《空间诗学》的法文版本出版于1957年。在现代主义晚期建筑文化已经快要窒息的氛围中，现象学以及象征意义的追求为建筑注入丰厚的养分，此书在这样的时期出现，自然激起建筑的许多深刻想象。巴舍拉开展了对于钟爱空间的系统性分析，也就是场所分析 。虽然他关注于文学意象的心理动力，但是建筑师认为他的空间想象正好可以对抗科技实证主义与抽象形式主义，并做为正在浮现的结构主义的另类提案。诺伯休兹 (Norberg-Schulz)，一位重要的建筑现象学学者，就在他的《实存空间与建筑》这本书中，将《空间诗学》与海德格的《存有与时间》、《住居思》以及梅洛庞蒂的《知觉现象学》中有关空间的章节等并列为建筑必读的经典。 在《空间诗学》这本书中，巴舍拉认为空间并非填充物体的容器，而是人类意识的居所，他说：“在家屋和宇宙之间，这种动态的对峙当中，我们已经远离了任何单纯的几何学形式的参考架构。被我们所体验到的家屋，并不是一个迟钝的盒子，被居住过的空间实已超越了几何学的空间。”因此我们所要关心的不是住屋形式或舒适与否的分析；易言之，建筑学就是栖居的诗学。书中最精彩之处，莫过于对于亲密空间的描绘与想象。他指出家是人在世界的角落，庇护白日梦，也保护做梦者。家的意象反映了亲密、孤独、热情的意象。我们在家屋之中，家屋也在我们之内。我们诗意地建构家屋，家屋也灵性地结构我们。

Henri Lefebvre has considerable claims to be the greatest living philosopher. His work spans some sixty years and includes original work on a diverse range of subjects, from dialectical materialism to architecture, urbanism and the experience of everyday life. The Production of Space is his major philosophical work and its translation has been long awaited by scholars in many different fields.
The book is a search for a reconciliation between mental space (the space of the philosophers) and real space (the physical and social spheres in which we all live). In the course of his exploration, Henri Lefebvre moves from metaphysical and ideological considerations of the meaning of space to its experience in the everyday life of home and city. He seeks, in other words, to bridge the gap between the realms of theory and practice, between the mental and the social, and between philosophy and reality. In doing so, he ranges through art, literature, architecture and economics, and further provides a powerful antidote to the sterile and obfuscatory methods and theories characteristic of much recent continental philosophy.
This is a work of great vision and incisiveness. It is also characterized by its author's wit and by anecdote, as well as by a deftness of style which Donald Nicholson-Smith's sensitive translation precisely captures.