the DEATH of ARCHITECTURE

Unless you're a 'starchitect', chances are you'll end up creating mediocre glass-clad hangars, says Jay Merrick. Does the problem lie with the profession, or the politicians in charge of our towns and cities?

FEMINIST THEORY

feminist architecture

Feminist theory in 20th-century architecture encompasses identification of gendered power relations in architectural and urban form and discourse, critique of masculine dominance in the design professions, and creation of “feminist” and “feminine” architectural practices. Influenced by feminism in philosophy, literature, cultural studies, and the social sciences, feminist architectural theory has embraced histories of women in architecture, new types of architectural practice, and the reconceptualization of the “feminine” itself. In architecture, feminist theory has three main tendencies, all of which address gendered power relations and the injustice of masculine domination in architecture. Some theorists celebrate the differences between men and women and take an overtly feminist approach to the critique and reconstruction of architectural practice and history. Others emphasize the struggle for equal access to training and jobs in architecture and for recognition of women’s competence in the profession. Another group focuses on theories of gender difference and representation in the built environment, architectural discourse, and cultural value systems.

MOVE + MEANING

What is formalism? I have been thinking about this question since reading the special issue of ANY (7/8) on Colin Rowe, especially because I think of myself, at least on one level, as a formalist. But clearly there is disagreement and uncertainty today as to what formalism is, and the opinion of its relevance to an advanced architecture tends to be alternately noncommittal or pejorative. Moreover, there is obviously no consensus as to whether Rowe himself is a formalist. Peggy Deamer, who alone mentions the Russian formalists, comes closest to defining formalism in suprapersonal terms. These terms are relevant, though I would argue with some of the finer points of her explanation that seem to imply that strange-making, or defamiliarization, is more a psychological phenomenon than a formal one. As Victor Erlich points out in his classic study Russian Formalism: Theory and Doctrine, the Russian Formalists believed that "before trying to explain anything, one should find out what it is." And if this has a tautological ring to it, it is also rather nicely consistent with Rowe’s dedication to the idea of the scholar-as-detective, which Paulette Singley recalls in her fascinating article in the same issue. Anyway (as I believe Colin Rowe would say), I appreciate being provoked into re/investigating this question.