The Poetics of Space

The Poetics of Space

Cover of the French edition
Author Gaston Bachelard
Original title La Poétique de l'Espace
Translator Maria Jolas
Country France
Language French
Subject Architecture
Publisher Presses Universitaires de France
Publication date
1958
Published in English
1969
Media type Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages 241
ISBN 0-8070-6439-4 (English edition)

The Poetics of Space (French: La Poétique de l'Espace) is a 1958 book by Gaston Bachelard. Bachelard applies the method of phenomenology to architecture basing his analysis not on purported origins (as was the trend in enlightenment thinking about architecture) but on lived experience of architecture. He is thus led to consider spatial types such as the attic, the cellar, drawers and the like. Bachelard implicitly urges architects to base their work on the experiences it will engender rather than on abstract rationales that may or may not affect viewers and users of architecture.

Sometimes the house of the future is better built, lighter and larger than all the houses of the past, so that the image of the dream house is opposed to that of the childhood home…. Maybe it is a good thing for us to keep a few dreams of a house that we shall live in later, always later, so much later, in fact, that we shall not have time to achieve it. For a house that was final, one that stood in symmetrical relation to the house we were born in, would lead to thoughts—serious, sad thoughts—and not to dreams. It is better to live in a state of impermanence than in one of finality.

Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space

Chapter 2: House and Universe: section VIII

Reception

Camille Paglia has listed The Poetics of Space as an influence on her 1990 work of literary criticism Sexual Personae.[1]

Review

References

  1. Paglia, Camille (1993). Sex, Art, and American Culture: Essays. London: Penguin Books. p. 114. ISBN 0-14-017209-2.


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