The Poetics of Space

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Gaston Bachelard

Beacon Press, Boston, MA, 2010, originally published 1957, French, English

Nonfiction, Architecture; Design, General; Nonfiction, Interior Design; Nonfiction, Art and Cultural History

5.3 x 7.9 inches, paperback, 288 pages

ISBN: 9780807064733

Suggested Retail Price: $16.00

From the Publisher. 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)

On 6 book lists

Stanley Abercrombie

On Stanley Abercrombie’s Book List

Four years before his death, French philosopher Bachelard wrote of the character of such spaces as cellars, attics, forests, nests, shells, huts, and drawers and considered what roles they play in our imaginations. He asked designers to envision the experiences their designs will generate, not to work with abstractions that may not affect their inhabitants. He opposed Cartesian logic and celebrated poetry, play, and daydreams. He was against the square and for the round. A dense book, best to be read slowly, glancing up occasionally for a daydream.

Matali Crasset

On Matali Crasset’s Book List

A superb, fascinatingly poetic text. Some phrases have remained with me like enigmas but possessing a terrible beauty. This book accompanied me during my final-year diploma project at the Ateliers where I worked with water, light, and fire on my “Domestic Trilogy.” “The house shelters daydreaming, the house protects the dreamer, the house allows us to dream in peace.”—Gaston Bachelard

Un superbe texte d'une poésie fascinante, certaines phrases me sont restés comme des énigmes mais d'une beauté redoutable. C'est un livre qui m'a accompagné pendant mon projet de fin de diplôme aux Ateliers où je travaillais sur l'eau, la lumière et le feu autour du projet de la Trilogie domestique. “La maison abrite la rêverie, la maison protège le rêveur, la maison nous permet de rêver en paix.”

Niels Diffrient

On Niels Diffrient’s Book List

Paul Marantz

On Paul Marantz’s Book List

Learning to trust experience.

Juhani Pallasmaa

On Juhani Pallasmaa’s Book List

A basic book on the poetics of the artistic image and architecture. Along with this book, I recommend the other studies by this author on the elements: water, earth, fire, and air.

Ian Ritchie

On Ian Ritchie’s Book List

This book had become very quickly a “must read” among architectural students because it was founded upon “imagination” and “experience” of space—not its architectural physicality, but phenomenology. It gave students permission to dream new architectures based upon narratives. A seminal work.

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