Making a Fuss in Architectural Discourse

ABSTRACT

This essay presents a series of discursive and performative events extending from 1988 to 2016, where the contributions of feminist theories and practices in the architectural humanities are celebrated. An editorial written for the Melbourne-based Transition journal in 1988 by Harriet Edquist and Karen Burns offers a point of departure by directly placing two terms into critical negotiation: women and architecture. Motivated by this negotiation of terms, I ask the deceptively simple question: What do women do to architectural discourse? To address this question, I offer an account of five specific and situated episodes, including roundtables, conferences, and edited publications, where a performative gesture and speculations on feminist futures begin to emerge. I further introduce the conceptual and collective figure of “women who make a fuss”, drawing on the book of the same name by feminist philosopher of science Isabelle Stengers and animal studies scholar Vinciane Despret. “Women”, as Stengers and Despret argue, is a “marked category”, and it will be strategically used in this essay not as an essential and fixed category, but as an analytical concept as well as a situated position that is performed and revised with each new encounter.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Brenda Marshall, “Peter Eisenman’s House X: Or Where Should a Psychotic Live?” Harriet Edquist and Karen Burns eds., Transition no. 25 (Winter 1988): 5–12.

2. Isabelle Stengers and Vinciane Despret, Women Who Make a Fuss (Minneapolis, MN: Univocal Publishing, 2014).

3. Virginia Woolf, Three Guineas (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015 [1938]): 60.

4. Stengers and Despret, Women Who Make a Fuss, 49.

5. Stengers and Despret, Women Who Make a Fuss, 43.

6. See Donna Haraway, “Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective,” Feminist Studies, 14, no. 3 (1988): 575–99.

7. Stengers and Despret, Women Who Make a Fuss, 52.

8. Stengers and Despret, Women Who Make a Fuss, 51.

9. Jane Rendell, “Sites, Situations, and Other Kinds of Situatedness,” Log 38 (2016): 27–38.

10. Haraway, “Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective.”

11. Rendell, “Sites, Situations, and Other Kinds of Situatedness,” 38.

12. Jennifer Bloomer Workshop 2, 29 April 2021. This workshop was one of a suite of five convened in preparation for a special issue of the Journal of Architecture dedicated to the legacy and enduring influence of the work of American architect and architectural theorist Jennifer Bloomer. In attendance: Katarina Bonnevier, Karen Burns, Emma Cheatle, Lilian Chee, Hélène Frichot, Katja Grillner, Laura Harty, Francesca Hughes, Lesley Lokko, Katie Lloyd Thomas, Doina Petrescu, Julieanna Preston, and Jane Rendell.

13. Stengers and Despret, Women Who Make a Fuss, 43.

14. See for instance: Bronwyn Hanna, “Australia’s Early Women Architects: Milestones and Achievements,” Fabrications, 12, no. 1 (June 2002): 27–38. Julie Willis, “Invisible Contributions: The Problem of History and Women Architects,” Architectural Theory Review, 3, no. 2 (1998): 57–68.

15. Willis goes onto argue that at time of writing in the late 1990s feminist discourse is booming. She cites four recently published books on architecture and feminism: Francesca Hughes (ed.), The Architect: Reconstructing her Practice (Boston: MIT Press, 1996); Diana Agrest, Patricia Conway and Leslie Kanes Weisman (eds.), The Sex of Architecture (New York: Abrams, 1996); Duncan McCorquodale, Katerina Ruedi and Sarah Wigglesworth (eds.), Desiring Practices: Architecture, Gender and the Interdisciplinary (London: Black Dog, 1996); and Debra Coleman, Elizabeth Danze and Carol Henderson (eds.), Feminism and Architecture (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1996). To which could be added Beatriz Colomina (ed.), Sexuality and Space (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1997). Willis, “Invisible Contributions: The Problem of History and Women Architects,” 57.

16. Doina Petrescu, “Altering Practices,” in Doina Petrescu, ed., Altering Practices: Feminist Politics and Poetics of Space (London and New York: Routledge, 2007): 1–14.

17. Petrescu, “Altering Practices,” 3.

18. Harriet Edquist and Karen Burns, “Editorial,” in Transition, no. 25 (Winter 1988): 4.

19. Edquist and Burns, “Editorial,” 4.

20. Elizabeth Grosz, “French Feminisms and Representation,” in Harriet Edquist, ed., Reasons to be Cheerful (Melbourne: George Paton Gallery, 1988): 25–33.

21. Juliana Engberg was the director of the George Paton Gallery when the lecture series “Reasons to be Cheerful” was convened. This resulted in a publication edited by Harriet Edquist. See Harriet Edquist, ed. Reasons to be Cheerful (Parkville, Melbourne: George Paton Gallery, 1988). A brief history of the George Paton Gallery can be found at: https://umsu.unimelb.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/gpg_catalogue_1971-currentyear.pdf Accessed 1 July 2021.

22. Elizabeth Grosz, Sexual Subversions: Three French Feminists (London: Routledge, 1989): 1.

23. Sandra Harding, “The Instability of the Analytical Categories of Feminist Theory,” in Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 11, no. 4 (Summer 1986): 645–664. See also Sandra Harding, Feminism and Methodology, Bloomington: Indiana Press, 1987.

24. Harding, “The Instability of the Analytical Categories of Feminist Theory,” 649.

25. Elizabeth Grosz, Architecture from the Outside: Essays on Virtual and Real Space (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2001).

26. Elizabeth Grosz, “Deleuze’s Bergson: Duration, the Virtual and a Politics of the Future,” in Claire Colebrook, ed. Deleuze and Feminist Theory (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2000); Elizabeth Grosz, “Histories of a Feminist Future,” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 25: 4 (2000): 1017–1021.

27. Grosz, “Deleuze’s Bergson,” 216.

28. Grosz, “Histories of a Feminist Future,” Signs, 1018; Grosz, “Deleuze’s Bergson,” 215.

29. Grosz, “Histories of a Feminist Future,” 1018.

30. Grosz, “Deleuze’s Bergson,” 230.

31. For an elaboration of this argument see Hélène Frichot, “Affective Encounters Amidst Feminist Futures in Architecture?” in Teresa Stoppani, Giorgio Ponzo, and George Themistokleous, eds., This Thing Called Theory (London: Routledge, 2016): 79–88.

32. https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/exhibitions/global_feminisms/Accessed 1 July 2021.

33. Feminism Never Happened, Gertrude Contemporary Arts Spaces, Fitzroy, Victoria, Australia, 2007. Panellists included Julie Rrap, Alex Martinus Roe, Ann Marsh, Lily Hibberd, Felicity Coleman, Lyndall Walker, and Emily Cormack. See http://www.contemporaryartandfeminism.com/contemporary-art-and-feminism/caf-timeline Accessed 2 September 2021.

34. The Parlour platform, as its banner reads is “a space to speak – bringing together research, informed opinion and resources; generating debate and discussion; expanding the spaces for women in Australian architecture.” https://archiparlour.org Accessed 1 July 2021.

35. Niki Kalms and Hélène Frichot, “Architecture + Feminism,” Architecture Australia, 97, no. 2 (March/April 2008): 39–40. https://architectureau.com/articles/debate/ Accessed 2 September 2021.

36. Meike Schalk, Ramia Mazé, Thérèse Kristiansson, and Maryam Fanni, eds., Feminists Futures of Spatial Practice: Materialisms, Activisms, Dialogues, Pedagogies, Projections (Baunach, Germany: AADR, 2017).

37. Meike Schalk, Ramia Mazé, Thérèse Kristiansson and Maryam Fanni, “Introduction: Anticipating Feminist Futures of Spatial Practice,” Feminists Futures of Spatial Practice, eds. Meike Schalk, Ramia Mazé, Thérèse Kristiansson and Maryam Fanni, (Baunach, Germany: AADR, 2017): 22.

38. Hélène Frichot, Katja Grillner, Julieanna Preston, “Feminist Practices: Writing Around the Kitchen Table,” in Schalk, Mazé, Kristiansson, and Fanni, eds., Feminists Futures of Spatial Practice, 171–198.

39. For a background on FATALE and Critical Studies in Architecture, see Meike Schalk, Brady Burroughs, Katja Grillner and Katarina Bonnevier, “FATALE Critical Studies in Architecture,” Nordic Journal of Architecture, 2 (2012): 90–96. For further discussion of some of the pedagogical and research approaches of Critical Studies in Architecture, KTH Stockholm, see Hélène Frichot, How to Make Yourself a Feminist Design Power Tool (Baunach, Germany: AADR, 2016).

40. Meike Schalk, Ramia Mazé, Thérèse Kristiansson and Maryam Fanni, “Introduction: Anticipating Futures of Spatial Practice,” in Schalk, Mazé, Kristiansson and Fanni, eds., Feminists Futures of Spatial Practice, 13.

41. Schalk, Mazé, Kristiansson and Fanni, “Introduction,” 13. See Grosz, Architecture from the Outside, 142.

42. Katarina Bonnevier, “The Revue of Styles,” Architecture and Culture, 5:3 (2017): 353–369.

43. Bonnevier, “The Revue of Styles,” 354.

44. Bonnevier, “The Revue of Styles,” 354.

45. Katarina Bonnevier, Thérèse Kristiansson, and Mariana Alves Silva (MYCKET), “Triangulations, Tales and Theories from MYCKET’s Artistic Research Project the Club Scene,” in After Effects: Theories and Methodologies in Architectural Research edited by Hélène Frichot with Gunnar Sandin and Bettina Schwalm (New York and Barcelona: Actar, 2020): 288–299.

46. Hélène Frichot, Catharina Gabrielsson and Helen Runting, eds., Architecture and Feminisms: Ecologies, Economies, Technologies (Oxon: Routledge, 2017); Karin Reisinger and Meike Schalk, “Becoming a Feminist Architect, … .visible, momentous with,” Field: A Free Journal For Architecture, 7, no. 1 (2017): 1–12. See https://field-journal.org/portfolio-items/field-7-becoming-a-feminist-architect/; Meike Schalk and Karin Reisinger, “Styles of Queer Feminist Practices and Objects in Architecture,” Architecture and Culture, 5, no. 3 (2017): 343–352.

47. https://archiparlour.org Accessed 1 September 2021.

48. Naomi Stead, Gill Matthewson, Justine Clark, and Karen Burns, “Parlour: The First Five Years,” Field: A Free Journal For Architecture, 7, no. 1 (November 2017): 143. https://field-journal.org/portfolio-items/field-7-becoming-a-feminist-architect/

49. Lori Brown, ed. Feminist Practices: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Women in Architecture (Oxon: Routledge, 2011). See https://www.architexx.org/about See also Tania Davidge, “Lori Brown: Feminist Activist Architect,” Architectureau (12 June 2013). See https://architectureau.com/articles/lori-brown-feminist-activist-architect/

50. See https://archiparlour.org/the-numbers-in-a-nutshell/

51. Gill Matthewson, “Mind the Gap,” Parlour: Women, Equity, Leadership, 16 March 2016. See https://archiparlour.org/mind-the-gap/; Gill Matthewson, “Thinking through Creative Merit and Gender Bias in Architecture,” Field: A Free Journal For Architecture, 7, no. 1 (November 2017): 163–173. See https://field-journal.org/portfolio-items/field-7-becoming-a-feminist-architect/

52. Karen Burns, contribution to Stead, Matthewson, Clark, and Burns, “Parlour: The First Five Years,” 158.

53. Matthewson, “Thinking through Creative Merit … ,” 164.

54. Burns, contribution to Stead, Matthewson, Clark, and Burns, “Parlour: The First Five Years,” 158.

55. Burns, contribution to Stead, Matthewson, Clark, and Burns, “Parlour: The First Five Years,” 156.

56. Frichot, Gabrielsson, and Runting “Introduction: Architecture and Feminisms: Ecologies, Economies, Technologies,” in Frichot, Gabrielsson, and Runting, eds., Architecture and Feminisms, 1–7.

57. Judith Butler, Excitable Speech, a Politics of the Performative (New York and London: Routledge, 1997).

58. Stengers and Despret, Women Who Make a Fuss, 68.

59. Stengers and Despret, Women Who Make a Fuss, 82.

60. Judith Butler, “Interview: Judith Butler: We Need to Rethink the Category of Woman,” The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/sep/07/judith-butler-interview-gender Accessed 7 September 2021. See also Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (New York and London: Routledge, 1990).

61. Frichot, How to Make Yourself a Feminist Design Power Tool.

62. Sara Ahmed, “Killing Joy: Feminism and the History of Happiness,” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 35, no. 3 (Spring 2010): 571–594.