The Production of Space by Lefebvre Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

The Production of Space by Lefebvre - Essay Example Lefebvre (1994, quoted in notbored.org, n.d.) in his book The Production of Space gives an insightful and realistic expression of geography, â€Å"An existing space may outlive its original purpose and the raison d'etre which determines its forms, functions, and structures; it may thus in a sense become vacant, and susceptible of being diverted, reappropriated and put to a use quite different from its initial one.† According to Lefebvre, â€Å"space† is otherwise known as a society. Time is only measured by instruments such as clocks and is only paid attention to when we are at work and the society we created actually has no real sense of time. This quote best introduces the topic of this writing as we focus on how classic urban theory shapes the views of the nature of hyper stimulation, phantasmagoria, and alienation. We shall also discuss geographers' understanding of the modern city and the contradictions of modernity, which are characterized by a tendency to order, space, and time whilst, simultaneously, its ruination and fragmentation (Berman 1982). Continuing the modern post urban experience in shaping spaces and consumptions of modern geographies of the twentieth century is the course of geography. ... specifications to a geography of modernity in which "an organic community lives in an age where a multiplicity of international and domestic material transformations"(Mackinder 1904: 434). This transformation is so extreme that not only do we use architecture to embrace all forms of dreaming and fantasy, but we also can use our hairstyles and clothing to create the geography that we fantasize, making it into our own reality. Geographers are influenced by Lefebvre's understanding of the modern Page 3 city. He states that space and time are driven by the forces of production and by industry, proletarian and revolutionary rationality. Some geographers mimic His view of space, as quoted in Henri Lefebvre's The Production of Space, "is actually experienced, in its depths, as duplications, echoes and reverberations, redundancies and doublings-up which engender -- and are engendered by -- the strangest of contrasts." While the internal divisions (the nine sharply-defined chapters) of The Society of the Spectacle -- reminiscent somehow of wide boulevards that ensure the smooth circulation of traffic -- make sure that the book's major themes do not interfere with each other, The Production of Space (to once again quote its author out of context) is "penetrated by, and shot through with, the weaker tendencies characteristic of networks and pathways." Unlike Debord, who uses the same paths to arrive at different points, Lefebvre arrives at the same points by using different paths". Berman (1982) states that the contradictions of modernity are characterised by a tendency to order space and time while simultaneously promoting their ruination and