Appel à communication : Why Have There Been No Great Women Architects? (Vienne, 14-15 juin 2024)

Why Have There Been No Great Women Architects?
Feminist Perspectives on Gendered Spaces in Modern Architecture and Art History.

Technische Universität Wien, Jun 14–15, 2024
Deadline: Jan 31, 2024

Our proposed conference will explore the intricate linkages between society, gender and space from a decidedly feminist perspective. In so doing, it seeks to emphasize both the productivity of women across all architectural and planning dimensions, as well as art historical discourses regarding the gendered perception and use of space. Doing justice to the diversity and omnipresence of both Western and non-Western positions, the conference aims to address the entire spectrum of architectural and spatial design in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Notwithstanding decades of feminist research, monographs and exhibitions on women architects, and reference to gender issues in the history of architecture and art, there still remains a lack of mainstream visibility. This results in the paradoxical situation that while women’s architectural works are acknowledged and essentially added in scientific publications, yet they are still not a part of the integral canon of architectural and art history. Due to the narrow focus on a limited number of prominent names, such as Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky, Eileen Gray, Lina Bo Bardi, Denise Scott Brown, and Zaha Hadid, one is left with the erroneous impression that these few women are the exceptions ultimately confirming the rule that women do not play a meaningful role in architecture. Consequently, the numerous lesser-known female architects or designers and their vast work is all the more obscured. At the same time, architectural firms run by a male-female partnership benefit to this day from the collaboration of women architects, while the latter hardly ever become famous. The “starchitect” continues to be a genuinely male phenomenon.

Thus, we invite submissions highlighting women architects, urban and garden planners, or designers of the 19th and 20th centuries who have received little attention to date. In addition to socio-cultural, socio-political, and feminist perspectives, particular consideration should be given to buildings, interiors, and other planning projects. We welcome gender-relevant approaches to buildings and spaces that allow us to re-read familiar architectures or interiors. In addition, papers on symbolic meaning and power structures in historical architecture (e.g., architecture of domination and representation) can be presented. Also encouraged are contributions that address the long-standing tradition of gendered separations and cultural assignments in space (such as in the urban city, sacred space, private homes, educational buildings, workplaces, baths, clubs, etc.). Of particular interest are studies of the appropriation of space by female users or building for female collectivities (women’s clubhouses, women’s clubs, kitchenette houses, single women’s homes, women’s shelters, housing for women, etc.).

A further issue to be addressed is what constitutes feminist or gender-sensitive architecture. How can “gendered spaces” be defined, who declares them as such, what role do social constructions, cultural or ethnic differences play? What approaches did women architects and planners of the 19th and 20th centuries pursue and what theoretical discourses were conducted by them or about them? Where did their contributions already become canonical and why? Who is doing research on “gendered spaces” and how is this research anchored in universities?

Contributions from diverse disciplinary perspectives such as architectural and art history, design history, gender studies, (historical) urban studies, garden art, etc. are very much welcome in order to facilitate an explicitly transdisciplinary discourse. Following the conference, the contributions will be published.

Please send an abstract (max. one page) for a 20-minute talk and a brief CV to sabine.plakolm@tuwien.ac.at and thomas.moser@tuwien.ac.at by January 31. Presentations can be given in English or German; hence basic knowledge of German is recommended. In the absence of funding through grants, fellowships, and academic employment, travel and accommodation expenses may be subsidized as our funds allow.