Architecture and Feminism

Over the last several decades, feminists and architects have independently developed critiques of modern Western assumptions and cultural practices. Architecture and Feminism addresses the intersection of these two seemingly disparate fields through a lively and diverse collection of essays and projects, including interdisciplinary investigations of literature, social history, home economics, and art history.

Articles examine such varied topics as Niki de Saint-Phalles exuberant building-sized female sculpture Hon, the aesthetics and politics of the Playboy bachelor pad, Edith Wharton's ideas on domestic architecture, and the Legend of Master Manole, a disquieting Eastern European folktale that prescribes the ritual entombment of women in the walls of buildings, while visual projects take well-known structures by Philip Johnson and Louis Sullivan as points of departure for a feminist reading of architectural history. Rather than presenting a single, didactic position, this collection offers a range of fresh voices to describe the cross-connections and shared concerns between architecture and feminism.

Contributors to Architecture and Feminism include Manuela Antoniu, Vanessa Chase, Deborah Fausch, Molly Hankwitz, Susan R. Henderson, Amy Landesberg, Lisa Quatrale, Christine S. E. Magar, Mary McLeod, and George Wagner.