Other Practices: Gendering Histories of Architecture
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Author / Producer
Date
2022-09-02
Publication Type
Journal Article, Journal Article
ETH Bibliography
yes
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Abstract
“To write women back into history”, is an often-used phrase in recent feminist discourse. More and more scholars work to increase the visibility of those women who took charge of design projects in the recent and not so recent past. While crucial, such efforts are, in the paradox way of how privilege works, to an extent counterproductive: presenting these women (and other, historically marginalised figures) as exceptions from the rule – as eccentric trailblazers - implies the majority of their female (or Black, indigenous, queer, other ...) contemporaries had no influence within (white, male) architectural practices. This position paper argues that we also need to look for other practices that enabled women (and others) in greater numbers to gain agency. Writing is one such practice: the recording of experience, critiques, and instructions to appropriate the designed, ascribing meaning to architectures and landscapes. Locating architectural agency in a practice that, while presuming some privilege, was much more open to marginalised groups than that of the architect, enables us to look at the past more inclusively: to write gendered histories that open up spaces for those that were there, in fact.
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Publication status
published
Editor
Book title
Volume
18
Pages / Article No.
30 - 41
Publisher
Universidad de Zaragoza, Departamento de Arquitectura
Event
Edition / version
Methods
Software
Geographic location
Date collected
Date created
Subject
Women architects; Female Writing; Gender; Alternatives Professionals; Feminist practices; Historiography
Organisational unit
08649 - Gruppe Hultzsch / Group Hultzsch
Notes
In English and Spanish