One of the most important French thinkers of the twentieth century, Henri Lefebvre -- in particular, his 1947 book The Critique of Everyday Life -- exerted a profound influence on, among others, the members of the Situationist International; Lefebvre even became associated with the situationists personally in the years immediately following 1958, when he was excluded from the French Communist Party. Lefebvre's close association with the situationists lasted until 1962. Lefebvre's personal contact in the 1958 to 1962 period was primarily with Guy Debord. After the 1962 reorganization, it was Debord's theory of the spectacle that replaced the theories of psychogeography, diversion and la derive (the drift) at the center of the situationist project.

His relationship to it extended beyond, in particular, with respect to Debord and Society of the Spectacle (1967), as The Production of Space, originally published in French in 1974, is an explicit attempt to continue the situationist project by means other than the International itself.

Lefebvre contends that there are different modes of production of space (i.e. spatialization) from natural space ('absolute space') to more complex spatialities whose significance is socially produced (i.e. social space). Lefebvre analyses each historical mode as a three-part dialectic between everyday practices and perceptions (le perçu), representations or theories of space (le conçu) and the spatial imaginary of the time (le vécu).

Appropriation should not be confused with a practice which is closely related to it but still distinct, namely 'diversion' (detournement).

When the situationists defined the concept of detournement in the first (1958) issue of their journal Internationale Situationniste -- originally the concept of detournement dates back to Debord's days in the Lettrist International, circa 1956 -- the references were to "pre-existing aesthetic elements," to "present or past artistic production," to "propaganda." In other words, the references were very broad: they took in all forms of cultural production, and were not limited to a single one.

Lefebvre's definition is part of a larger effort to return the situationist project to its origins in architecture and "unitary" urbanism. Lefebvre felt that, after the reorganization of the SI in 1962, the group abandoned both "diversion" and "psychogeographical" experimentation as it perfected and disseminated its critical theories.
 

"Seize the space" 

In his discussion of "appropriation," which he (following Marx's discussions of human nature) defines as a spatial practice in which nature has been modified in order to satisfy and expand human needs and possibilities, Lefebvre writes: "Appropriation should not be confused with a practice which is closely related to it but still distinct, namely 'diversion' (detournement)."

Knowing full well that detournement is a central concept in both situationist theory and practice, Lefebvre goes on to say the following:

“An existing space may outlive its original purpose and the raison d'etre which determines its forms, functions, and structures; it may thus in a sense become vacant, and susceptible of being diverted, reappropriated and put to a use quite different from its initial one.”

Though Lefebvre and Debord agree that (historical or human) time has been dominated by (capitalist) space, they disagree strongly as to what to do about it. Is the rediscovery of time the key to the liberation of space? Or is the reappropriation of space the key to the liberation of time? Are these questions mirror images of each other?

Because Lefebvre approaches the spectacle from the "perspective" of space rather than time, Lefebvre is able to re-illuminate and enlarge the terrain on which the battle to abolish the spectacle is being fought. The freshness of Lefebvre's take on the spectacle can be detected in both the form and the content of his book.

Our particular concern will be to extract what is living, new, positive—the worthwhile needs and fulfilments- from the negative elements; the alienations.

Lefebvre's argument in The Production of Space is that space is a social product, or a complex social construction (based on values, and the social production of meanings) which affects spatial practices and perceptions. This argument implies the shift of the research perspective from space to processes of its production; the embrace of the multiplicity of spaces that are socially produced and made productive in social practices; and the focus on the contradictory, conflictual, and, ultimately, political character of the processes of production of space. 

"(Social) space is a (social) product..it ceases to be distinguishable from mental space, on the one hand, and physical space on the other...social space `incorporates' social actions, the actions of subjects both individual and collective who are born and who die, who suffer and who act. From the point of view of these subjects, the behaviour of their space is at once vital and mortal: within it they develop, give expression to themselves, and encounter prohibitions; then they perish, and that same space contains their graves."

"From the point of view of knowing (connaissance), social space works (along with its concept) as a tool for the analysis of society. To accept this much is at once to eliminate the simplistic model of a one-to-one or `punctual' correspondence between social actions and social locations, between spatial functions and spatial forms. Precisely because of its crudeness, however, this `structural' schema continues to haunt our consciousness and knowledge (savoir)...Social spaces interpenetrate one another and/or superimpose themselves upon one another. They are not things, which have mutually limiting boundaries".

Situationist Ralph Rumney, who had conducted a number of psychogeographical forays, influenced Lefebvre's spatial theory.

Diagram of all the courses taken in one year by a student living
in the 16th Arrondissement. Poverty of Student Life - Ralph Rumney