Toward an Architecture of Enjoyment

Below are notes from 'Toward an Architecture of Enjoyment' by Henri Lefebvre

The overall theme of the book is an exploration of what an architecture of enjoyment is...Architecture being the production of space ranging from furniture to gardens and parks, and landscapes, probably more what we would call the 'environment'. The architecture of imagination - which has similarities to Gaston Bachelard's Poetics of Space in some parts.
Architecture is redefined as a mode of imagination rather than a specialised process, building, or monument. Lefebvre calls for an architecture of jouissance—of pleasure or enjoyment—centered on the body and its rhythms and based on the possibilities of the senses.

An architecture of enjoyment will involve a space that is more or less the analog of the 'total body' - by this Lefebvre means not to use the body as a model or to symbolise it or signify it but to allow, lead and prepare the body for enjoyment. The 'total body' = the appropriated body, or use. The characteristics of such a space will:

• value the multifunctional and transfunctional rather than merely functional
• not fetishize (separately) form, function, structure, as the signifiers of the space
• substitute the idea of perfection  with that of perfect in-completion which discovers a 'moment' in life (eg. expectation, presentiment, nostalgia), making this moment the base for the construction of ambiance
• not privilege any particular sense or communication of space; the greater the architect's familiarity with a wide number of codes, the greater his ability to choose and manipulate them - that is, codes being anything that can be inventoried, referenced, counted, perhaps principles?

'...This does not mean that the architect considers himself in terms of a sensation-based aesthetics, that is, as and artist. The production of space overcomes older categories separating art from technology, the knowledge of sensation and sensuality. The architect is a producer of space.' (p151, Conclusions)

Which means that the architect acknowledges and uses many different elements - water, earth, fire, air - and natural rhythms. The use of water is interesting, given the different use of this element (and the others generally) in the East and West eg.

• East: water circulates inside inhabited spaces and is an essential part of its appropriation
• West: water is dominated by the dwelling, whether a river, pond, lake or stream

The space of enjoyment is not a building, but rather be somewhere, a genuine space, with encounters take place, moments, friendships, festivals, rest, quiet, joy, love, sensuality, as well as understanding and struggle. Places of instants of moments. With No Signs.

'It is not through form but content that the architect...can influence social practice.'