Space and Place by Yi-Fu Tuan

The perspective of Experience


p. 3
"Space" and "place" are familiar words denoting common experiences. We live in space. There is no space for another building on the lot. The Great Plains look spacious. Place is security, space is freedom: we are attached to the one and long for the other.

p. 6
(2) The relations of space and place. In experience, the meaning of space often merges with that of place. "space" is more abstract than "place." What begins as undifferentiated space becomes place as we get to know it better and endow it with value. ... from the security and stability of place we are aware of the openness, freedom, and threat of space, and vice versa. Furthermore, if we think of space as that which allows movement, then place is pause; each pause in movement makes it possible for location to be transformed into place.
(3) The range of experience or knowledge. Experience can be direct and intimate, or it can be indirect and conceptual, mediated by symbols.

p. 8
Experience is a cover-all term for the various modes through which a person knows and constructs a reality. These modes range from the more direct and passive senses of smell, taste, and touch, to active visual perception and the indirect mode of symbolization.

p. 12

What sensory organs and experiences enable human beings to have their strong feeling for space and for spatial qualities? Answer: Kinesthesia, sight, and touch.

p. 14
A person who handles an object feels not only its texture but its geometric properties of size and shape. Apart from manipulation, does skin sensitivity itself contribute to the human spatial experience? It does, though in limited ways. The skin registers sensations. It reports on its own state and at the same time that of the object pressing against it.

p. 34

"Space" is an abstract term for a complex set of ideas. People of different cultures differ in how they divide up their world, assign values to its part, and measure them. ... Man, out of his intimate experience with his body and with other people, organizes space so that it conforms with and caters to his biological needs and social relations.

p. 67

But the mind, once on its exploratory path, creates large and complex spatial schemata that exceed by far what an individual can encompass through direct experience. With the help of the mind, human spatial ability (though not agility) rises above that of all other species.

p. 73

When space feels thoroughly familiar to us, it has become place. ... Spatial knowledge enhances spatial ability.

p. 85
Myth is often contrasted with reality. Myths flourish in the absence of precise knowledge. ... Myth is not a belief that can be readily verified, or proven false, by the evidence of the senses.

p. 99
Mythical space is an intellectual construct. It can be very elaborate. Mythical space is also a response of feeling and imagination to fundamental human needs. It differs from pragmatic and scientifically conceived spaces in that it ignores the logic of exclusion and contradiction.

p. 118
The experience of space and time is largely subconscious. We have a sense of space because we can move and of time because, as biological beings, we undergo recurrent phases of tension and ease. The movement that gives us a sense of space is itself the resolution of tension. When we stretch our limbs we experience space and time simultaneously - space as the sphere of freedom from physical constraint and time as duration in which tension is followed by ease. ... -  spatialized time.

Space and Place by Yi-Fu Tuan (2002, University of Minnesota Press: Minneapolis)