In the context of the Rietberg Museum in Zurich, one cannot overlook the compelling discourse on cultural heritage articulated by Felwine Sarr and Bénédicte Savoy in their text The Restitution of African Cultural Heritage: Toward a New Relational Ethics. I am particularly intrigued by their argumentation regarding the ethical dimensions of acquiring and exhibiting African […]
The Reading Circle started off with a separation of the attendees into groups. Every group would receive a certain perspective into the world of the Kunsthaus, all of which were then discussed collectively. The visit confirmed many opinions I had already had of highly institutionalized museums, like the atmosphere of tension or the high threshold […]
A WHITE SANCTUARY E-1027, a house born from a collaboration between Eileen Gray and Jean Badovici, was conceived and designed with emotions. It reflects their shared ideals and their individual perspectives while also embodying their relationship. Gray brought an acute understanding of how people live, creating spaces that respond to both practical needs and emotional […]
I came to feminism early. I sensed things were biased. But as many others, I thought this was getting fixed, or had already fixed itself. I eye-rolled at my mother when she mumbled while watching political debates on TV— ‘not many women in these meetings.’ I ignored the red flags when going into architecture, I […]
Reading Circle 01.11.2023 at Museum Rietberg with Studio Caruso The origin of objects has always been characterised by the Latin prefix “Ex”: extraction, exploitation and export were the determining principles that led the things of everyday, spiritual, religious and cultural life from the colonised countries to the colonising countries. The report by Bénédicte Savoy and […]
In her book Wanderlust, Rebecca Solnit unravels walking throughout time as a bodily experience interwoven with culture, politics, and society. Whatever the story or background, walking is always put in relation to the space that is walked in or at. From the perspective of this physical dimension, Solnit lets people bodily enter a story. Walking […]
In the midst of the Portuguese dictatorial regime (1933-1974), Maria Lamas (1893–1983) wrote in 1948 a book titled As Mulheres do Meu País (The Women of My Country). Intended to portray and highlight the experiences of women as well as to report the policies imposed on them during the regime, this book, in my view, […]
Nos encontramos ante un apasionante escrito donde Josenia Hervás registra la historia de la Escuela de la Bauhaus desde una perspectiva singular y novedosa, la de género, que permitirá comprender, de forma más amplia y objetiva, lo que aconteció dentro de los muros de tan innovadora escuela. Entre los consabidos relatos e imágenes de esta […]
In the summer of 2024, Carla Capaul, director of the Hotel Alpina Lumbrein in Val Lumnezia, Graubünden, and Jaehee Shin, editor at Women Writing Architecture, met in the gardens of zum Alten Löwen in Zurich to talk about Annelise Leu, Switzerland’s first female hotelier, and her granddaughter Nina Zumthor, who has written a book about […]
A discussion with a fellow student made me think that everything in this day and age is dependent on money. People set a price for all objects. Market players are given a decisive role in determining artistic value, thus linking the art world with the market world. The Reading Circle group represented this connection between […]
When I decided to organise the first conference of Women Architects, which was named Women in Architecture 2000 Plus I created it on the foundation that it be a celebration of women’s work. I did not want to focus on the negativity that we all have experienced in some way or another in our careers, […]
The architecture of bias in artificial intelligence “Seeing men as the human default is fundamental to the structure of human society”. This is the premise of Caroline Criado’s book. The text depicts how female perspective and needs have often been envisioned as a deviation of men’s and thus have been misrepresented in all aspects of […]
Muhafaza/Mimarlık, which translates into English as Conservation/Architecture, is a conservation history of Turkey. It examines the conservation policies and ideologies of Istanbul’s architectural heritage from the Tanzimat Period to the end of the 1960s. It explores the approaches of governments, architects and intellectuals and discusses the resulting conservation projects and practices. The compilation also has […]
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 […]
“There are two ways to go – towards competition or towards collaboration.” The discourse about how to work together within the complex field of architecture still poses many inconsistencies. How are we going to face the journey ahead of us? Which course do we want to pursue? And above all, with whom do we want […]
I was reminded of “Having Words”, a collection of essays by Denise Scott-Brown, when reading a foreword Berta Rahm wrote for the book “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman” by Mary Wollstonecraft, which she published through her own publishing house ala Verlag in 1975. Rahm tells the story of how, during the 1960s, she […]
It was 1993 when I first picked up this book and tried to read it. My mother had read and put it on the pile of other books on her bedside table; she was 41 and I was 15 years old. The cover of the first translation into Turkish was very appealing, with the handsome […]
Charlotte Perriand lived through almost the entire twentieth century – she was 96 years old when she died in 1999 and produced work for 70 years in a row. Though not usually attracted to autobiographies, I was very curious to read her story in her own words. As first-hand life stories tend to be, there […]
‘Sua Maestà,’ I say. Then I bow and close my eyes. Gran Sasso d’Italia, ‘Your Majesty,’ is not just a mountain. She is a magnificent and omnipotent entity, a deity that has watched me grow up and offered me comfort when I needed it. Whenever I stand in her vicinity, I offer a salute. I […]
This annotation is an extract from Annmarie Adams (2013) review of ‘Writing About Architecture: Mastering the Language of Buildings and Cities’, Canadian Architect, No. 4 2013, 38
This annotation is an extract from Annmarie Adams (1998) review ‘Women and the Making of the Modern House: A Social and Architectural History’, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, December 1998, 474-476
This annotation is an extract from Annmarie Adams (2015) review ‘The Spaces of the Hospital: Spatiality and Urban Change in London 1680–1820’, Journal of Architectural Education, 69:1, 130-131
This annotation is an extract from Annmarie Adams (1996) review ‘The Scottish Home’, Material History Review, Spring 1998, 93-95
This annotation is an extract from Annmarie Adams (1992) review ‘The Queen Anne Revival Style in Canadian Architecture’, Material Culture Review, No.35 1992, 72-73
This annotation is an extract from Annmarie Adams (2007) review ‘The Parlour and the Suburb: Domestic identities, class, femininity, and modernity’, Gender, Place & Culture, a Journal of Feminist Geography, 24 July 2007 (from a collection of reviews 499-511)
This annotation is an extract from Annmarie Adams (2001) review ‘The Gospel of Germs: Men, Women, and the Microbe in American Life’, Historical Geography, Vol. 27, 2001, 106-108
This annotation is an extract from Annmarie Adams (1994) review ‘The Edwardian House: The Middle-class Home in Britain 1880-1914’, Journal of Historical Geography, Apr.1 1994, 211-212
This annotation is an extract from Annmarie Adams (2001) review ‘The Architect: Reconstructing her Practice’, Design Book Review, No. 44/45 2001, 71-73
This annotation is an extract from: Annmarie Adams (1991) article ‘Rooms with a View: Domestic Architecture and Anglo-American’ that reviews Building Domestic Liberty: Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Architectural Feminism and Living Space in Fact and Fiction, Design Book Review, No.20 1991, 61-62
This annotation is an extract from Annmarie Adams (2016) review ‘North Oxford’, Design Book Review, No. 31 1994
This annotation is an extract from Annmarie Adams (1992) review ‘New Households New Housing’, Traditional Dwellings and Settlements Review, Spring 1992, 64
This annotation is an extract from Annmarie Adams (2000) review ‘Nature’s Museums: Victorian Science and the Architecture of Display’, CAA Reviews, Nov. 7 2000
Wright’s book and earlier dissertation was a huge motivation for my own work, especially Architecture in the Family Way (1996), which was also my dissertation. I set out, in fact, to ‘do’ a book like Wright’s but looking at architecture outside the United States. Her book is thus a model about models.
This annotation is an extract from Annmarie Adams (2019) review ‘Montreal, City of Water: An Environmental History’, Canadian Journal of the History of Science, Technology and Medicine, Vol. 41 No. 1, 2019, 73-74
This annotation is an extract from: Annmarie Adams (2020) review of: ‘Me and My House: James Baldwin’s Last Decade in France’, Winterthur Portfolio, 54:1 2020, 112-113
This annotation is an extract from Annmarie Adams (2000) review ‘House Life: Space, Place and Family in Europe’, Journal of Family History, October 2000, 557-559
This annotation is an extract from: Annmarie Adams (2016) review ‘Hitler at Home’, Buildings and Landscapes, Fall 2016, 130-132
This annotation is an extract from: Annmarie Adams (2018) review ‘Freedom and the Cage: Modern Architecture and Psychiatry in Central Europe, 1890–1914’, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, March 2018, 97-98
This annotation is an extract from Annmarie Adams (1991) review ‘Ernest Cormier and the Universite de Montréal’, Design Book Review, No. 22, 1991, 30-32
This annotation is an extract from Annmarie Adams (2006) review ‘Demons of Domesticity: Women and the English Gas Industry 1889-1939’, American Historical Review, December 2006, 1602-1603
This annotation is an extract from Annmarie Adams (2013) review ‘Contested Spaces: Abortion Clinics, Women’s Shelters and Hospitals’, Times Higher Education, August 1 2013, 46
This annotation is an extract from Annmarie Adams (1994) review ‘American Home Life, 1880-1930: A Social History of Spaces and Services’, Material History Review, Spring 1994, 87-89
Although the book itself was inspirational, a real epiphany occurred for me when I heard Elizabeth Collins lecture on the content at UC Berkeley in the late 1980s. The eye opener for me was that she could project a plan on the screen and walk the audience through it, from the perspective of a New […]
This annotation is an extract from Annmarie Adams (1997) review ‘ All the Modern Conveniences: American Household Plumbing, 1840-1890’, Material Culture Review, No.46 1997, 85-87
This annotation is an extract from Annmarie Adams (2016) review ‘A City for Children: Women, Architecture, and the Charitable Landscapes of Oakland, 1850–1950’, Planning Perspectives, December 2015, 138-140
This novel describes architecture and space very vividly. Architecture here serves as metaphors or to emphasize moments of action in the story, rooms or spaces sometime take on human qualities to reinforce the protagonist’s state of being.
Two novels, very much intertwined, where architecture and landscape are central to the thematic content and are used to develop the character of each protagonist.
