_thinkMake Week-04:reading-03 (FEMINIST)

 

Essay: only resist — a feminist approach to critical spatial practice


Rendell, Jane

FEMINIST

  1. Your body is a battleground
  2. COLLECTIVITY
  3. SUBJECTIVITY
  4. ALTERITY
  5. PERFORMATIVITY
  6. MATERIALITY

In the 1990s, American architect Jennifer Bloomer challenged the logical and rational structures of architecture by incorporating feminine elements in written texts. This feminist debate gained theoretical strength in the academy, pointing to concerns about disciplinary boundaries and procedures informed by political concern with subjectivity. Contemporary feminist practitioners in architecture are located at intersections between different spatial disciplines, focusing on the process of design and the 'feminine' and gender difference. Conditions of visibility have been a part of the feminist debate, with feminist publications in major architectural theory anthologies often featuring men's contributions.

 Key findings while reading:

  • Feminist perspectives in architecture have been less prominent in the first decade of the new millennium, with fewer publications on the topic.
  • Some of these issues remain directly connected to sex and gender, while others are less obvious.
  • The situation has changed dramatically in the last decade, with the rebirth of 'fourth wave' feminism.
  • This work recognises the international dimensions of the feminist struggle and connects resistance to sexism with the fight against racial discrimination and heterosexism.
  • Feminist movements like LGBTQ and Black Lives Matter are interconnected, and intersectional theory plays a key role in showing the cross-cutting nature of oppression.
  • Muf, a feminist collective in Stoke City Council, won an open competition in 1998 to create a lifting barrier to prevent illegal traffic from entering the town centre.
  • Muf's critical mode of operation has evolved and invented new feminist approaches to critical spatial practise as it critiques architectural design methodologies that emphasise form and object making.
  • Currently, feminist collective practices like ArchiteXX, FATALE, MYCKET, and Parlour tackle issues of sexual discrimination and gender equity in the profession and education.
  • Post-structuralist feminists have emerged, particularly important for architecture in examining position, situation, and location.
  • Interior design and architecture have found confidence due to feminist work by Gini Lee, Ro Spankie, and others.  
  • Doina Petrescu's book Altering Practices explores the feminine's role in architecture, focusing on aesthetics, ethics, form, and function.
  • Her practice, Atelier d'architecture autogérée, addresses ecological issues through projects like ECObox and RURBAN.
  • Feminist work in this area is characterised by self-reflectivity, critical writing, and interdisciplinary performative qualities.
  • Feminist material philosophers like Karen Barad, Rosi Braidotti, Donna Haraway, and Isabelle Stengers challenge new forms of architectural theory, while a new generation considers matter from an ecological perspective.


My classmate Linnea discussed MyCket in her conclusion:

Feminist Futures of Spatial Practice: Materialisms, Activisms, Dialogues, Pedagogies, Projections




 Architecture and the arts have long been on the forefront of socio-spatial struggles, in which equality, access, representation and expression are at stake in our cities, communities and everyday lives. Feminist spatial practices contribute substantially to new forms of activism, expanding dialogues, engaging materialisms, transforming pedagogies, and projecting alternatives. Feminist Futures of Spatial Practice traces practical tools and theoretical dimensions, as well as temporalities, emergence, histories, events, durations – and futures – of feminist practices.
Authors include international practitioners, researchers, and educators, from architecture, the arts, art history, curating, cultural heritage studies, environmental sciences, futures studies, lm, visual communication, design and design theory, queer, intersectional and gender studies, political sciences, sociology, and urban planning. Established as well as emerging voices write critically from within their institutions, professions, and their activist, political and personal practices.
Feminist Futures of Spatial Practice deepens and broadens how we can understand and engage with different genders, bodies and peoples, diverse voices and forms of expression, alternative norms and ways of living together.

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