The Poetics of Space,   ISBN:9780807064733

Customer Rating: 

I purchased this book to further my appreciation of architecture and was disappointed to discover this book only frustrates. I enjoy creative use of language to convey thoughts and ideas, however I feel this book fails to communicate much of anything other than disorganized emotions. I can best compare my experience reading this book to listening to the logic and argument of a 4 year old -only with bigger words.

Customer Rating: 

I don't know if the problem is in the content of the book, or in the translation, but the book was almost incomprehensible. Unfortunately, I don't speak French, so I can't read the original and compare them, but I suspect it is the translation, which appeared a bit stilted and unnatural (similar to translations of Frederick Bastiat's The Law, or Pierre Boulle's Planet of the Apes, both of which were oddly worded, although easily readable, and Bastiat wrote more than 150 years ago).

Maybe the translator didn't quite understand the topic, or have a conversational grasp of the English language, either of which would make translating difficult. I almost picked up my Strunk & White's Elements of Style to review their readability formula just to quantify how dense this book was, but restrained myself.

To the reviewers I read before buying this book, now I understand why a number of them wrote things like, "you have to be able to sit back and ponder the book, savoring the words before digesting them." I took this as a sign that there were deep meanings that mesmerized the reader, and looked forward to it. No. To translate that phrase into common English, it means, "the translator has an Oxford English Dictionary and he's going to use it."

Customer Rating: 

I don't get why this is the bible of architects. Its boring as hell. Sure people are affected by the spaces they inhabit for various conditioning reasons. OK thats obvious but do I need to read a whole book written in pompous philospeak to learn that.

Honestly I put it down half way. Too boring and too many other things to read. Life is short.

Customer Rating: 

Book itself was in great condition, and was waiting at home for me sooner than expected.

Customer Rating: 

This book is hardly new, but Bachelard's analysis of the psychology of space remains as fascinating and lyrical as when it was first published. I've recommended this book to artists and sculptors and students over the years, and they in turn recomend it to others. Bachelard went on to write a book on the poetics of reverie and the "psychoanalysis of fire" but his book on space remains the most readable and the most genuinely poetic.