Jane Rendell’s introductory writing to part two of the book Gender Space Architecture: An Interdisciplinary Introduction provides a feminist discourse on the intricate relations between gender and space. A series of multidisciplinary gender analyses are drawn upon to challenge the existing paradigm of classifying spaces according to the biological sex of its users (e.g. public […]
Jane Hall begins her Introduction to Woman Made, Great Woman Designers (2021), with a reflection on Alison Smithson’s analysis of Beatrix Potter: Few contemporary designers would cite children’s book author Beatrix Potter as an obvious source of inspiration for interior design. For mid-century British architect Alison Smithson, however, Potter’s fictional rendering of Peter Rabbit’s home and […]
This performance was conducted within the context of Studio A. Caruso ‘Making Plans for Living Together’ at ETH Zurich in the spring semester of 2021.
노을 위의 은빛 창문에서 구만리 희미한 세상을 내려다보고, 바닷가 문에서 삼천 년 상전벽해를 웃으며 보고 싶다. 손으로 하늘의 해와 별을 돌리고 몸소 구천의 바람과 이슬 속을 노닐고 싶다. From a silver window overlooking the sunset, I look ten thousand miles to the dim world below. On the seaside door, I want to contemplate the three-thousand-year-old […]
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 […]
“I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see, and what it means. What I want and what I fear.” Joan Didion, Why I Write, New York Times, 1976 When I moved to Europe from South Korea in February 2015, I learned a new language that […]
This architectural catalogue was compiled and written by architect Chun Byung-ok 천병옥 one of the first generation of female architects in Korea after Ji Soon. In this book, she cataloged Korean palace interiors, furnishings, and traditional patterns for posterity. It has been translated into English and Japanese. There’s a prize named after her, the Chun […]
Yoo Dong Ryong 유동룡 ( Jun Itami 이타미준 ) (1937-2011) is a Korean architect born and raised in Japan. The Sea of Jun Itami is a documentary about the life and philosophy of Itami Jun, a world-famous architect who worked in Japan while maintaining Korean nationality for his life. When we talk about his life, […]
“The task for feminism is thus both to uncover forgotten aspects of history and to change structures and patterns that have been repeated for generations.” Fanny Söderbäck, Revolutionary Time, 2019. The book ‘her här her‘, edited by Magdalena Rozenberg, is an eclectic treatment of the Spacegirls‘s work, using texts and interviews from a […]
A few years ago, 김현진 Kim Hyunjin published an architectural essay called The Space of Sincerity 진심의 공간, which is written in Korean. As an architect, she works on a small number of works, and as a writer, she made her name by publishing texts on her Facebook page. On completion of a the holiday […]
Eight women: Helen, Emilie, Melinda, Natalia, Reem, Solange, Yagmür and myself, Jaehee, took part in the Erntezeit Workshop : Being a Stranger in Ennenda, Glarus in September 2023, at the headquarters of Tisch Zwei Verein. Some of the discussions held during the workshop were very intense and we focused a long time on the feelings […]
This is the first text that came to my mind related to the project Women Writing Architecture. I think it is one of the most important texts if we talk about feminist insight from Korean origin. Around 2018, I suddenly got many calls from some of my friends doing artwork in Germany. They asked me […]
Young female architects entering their 30s have conversations with senior female architects in order to broaden the narrative of female architects in Korean history. The authors describe the book as architectural stories requested by women and answered by women. This book is a compilation of the results of the forum ‘Building Role Models: Architecture Spoken […]
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 […]
As I approached one of the most fascinating residential complexes I’ve had the chance to visit in Brazil, a new storefront caught my eye. It’s been over a decade since I began viewing that part of the city through an architectural lens, and COPAN—the iconic housing project by Oscar Niemeyer in São Paulo—is no stranger […]
Beatriz Colomina discusses the vandalism rendered by Le Corbusier on E. 1027, a house designed, built, and inhabited by the architect Eileen Gray. The author presents the degrees of Le Corbusier’s invasion on Gray’s architecture and identity and compares it to the traces of violence of the bullet marks left all over the walls of […]
In a way, this text published by the Rieberg Museum for me really underlines that connecting ideas to an object is what makes them be remembered and cherished but also creates a memory in a larger context. These ideas can be as general as they can be individual. Tied to something as simple as a […]
The author of this book, Ayano Hayashi, is a curator and art writer. Among her publications, there is a series that explains the historical background through food culture of famous painters’ paintings, such as Monet and Van Gogh. The book that I introduce here Dining Tables and Edo Food Culture in Ukiyo-e is one of […]
The first time I heard Baek Hee-na’s stories was in an interview on a tv show. Originally, she majored in education technology and studied character animation. After few years of working as an animator, she became an author of picture book for children. In that interview, there was a moment in which Hee-na shows how […]
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 […]
Just kids. More than a biography. A quest. A story of self-discovery. In Patti Smith‘s narrative, the spaces she inhabits transcend mere physical settings. They are the silent architects of her identity, shaping not only her artistry but also the very essence of her being. Each place in the story—be it the chaotic streets of […]
Embracing the mess and absurdity, commonplace objects and materials are stacked and elevated, and monstrous structure appears. The process and composition of Phyllida Barlow’s sculpture completely alter the perception of the individual objects and the space it occupies. The enormous scale, which in common practice implies a sense of monumentality, is conversely the result of […]
Frauen waren lange nicht sichtbar in der Welt der Architektur. Zeit, dass sich das ändert! Ein prächtiger Bildband feiert nun die Arbeit von zeitgenössischen Architektinnen und wegweisenden Pionierinnen. Die Niederländerin Nathalie de Vries etwa ist mit ihrer an einen Bücherberg erinnernden Bibliothek (Spijkenisse, 2012) vertreten, die Dänin Lene Tranberg wird mit einem visionären Studentenwohnheim (Kopenhagen, […]
A Room of One’s Own is an extended essay published first in 1929, based on the lectures Woolf delivered at two women’s colleges at Cambridge University. Woolf’s writing is about the women’s struggle for independence and creative opportunity and is a landmark in feminist writing. At the commencement of the essay Woolf narrates how she […]
A non-fiction narrative description of the journey from conception to construction of the Parisian monument La Grande Arche de la Défense. Through a series of interviews and extensive research, the author recounts and condenses the complexity of all aspects of state-funded, large-scale architectural projects – a fragile balance between beauty, technique, politics, and finance. Cossé […]
In 1950, following her fourth year studying at the AA and prior to her final year of her degree, Jean Symons decided to consolidate the theory she had been taught during her education by engaging in practical ‘on site’ work. This took the form of a technical assistant position in the site office of the […]
Once the audio guide was in operation, we entered the Rietberg Museum through the Villa Wesendonck. We began to wander through the various rooms without any planned route, guided solely by our curiosity. Until the voice of the narrator started speaking, we felt a little overwhelmed by the large number of objects on display without […]
Helen Thomas : Group two, Session two! So we’re going to start off by reading out the statements by the first group to read this text going around in groups there are six statements and so somebody from each group is going to read one statement to each. A. Disrupting dualism by acting […]
For Women Writing Architecture, Silvia Federici’s book, Caliban and the Witch, is a central and influential text. Not bound by academic methodology and written with ideological energy it is easy to read without being explicitly emotional. Federici challenges and questions the location of women in history as hidden and secondary through her examination of one […]
Yasmeen Lari wrote this book about the vernacular architecture of Thatta, an ancient city in the province of Sindh, about two hours drive from her home town of Karachi. On the outskirts of the city is an archeological site very important to Lari, where she has carried out various conservation works and located her Zero […]
The Cairngorm mountains in the heart of Scotland inhabit my dreams, a constant provocation. This is perhaps because I have never been in the area long enough, or with enough energy perhaps, to make the long preparatory journey that a walker must make before arriving. Instead, Nan Shepherd’s account of her observations made during many […]
Within the heart of this book lies a mysterious, and although sinister, still compelling institution where women can enjoy the fruits of age, from growing a beard to discovering that women can be men in disguise and vice versa. The curious social and psychological character of the place is reflected in its architectural forms, which […]
Although written in German, this story uncovering a complex socio-economic situation can be understood with even a rudimentary – a childlike – grasp of the language. That is, I, a perpetual student of German, could follow it, supported by sequences of drawings that show in fascinating detail the human, the architectural, landscapes of Glarus and […]
This seventeenth century poem was first published in 1692, but the date of its writing is unknown. It is one of the most important poems written by Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, who was born out of wedlock as Juana Ramírez de Asbaje in or around 1651. She chose to become a nun in […]
This provocative article written for the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, a serious high-quality Swiss newspaper for which Stahl was features section editor at the time, is a critical response to the exhibition ‘Frau Architekt’ held at the German Architecture Museum, Frankfurt. Stahl’s response won her the Michael Althen Prize for Criticism a year later, and provides an […]
This annotation was written in 2021 in response to the SAFFA Growing Library’s call for commentary on books in their collection: The last book in the chain is more difficult, but keeping with the Latin American theme, it would perhaps be a book by Ida Prampolini, a Mexican art historian who I admire. She tells […]
This annotation was written in 2021 in response to the SAFFA Growing Library’s call for commentary on books in their collection: I have two reasons for choosing this book – Flora Tristan sounds like an amazing and inspiring woman who I know almost nothing about. I have never read one of her books, and so […]
This annotation was written in 2021 in response to the SAFFA Growing Library’s call for commentary on books in their collection: Choosing Fahrten einer Paria I:Peru by Flora Tristan, by association leads me to one of my favourite books ever, which is American novelist Willa Cather’s Death Comes for the Archbishop, published in 1927. There […]
I have just finished reading Amelia Groom’s book Beverly Buchanan, Marsh Ruins and feel compelled to write about it. Aside from Groom’s clear prose that presents this specific work of Buchanan – Marsh Ruins, 1981 (at the Marshes of Glynn, Brunswick, GA) in an unusually easy to understand and relate to piece of writing about […]
Berta Rahm is an important inspiration for women writing architecture, especially through her publishing work, which she carried out under the title ALA Verlag (1966-1993). Pionierinnen und Pioniere is one of the books that she produced during that time. Edited and written with her colleague, Renate Möhrmann, the pioneers referred to in the longer […]
Katarina Bonnevier believes that the house, E. 1027, by Eileen Gray “hides and reveals simultaneously”. Gray’s first built home blurs spatial programmes, without discarding their remains. The building hides the ongoings inside, with an entrance from above and a private terrace at its depth. Bonnevier explains that while that the layout protects its visitors, it […]
In the Portuguese translation: O interior da História: historiografia arquitetônica para uso de Latino-americanos (2013), which was first published in Spanish as El interior de la historia: historiografía arquitectónica para uso de latinoamericanos (1990), the architectural critic and historian Marina Waisman discusses the concept of regionalism as used in international criticism and understood as a positive […]
Cities in the Northeast: From the Pot to the Street: Traditional Construction Methods (2017) – was organized by the architect and teacher Ana Rita Sá Carneiro, coordinator of the landscape laboratory at UFPE. This unprecedented study on Traditional Construction Methods from the Northeast was realized in 1978 by the architects Liana Mesquita and Neide Mota […]
This publication was organized by the architects Guilah Naslavsky and Andréa Gáti, it is a collection of articles that resulted from research on architecture and gender in Northeastern Brazil. The objective is to give visibility to the trajectories of some female architects who worked in the region and were forgotten by the Brazilian hegemonic architectural […]
There are many things I love about the book Schizogenesis : The Art of Rosemarie Trockel by Katherine Guinness. Katherine Guinness is an Australian art historian currently working at the University of Visual Arts at Colorado. First of all, it’s the first real theory book about Rosemarie Trockel, a German conceptual artist, which is […]
In the last chapter of her book, Donna Haraway tells the fabulated story of the ‘communities of compost’ and tracks their evolution over five generations. In these communities, the ‘children of compost’ recrafted the conditions of living and dying to enable flourishing in the present and in times to come. Their work is international kin […]
The Shelbourne Hotel is a book about the history of the Dublin Elizabeth Bowen describes in her autobiographical Seven Winters (1942), well-known but no longer available. The grand dame touches on the Georgian restraint necessary to hold the rational character of the humanist city. Formerly a terrace of three Georgian houses, the owners of the […]
In Seven Winters (1942), the city of Dublin, where Elizabeth Bowen spent her early years, appears as a reflection, a translation of the felt experience of a seven year old, now in mature years, piecing together the characters of the city, its form and colour where the tense distances that one only slowly demolished gave […]
One of Elizabeth Bowen’s most well-known non-fiction works is her history of the great house, Bowen’s Court in County Cork, which she eventually inhabited. She allows the reader an intimate knowledge and understanding of the structure and arrangement of the rooms, its relationship to the land, its deep cultural and social history. One is constantly […]