Multi-layered Space

The historical alteration of the treatment of space is connected to the modification of relations between people and nature, which are in constant flux depending on the cultural context. In speak-ing of space in ordinary language, interior space is borne in mind for the most part, but it is considered as a part of the architectural whole. Interior space or interiors also cannot be analysed as inde-pendent phenomena in altering the function of a building. This is clearly a part of the field of architecture. The professional approach requires an appreciation of the local context – of the surrounding spatial and built environment, of history and the population. Loca-tion means the involvement of identity and activity. In this sense, place is context. Location analysis is undertaken transdisciplinar-ily: in philosophy, anthropology, urban geography, urban studies and environmental aesthetics. Architecture was more the domain of practitioners until the architectural theory boom emerged. Funda-mental studies of space conducted by philosophers, where human existence is connected primarily to space, appeared in the 1960s when the first English translations were published: G. Bachelard, The Poetics of Space (1958), O. F. Bollnow, Human Space (1963), chapter on space M. Merleau-Ponty, The Phenomenology of Percep-tion (1962), preceded by M. Heidegger, Being and Time (1962).

Different societies, groups and individuals live their lives and realise themselves in different spaces. They are always assembled around human activity: people-centres. They multiply and change as part of the everyday practical lives of individuals and groups. According to Lehari, the interpretation of the attributes of space depends on individual spatial experiences that are understood and generated differently by different individuals and societies, and as a result we cannot speak of a universal nature of space. At the same time, spa-tial experience cannot be neutral and unambiguous; rather, it takes place in accordance with age, gender, social belonging and rela-tions with other people. Since space is understood and experienced differently, it also is a contradictory, conflicting means by which individuals act and are affected by actions. The distinct features of a space are always comprehensible only in context. Space is a net-work of relations between things and places. Thus, there is no space that is not relative. Social relations, and natural and cultural objects generate space. Space, in turn, affects the relations between them.⁴³ 43 K. Lehari, Ruum. Keskkond. Koht, pp. 46–48.

Thus individual experience affects the perception and comprehen-sion of space. Brooker and Stone mention in their analysis of con-text and environment: ‘The setting in which an interior is situated provides its context. The analysis of context is the understanding of the spirit of the place (genius loci) and its physical, visual, aural and prevailing character. The environment has much more to do with the natural and climatic conditions of the area – the study of the weather, the atmosphere, the ambience of the space. The two are examined as distinct but concurring, inextricably linked entities.

They are not mutually exclusive and there are inevitable overlaps both in the influence they have on the design and in the way in which they are examined. The particular characteristics of a specific situation can influence the redesign of an existing space.’⁴⁴ So, in analysing the links of context and interior space, they have reached into location, history (narration), external connections and thresh-old, visual connections and logistics (movement). In analysing the connections between environment and interior, they include climate, light, temperature, orientation, view/aspect and materials.

Spatial context constantly changes over time. Lefebvre has expanded the concept of space the most, introducing the concept of social space: the space of social practice, the experience of everyday life, real space, which is tied to communication between people, habitual customs and traditions, where the phenomenon of perception takes place, as well as deposited experience and memory. Spatial practices are directly tied to social space, where a person creates social space through some kind of particular activity in a specific environment, and that concrete practice and the individual himself are part of that social space: social space reproduces itself through spatial practices.

According to Lefebvre’s three inseparable concepts of space, tangi-ble space ranks first, meaning actually perceptitangi-ble physical space as people’s everyday space that reproduces itself by way of experi-ence. Arising from this, actual physical space has meaning in creating identity, since the notion of us and others takes shape through spatial relationships. Next is imagined or mental space, which is emotional and spiritual: connected to the intellect, imagery, ideals, conceptions, place, design plans and developments by which we practice human spatiality in an abstract way (for instance, spatial plans and devel-opment plans). And the third is lived space, or social space, where imagined and actually perceptible spaces intertwine. The spaces of these representations make alternative spatial practices possible.

Lefebvre has tried to bridge the gap between the mental and social, 44 G. Brooker, S. Stone, Basics Interior Architecture, p. 006.

between philosophy and reality. Lefebvre places the user of space and its creator (designer) at the centre of attention.⁴⁵ In the urban context, the urban geographer Jussi Jauhiainen brings together a sim-ple trichotomy: concrete, mental and social space. Concrete space is the physical environment where human activity takes place. Men-tal space is a person’s subjective image of the city and its different places and meanings. Social space is associated with human activity, where concrete and mental space meet social activity.⁴⁶

While Lefebvre associates his notion of spatial practices with the existing social space as a creator and reproducer, Michel de Certeau points out the individuality of practices and their dependence on the motives of a particular person. According to de Certeau, tactics play a role here. This depends on the interests of a particular person and is not completely subject to official strategic practices. De Cer-teau makes sense of place through order. According to him, place is order (whichever kind of order), according to which elements are divided up in relation to their coexistence. This rules out the pos-sibility that two things could be located in the same place. The law of ‘property’ prevails in a place: the observed elements are beside one another, each in its ‘own’ clearly distinguishable place, which that element then also defines. Thus a place is a configuration of positions at a certain moment. This presumes that a place is charac-terised by a certain stability. He considers space, on the other hand, to be variable and defines it through physical concepts: he argues that space exists as soon as direction vectors, the quantity of speed, and time as a variable are taken into account. Thus the intersec-tion of moving elements generates space. The amount of movement unleashed in a space gives it life in a certain sense. Space is in rela-tion to place in the same way that a word changes when it is spoken, i.e. when it finds itself in the ambiguous grip of performance and becomes a term dependent on many conventions. Therefore, unlike place, space is not characterised by the non-ambiguity and stabil-ity of ‘property’.⁴⁷ In its predetermination, de Certeau’s place is, in a certain sense, similar to the concept of space in the way that it is understood in human geography and location philosophy: he con-siders place to be static and space to be more living, more dynamic.

45 H. Lefebvre, The Production of Space [1974]. Trans D. Nicholson-Smith. Oxford, Cambridge:

Blackwell, 2012, p. 11.

46 J. Jauhiainen, Linnageograafia: linnad ja linnauurimus modernismist postmodernismini. Tallinn:

Eesti Kunstiakadeemia, 2005, p. 72.

47 M. de Certeau, Igapäevased praktikad. I Tegemiskunstid. Trans. M. Lepikult. Tartu: Tartu Ülikooli Kirjastus, 2005, pp. 179–180.