Criticism Of Space

1599 Words7 Pages

The paper presents definition, genesis, nature and application of spatial criticism. The spatial criticism offers an analysis of places, landscapes, and exposed memories through description of intervals of time illustrating histories, perspectives and taste of people.
Keywords: Space, Etymology of Space, Heterotopia, Heterochronia, The Production of Space, Building Dwelling Thinking.
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The term, ‘spatial’ refers to position, area, and size of things. The term is borrowed from Latin spatium, used with a sense of ‘space’. Space is, in terms of Science and Mathematics, is a dimension of height, depth, and width within which all things exist and move. It is an abstract concept in Geometry. In Physics, space is interval of time. In Geometry, …show more content…

From geographical points of view, for example, space connotes a physical universe beyond the earth atmosphere. From astrological points of view, it means near vacuum extending between the planets and stars. But, in Humanities and Social Sciences, ‘space’ is studied in the context of social, geographical and psychological phenomena. Historians, geographers, critical theorists and philosophers like Martin Heidegger, Michel Foucault, Edward W. Said, Gaston Bachelard, Henri Lefebvre, Paul Carter, Edward Soja and Richard Rorty have mostly used the phrases like “ritual space”, “cognitive space”, “narrative space”, “social space’, “historical space”, “heterotopias” & “heterochronias”, “chronotopes” and so on. These concepts of space is discussed with reference to Martin Heidegger’s Being and Time (1927), Gaston Bachelard’s The Poetics of Space (1964), Georges Perec in ‘Species of Spaces and Other, Pieces’ (1974) Henri Lefebvre’s The Production of Space (1974), Said’s Literature and Society (1978), Bakhtin’s The Dialogic Imagination (1975) and, Homi K. Bhabha’s The Location of Culture (1994) are foundation books for understanding the concept of spatial …show more content…

It is a must read essay for architects. The lecture is about the interrelation of world, thing, space, time, language, artwork with experience (Erlebnis) of Being. Relating the word ‘space’ to its origin words, stadiom and spatium, Heidegger says, “Men’s relation to locales, and through locales to space, inheres in his dwelling. The relationship between men and space is none other than dwelling.” (395) In his other lectures titled, “The Things” and “Poetically Men Dwells” are additional to “Building Dwelling Thinking”. Bachelard’s Poetics of Space is a classic piece of spatial criticism. Said in Orientalism (1978; 2003: 54) and Lefebvre acknowledge Bachelard contribution to the conceptualization of space in its relation with human sensibility embedded in literature. He insisted to understand the ontology of space. Think about the extract taken from Engels’ The Condition of the Working Class in

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