The Poetics of Space

Gaston Bachelard – 1958

Never have I gotten so much pleasure from a book that I understood so little in a concrete sense. Gaston Bachelard was a French philosopher and prolific writer whose other works include Water and Dreams and The Psychoanalysis of Fire. His subjects are wide-ranging but his unifying theme seems to have something to do with contemplating the poetic and magical subtleties in commonplace things, elements and phenomena. The Poetics of Space deals specifically with living spaces and their interaction with our psychology. Bachelard is not hostile to psychology and psychiatry but feels that they may stop short of getting to the heart of various issues that lie a bit outside of hard science. Bachelard’s writing is as soft and delicate as his subject matter. He hints at things rather than announces them. He suggests ideas so fine that they evaporate with sharp concentration. His books are not lectures but gentle, muted conversations with a friend in your living room when it’s gotten dark out but you haven’t gotten up to go turn on a light yet.  In this book, he ponders what impact the homes and rooms of our formative years have on our lives, especially our dreams. Dreaming about old dwellings is one of the most universal of human experiences, and Bachelard believes that this is at least partially the result of absorbing the energy of the houses that protected us from the elements, allowing us the comfort to think, read, daydream, converse and sleep. He even suggests that the literal act of dreaming while in certain areas of a house have different consequences; the lofty feelings of suspension and impermanence of an attic compared to the cool enclosure of the earth in a basement, for example.  Bachelard’s book is not restricted to architecture, however; his perspective broadens with each chapter, exploring the nature of space and spaces in many forms, from fantasies of miniaturization to the vastness of space, and back again to the inner soul. As I said, I was rarely sure that I could summarize the meaning of long sections of the book, but I was never unaware of the entrancing impact that its poetic language was having on me. It’s a kind of book that makes you want to take a nap on the living room floor while thinking about the physical structure of your home and letting those thoughts steer your dreams.