Lefebvre asks the question, how do we explain the way space is produced? In this extract he sets out the conceptual triad of perceived–conceived–lived space that he uses throughout his book to analyse the social production of space. He explains how the realms within this conceptual triad are interconnected and the relationships between them complex and unstable.

It might be objected that at such and such a period, in such and such a society (ancient/slave, medieval/feudal, etc.), the active groups did not “produce” space in the sense in which a vase, a piece of furniture, a house, or a fruit tree is “produced.” So how exactly did those groups contrive to produce their space? The question is a highly pertinent one and covers all “fields” under consideration. Even neocapitalism or “organized” capitalism, even technocratic planners and programmers, cannot produce a space with a perfectly clear understanding of cause and effect, motive and implication. Specialists in a number of “disciplines” might answer or try to answer the question. Ecologists, for example, would very likely take natural ecosystems as a point of departure. They would show how the actions of human groups upset the balance of these systems, and how in most cases, where “pre-technological” or “archaeo-technological” societies are concerned, the balance is subsequently restored. They would then examine the development of the relationship between town and country, the perturbing effects of the town, and the possibility or impossibility of a new balance being established. Then, from their point of view, they would adequately have clarified and even explained the genesis of modern social space. Historians, for their part, would doubtless take a different approach, or rather a number of different approaches according to the individual’s method or orientation. Those who concern themselves chiefly with events might be inclined to establish a chronology of decisions affecting the relations between cities and their territorial dependencies, or to study the construction of monumental buildings. Others might seek to reconstitute the rise and fall of the institutions which underwrote those monuments. Still others would lean toward an economic study of exchange between city and territory, town and town, state and town, and so on.