ABSTRACT
Michel Foucault delivered the lecture ‘Des espaces autres’ (‘Of other spaces’) in the spring of 1967 to the Cercle d’études architecturales in Paris (Defert 1997). Calling for a spatial analytics he labelled ‘hétérotopologie’, Foucault’s voice was accepted eagerly for it paralleled architects’ new interest in the spatial composition of contemporary cities and their desire to leave behind the abstract spaces of modernism with their distribution of autonomous land uses and tower in the park schemes. These architects wanted to inject social science into architectural studies, to be involved with the practical reality of the city and to be engaged with urban struggles over housing. They required theoretical tools for their reforms and hoped Foucault’s analyses would help (Violeau 2005).
