Smooth and Striated Space
Smooth and Striated Space
Definition
Smooth and striated space is Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari's central spatial distinction from A Thousand Plateaus: striated space is metric, gridded, organized by the State apparatus and the orthogonal — a space of boundaries, measures, and fixed points; smooth space is open, heterogeneous, filled by intensities and nomadic movement — "a space of affects, more than one of properties." The two always interpenetrate: "there are always two kinds of space: 'smooth and striated space — nomad space and sedentary space — the space in which the war machine develops and the space instituted by the State apparatus' — are not of the same nature," yet any composition is "always a mixture." For architecture, the distinction provides a vocabulary for the difference between the planned, orthogonal city (striated) and informal, drifting, or emergent spaces (smooth). "What defines the multiplicity is the AND... between the elements" — space as relation, not container.
Key Thinkers
- Gilles Deleuze (with Félix Guattari) — developed the distinction in A Thousand Plateaus; smooth space as the space of the nomad war machine, striated as the space of the State.
- Ian Buchanan — applies the distinction to the postmodern city in Deleuze and Space.
Related Concepts
- Deterritorialisation — the process that frees flows from striated territorial codes; deterritorialisation produces smooth space, reterritorialisation produces striated.
- Warped Space — Vidler's account of the Deleuzian spatial roster.
- Heterotopia — Foucault's "other spaces" as pockets of smoothness within striated social space.
- Dérive — the Situationist practice of movement through smooth space against the striated order of the productivist city.
Source Support
Sources in the wiki that discuss this concept:
Open Questions
- Does smooth space offer a critical resource against the parametric/striated city of neoliberalism, or — as Spencer charges — is the smooth/striated vocabulary itself absorbed into "architectural Deleuzism" and made to serve the very parametric logic it was meant to critique?
- Is the distinction analytically useful for studying actually-existing cities, or does it risk a crude binary that obscures the complexity of urban spatial production?