atom11:Poetics of Space

In “The Poetics of Space”, Gaston Bachelard takes readers on a journey through the ways we experience intimate places.

The focal point of his exploration is looking at the idea of the “house” and then, room by room, discussing what then makes a house a home.

Bachelard’s hypothesis is that intimacy is best accommodated or facilitated in a four level house consisting of: cellar, ground floor, second floor, and attic. Each level should have nooks and corridors that encourage all sorts of activities. The house of our childhood, Bachelard argues, remains in our dreams and daydreams, always influencing our idea of what makes an intimate place.

Each chapter deals with a concept that can be connected to a sort of intimate behavior:

1. the house. from cellar to garret. the significance of the hut
2. house and universe
3. drawers, chests and wardrobes
4. nest
5. shells
6. corners
7. miniature
8. intimate immensity
9. the dialectics of outside and inside
10. the phenomenology of roughness

---

Go back to Intimacy page