Home Is the Place We All Share

Abstract

In the early 1990s, feminist challenges to mainstream architectural discourses were taken upon by queer space theorists, who broadened the focus from understanding how space is gendered and sexualised to suggest new ways of inhabiting space. In the last decade, a new generation, exemplified by artists Elmgreen & Dragset's transformation of architectural spaces, further pushed the challenges, offering a communitarian ideal that puts aside traditional public and private divisions. These spatial experiences can be linked to the ideas of queer theorist José Esteban Muñoz who proposes a queer futurity tainted with political idealism which can inspire architecture to emulate a queer collectivity.

Notes

1. José Esteban Muñoz, Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity (New York: New York University Press, 2009), 1.

2. “Queer” is a term initially used pejoratively that was reclaimed in the 1980s by activists and academics. Its emergence is a reaction to the perceived conservative views of the gay liberation movement, seen as too assimilationist, but also to governmental and public reactions to the AIDS crisis. It represents a direct attempt to offer an alternative to visions of sexuality and gender as binaries, building on feminist critiques. Is has since been used to describe an identity category, an activist/political movement, and an academic theory. The differences and similarities between these uses underlie often divergent discussions of “queerness,” and, by extension, of “queer space.” See Annamarie Jagose, Queer Theory: An Introduction (New York: New York University Press, 1996).

3. See for example Beatriz Colomina, ed., Sexuality and Space (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1992); John Paul Ricco, “Coming Together: Jack-Off Rooms as Minor Architecture,” A/R/C, Architecture, Research, Criticism 1, no. 5 (1994): 26-31; Henry Urbach, “Closets, Clothes, Disclosure,” Assemblage, no. 30 (1996): 63-73; Aaron Betsky, Queer Space: Architecture and Same-Sex Desire (New York: William Morrow, 1997); John Paul Ricco, “Fag-O-Sites: Minor Architecture and Geopolitics of Queer Everyday Life” (Dissertation, University of Chicago, 1998).

4. Private and public are discussed here as a binary opposition historically constructed as two ideal types, the former being associated and conflated with the domestic, the embodied, the natural, the family, personal life, intimacy, unwaged labor, and reproduction, and the latter with the disembodied, the abstract, the cultural, rationality, citizenship, waged labor, production, and the polis. Nancy Duncan, “Renegotiating Gender and Sexuality in Public and Private Spaces,” in Bodyspace: Destabilizing Geographies of Gender and Sexuality, ed. Nancy Duncan (London and New York: Routledge, 1996), 127-145. While I focus on understandings that oppose the domestic and the polis, other domains are also inextricably linked to the discussion.

5. Pauline Fowler, “The Public and the Private in Architecture: A Feminist Critique,” Women's Studies International Forum 7, no. 6 (1984): 449–454.

6. For a comprehensive review of feminist challenges to architectural history, see Sherry Ahrentzen, “The Space between the Studs: Feminism and Architecture,” Signs 29, no. 1 (2003): 179-206.

7. Cathy N. Davidson and Jessamyn Hatcher, “Introduction,” in No More Separate Spheres!, ed. Cathy N. Davidson and Jessamyn Hatcher (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002), 7, in reference to Alexis de Tocqueville, De la Démocratie en Amérique (Bruxelles: Meline Cans & Cie, 1840).

8. Estelle Freedman, “Separatism as Strategy: Female Institution Building and American Feminism, 1870–1930,” Feminist Studies 5, no. 3 (1979): 512-529; Gwendolyn Wright, Moralism and the Model Home: Domestic Architecture and Cultural Conflict in Chicago, 1873–1913 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980); Gwendolyn Wright, Building the Dream: A Social History of Housing in America (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1981); Dolores Hayden, The Grand Domestic Revolution: A History of Feminist Designs for America Homes, Neighborhoods and Cities (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1981); Pauline Fowler, “The Public and the Private” (note 5); Linda K. Kerber, “Separate Spheres, Female Worlds, Woman's Place: The Rhetoric of Women's History,” The Journal of American History 75, no. 1 (1988): 9-39.

9. Steven Harris and Deborah Berke, eds., Architecture of the Everyday (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1997); Hilde Heynen and Gulsum Baydar, eds., Negotiating Domesticity: Spatial Productions of Gender in Modern Architecture (London: Routledge, 2005); Dolores Hayden, “What Would a Non-Sexist City Be Like? Speculations on Housing, Urban Design, and Human Work,” Signs 5, no. 3 (1980): 170-187; Katherine Shonfield, Adrian Dannatt, Rosa Ainley, + MUF, This Is What We Do: A Muf Manual (London: Ellipsis, 2001).

10. Terence Riley, The Un-Private House (New York: The Museum of Modern Art and Harry N. Abrams, 1999), Exhibition catalog, 20.

11. Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, 2nd ed. (New York: Routledge, 2006 [1990]), 192.

12. For foundational queer theory texts, see Judith Butler, “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory,” Theatre Journal 40, no. 4 (1988): 519-531; Butler, Gender Trouble (note 11); Judith Butler, Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of “Sex” (New York: Routledge, 1993); Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Epistemology of the Closet (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990); Andrew Parker and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, “Performativity and Performance,” in Performativity and Performance, ed. Andrew Parker and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick (New York: Routledge, 1993), 1-18; David M. Halperin, Saint Foucault: Towards a Gay Hagiography (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995). More recent developments are exemplified by David L. Eng, Judith Halberstam, and José Esteban Muñoz, “What's Queer About Queer Studies Now?,” Social Text 23, no. 3/4 (2005): 1-17.

13. Although this classification covers various sources, it was initially inspired by Richard Borbridge, “Sexuality and the City: Exploring Gaybourhoods and the Urban Village Form in Vancouver, Bc” (Master's thesis, University of Manitoba, 2007); and developed in Olivier Vallerand, “Homonormative Architecture & Queer Space: The Evolution of Gay Bars and Clubs in Montréal” (M.Arch. research project, McGill University, 2010). A partial bibliography of queer space discourse in architecture includes Henry Urbach, “Peeking at Gay Interiors,” Design Book Review 25 (1992): 38-40; Henry Urbach, “Spatial Rubbing: The Zone,” Sites 25 (1993): 90-95; Ricco, “Coming Together” (note 3); Christopher Reed, “Imminent Domain: Queer Space in the Built Environment,” Art Journal 55, no. 4 (1996): 64-70; Urbach, “Closets, Clothes, Disclosure”; sections of Joel Sanders, ed., Stud: Architectures of Masculinity (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1996); Betsky, Queer Space (note 3); Gordon Brent Ingram, Anne-Marie Bouthillette, and Yolanda Retter, eds., Queers in Space: Communities | Public Places | Sites of Resistance (Seattle: Bay Press, 1997); Ricco, “Fag-O-Sites” (note 3); John Paul Ricco, The Logic of the Lure (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002); Katarina Bonnevier, Behind Straight Curtains: Towards a Queer Feminist Theory of Architecture (Stockholm: Axl Books, 2007); Annmarie Adams, “Sex and the Single Building: The Weston Havens House, 1941–2001,” Buildings & Landscapes: Journal of the Vernacular Architecture Forum 17, no. 1 (2010): 82-97. Important anthologies in geography include David Bell and Gill Valentine, eds., Mapping Desire: Geographies of Sexualities (London: Routledge, 1995); David Bell, Jon Binnie, and Ruth Holliday, Pleasure Zones: Bodies, Cities, Spaces (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2001); Kath Browne, Jason Lim, and Gavin Brown, Geographies of Sexualities: Theory, Practices and Politics (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2007).

14. See, e.g., early work by Barbara A. Weightman, “Gay Bars as Private Places,” Landscape 24, no. 1 (1980): 9-16; Manuel Castells, “Cultural Identity, Sexual Liberation and Urban Structure: The Gay Community in San Francisco,” in The City and the Grassroots: A Cross-Cultural Theory of Urban Social Movements (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983), 138-170; Maxine Wolfe, “Invisible Women in Invisible Places: Lesbians, Lesbian Bars, and the Social Production of People/Environment Relationships,” Architecture & Comportement / Architecture & Behaviour 8, no. 2 (1992): 137-158.

15. See, e.g., chapters 6 to 9 of Stephen Whittle, ed., The Margins of the City: Gay Men's Urban Lives (Aldershot, UK: Arena, 1994); Moira Kenney, Mapping Gay L.A.: The Intersection of Place and Politics (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2001).

16. See for example the foundational texts in David Bell, Jon Binnie, Julia Cream, and Gill Valentine, “All Hyped Up and No Place to Go,” Gender, Place & Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geography 1, no. 1 (1994): 31-47; David Bell and Gill Valentine, “Introduction: Orientations,” in Mapping Desire: Geographies of Sexualities, ed. David Bell and Gill Valentine (London: Routledge, 1995), 1-27.

17. Reed, “Imminent Domain: Queer Space in the Built Environment” (note 13), 64.

18. Halperin, Saint Foucault (note 12), 63. Halperin's definition has been widely repeated, for example in Nikki Sullivan, A Critical Introduction to Queer Theory (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2003), 43; and in Adams, “Sex and the Single Building” (note 13), 82.

19. “A Kind of Queer Geography/Räume Durchqueeren: The Doreen Massey Reading Weekends,” Gender, Place & Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geography 13, no. 2 (2006): 178–79.

20. Gordon Brent Ingram, Anne-Marie Bouthillette, and Yoalanda Retter, “Strategies for (Re)Constructing Queer Communities,” in Queers in Space: Communities | Public Places | Sites of Resistance, ed. Gordon Brent Ingram, Anne-Marie Bouthillette, and Yoalanda Retter (Seattle: Bay Press, 1997), 456.

21. Bonnevier, Behind Straight Curtains (note 13), 22.

22. Muñoz, Cruising Utopia (note 1), 11; Leo Bersani, Homos (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995).

23. Muñoz, Cruising Utopia (note 1), 6.

24. Ibid., 10.

25. Ibid., 1.

26. Eng, Halberstam, and Muñoz, “What's Queer About Queer Studies Now?” (note 12).

27. For recent examples of scholars rethinking oppositions of the public and private spheres in past contexts, see, e.g., Despina Stratigakos, A Women's Berlin: Building the Modern City (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008); Jason Edwards and Imogen Hart, “The Victorian Interior: A Collaborative, Eclectic Introduction,” in Rethinking the Interior c. 1867–1896: Aestheticism and Arts and Crafts, ed. Jason Edwards and Imogen Hart (Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2010), 1-24; Jasmine Rault, Eileen Gray and the Design of Sapphic Modernity: Staying In (Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2010), 1-15. For comments on contemporary issues, see for example Annmarie Adams and Peta Tancred, Designing Women: Gender and the Architectural Profession (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000); Lori A. Brown, “Introduction,” in Feminist Practices: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Women in Architecture, ed. Lori A. Brown (Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2011).

28. For more on architectural installations and social discourses, see Jane Rendell, Art and Architecture: A Place Between (London: I.B.Tauris, 2006); Sarah Bonnemaison and Ronit Eisenbach, Installations by Architects : Experiments in Building and Design (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2009).

29. John Paul Ricco has also explored this potential in the collective show Disappeared (1996) he curated at the Randolph Street Gallery in Chicago. More recent works, for example Elmgreen & Dragset's architectural transformations (discussed in the next section), the Toxic Titties' performances, or Robbins's photographic panels in Households, continue this approach, but emphasize a broader discourse around all identity categories.

30. Beatriz Colomina, Dennis Dollens, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Cindi Patton, Henry Urbach, and Mark Wigley, Queer Space (New York: Storefront for Art and Architecture, 1994), Exhibition catalog, n.p.

31. Beatriz Colomina, “Introduction,” in Queer Space (note 30).

32. Betti-Sue Hertz, Ed Eisenberg, and Lisa Maya Knauer, “Queer Spaces in New York City: Places of Struggle/Places of Strength,” in Queers in Space: Communities | Public Places | Sites of Resistance, ed. Gordon Brent Ingram, Anne-Marie Bouthillette, and Yolanda Retter (Seattle: Bay Press, 1997), 356-370.

33. Mark Robbins, “Building Like America: Making Other Plans,” Assemblage, no. 24 (1994): 9.

34. bell hooks, Julie Eizenberg, and Hank Koning, “House, 20 June 1994,” Assemblage 24 (1994): 22–29; Heidi J. Nast and Mabel O. Wilson, “Lawful Transgressions: This Is the House That Jackie Built,” Assemblage 24 (1994): 49–55; Michael Moon, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Benjamin Gianni, and Scott Weir, “Queers in (Single-Family) Space,” Assemblage 24 (1994): 30–37; Jonathan Crary and Joel Sanders,“Sight Specific,” Assemblage 24 (1994): 40–47.

35. hooks, Eizenberg, and Koning, “House, 20 June 1994” (note 34).

36. Moon et al., “Queers in (Single-Family) Space” (note 34), 30.

37. Ibid.

38. Ibid., 34.

39. Ingar Dragset, interview with author, Berlin, June 8, 2012.

40. Michael Elmgreen, Ingar Dragset, Jochen Volz, Jens Hoffman, and Dorothea Von Hantelmann, Spaced Out: [Anläßlich Der Ausstellungen Michael Elmgreen & Ingar Dragset : Powerless Structures, Fig. 111; 3. Februar - 18. März 2001 Und Michael Elmgreen & Ingar Dragset : Spaced out / Powerless Structures, Fig. 211; 23. Mai 2003 Im Portikus Frankfurt Am Main] (Frankfurt Am Main: Portikus, 2003), Exhibition catalog, 34–35.

41. Dorothea Von Hantelmann, “Production of Space—Space of Production,' in Spaced Out (note 40), ed. Michael Elmgreen et al., 63.

42. Ibid., 62.

43. A first experience of collaboration between the two national pavilions at the Biennale, the project also unusually positions Elmgreen & Dragset as artists/curators/interior designers/industrial designers/directors. The ambiguity of this position continues their career-long critical experimentations with disciplinary divisions, but is also inscribed in the expanded scale of their recent projects.

44. Script excerpts by Trevor Stuart from Jannik Splidsboel, How Are You (Denmark: Radiator Film, 2011).

45. The letter was available in the limited edition Bagalogue/Calendar distributed to Biennale visitors and is republished in Dominic Eichler, “Another Death in Venice,” in Elmgreen & Dragset Trilogy, ed. Peter Weibel and Andreas F. Beitin (Köln: König/ZKM, 2011), 268–75.

46. Mark Robbins, Households (New York: The Monacelli Press, 2006).

47. Alice T. Friedman, “People Who Live in Glass Houses: Edith Farnsworth, Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe, and Philip Johnson,” in Women and the Making of the Modern House: A Social and Architectural History (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1998), 128-159.

48. Adams, “Sex and the Single Building” (note 13).

49. Beatriz Colomina, “Battle Lines: E. 1027,” in The Sex of Architecture, ed. Diana I. Agrest, Patricia Conway, and Leslie Kanes Weisman (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1996); Katarina Bonnevier, “A Queer Analysis of Eileen Gray's E. 1027,” in Negotiating Domesticity: Spatial Productions of Gender in Modern Architecture, ed. Hilde Heynen and Gulsum Baydar (London:Routledge, 2005); Rault, Eileen Gray and the Design of Sapphic Modernity (note 27).

50. Ingar Dragset, interview with author, Berlin, June 8, 2012; Nils Wenk, interview with author, Berlin, July 1, 2011.

51. BOOM, Design: Architecture, accessed July 13, 2012, http://boompalmsprings.com/design/#5.

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57. Design for the Palm Springs community started in 2011. The project is currently on hold until the housing market recovers. (Matthew Hoffman, e-mail message to author, November 26, 2012.)