One of the most crucial issues to discuss in the history of architecture is its relation with gender. The social construction of gender has mutual relations with the construction of the architectural space. Woman as she is socially ‘other’, she is also considered as architecturally other. As a male dominant field of study, architecture plays an important role in constructing the feminity as the subject of its product, which is the space. Throughout the history both the production and inhabitation of space contains deep gender codes. As Jane Rendell discusses in the ‘Gender, Space: Introduction’ from the edited book “Gender, Space and Architecture” there is a biased approach of assigning public and private spaces to male and female figures. According to that theory of Separate Spheres man is linked with the city whereas woman with the home. Many feminist theoreticians tries to overcome this biased and limited binary opposition through opening different viewpoints, but still the architectural practice seems to promote this boundary between home and city as it is producing gendered spaces. Rendell states, with a quotation from David Harvey and Edward Soja, that ‘space is socially produced, but space is also a condition of social production. From this point it is crucial to understand the space with its producers, architects, and also the theoretical background that those architectures are based on.
As very well stated in Mary McLeod’s article “Everyday and ‘Other’ Spaces” the gendered ness of architecture is deeply related with the architectural practice itself and the philosophical background it stems from. She discusses different approaches to the issue of otherness, especially through the perspective of philosophers. It is crucial to understand the way such philosophers handled the concept of the other in terms of understanding the impact of their discourses on architecture and gender. McLeod points out the ‘absence’ of women in Foucault’s ‘des Espaces Autres’ as he is ignoring the feminine spaces from his ‘other spaces’ and mention only brothel as a space of women. As it is stated above ‘home’ is very strongly associated with the female and it is one of the most important spaces in terms of construction of the gendered space. The woman was responsible with the creation of the boundary between home and the city as it is stated by Joyce Henri Robinson in her article “Hi Honey, I’m Home: Weary( Neurasthenic) Businessmen and the Formation of a Serenely Modern Aesthetic”. This duty of woman excluded her from the public sphere and made home the heath of the production of otherness of women. So not mentioning home as an ‘other’ space is another way that white Western male ignores the existence of women as McLeod also mentions. As one of the most influential figure on contemporary architecture Foucault, like many other male theroticians, can’t achieve to approach to the issue of otherness and gender through the eyes of the other. In such conditions can it possible for male architects to construct an architectural stand point that doesn’t condemned woman with ‘absence’? McLeod refers architecture as boys’ club and she asks whether an other can play Eisenman’s game or can the other create a different game in a condition that she is not counted as a potential player or even her very existence is denied. So McLeod searches the gender and its spatial representations in the discourse of architectures and philosophies that influence the formation of space. She demonstrates irony of those, mostly strong male figures, architects and philosophers speculating about being other and making an architecture that is totally other as they have nothing to do with being ‘other’. She mentions ‘Anyone’ conference at Getty Center that twenty-five speaker with only two women and the rest is white American, white European and Japanese males discussing multiplicity, diversity and fluidity. This attitude is the crucial reason for architecture to produce gendered spaces.
The almost same approach exists in the modern era of architecture that architects of time were searching for a universal subject of architecture. Although discursively it seems that modern architecture will produce neutral spaces that are gender free, the reflection of this thought of universal subject didn’t come out so neutrally. Even modernism couldn’t achieve to be at the same distance to both genders. Adolf Loos as pioneer figure in modern architecture produced probably the most gendered spaces of his era. His ‘Zimmer der Dame’-lady’s room- is placed at the heart of the house and other spaces are arranged in ‘an erotic system of gaze’ as Beatriz Colomina defines. First of all, placing the lady’s room in the heart of the house implicitly reveals the association of women with home. Then the issue of gaze is a mystifying attitude towards women and very much related of her otherness. The second feature of the house is more relevant for Adolf Loos to understand his theatrical box from the perspective of gender. Mystification of women is another common way of emphasizing her gender and her otherness. In this house architecture of Loos made woman the subject of the male gaze but not exposed her view in a direct manner. By plays of light and also by the help of the Raumplan this system of gaze became erotic and woman becomes the eroticized other just as in the traditional object of desire in the boudoir as it is also stated by Anne Troutman in her article “the Modernist Boudoir and the Erotics of Space”.
Another pioneer architect of modern movement, Le Corbusier, produced relatively neutral spaces, but still he was also a male architect and he also had gendered opinions. His film l’architecture d’aujourd’hui that the woman is associated with the interior and man is with outer world, this ‘male’ side of him revealed itself. The woman was voyeured by the camera and she was the subject of the gaze. Also in a series of photographs Le Corbusier by using male objects as the trace of the moving figure in the house, he denies the existence of women in space. Still the work of Le Corbusier is different than other gendered spaces mentioned above. The architecture itself and the scenario of the house don’t contain gender codes and it achieves to stand at the same distance to both genders. Woman in Villa Savoye is not condemned to the gaze of the male as she is in the lady’s room of Adolf Loos. She can choose to enjoy this very open and transparent architecture of Le Corbusier as he didn’t assign her a specific place to inhabit.
Although Le Corbusier produced a neutral space free from gender biases, his approaches in the film and photograph series gives a clue about the danger of leaving the issue of women or the other to the hands of male architects. This dangerous relation between the woman-inhabitant-, architect-producer- and architecture is clearly demonstrated in the article People who live in Glass Houses. The women as the client, Edith Farnsworth was already other in the eyes of the society as she is not married in the 1940s America, when marriage and being good housewife was encouraged. This status of her was the reason that she decided to have a custom made weekend house, so that she would be able to escape from the eyes of the society and be free from their biased opinions about her living alone. The architect she hired, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, was also searching for client that will provide him to realize his dreams. Farnsworth was just the client he was looking for. She was rich to provide necessary budget and also as she was leaving alone van der Rohe could be able to design a flexible program. As she was searching for her freedom of being other in the city she was now the other of the male architect. The end product was not a room of her own as Virginia Woolf stated and also she had been benefited economically by the architect.
In another example that is discussed in detail in the article “Family Matters: The Schröder House, by Gerit Rietvield abd Truus Schröder”. This house is almost a visual and spatial manifesto of a woman who is deeply conscious about the way that she wants to live. She had her scenario of life in her mind very clearly and she is aware of the power of space. Every detail of the house is designed by her to provide the life style she aims for and the architect applied her thoughts. The house was their laboratory of a new kind of living and the success of the house stems from the clients active participation in the design process. Maybe for the very first time woman was not the subject of architecture and she was the object. She didn’t passively inhabit the space letting the male gaze vouyering her but she was constructing her own life style, she was getting her space for her own.
Although it seems there are many different approaches to the relation of gender and architecture, for me there is strong conclusion from all articles covered on that subject, which is the ‘lack’ of woman in the production of space. If writings of women made so much influence on their readers than wouldn’t it be more influential to have more women-produced spaces. It is so striking to see that a woman achieved to produce her own house by opposing all the social codes associated with her. I believe that the contribution of ‘other’ to the discussions about other is a must to be able to have solution. And as the other of both society and architecture women should have a strong stand and should manifest her in the field of architecture. The production of Schröder House, the meetings of Zeyneb and Melek Hanum with Pier Lotti and the writings of all the female writers we read… The moment when women will become the object of her history rather than being the subject as Nancy Harsock stated will be the moment that the relation of architecture and gender will be free from all biases, binary oppositions and male gazes.
Burcu Arıkan'2007
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