This article attempts to conceptualise the concept of infrastructure from a humanistic perspective, taking into account its origins, semantic evolution and contemporary theoretical approaches. The author departs from a technocratic understanding of infrastructure as a set of material facilities supporting the functioning of society to offer an analysis of this concept as relational, history-dependent and embedded in social practices. The text discusses key approaches developed in science and technology studies (STS), philosophy, sociology and urban studies, including work on infrastructure by S.L. Star, G.C. Bowker, B. Larkin, L. Winner and B. Latour. Particular attention was paid to the tension between the utilitarian function and the existential dimension of infrastructure, by analysing the opposition between ‘using’ and ‘inhabiting’ (based, among other things, on the reflections of M. Heidegger). The article emphasises that infrastructure does not exist as an objective set of elements, but as a dynamic relationship between the artefact and the socio-cultural context. The proposed perspective makes it possible to reinterpret the concept of infrastructure as a phenomenon that is not only technical but also deeply embedded in human experience and the structures of everyday life.