The Poetics of Space
The classic book on how we experience intimate spaces.
"A magical book. . . . A prism through which all worlds from literary creation to housework to aesthetics to carpentry take on enhanced?and enchanted-significances. Every reader of it will never see ordinary spaces in ordinary ways. Instead the reader will see with the soul of the eye, the glint of Gaston Bachelard."
?from the foreword by John R. Stilgoe
6473-4 / $15.00tx / paperback
This is a deep, magical, densely captivating book about space, our homes, how we live in them, and how dwellings and space affect us; it is as much a book of philosophy as a work of serious literature. It requires careful, preferably leisurely reading, with the possibility of moments to pause and digest and re-read the words. It will change the way you look at your home and your life, providing a deeper, more insightful relationship with the spaces you occupy.
The Poetics of Space Accessories
 Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience
The Practice of Everyday Life
Phenomenology of Perception (Routledge Classics)
The Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the Senses
The Production of Space
Thinking Architecture
For an Architecture of Reality
On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Collection
Atmospheres: Architectural Environments - Surrounding Objects
In Praise of Shadows
The Poetics of Space Reviews
I almost picked up my Strunk & White's Elements of Style to review their readability formula just to quantify how dense this book was, but restrained myself. To the reviewers I read before buying this book, now I understand why a number of them wrote things like, "you have to be able to sit back and ponder the book, savoring the words before digesting them." I took this as a sign that there were deep meanings that mesmerized the reader, and looked forward to it. Maybe the translator didn't quite understand the topic, or have a conversational grasp of the English language, either of which would make translating difficult. Unfortunately, I don't speak French, so I can't read the original and compare them, but I suspect it is the translation, which appeared a bit stilted and unnatural (similar to translations of Frederick Bastiat's The Law, or Pierre Boulle's Planet of the Apes, both of which were oddly worded, although easily readable, and Bastiat wrote more than 150 years ago). I don't know if the problem is in the content of the book, or in the translation, but the book was almost incomprehensible. To translate that phrase into common English, it means, "the translator has an Oxford English Dictionary and he's going to use it." No.
OK thats obvious but do I need to read a whole book written in pompous philospeak to learn that. Sure people are affected by the spaces they inhabit for various conditioning reasons. Its boring as hell. Too boring and too many other things to read. Life is short. Honestly I put it down half way. I don't get why this is the bible of architects.
Book itself was in great condition, and was waiting at home for me sooner than expected.
This book is hardly new, but Bachelard's analysis of the psychology of space remains as fascinating and lyrical as when it was first published. Bachelard went on to write a book on the poetics of reverie and the "psychoanalysis of fire" but his book on space remains the most readable and the most genuinely poetic. I've recommended this book to artists and sculptors and students over the years, and they in turn recomend it to others.
House as protector, memory store, place in the world, construct. This is a philosophy book about house written by a poet, reflecting his views, and other's, on the importance and vital organism that is shelter. this book is about house and its space and remembrance and meaning. If you love word that conjures thought.and love home (whatever that means for you) I believe you will savor this book.
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