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The Production
of Space:
The Space of Architects
(extract):
Let us now turn our attention to the space of those who are referred
to by means of such clumsy and pejorative labels as 'users' and 'inhabitants'.
No well-defined terms with clear connotations have been found to designate
these groups. Their marginalization by spatial practice thus extends
even to language. The word 'user' (usager), for example, has something
vague - and vaguely suspect - about it. 'User of what?' one tends to
wonder. Clothes and cars are used (and wear out), just as houses are.
But what is use value when set alongside exchange and its corollaries?
As for 'inhabitants', the word designates everyone - and no one. The
fact is that the most basic demands of 'users' (suggesting 'underprivileged')
and 'inhabitants' (suggesting 'marginal') find expression only with
great difficulty, whereas the signs of their situation are constantly
increasing and often stare us in the face.
The user's space
is lived - not represented (or conceived). When compared with the abstract
space of the experts (architects, urbanists, planners), the space of
the everyday activities of users is a concrete one, which is to say,
subjective. As a space of 'subjects' rather than of calculations, as
a representational space, it has an origin, and that origin is childhood,
with its hardships, its achievements and its lacks. Lived space bears
the stamp of the conflict between an inevitable, if long and difficult,
maturation process and a failure to mature that leaves particular original
resources and reserves untouched. It is in this space that the 'private'
realm asserts itself, albeit more or less vigorously, and always in
a conflictual way, against the public one.
Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space, Rethinking Architecture, a
reader in cultural theory, Routledge.
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This work originated
through an interest in anatomical models which seem much more sophisticated
than their architectural equivalent. Their level of abstraction becomes
apparent when compared with plastercasts of dissected bodies or superelastic
1 9th-century wax versions. They are, however, primarily representational
and adhere to the disciplines of scale and dimensional accuracy with
which we are familiar. Like many architectural models, they have removable
parts that allow us to understand interior relationships which would
otherwise remain invisible.
What sets them
apart is the way in which they play on our understanding of the body
to establish their transparency within our imagination. In architectural
models, sections are usually taken as they would be in drawings, a vertical
or horizontal slice. The anatomical version takes layered sections,
as if peeling a leaf from a cabbage. We already know that the body is
largely symmetrical; different sections are taken either side of the
axis of symmetry.
We know that above
the middle of our forehead, the condition does not change drastically
so two more layers (divided by the same axis) are cut, one side revealing
the skull, the other, the brain. A further series of detailed layered
sections is taken through the back of the skull side to explain the
typical condition. On the side with the deeper (less familiar) section,
a normal ear is placed to locate us. From these sections we can construct
the transparent layering of the body in our imagination.
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