The Production of Space, Social Space - By Henri Lefebvre

This weeks session of critical readings digresses towards the wonderful notion of Marxist thinking. Given the author, Henri Lefebvre, is a philosopher this was a challenging but yet compelling read and I will touch upon a couple of points that were of interest and to my understanding. Lefebvre is primarily discussing the concepts of production, product and labour with more specific attention being applied to the differences between a ‘work’ and a ‘product’. A work being an object or thing that holds a quality of uniqueness, thus, unlike a product that can be replicated infinite to serve a purpose. The author begins to define the notion of work vesus product by stating that nature itself is a product as it was produced, while human beings alongside this produced political, religious, artistic and philosophical forms. Although it is true that humans are a product of nature, thus nature being a form that produces; is it not plausible to conceive that given the fact that nature, within the boundaries of our scientific knowledge, is quite possibly the most unique object that exists within our solar system, making nature a ‘work’ of science that ultimately has the ability to continually produce? I question this as an atheist that believes god is a product of man and religion was laboured to control a civilisation and create order during a time that had no law system. In the 21st Century we call it politics. The concepts of work and product and where space and objects sit within these notions is essentially about value. For example, if you go shopping for new furniture you have two options; Option a) Purchase the product from an independent designer who has handcrafted and laboured to produce a piece of work or Option b) Purchase your product from IKEA whom mass produce their objects with the aid of machinery. Which carries the greater value? With this notion in mind I agree with Lefebvre that Venice is a work and not a product. Although architecture is comprised in order to facilitate space, consider that Dubai is nothing more than a product that was produced to facilitate a certain thing and essentially have no value, while Venice has grown organically through time and in turn is beautifully unique being of place that holds great value.