Task 5: Lefebvre and Space

The use of a lecture theatre is specifically for teaching and learning. The space is designed to focus attention to the front of the room where the lecturer would be positioned.

The lecture theatre in the college is designed for students and teachers attending the university. Its purpose it to bring together large groups of students to take lessons from their tutors.

The design of the room, with the chairs facing forwards and staggered in height, means that the space is panoptic. The individuals being taught feel like they should obey a certain code whilst in the room and the teacher may feel pressure to teach well or to keep the class under control. This behavioural code is what Lefebvre called a ‘representational space’ where the design of the room meant that an idea of how people should behave comes into play.

The teacher has the full view of the room whereas the students can only face forwards and cannot be moved. This controls the behaviour of the students as they feel less like a group and more as an individual facing a tutor who has a position of power over them.

In a classroom, students may feel like they should act up and chat etc in order to break the enforced behaviour of the room- but in the lecture theatre, every student can be seen clearly by the tutor and so is less likely to act up.

Although the lecture theatre has a practical use for teaching a large group of people who are sat in a room designed for concentration, the student may not want to speak up in class or ask questions as they are on permanent view. A student may also feel as if they could not leave the room whenever they wanted to as the main steps leading to each row of seating is very visible and with everyone’s attention faced towards the front, the student leaving would not want to go as they would then become the focus of that attention.