Gaston Bachelard: Rommets Poesi

One of Gaston Bachelard’s most memorable books is The Poetics of Space , in which he analyzes the rooms of a house in a particularly striking way. 

Very few notable intellectuals have dived into a house ‘room. Bachelard turned this subject into a fantastic poetic reflection and defined it as “top analysis”.

When we refer to the rooms in a house, Bachelard indicates that ” the image of the house seemed to have become the topography of our intimate being .” Furthermore, an outer space is a reflection of an inner world.

Gaston Bachelard on beloved rooms in a house

Gaston Bachelard points out that houses offer protection. The rooms of a house are inhabited places. Therefore, they have little to do with geometry or architecture.

Every place and every object has memories and meaning because of all the things they have witnessed.

A nest

For this wonderful French philosopher, we also learn to live in our inner world when we learn to live in a house. The rooms in a house are a part of us, just as we are a part of them.

He compares a home to a nest or a shell. By this he means that a house is, symbolically speaking, the place where life is created and where it seeks shelter.

At the same time, he establishes an analogy between a house and a mother’s life. In fact, for him, the house is a symbolic extension of a mother. A house is like a mother protecting, providing shelter, and embracing us.

Gaston Bachelard about the real house and the dream house

Bachelard points out that there is a real house and a dream house. We always build a dream house in our heads. Furthermore, we also inhabit rooms in this dream house. We design it, know about its location, and inhabit it in special moments of deviation.

The dream house also has no defects like the person’s real house. Unfortunately, it belongs to the dream world, and stays within us as an ideal to achieve. Furthermore, we never give it up.

For Bachelard, privacy is a nest. Thus, dreams also require their own imaginary spaces, just as life requires physical space to unfold.

The corners and objects

Gaston Bachelard refers to the corners of the house as places of greatest significance. Somehow each person chooses a small area in their home to inhabit to the fullest. 

These are places we spend the most time on. It is almost always our bedroom, although it can also be a living room, a garden, a home office, etc. These corners say a lot about how we relate to ourselves and to life.

Within the rooms of a house, there are also objects that are also the inhabitants of the place. Bachelard gives special importance to cabinets, drawers and chests. Symbolically, these are places with secrets and collections. In general , they are metaphors for what is also carefully stored in the corners of our minds. 

Opening a cupboard, a coffin or a drawer always makes us shudder to a certain degree, according to Bachelard. If you analyze what people have in such places, you can get a sense of who they are.

All the rooms in the house and all the objects inside tell a lot about who lives there. What does your house and possessions say about you?