean-Paul Sartre. His theory has experienced a remarkable revival over the last two decades, and is discussed and applied today in many disciplines in humanities and social sciences, particularly in urban studies, geography, urban sociology, urban anthropology, architecture and planning. Lefebvre, together with David Harvey, is one of the leading and most read theoreticians in these fields.
This book explains in an accessible way the theoretical and epistemological context of this work in French philosophy and in the German dialectic (Hegel, Marx, and Nietzsche), and reconstructs in detail the historical development of its different elements.
It also gives an overview on the receptions of Lefebvre and discusses a wide range of applications of this theory in many research fields, such as urban and regional development, urbanization, urbanity, social space, and everyday life.
Shortlisted for the Deutscher Memorial Prize 2023
This book presents an encompassing, detailed and thorough overview and reconstruction of Lefebvre’s theory of space and of the urban.
Henri Lefebvre belongs to the generation of the great French intellectuals and philosophers, together with his contemporaries Michel Foucault and Jean-Paul Sartre. His theory has experienced a remarkable revival over the last two decades, and is discussed and applied today in many disciplines in humanities and social sciences, particularly in urban studies, geography, urban sociology, urban anthropology, architecture and planning. Lefebvre, together with David Harvey, is one of the leading and most read theoreticians in these fields.
This book explains in an accessible way the theoretical and epistemological context of this work in French philosophy and in the German dialectic (Hegel, Marx, and Nietzsche), and reconstructs in detail the historical development of its different elements.
It also gives an overview on the receptions of Lefebvre and discusses a wide range of applications of this theory in many research fields, such as urban and regional development, urbanization, urbanity, social space, and everyday life.
869 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 29, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
April 20, 2024
Indispensable to anglophones seeking an introduction to lefebrves thought. Also enhanced my perception of other geographers and the failure of other geographers to really contend with Lefebrve—Elden, Greggory, Harvey, Soja & Sheilds were subject to criticism for their incomplete receptions of his spatio-temporal theory of society. Schmidt’s critique of Soja was particularly satisfying and seems so obvious now.
Could of used some diagrams and an editor with some fangs—or maybe a better translator—lots of repetition; reads a bit boring at times. I think Schmidt used the “runs like a red thread” analogy maybe six different times.
Could of used some diagrams and an editor with some fangs—or maybe a better translator—lots of repetition; reads a bit boring at times. I think Schmidt used the “runs like a red thread” analogy maybe six different times.
March 9, 2025
a lot to say. despite schmid's almost d*** s****** obsession with Lefebvre and odd, almost personal vendetta towards Harvey and Soja and other folks who take Lefebvre's theories beyond interpretation and towards a new frame of analysis, either too structural or too post-structural, this book is really something and i think cements Lefebvre as the most important thinker in (Western) urban studies of the last 100 years. like, everything bleeds from him. a whole class i TA'd for last year was basically a reformulation and re-analysis of Lefebvre's "urban revolution" towards a post-colonial world revolution and while i had some idea that was happening and what i was teaching i didn't really grasp that the groundwork of the urban revolution, at least conceptually, is owed entirely to Lefebvre's theory of space and urbanization.
Schmid does a great job of translating Lefebvre's texts and collaging his often contradictory theorizing. beyond that he, obviously, makes use of those contradictions and opens the theory up to a type of dynamism that is often sucked out, through a process of removing history from the dialectic, of a ton of Marxist theorization. i forgot how good it feels to open the dialectic from a scientific reliance on "modes of production" (sorry being kind of vulgar right now) and towards a theory that not only allows contest but promotes it through the actual process of theorizing. ugh, while full of idiocies, general theories of social relations really do feel so good and we honestly need more of them!
some really kooky shit in here too. the stuff on Perspective coming to Italy through the introduction of the cypress, before being discovered by the Renaissance painters! the stuff about Absolute Space only existing in underground centers of witchcraft and tomfoolery! Athens being an Absolute Space! Lefebvre was doing the Baffler before the Baffler!
a sort of similar feeling to when i first started studying historical materialism in undergrad; theoretically liberating because of its praxis and its poetry. sublation of philosophy through praxis towards poetry. concrete utopias that can be practiced towards in architectural design competitions. history of space through the history of the commodity. vulgarity towards actually-existing socialism.
absolute -> abstract -> differential
rural -> industrial -> urban or need -> work -> enjoyment
pre-capitalism -> capitalism -> post-capitalism.
regressive -> <-progressive method
the heroic struggle against homogenization towards differentiation
G-><>M-><-P
centralization vs. peripheralization.
habitat vs. dwelling,
exchange and use value -> domination vs. appropriation,
spatial practices, representations of space, spaces of representation.
thesis -> negation -> negation of negation
material production, production of knoweldge, production of meaning,
perceived space, conceived space, lived space.
state space
every social relation can be captured in three-dimensionality
spatio-temporal unity is the end goal. the feeling of a protest.
the inhabitants. which ones?!
urban level: mediation, urban form: centrality, urban space-time: difference
time solidifies in space, materializes, and is destroyed; space envelops time as the greatest commodity of all!
abstract humanism -> critical humanist -> post-humanity ?
only practice reveals the path. to occupy, appropriate space, with bodies, speech, and voice.
An architecture of "pleasure and joy, of community in the gifts of the earth, has still to be invented."
But he lands on the beach; "the elements are there...the total body begins to appear"
"Under the paving stones, the beach!"
Schmid does a great job of translating Lefebvre's texts and collaging his often contradictory theorizing. beyond that he, obviously, makes use of those contradictions and opens the theory up to a type of dynamism that is often sucked out, through a process of removing history from the dialectic, of a ton of Marxist theorization. i forgot how good it feels to open the dialectic from a scientific reliance on "modes of production" (sorry being kind of vulgar right now) and towards a theory that not only allows contest but promotes it through the actual process of theorizing. ugh, while full of idiocies, general theories of social relations really do feel so good and we honestly need more of them!
some really kooky shit in here too. the stuff on Perspective coming to Italy through the introduction of the cypress, before being discovered by the Renaissance painters! the stuff about Absolute Space only existing in underground centers of witchcraft and tomfoolery! Athens being an Absolute Space! Lefebvre was doing the Baffler before the Baffler!
a sort of similar feeling to when i first started studying historical materialism in undergrad; theoretically liberating because of its praxis and its poetry. sublation of philosophy through praxis towards poetry. concrete utopias that can be practiced towards in architectural design competitions. history of space through the history of the commodity. vulgarity towards actually-existing socialism.
absolute -> abstract -> differential
rural -> industrial -> urban or need -> work -> enjoyment
pre-capitalism -> capitalism -> post-capitalism.
regressive -> <-progressive method
the heroic struggle against homogenization towards differentiation
G-><>M-><-P
centralization vs. peripheralization.
habitat vs. dwelling,
exchange and use value -> domination vs. appropriation,
spatial practices, representations of space, spaces of representation.
thesis -> negation -> negation of negation
material production, production of knoweldge, production of meaning,
perceived space, conceived space, lived space.
state space
every social relation can be captured in three-dimensionality
spatio-temporal unity is the end goal. the feeling of a protest.
the inhabitants. which ones?!
urban level: mediation, urban form: centrality, urban space-time: difference
time solidifies in space, materializes, and is destroyed; space envelops time as the greatest commodity of all!
abstract humanism -> critical humanist -> post-humanity ?
only practice reveals the path. to occupy, appropriate space, with bodies, speech, and voice.
An architecture of "pleasure and joy, of community in the gifts of the earth, has still to be invented."
But he lands on the beach; "the elements are there...the total body begins to appear"
"Under the paving stones, the beach!"
September 8, 2023
if you want to read about lefebvre this is THE book, great synthesis of all his work explained in a teachable mannner
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews