To Conclude, Lefebvre

A work.

Looking across the five cities that Professor Julie Buckler decided to include in an explorative study of the urban imagination, it is possible to integrate Henri Lefebvre’s social theory from his book, Production of Space. He theorizes, using the principles of Marx and Engels, about the way in which people play a role in the production of social space. In his second chapter, he goes into details about the nuances of products (objects manufactured) versus works (objects created). There is a necessary variable of reproducibility to consider when determining whether an object is a product or work, and the humanism of an object often plays into that. 

These world cities are both works and products, for while there elements of an emotionless built-environment in each city that we’ve examined, there is a hand that the citizens and visitors play in the work-aspects of the city, and the machines that they manipulate contribute to the inorganic aspects of the city.