A controversial book that should have an equivalent in architecture. Alice Coffin writes that she no longer wants to read male authors, in order to feed her imagination with other stories. ‘Men’s productions are the extension of a system of domination’, she explains. ‘They are the system. Art is an extension of the male imagination. […]
This is a book that should be read by anyone working in the field of architecture, town planning, or housing. It operates on two levels. The first is related to historiographical methods. Hayden mobilises and encounters archives that were unknown. She inscribes them in a socio-historical context that reflects feminist thought and its political practices. […]
Completion-poly 준공마블, a board game created by the Society of Feminist Architects, or SOFA for short, reminded me of the acclaimed Korean Pavilion at the 15th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, The FAR Game: Constrains Sparking Creativity. If the FAR Game which stands for the game of Floor Area Ratio, visualized […]
Fifty-five stories by a photographer Jeeyoun Kim began taking photographs in her early 50s, and then published a book of prose, rather than photographs, in her 70s. ‘I struggled through middle age. When I turned fifty, I finally found photography’, she wrote in her autobiography, Life in the Fog. In various solo exhibitions including ‘Rice […]
I no longer recall exactly when I first encountered Audre Lorde’s essay “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House” (1983), but after reading it, the text stayed with me, becoming one of the sharpest tools in my life—particularly, during my studies in architecture within a European context. In this essay, Lorde emphasizes […]
A Short Introduction to the Haenyeo Collective: A Dive into Eco-Feminism Haenyeo 해녀, is a group of remarkable women divers who fearlessly explore the ocean’s depths without any equipment, relying solely on their expertise to gather seafood for their livelihoods. While diving has historically been associated with male-dominated traditions across cultures, the Haenyeo communities […]
“Conclusion 1. Killjoy Survival Kit” is the opening conclusion chapter of Sarah Ahmed‘s book “Living a Feminist Life” (2017). In this chapter, Ahmed introduces the idea of feminist project as a killjoy survival kit, highlighting the intersection of survival, self-care, self-preservation and community-building. While the title may not immediately convey its content, it is essential […]
Full of whimsical illustrations and street-smart comments by Swiss architect Berta Rahm, this book on how to furnish apartments is a testament to a time when progressive young women could rent (and appropriate) their own apartment, but naturally were expected to marry, pay a dowry and buy long-lasting furniture with their husbands. It is a […]
Lisbeth Sachs and Berta Rahm were commissioned to do a pre-study of a masterplan for the Saffa 58 together. Although their design was not realised, they both built pavilions for the Saffa 58, albeit very different ones under very different circumstances. What is interesting to me, is that Berta Rahm uses Fural (a facade system […]
This book is a great source of hope for us women of the association ProSaffa1958-Pavillon! It describes how a group of women succeeded in finding a new location and use for a house designed by Lux Guyer for the first Saffa in 1928 in Bern. The house is now re-erected in Stäfa where it is […]
This book is a compilation of seven walks through Zurich put together by a group of historians that set up the organisation “Frauen Stadt Rundgang Zürich”. The thematic tours uncover the almost untraceable marks of women on Zurich’s cityscape, be it in politics, culture or commerce. The title of the book “Chratz und Quer” commemorates […]
Jane Hall attempts the impossible: to create a physical compendium both representative and subjective of architecture by women around the globe. The selection of architects included in the book is based on an online google doc sheet on which she and her community have been compiling names and oeuvres for years.
It was in another city. A sunny day with a colleague. We have heard different kind of music at various place. We sit on a bench beside the window of a coffee shop on the street by the lake, enjoying the sunshine like lazy cats, hearing the most exciting music form the local band in […]
There is no state without women: On the occasion of its centenary in the year 2000, the Federation of Swiss Women’s Organisations (BSF) not only gave itself a new name: alliance F, but also commissioned historian Sike Redolfi to do an analysis of its history. The result of her research was published as a book […]
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 […]
Finding out how women lived and still live in the Graubünden was the aim of a working group of women who got together several years ago to tackle the project Frauenleben in Graubünden (Women’s lives in Graubünden). A lot of material was collected, including 20 extensive interview transcripts, which are now stored at the Staatsarchiv […]
German women went to Iceland after the Second World War in order to find a new existence or to take a break and escape from the bombed-out cities of northern Germany. This fact is hardly known, because normally only men are perceived as emigrants, in the past as well as today. The German Anna Siegel, […]
On Valentine’s Day 2024, Shen He invited a group of people for an Anti-Valentine’s discussion and meal. These were Geraldine Tedder, Tine Milz and Helen Thomas, who came to Kunsthalle Winterthur for a conversation about Simon(e) von Saarloos and their book Playing Monogamy, which brought several of their works into play. Each of the speakers […]
Hito’s writing is so enjoyable and this has become a seminal text for how to consider images for many, including myself.
In my student years I often thought this book was horribly designed and produced and didn’t do justice to Minnette’s work or historicity. I now see it as a treasure trove of information and a really ingenious way in which someone can record their practice (through it’s scrapbook like composition) and create an archive in […]
These two texts outline some of the most important aspects of my thinking as an architect; on the interconnectivity of elements of design and the information embedded in them, and the role of media (as in the plural of mediums) in affecting change. Keller was my teacher in Architecture School and I found this way […]
Playing games of string figures is about giving and receiving patterns, dropping threads and falling but sometimes finding something that works something consequential and maybe even beautiful, that wasn’t there before, of relaying connections that matter, of telling stories in hand upon hand, digit upon digit, attachment site upon attachment site, to craft conditions for […]
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 […]
Dolores Hayden actively points to the sexist imbalance of contemporary housing in the United States (which I would personally extend to all North America and globally). As it is on many occasions, the urban sprawl is the main culprit to blame for the perpetuation of sexist stereotypes in home designs. Conservationism in planning that urban […]
In Esperdy’s manifesto, Who Needs the Top? An Ungentle Manifesto (2019), she delivers a powerful feminist critique of the architectural profession, focusing on women’s under representation and the prevailing sexism within the field. In this thought-provoking piece, she challenges conventional notions of success and hierarchy in contemporary society and urges readers to reconsider the obsession […]
When I read Joke J. Hermsen’s essay ‘With Hannah Arendt to Paris’ I was amazed to realise that the philosophical framework I was taught until then only stretched between male thinkers. The bewilderment concerned the fact that this was the prevailing educational practice, but above all that I had never questioned it myself. Continuously opening […]
I can remember the anticipation of waiting for my copy of this to arrive. I was finishing my dissertation when I had read reviews of this book and ordered a copy. It was during a time in the 1990s when gender and architecture were a growing theme. This collection of essays made me react with […]
I first read this as a student. I worked in Waterstone’s bookshop and read everything as we had to be able to recommend books to customers. This was a Penguin Classic and went hand in hand with my obsession with everything French and ‘making’. This book is a short collection of David’s writing and takes […]
Although her novels are fictional, Zadie Smith’s artful depictions of the city are profoundly spatial. Her stories are predominantly located in and around Willesden in North West London where she grew up, dealing with intersecting themes of race and class, encountering diasporic communities, economic inequality and gentrification. In her 2012 novel NW, she locates scenes […]
Where is the space for protest? With this question in mind, we went on a journey through the Kunsthaus Zürich. From the small entrance area, through the gigantic foyer, up the steep staircase until we reached the Emil Bührle collection on the top floor. Walking through the exhibition gave me pause for thought. A businessman […]
Currently, we enjoy opportunities to teach together. Teaching poses many challenges of an intellectual nature. The first and fundamental one is the objective: what content do you want to convey? What ideals or values are important to you and would you like to pass on? We are inspired by Hermann Czech’s words and works, and […]
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 […]
In the early months of 1982, at the height of Postmodernism, a very atypical book was published in Italy, which was L’architetto fuori di sé, by Marta Lonzi. This is a book on architecture, but published by a feminist publisher; it is a critique on the practice of architectural design at the time, but written […]
Almost 25 years after publishing her first book, L’architetto fuori di sé (1982), and more than 35 years since her first questions around self-awareness, Marta Lonzi uses a key word in the feminist lexicon, Authenticity, as a litmus test to reread the history of architecture in search of ethical connotations. Her book, Autenticità e progetto, […]
‘The vocabulary of ‘collecting’ and of ‘harvesting’ […] suggests the undeniable cynicism: that after the harvest season, the objects will magically grow back again like fields of wheat.’ ‘Even if it is somewhat reinvented, […] The erasure of memory has been so successful that communities have even begun to lose any remaining knowledge of this […]
The ‘Women in Architecture in South Asia’ conference in the year 2000 by HECAR Foundation in Mumbai is a touchstone in my memory. The most striking moment that stands out distinctly from the three days of uplifting proceedings was the release of the book The Life and Work of an Asian Woman Architect by Minnette […]
In early ’90s I read The Clan of the Cave Bear and its sequel, the Valley of Horses, by Jean M. Auel. In these, I experienced the power of storytelling that can make history tangible. The author’s stance on women as carriers of knowledge and instrumental in change has left an indelible impression. But it’s […]
In recent years, the dialogues on gender politics and cultural conditioning as mentioned by author Deepa Narayan in her book titled Chup: Breaking the Silence About India’s Women. This book highlighted the importance of recognising a schism that has expanded my own world view, as well as the level of engagement with society too. I do […]
As a second year architecture student in 1986, I have this picture memory of me reclining in my dorm, flipping through an architecture magazine, (‘Architect and Builder’ or ‘Architecture + Design’), when I literally sat up. I was looking at the portraits of two saree-clad women! The facing pages featured projects by two architect sisters, […]
It’s common to greet someone by asking ‘Have you eaten?’ or saying ‘Let’s have a meal’ in Korea. It is seen as a way to build intimacy. The kitchen is therefore the heart of the home, where meals are prepared and organised. The author of The Modern Kitchen – Birth and Other Stories, Younjung Do, […]
My practice-led research, entitled City of Ladies, in collaboration with research assistant John Cruwys, was presented at Domobaal gallery in London in January 2020 (Figure 1). The specific version of the text that this project interprets is part of Harley 4431, a compilation that Pizan assembled for Queen Isabeau of Bavaria between 1410–1414 and one […]
“I’ll tell you what to do. Tear down that bitch of a bearing wall and put a window where it ought to be!” Joan Crawford bellows with eccentric energy on the construction site of her home under renovation, played by Faye Dunaway in Mommie Dearest, 1981. I use this film to contextualize the words of […]
What I take from Silvia Federici’s Caliban and the Witch is how the condemnation of mostly lower-class women for witchcraft was used as a disciplinary instrument to silence and domesticate them. Federici’s connection with Marxist and Foucauldian theories are important because they fill out the missing gaps that her male predecessors left out. But for […]
In Cynthia Hammond’s text titled “Suffrage City: spatial knowledge and Suffrage Work in Bath, 1909-1913” written in 2013, she answers “how early twentieth-century feminists used the larger space of the city for their cause” (Hammond 133) in response to “the special nature of suffrage activism in Bath” (Hammond 134). Her goal was to understand how […]
