Based in the UK, Black Females in Architecture is a community and network for black and black mixed heritage women in architecture, design and construction. The intersectional nature of our experiences informs how we occupy and hope to design our everyday spaces. In an increasingly globalised society, we seek to challenge a solely Western understanding […]
Since the rise of modernity, humans have largely disregarded the value of non-human entities such as nature, technology, and other non-human beings. Should this approach be rethought, and should the distinction between human and non-human subjects be abolished? In a seminar course on architectural criticism titled ‘Architecture × Nature’ at the Korea National University of […]
Beyond the content, narratives and storytelling; writing is intrinsically spatial – leaning on the possibilities of movement. In her text, Laura Ruggeri reminds the reader of how alike space and language actually are. She reflects on the spatial power of writing and on the representational choices inscribed within text. The way we write about – […]
This book brings together a collection of essays reflecting on the spaces women inhabit at the intersection — and the term is especially fitting here — of home, work, and society, which also form the book’s three thematic sections. These are spaces inhabited not only by physical bodies, but also by mental and virtual ones: […]
Those familiar with hooks’ work often read it as an intersectional study of race, class and gender. My reading of hooks was a deliberate expedition to locate the margins where this intersection takes place and to understand them as places of care and uncare. hooks urges those of us who want to produce counter-hegemonic narratives […]
In 2010, the writer Marie Darrieussecq encountered the work of Paula Modersohn-Becker for the first time. It happened by chance: she received an email promoting a psychoanalytic conference on motherhood, illustrated with a painting of a woman breastfeeding a child. What caught her attention was the unusual pose—mother and child lying naked on a bed, […]
The idea of content today is mainly hindrance, a nuisance, a subtle or not so subtle philistinism. Susan Sontag, “Against Interpretation”. Of course, regardless of specifics, I always insist that the final form must be beautiful. Kazuyo Sejima, “Conversation with Kazuyo Sejima”. Against Interpretation Explanations come afterwards. This interview instead concerns the design […]
These student projects respond to Rosa Luxemburg as a figure to inspire liberatory constructions.The starting point for their research was her 1918 speech “A Call to the Workers of the World.” The projects are from the Masters of Architecture Theory Seminar Oppressed Fantasies, Liberatory Constructions led by Anna Kostreva. It took place at TU-Darmstadt in […]
This student project responds to Innana as a figure to inspire liberatory constructions. The starting point for the research was story of “Inanna and the God of Wisdom” as wall as “The Descent of Inanna” from the 1983 book Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth by Diane Wolkstein and Samuel Noah Kramer. The projects are […]
These student projects respond to Pandora as a figure to inspire liberatory constructions. The starting point for their research was the chapter “The Making of a Godess”in the 1908 book Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion by Jane Ellen Harrison. The projects are from the Masters of Architecture Theory Seminar Oppressed Fantasies, Liberatory Constructions […]
These student projects respond to Harriet Tubman as a figure to inspire liberatory constructions. The starting point for their research was the 1869 book Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman by Sarah H. Bradford. The projects are from the Masters of Architecture Theory Seminar Oppressed Fantasies, Liberatory Constructions led by Anna Kostreva. It took […]
On page 89, ‘CYNTHIA DAVIDSON : I teach a required graduate course, called “Image and Text,” at Pratt, where I try to help the students to understand that an image generally needs explanation in order to be understood in a certain way by the broad population that is involved in the project. So, you […]
The Anthropologists is Ayşegül Savaş’s third novel. It traces the lives of Asya and Manu, a young married couple, through their everyday activities, encounters, and rituals. They are seldom joined by some friends or acquaintances, but the anchor of the novel is the relationship between the two, as it also anchors their lives. Tropes of marriage, […]
These student projects respond to Audre Lorde as a figure to inspire liberatory constructions. The starting point for their research was the 1977 essay “The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action” in the book Sister Outsider. The projects are from the Masters of Architecture Theory Seminar Oppressed Fantasies, Liberatory Constructions led by Anna Kostreva. […]
These student projects respond to Greta Thunberg as a figure to inspire liberatory constructions. The starting point for their research was the 2024 inter view with Greta Thunberg: “This Has Shown the True Colours of the World.” The projects are from the Masters of Architecture Theory Seminar Oppressed Fantasies, Liberatory Constructions led by Anna Kostreva. […]
L’isola di Arturo (Arturo’s Island) by Italian writer Elsa Morante is what the Germans call a bildungsroman: more than a coming-of-age story, its narrative unfolds the layers of those intricate experiences involved in the passage from childhood to adulthood. In Morante’s book, architecture and context become metaphors of a journey that is everyone’s. The island […]
The volume explores the role of women in Italian architecture, design and urban planning from the early 1900s to the present day. Through essays selected by a multidisciplinary scientific committee, over one hundred leading figures in the field, active in Italy and abroad, emerge. This collaborative work restores visibility to individual and collective paths that […]
In When Things Fall Apart, Pema Chödrön presents teachings that are inclusive and accessible, drawing on Buddhist wisdom while speaking to universal human experiences of uncertainty, pain, and fear. Rather than requiring religious belief, she invites readers from all backgrounds to meet difficult emotions with curiosity, compassion, and presence. The book emphasises shared vulnerability, self-kindness, […]
Yasmeen Lari: Architecture for the Future is a comprehensive look at the work and impact of the visionary Pakistani architect Yasmeen Lari, tracing her evolution from a pioneering modernist to a leader in zero-carbon, humanitarian architecture. The book highlights her development of an approach that combines ecological sustainability with social justice, particularly in disaster relief […]
Angela Davis’s Women, Race, & Class critically examines U.S. history through the interconnected lenses of gender, race, and class, showing how these systems of oppression shaped social movements from slavery and abolition to women’s suffrage and the 1960s feminist movement. She argues that mainstream feminist movements were dominated by White, middle-class concerns and often excluded […]
Each welcoming frame in the @builtbyusuk Instagram account encourages engagement with this fascinating organisation led by Danna Walker, an award-winning electrician, former architect, advocate for mentoring, founder and pioneering Black leader. Offering support and training, mentoring and deep active listening, the team at London-based Built By Us fosters “A world built for all, by all. […]
The social media face of the Accra Architecture Archive, this Instagram account gives insight into the live engagement with archival materials – recordings of interviews, behind the scenes work – as well as highlighting some of the texts on the website (and featured on womenwritingarchitecture.org in the Architecture of Accra collection) and artefacts in the […]
Intended to reveal a history of women architects in Warsaw, the exhibition ARCHITEKTJI at ZODIAK Warszawski Pawilon Architektury (18.7.25 – 19.10.25) deploys an elegant curatorial structure to reveal the breadth of this history in parallel with five more intimate thematic and biographical stories. The exhibition is arranged in two parts. Within the loggia-like ground floor […]
Xochitl Gonzalez talks of race and class through memories of a boisterous neighbourhood that no longer exists, yet her recollections paint a lively image. If in silence, one can begin to question what it holds –or once held–, from Gonzalez’s text, it becomes clear that life used to be a lot louder. That loss is […]
This is a major monographic exhibition about the philosophy, work and material culture of leading architect and educator, Anupama Kundoo. The large temporary exhibition gallery of the Architektur Zentrum Wien is remade to evoke the atmospheres and material techniques of Kundoo’s Wall House of 2000 built in Auroville where the architect lived until 2002 and […]
I was not sure what to expect when I first looked through the collected writings of Nilgün Marmara, published under the name of Kırmızı Kahverengi Defter years after her death. The translation of the title would be Red Brown Notebook, referring to the two leather covered notebooks that Nilgün Marmara owned and used not as […]
What has value as architecture? The answer varies from one historical moment to another, and is deeply linked to the cultural and geographic circumstances. But this fundamental question is also linked to the identity of the creator. A journey through the histories of Japanese women architects involves unravelling the meaning of these intersecting words. This […]
Miho Hamaguchi (1915–1988) was a pioneer in the modernization of Japanese residential architecture. Despite being the first woman in Japan to be licensed as an architect, developing a theory of the emancipated dwelling, writing, consulting, teaching, and designing over a thousand projects, her life and work have been little explored by canonical historiography. Hamaguchi’s goal […]
Etty Hillesum (1914–1943) was a Dutch Jewish writer whose diaries, written during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, offer an intimate and profound reflection on life, memory, and personal resilience. She was a woman of extraordinary intellectual independence, defying traditional gender roles with her deeply introspective and philosophical approach to existence. Unlike many of her […]
Together with illustrator Mariana Rio, Portuguese architect Joana Couceiro co-created the children’s book collection Casas com nome (houses with names), published by Circo de Ideias. These books are based on Ana Luísa Rodrigues’s doctoral thesis, Habitabilidade do espaço domoméstico : o cliente, o arquitecto, o habitante e a casa (The habitability of domestic space: the […]
I came across L’arte della gioia approximately ten years ago on a friend’s advice and read it back then. On occasions like birthdays and celebrations, I have given this book as a gift to all the women in my family, to the point that it has turned into a joke since we now have so […]
Anna Tsing unravels stories of hidden ecologies emerging around the matsutake mushroom on different continents, unveiling the mushroom as an emotional anchor, a commodity, and a sign of resurgence in disturbance-based ecosystems. These disobedient ecologies, arising from deteriorated grounds, fascinate me as an alternative way of thinking about the relationship between non-human beings, architecture […]
This annotation is a quote from a conversation between Reba Maybury and Lucy Mackenzie, with Marie Canet in Pervert or Detective? MAYBURY We’ve spoken about Chris Kraus’s book I Love Dick before and that we both take it very seriously. I first read this book in my early twenties when I was infatuated with someone […]
Little spaces or Little places? Or Little sceneries. Kumiko Inui (1969-), a Japanese female architect, describes a situation she encountered during her visit to a nursery who was the client for her first project. The office of the nursery was overwhelmed with documents and other objects and in this midst of things, she found a […]
The written and film work of Amélie Essesse is about the historic construction methods of mud construction by women in western Africa. Her work encompasses many layers and spans from workshops in New Mexico to Paris, as well as community implementation in western African historic preservation.
As students in the NEW ORDER studio at the Academy of Architecture, Mendrisio, led by Clancy Moore, Oliver Canins, Kim Gubbini and Victoria Jabbour used the novel Cold Enough for Snow as a starting point and guide for the developments of their design projects. This is a selection of the memory drawings and and fragment […]
As students in the NEW ORDER studio at the Academy of Architecture, Mendrisio, led by Clancy Moore, Elena Gallo and Tahnee Rutter used the novel Swing Time as a starting point and guide for the developments of their design projects. This is a selection of the memory drawings and and fragment models that they made.
As students in the NEW ORDER studio at the Academy of Architecture, Mendrisio, led by Clancy Moore, Dawid Roszkowski & Dongyong Oh used the novel Purple Hibiscus as a starting point and guide for the developments of their design projects. This is a selection of the memory drawings and and fragment models that they made.
As a student in the NEW ORDER studio at the Academy of Architecture, Mendrisio, led by Clancy Moore, Albert Jiménez Rodríquez used the novel Swing Time as a starting point and guide for the developments of his design project. This is a selection of the memory drawings and and fragment models that he made.
Context The essay discusses representation and architectural theory through the lens of Actor-Network Theory (ANT), a framework developed by Bruno Latour, and others. ANT emphasizes that meaning and definition come from relationships and that those are forever shifting. Therefore, the dynamic and interconnected nature of social and material worlds challenges the sometimes static or isolated […]
Anne Massey has been a fundamental figure for me. In her historical reconstruction of the Independent Group, she skilfully highlighted their contribution to the history of art, architecture, and design, offering a fresh and female point of view. She perfectly embodies my idea of the transition from merely “looking” to truly “seeing”. Beyond emphasising the […]
I have not always been an architectural historian; in fact, I kind of stumbled into the world of architectural history after a chance discovery of the work of Lauretta Vinciarelli during my Ph.D. Over the course of my graduate studies, my relationship to architecture evolved from a purely formalist one, coming from a studio arts […]
As for a book that has acted as a companion text for me, one to which I keep returning, it is an Italian one: Maria Luisa Scalvini, L’immagine storiografica dell’architettura contemporanea, da Platz a Giedion, Officina Edizioni, Rome, 1984. It was the first book that made me truly understand what a historiographic construction is, revealing the subjectivity […]
As the saying goes, people tend to gather with their own kind, and over the past few years I, Jaehee, have been introduced to this book Trockenmauern : Grundlagen, Bauleitung, Bedeutung by three very close people in my life. Ji Min An, Ramun Capaul and Selmar Binder. Although I have had this thick red book in […]
Context “Throwing Like a Girl” was first presented in 1977, at a time when feminist theory was engaged with phenomenology and existentialism. Feminist theorists resisted the idea that men and women were the same and pushed for institutional and societal reform because of inherent patriarchal systems. The essay examines how norms shape the feminine movement […]
A conversation with Hélène—of sorts Sugar and spice and all things nice. That’s what little girls are made of. No doubt, the theory of the girl needs some reclaiming, for girls can be dirty, and not very nice — and why should they be deprived of these dubious traits? You dirty slut. In May 2024, […]
Abandoned land, vacant lots emerge from human neglect, yet the urban wilds that form in these spaces challenge our perception of nature. For humans, nature has long been a target of conquest, a source of endless resources. After industrialization, it became a romanticized refuge—a pristine wilderness offering escape from artificial environments. In both cases, nature […]
Two sisters, one officially mad, and a male refugee, escaped from hell and are still fighting the nightmare back. Their somewhat distorted perception of the built environment proves yet to be an acute one: doors are tricky thresholds to frightening memories, every tiny detail matters. This tale explores our intuitive relationship with architectural elements and […]
In this novel, Australian writer Pip Williams combines historical facts with fiction. The facts are based on the long and arduous process it took to compile and publish the venerable Oxford English Dictionary which took place from 1857-1928. The fiction describes the life of Esme, the book’s main character, who is the daughter of one […]
Jale Nejdet Erzen’s Mimar Sinan: An Aesthetic Analysis transcends a simple exploration of Sinan’s life and works. Erzen contends that reducing his architecture to formal or technical terms alone would be an incomplete view. She argues that Sinan’s creations are deeply influenced by the societal, cultural, and technical contexts of his time, creating profound relationships […]
We love shacks, because they pose impossible questions. How can we change what we need? How can we fearlessly acknowledge weakness as an animate and constructive content of collectivity? Lisa Robertson, Occasional Works:185 Lisa Robertson‘s Office for Soft Architecture (OSA) is a conceptual and poetic project that explores the intersections of architecture, urbanism, language, and […]