The Production of Space: my comment on the writings of Henri Lefebvre

To begin with, I need to understand where the Hell the author is coming from. This text is possibly one of the hardest pieces of writing I've come accross.

So, according to Lefebvre:

All things can either be described as work or product:

"... a work has something irreplaceable and unique about it, a product can be reproduced exactly, and is in fact the result of repetitive acts and gestures."

This would imply that a work is more valuable than a product.

Lefebvre states that all societies are based on production and all aspects of society (products) - law, politics, art, etc - are directly related to the collective consciousness of the people and type of society they live in. So, according to this thinking, our architecture is derived from our capitalist society. Our spaces are social products.
Lefebvre believes that the bourgoisie dominate and exploit the lower classes - extracting unpaid labour from their toil. Thus increasing (and profiting from) the perceived value of a product (space) relating to its actual cost and blurring the lines between product and work, repetitiveness and uniqueness.

I'm gonna stop here as I need to think some more!...

Update: 17/12/09

After weeks of thinking about the above and the whole work versus product theory, I have struck upon a thought...

People ought to think about why they are in uni. What do they want to gain from the experience? Do they want the product (degree, part 2 etc) or do they want the work (the process of learning)? Of course most people want both, but in my opinion the work part of the deal is the most important. Thinking about this idea has actually made the effort of writing these blogs easier. I could just write any old crap for 200 words. I could just read someone else's opinion and mash it up to make it sound like my own. But no, I will read the texts each week and I will think. Think long and painfully hard. I will read about the author and the context the pieces were written in and I will learn. It won't matter if my marks are rubbish because I will have progressed in one way or another. That's why I am here. I will not be lazy, I will not be satisfied by the churning out of drawings that mean nothing, even if they took me a whole week. I will not be a CAD monkey. I will not be a photocopier. I will get a job and be paid for my brain and for my true value.