… it is helpful to think of architectures as ‘archi-textures’, to treat each monument or building, viewed in its surroundings and context, in the populated area and associated networks in which it is set down, as part of a particular production of space. HENRY LEFEBVRE, The Production of Space This article explores how the concepts of space and place shaped…
These considerations arose from a recent conversation I had with a colleague architect about the reception of the concept of space in architecture before the modern epoch. I hope they can help avoid possible misinterpretations where, in a previous article — Concepts of Space in Vitruvius —, I discussed the possibility of interpreting space (spatium) in a three-dimensional sense in…
I am also asking the reader to suppose that the concept of space has nothing to do with perception. Geometrical space is a pure abstraction. Outer space can be visualized but cannot be seen. The cues for depth refer only to paintings, nothing more. The visual third dimension is a misapplication of Descartes’s notion of three axes for a coordinate…