Building on the issue of ambiguous spatial language and its application to architecture (see On the Ambiguous Language of Space), I want to make a digression. My aim is to extend the scope of our architectural discussion and deepen the spatial/placial question in relation to humanity’s understanding of reality. At the same time, I wish to return to the reasons that led me to question the traditional presuppositions surrounding concepts of space and place.
In architecture, the ambiguous relation between volume (the container) and space (the contained) can also be framed differently: is space matter-sensitive or not? Is space determined by the presence of matter—walls, floors, ceilings, and openings—or can we still speak of space as a tangible presence, regardless of the material surfaces that delimit it? In the first case (space shaped by matter) we face a relativist position, as argued by Mach and Einstein. In the second (space as self-contained) we encounter an absolutist stance, associated with Newton and his followers. Alternatively, if we treat space as fundamentally abstract, the distinction becomes one between Leibniz’s relational interpretation and Kant’s ideal or cognitive interpretation (with the further possibility of a spiritual interpretation in the metaphysical sense, also attributed to Newton—space as a Sensorium Dei; see Concepts of Place, Space, and the Nature of Physical Existence).
My position is that space is a conceptual abstraction, capable of assuming countless ‘shapes’ between Leibnizian and Kantian interpretations, depending on intent. Space cannot be literally influenced by matter, since matter operates on a physicochemical level while space belongs to a symbolic, representational level. If matter and space influence each other, this occurs indirectly, mediated by human layers of significance and actions (by turning abstract thoughts or plans into actions, humans can change the physical reality). Thus, mathematicians work with mathematical spaces, painters with pictorial spaces, musicians with musical spaces, poets with poetic spaces, and architects with architectural space. What all these have in common is the capacity to contain entities, though always abstract ones: space is grasped by the mind, not by the hand.
When such spatial entities acquire physical status—as when a sculptor’s idea becomes a sculpture or an architectural design becomes a building—they gain a new placial dimension: concretization into place as an actual entity, with physical and temporal extension as well as determined location. At that point, we should not speak of space anymore: the new physical state modified by the spatial entity is now a state of place.
The relation between space and place resembles that between a map and the territory: one symbolic, the other concrete. Space is like the sculptor’s idea or sketch; place is the realized sculpture in its environment. I accept that space (the abstract) can be understood as a dimension intrinsic to any place (the concrete), but place is far more complex than space as mere extension. For this reason, I find it questionable to say we live in space. What we live in is always a place, with many more dimensions than space alone. Our casual use of expressions such as ‘physical space’, ‘place is a humanized space’, ‘the space around us’, which are all metaphors, often serves as a convenient shortcut to avoid facing the deeper placial or spatial nature of reality.
The conception of place I argue for here (see the article What is Place? What Is Space?) goes beyond its usual treatment as a physical or geographical location or its sociological reinterpretation as ‘humanized space.’ Place, as I understand it, is systemic, encompassing all dimensions of reality: physical, chemical, biological, ecological, social, cultural, symbolic, and more. Space may be one of its dimensions (a reductive one, abstracted from materiality, temporality, and locality), but the reverse is not true: place cannot be reduced to space. Historically, ever since Aristotle systematically posed the spatial question, place (topos) emerged as a concrete notion, while there was no record of space as we intend it now.[1] Space emerged as an abstract notion—distance, interval, gap, measure—and despite later efforts by Newton, Einstein, phenomenologists, and social scientists to render it more concrete, it remains too vague and ambiguous to capture the systemic complexity of actual environments, even if, especially in our contemporary epoch, any concrete thing seems to be understood in spatial terms, as a portion of cosmic space—shops, schools, buildings, parks, streets, squares, cities… are described as spaces rather than places as it should be (see the photographic report Spatiophilia). Despite that, complexity—the complexity intrinsic to any real environment—is better conveyed by the term ‘place’.
This is especially evident in our present epoch, the Anthropocene,[2] which marks the failure of modern humanity’s abstract spatial plans to correspond with complex, systemic reality. Indiscriminate models of development, sustained by questionable economic and political systems, have produced an unprecedented environmental crisis, with repercussions across all domains of life. The root of this crisis lies in the logical fallacy of treating reality as a neutral container, a background in which events unfold independently. This neutral container is nothing other than the abstract sense of three-dimensional space, inherited from Newtonian mechanics.[3] Later attempts to modify it—Einstein’s relativistic space-time, phenomenological spaces of perception, or socially constructed notions of space—never overcame its essentially abstract, mechanical character. Space is a concept that divides, creating dualisms and separation; place is a concept that unifies, creating physical and symbolic units of sense. This is written in their fundamental meanings (ontology) and history of human knowledge (epistemology).
What is needed now is a more radical revision of these concepts recovering their original senses and expanding them to better understand and cope with current environmental dynamics: a spatial/placial framework capable of addressing the entangled complexity of real processes of nature. The new conceptualization I argue for at RSaP—Rethinking Space and Place treats place and space as complementary. Place grounds the concrete physicochemical and biological contingencies of Earth and its inhabitants; space enables the abstract, symbolic, and cultural projections and plans unique to humankind. Place and space are not just technical or disciplinary terms but fundamental concepts for understanding, explaining, and communicating the environmental events of reality. Without place, no concrete entity can exist (‘things are places’, and Everything Is Place as I argue here). Without space—understood as a symbolic or cognitive abstraction in the Cartesian–Newtonian–Kantian lineage—no symbolic idea detached from concrete things can exist. One concept allows us to engage with the actual side of nature, which long predates humanity; the other with its abstract, symbolic side, which belongs uniquely to humankind.
This takes me back to the specific architectural argument of the previous article, making a more explicit pronouncement on the sense of the term ‘ambiguous’ I’ve used in the opening title with regard to ‘space’: On the Ambiguous Language of Space, I’ve said. For about the last three hundred years (since the formalization of Newton’s vision and its subsequent interpretation and diffusion), in the light of the abovementioned failures of ‘space’ in minimizing the gap between the abstract mechanical, deterministic and reductive plans of mankind (plans to transform the world and societies – plans conceived in ‘space’), and the concrete processes of nature, which relentlessly happen in place, I tend to consider the term space ‘ambiguous’ in the negative sense of the term ambiguity (as that which generates confusion, lack of clarity, and ultimately human failures on a planetary scale, as we are experiencing in the present time of entangled environmental, social and economic crisis, to begin with), and not in the proactive and positive meaning of that which can be understood in two senses, as a third kind of reality, specifically, in-between the two senses that make the concrete and the abstract domains complementary or correlated parts of one and the same encompassing reality. With respect to this complementary understanding of reality, or nature, I consider place-and-space (in joint association as correlative terms and not as separated structures), the two concepts that more than others can embody and sustain that essential complementarity of factors – concrete and abstract, physical and ideal, actual and potential, bodily and mental… – which constitutes the fundamental structure of reality: place, on the one hand, is that which keeps together and ordered — in physical/material, temporal and locational terms — the range of actualized processes spanning from physicochemical to symbolic, passing through biological, ecological and sociocultural processes (then, to begin with, place defines the concrete and actual reality of facts, happenings, events and phenomena); space, on the other hand, is that which offers those processes the possibility to exist as potential entities and/or to be analyzed in abstraction from the contingences of place, that is, in abstraction from the actual reality of facts, happenings and phenomena (then, space may define the abstract, ideal or potential domain for those processes: it is the blank paper where the architect draws a line to represent a wall, or even the mental substratum that allows a wall to be imagined before being erected, or, again, the substratum that allows a physicist to hypothesize thoughts experiments, and so on). As I briefly explained above, with respect to our new condition of inhabitants of the Anthropocene, and with respect to the belief that concepts of space and place, taken together, more than other concepts may convey a complete sense to understand and communicate the experiences of the real world, I believe the concept of ‘space’, alone, failed the task of conveying a complete sense and understanding of the phenomena of reality (both concrete and abstract, or concrete ⇌ abstract), because space, due to its fundamental abstract nature, couldn’t take account of the intrinsically ambiguous structure of reality, in-between the concrete and the abstract; the pictorial expression place( )space, which I sometimes use (also as a distinctive logo — see the Featured Image of Preliminary Notes) is a way to represent the unity of reality, or nature, understood in complementary placial and spatial modes or terms. Then, the supposed ambiguity of space, which is so characteristic of its use in metaphorical expressions, is only apparent, more formal than substantial, and, again, this is in accord with the fundamental abstract nature of space; so, in the end, we could consider space as a powerful, very useful notion to let us imagine an infinity of abstract possibilities (space offers ‘room’ to such possibilities), but its ultimate success or usefulness when it had to come to terms with the contingencies of the concrete side of the world is highly debatable. So according to this perspective, space is not that ‘ambiguous’ as it should be, that is it is not a ‘two sided’ concept or a concept that can take care of, sustain, nurture and give room to both abstract possibilities and concrete facts at the same time, as it may superficially appear from its metaphorical use (in Platonic sense, this double function of taking care, sustaining, nurturing and giving room to both concrete facts and abstract possibilities is absolved by the concept ‘chōra’, as an in-between reality that let actual and potential, physical and ideal, concrete and abstract modes of existence meet and coexist); on the contrary, I believe space is a ‘one sided’ concept: the side of space is merely ‘abstract’ (merely ‘ideal’, in the Platonic sense) and whenever we use it in situations that require us to consider both concrete facts and abstract possibilities, we are prone to failure or to superficial thinking, which, ironically, is due to the intrinsic epistemological limitations of the concept (here, the logical error known as ‘fallacy of misplaced concreteness’ — the tendency to misplace the abstract for the concrete — originates). My proposal to look at place as a more reliable concept with respect to the possibility of taking care of, sustaining, nurturing and giving room and voice to both concrete and abstract sides of the world (that’s why I’ve said in the past that the concept of place I’m presenting here is very close to the Platonic ‘chōra’, as a reality which can sustain both physical and ideal modes of reality), and, even more, the possibility to consider place and space as complementary concepts — place( )space — to come to terms with the encompassing nature of reality is a possible solution to the quagmire of (spatial) ambiguity, which is inherent to reality and its understanding in both placial and spatial modes of existence.
Concerning the specific spatial and/or placial language of architecture and its procedures, after the architect has taken confidence with the actual reality of the rhythms, routines, and happenings of the place where he/she is requested to make a project (analysis of physicochemical, biological, social and symbolic processes existing on the territory/place), the initial creative stage of a project is necessarily an ideal or abstract phase, a synthetic phase where the architect thinks in terms of abstract space or spaces (literally, architects create new space or spaces) making use of abstract thinking and strategies, memories, past experiences, abstract knowledge, imagination, making use of geometries and other symbolic or representational tools and techniques, through which he/she comes to terms with the complex and concrete reality of the specific place (of processes) for which the project has been imagined and developed (here, the analogy map/territory is very powerful for the architect). Architecture is an inherently circular discipline that develops in-between the allure of infinite potential possibilities sustained by space, and the concrete contingencies, happenings or events sustained and concretized by place; whenever that circularity is interrupted or off-balance, architecture loses its specificity and its enormous potential. Conversely, in those cases where the architect is able of letting abstract and concrete domains integrate as One unique realm, inclusive of and sensitive with the different levels that simultaneously sustain the fundamental structure of reality (physical, chemical, biological — hence physiological and psychological in the human sense, and ecological in the global sense — sociocultural and symbolic levels) well, in those fortunate cases architecture becomes a successful endeavour, having a precise historical value. Architecture consists of creating spaces (space, the arena of thought: a mental or abstract domain — the domain of imagination and open possibilities) and modifying existing places for dwelling (place: to begin with, the actual realm of matter and energy, facts, events and phenomena). As a consequence, starting from the incipt of a famous definition of architecture given by Mies van der Rohe one century ago, and adapting it to the new era according to the placial and spatial understanding of reality I am pursuing at www.rethinkingspaceandplace.com, this is what architecture should represent: the will of an epoch translated into space and place.[4]
Notes
[1] Among others, this is attested by Martin Heidegger — ‘the Greeks have no word for “space”. This is no accident, for they do not experience the spatial according to extensio but instead according to place (topos) as chōra, which means neither place nor space but what is taken up and occupied by what stands there’, in Introduction to Metaphysics (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2000), 69 — and by the mathematician Salomon Bochner — see the Introduction to the entry ‘Space’, in the Dictionary of the History of Ideas, Volume IV (New York: Charles Scribner’s Son, 1973), 295. See also the note [18] in the article Place, Space, and the Fabric of Reality.
[2] The Nobel Prize-winning scientist Paul Crutzen, declared the Anthropocene to be the dawn of a new human-influenced epoch following the Holocene. Current environmental changes of the Earth-system are deemed to be the direct effect of the human agency on this planet. There is scientific evidence for this: rising CO2 levels, airborne particulates from fossil fuel burning in sediments, unprecedented levels of nitrogen and phosphorus in soils, pushed extinction rates of animals and plants, dispersed radioactive elements from nuclear bomb tests, etc. See Paul J. Crutzen, “The Anthropocene“, in Earth System Science in the Anthropocene edited by Ehlers and Krafft (New York: Springer, 2006).
[3] Man had in ‘space’ a powerful allied concept to reform the modern society in a mechanistic and deterministic sense, starting from its application in different domains of the human life beginning with astronomy and continuing with the engineering of industrial production, economy, politics, the management of the territory in a strict material sense, etc.
[4] This issue was addressed by Mies van der Rohe in the article ‘Baukunst und Zeitwille’ (Building Art and the Will of the Epoch) originally published in the magazine Der Querschnitt, 4, 1,(1924), pp. 32-32, and reproduced, in English, in Fritz Neumeyer, The Artless Word: Mies van der Rohe on the Building Art (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1991), 245-247. The incipit of the definition I have used here – ‘Architecture is the will of an epoch translated into space’ -, which I have extended to include ‘place’, is also traceable to a note of The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) released on September 17, 1947, on the occasion of the presentation to the public of the retrospective exhibition of the architecture of Mies van der Rohe. Simultaneously with the opening of that exhibition, a book edited by Philip Johnson was also published containing the works and the writings of Mies van der Rohe. Concerning that note from the MoMA, reporting the writings of Mies van der Rohe, we read: ‘Architecture is the will of the epoch translated into space. Until this simple truth is clearly recognized, the new architecture will be uncertain and tentative. Until then it must remain a chaos of undirected forces. The question as to the nature of architecture is of decisive importance. It must be understood that all architecture is bound up with its own time, that it can only be manifested in living tasks and in the medium of its epoch. In no age has it been otherwise.’ Again, a few definitions later we read: “Architecture is the will of an epoch translated into space; living, changing, new.” The same concept is also attested in the Storia dell’ Architettura Moderna, by Kenneth Frampton (Bologna: Zanichelli Editore, 1993), 185. It is important to point out that Mies’s fundamental statement has an evident echo in the considerations made by the German historian and philosopher of history Oswald Spengler who, in his Decline of the West (1918), extended the analysis of space to the western culture as a whole, saying that ‘Every Culture stands in a deeply symbolical, almost in a mystical, relation to the Extended, the space, in which and through which it strives to actualize itself. ’ See, Cornelis van de Ven, Space in Architecture (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1978), Part Four, Chapter III, 166. Moreover, as it is stated by Simon Unwin and Christina Johnsson in the introduction to E.G. Asplund’s inaugural lecture ‘Our architectural conception of space’, held at Stockholm’s Tekniska Högskolan in 1931, and published in the journal ‘Architectural Research Quarterly‘, Volume 5, Issue 2, June 2001, 151-160, ‘maybe Spengler’s work had more influence on architects in Europe during the 1920s than is generally recognized. ’ In that lecture, Asplund made a lucid analysis of the intimate connection between architecture and the spatial values intrinsic to the modern Western society, giving the opportune credit to Spengler – ‘our philosophical mentor ’, Asplund says, in the final part of his lecture – for the philosophical foundation of that analysis, centred on the notion of infinite space, the signature of Western culture and modernity, especially.
Works Cited
Asplund, Erik Gunnar. ‘Our architectural conception of space’. In Architectural Research Quarterly, Volume 5, Issue 2, 2001.
Bochner, Salomon. ‘Space’. In Dictionary of the History of Ideas, Volume IV. New York: Charles Scribner’s Son, 1973.
Frampton, Kenneth. Storia dell’Architettura Moderna. Bologna: Zanichelli Editore, 1993.
Heidegger, Martin. Introduction to Metaphysics. New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2000.
Museum of Modern Art. Museum of Modern Art Presents Retrospective Exhibition of the Architecture of Mies van der Rohe. New York: MoMA press-release, 1947.
Neumeyer, Fritz. The Artless Word: Mies van der Rohe on the Building Art. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1991.
van de Ven, Cornelis. Space in Architecture. Assen: Van Gorcum, 1978.
Image Credits
Featured Image on Artsy.net: Structure of the World, by László Moholy-Nagy, gelatin silver print (photomontage), c. 1925. Details.
