the production of feminine space (continued)
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2. Does différance within the field make a difference?
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If the field is composed of categories that exist in opposition in order to justify the existence of either/or, then différance does matter within the field. If the essence of the architect is appropriately situated in multi-form, then a complementary arrangement can allow the recursive doubling of the ground to immerge as the architect, not either the academic or the practitioner. When the identity of the architect is not allowed to flow between discipline and practice, architects become resigned to subsume a subordinate role to built objects.
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C. Violent Production, Identity of the Female
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1. Urbanity and the flâneuse.
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Does the question of identity concerning an interpretation of the architect reveal anything useful regarding our understanding of the production of the feminine space? Can the known, knowable, unknown, and/or unknowable female identity be traced to core form and/or art form thereby providing the grounds for a re-crafted collective being via a collective agency? If the known architect were the practitioner who is sanctioned by the State then would it be appropriate to state the known female is the female that exists in opposition to the male figure? If the female exists as a commodity, as postulated by Lucy Irigary, then we can trace the majority. Unlike the architect, the known female is denied privilege through social systems via the State. In spite of the State’s efforts to conceal the known or core form female, the space of privilege denied can be accessed and challenged.
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2. Sites of female production.
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The space of privilege denied is actualized by way of spatial typologies such as cafes, salons, libraries, primary schools, daycares, retail facilities and restaurants that are primarily occupied by female bodies. The construction of these typologies subverts the value or cultural capital by engendering ownership of territory within the public domain. While owned territories are politically aligned to capital, the collective presence of the female within territories such as the salon represents sites of individual powerlessness. Or do these territories or art forms merely serve to subvert capital to members within that serve as agents of the State? If the collective notion of the female sponsored by the State is reinforced through these socially constructed typologies, then these sites owned and operated by individuals serve to reproduce the State. These sites create the State because the State is that which is to be produced, reproduced, and maintained.
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3. Lack of female economy.
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Do these socially constructed objects reveal the realm of the unknown female, or are the unknown identities the collectives marginalized as radical alterity, for not accepting State-situated norms? Does the unknown Рsocial objects or marginalized object beings Рconstitutes the terrain of an art form. The identity of this collective is marked by a lack of collective will. The ideal of the gendered space owned and occupied by female bodies subverts the nature of capital, which flows beyond the individual occupancy of the ownership. The conditions that contribute to the construction of these environments are reproduced and maintained as technologies of the State. If this is an accurate depiction of the female, then like the architect could the unknowable female figure could be a multi-form being operating within the realm of the commodities and/or territories? Would the nature of this dual existence limit the limitless nature of the female? The unknowable does not need to comprise the binary model, but could reveal that the female is not bound to the performance of commodity and/or owner of territories. The female collective, as owner and occupant, may not understand what it is to evolve into that which is co-habitu̩ of multiple trajectories yet to be realized.
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Unlike the architect, that which is female is not bound by legislations. Therefore personhood for the unknowable female is the chasm that is beyond the essence the unknowable architect seeks to occupy in multi-form. Female economies exist in multi-form and can only become recognizable as a recursive figure dependent upon dependence.
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IV. Space as a Social Object
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Through an investigation of space as a social object we can challenge the legitimacy of formations created to exclude bodies of subalterns. Henry Lefebvre contends that in addition to being a product of humans, space is also a complex social construct. Lefebvre argues, "Social space is a social product – the space produced in a certain manner serves as a tool of thought and action. It is not only a means of production but also a means of control, and hence of domination/power.” (Lefebvre 14)
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A. Bodies of subalterns.
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1. Defining the terms.
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Defining terms upon which subalterns are limited aligns the notion of space as a social object with the known identity of our subjects herein. The collective female, as well as the collective architect, is composed of marginalized bodies that maintain a wanting existence. If, as Lefebvre asserts, space is a social product and, as Jean Baudrillard asserts, operates in collusion with humans to produce a conceptual density, then humans and objects locate the presence of a collective density or emotional value. Within this frame of reference I assert that space, as a physical and psychological being, derives legitimacy by way of occupancy and occupier. The State, as subject supreme and grantor of privilege, seeks to circumvent the actuality of this occupancy via technologies of coercion and exclusion.
2. Visibility not sensibility.
Artificial value assignments subvert the reality of currency over which the State attempts to maintain dominion. In order to control privilege the State must control the system of measures that manipulates and falsifies ideal values that are introduced, learned, accepted and practiced. Due to these practices, the bodies of subalterns (bodies and space) are subjected to a limited understanding of the self, along with the space occupying and occupied by the self. Humans and objects have been diminished as to no longer command the capacity to occupy the self beyond the visible sign.
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3. The limits of space as an object of human existence.
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Space, as a social object, relies upon the agency of humans in order to become that which is beyond the known object. The known object is typically signified by way of sight. Therefore these objects are limited to paradigms that restrict access, thusly producing the recursive or unknowable social space.
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B. Legitimacy challenged.
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1. Space is socially charged; therefore the underlying structures can be challenged.
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Before one can identify and challenge, one must identify the means through which an agency may be used. If space is unknowable and only occupies agency as it is transferred from humans, then one must initially challenge the occupancy of the agency regarding the unknowable social space. As stated, in regards to the female and the architect, the unknowable typically constitutes a tangential or eccentric space. This unknowable territory is unrecognizable because it is subverted as is the essence of social space. Is it possible that the unknowable space does not yet exist, or that the unrecognizable space exists within a conceptual imaginary? The conceptual imaginary, as stated by Jean Paul Sartre, is the being in-itself and the being for-itself. This frame of reference establishes a history or being in-itself, in relation to a future, or being for-itself, which defines the referents as a factual and possibility. If this arrangement assists in an understanding of the unknowable, then recognition of the unknowable female and architect, as a being for-itself can be possible.
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2. How do you challenge the construction of the construct?
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The challenge must be grounded in an understanding of recognition. If we are to comprehend space, the female and/or the architect, we must understand what we perceive is not only the being in- itself at the moment of recognition, but also the being for-itself. In the moment of recognition a future possibility co-exists and becomes the interpretation of the reader. The occupant of space, the female and/or the architect, continually interprets within the moment of recognition. Therefore the interpretation is the challenge to the being in-itself and for-itself or the unknowable space of legitimacy.
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V. Crafting the Space of Privilege
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If the crafters of space construct categories that reify difference concretely, then are they who arrange the built environment crafting space of privilege? “He contends that what is called women’s nature is the result of artificial cultivation for the benefit of their masters.” (J.S. Mill X)
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A. Crafting Space of Privilege
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1. If this “nature” is an artificial cultivation, then the site(s) of cultural production claimed by this construction locates sites of privilege.
How can space be neutral if spatial formations are inherently assigned non-neutral typologies, rendering them biased? “Différance may be conceived as an underlying principle of non-identity which makes signification possible only by ‘spacing out’ both signifiers and concepts (signified) so that meaning appears merely as a ‘trace’ of other terms within or across any given term.” (Derrida 17) It cannot be assumed that space is neutral if space is recognized through systems granting status in this non-neutral fashion. If the space in question is thusly biased as are the assignments of gender, then both the bodies of the subject figures and the bodies of the object buildings are crafted for access or denial of privilege.
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2. Is the space of privilege visible through physical or social structures?
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I would argue that privilege is readily recognizable through both physical and social structures. Maybe this observation is obvious within the realm of the social, but within the realm of built objects such recognition is neither obvious nor easy. If one were to claim that a space is gendered then most practitioners of architecture would lack any sensibility to comprehend what determines a gendered environment.
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3. If the sites of alleged privilege locate the non-natural, then are there sites that locate natural occurrences?
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This may seem odd but it is a difficult question to answer. First one has to accept that space as understood is typically unrecognizable. Spatial practices are subjective operations that manipulate. A natural condition could not be known because recognition of would align the object within the realm of that which is social and therefore biased. All space, along with spatial objects, is unnatural because said designed territories are socially aligned.
VI. Motivation of Architects
If the production by means of construction of privilege is a truer account of the architectural task, then what is the architect’s motivation within this master/slave dialectic? “Whatever has value in the present world has it not in itself, according to its nature – nature is always valueless – but has rather been given, granted value, and we were the givers and granters.” (Nietzsche 301)
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A. Servitude with honour
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1. Who is the master?
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Who is the master of the architect the client or the State? Or, more aptly, who or what is the grantor of privilege assumed by the architect? It is typically assumed that the architect is beholden to the client who requests a service for a charge? A different line of thought would be that the architect is obliged to the State who grants the assignment of the title. By way of the title, the architect in-itself is allowed to occupy the space of privilege endorsed by the State not the client. If the State determines the title has no value for the State, then it would discontinue its sponsorship of the title. Without the legislation, regulation and maintenance of the title, would the practice of architecture exist? Would the architect be a viable member of society without legislation locating the practice within the realm of professionals?
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2. Is the architect the embodiment of the prestigious slave?
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The arduous task of becoming and existing an architect reaps one minimal economic gains. Servitude is defined as “the state of being a slave” or “the state of being ruled or dominated by somebody or something.” Prestige, on the other hand, is “respect associated with high quality; honour, awe, or high opinion inspired by or derived from a high-ranking, influential or successful person or product.” If the high opinion of the practice embodied by the title is granted by rule of the State, not the exchange with clients, then would not architects be prestigious servants? Architects are honoured and honour themselves via hollow awards that reify sub-cultures of servitude. Architects are respected around the world, while the practice marginalizes and exploits the creative impute of junior members, and takes advantage of their physical energies and blind loyalty in order to validate imbalances of economy within the internal capital structure.
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B. Production via construction
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1. Producing identity via the legislation sanctioning the privilege to associate.
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The practice of architecture as a means to locate the collective membership lobbies for legislation that renders exclusivity to title. The State, as sanctioning body, is the authority that acts along with participant members to produce the collective title, identity, prestige and internal hierarchy by way of legislation. The hollowness of the legislation rests in the legislation and reveals the limited extent of the title. The primary concern of the practice within the legal framework sponsored by the State expresses protection of bodies as “health, safety and welfare.” The State does not concern itself with notions of design and nobility directly, while indirectly funding the exclusive institutions that produce the membership. The State does sponsor design review to implement accepted standards. The State legislates health, safety and welfare via zoning and building codes while the practice honours subjective notions of beauty only understood by members that have come to value that which is valueless in-itself. In the case of architecture the in-itself is the representation not the object. The objects of architecture are Sartre’s beings for-itself that exist as images or future possibilities.
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2. Producing images as representations not buildings.
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The practice of architecture is associated with buildings in order to establish a concrete frame of reference from which the architect would be recognized within a given social rank. If the academy is the site of the architect’s production and within the academy representations of buildings are fabricated, then built objects are not the fundamental nature of architecture. Therefore the image or art form object is essential to architecture not the built object or core form that relies on practical means and methods.
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C. Legitimate Because I Build.
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1. No building, no practice, no identity?
Could one posit that the architect will remain illegitimate as long as he builds? If the essential element of architecture is not the built object, then continuing to fabricate identity consolidating core form and art form will serve to maintain the temporal dissonances. The identity of the architect is, and should promote, the art form as that which disassociates the architect from the practice of managing health, safety and welfare for the State.
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2. Commodities alike are the feminine and the architect.
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Irigary’s assignment applies to the female as practitioner of architecture as well as the female and the architect. The nature of the architect in form is similar to the female commodity as defined by Irigary, with both having value as utilitarian objects and/or bearers of value. In this case both serve as objects of the State and reproduce for the State. Architecture conceptualizes the built environment for the State. In doing so architects are the bearers of the physical objects of the State, just as females are the bearers of the human objects of the State. Therefore the value of both relies upon their ability not to create but to re-produce. If one is to create then one could espouse authorship of one’s offspring.
In the case of the physical environment as well as human beings, the State usurps ownership through legislation therefore the existence of both or either is a product of productive technologies not created.
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Females and architects as commodities of the State are utilitarian objects. Irigary postulates that females are commodities of males and I would posit that the female, as well as the architect, is a utilitarian object of the State. I agree with Irigary that females are utilitarian objects of males as a technology of bio-power. Through the use of biotechnology, status is granted to males who wittingly and unwittingly accept privilege granted by way of the State. In accepting the privilege granted, males continue to reproduce conditions of decadence. The conditions of depravity recognize males as privileged, which is not a genuine interpretation. Maleness, while assuming privilege within the frame of everydayness, only maintains this status as tool of the State. Therefore the collective privilege is granted not natural but naturalized. Due to the artificial nature of this arrangement the continuance of maleness relies upon acquiescence of females.
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A female architect is simultaneously bearer of life and servant bearer of objects by way of the practice. Within these frames of reference a female architect is denied personhood within the profession upon performing the role of domestic servant. If a female architect becomes a bearer of life then she will be denied personhood within the profession. The access will not be denied by males but by males via the State in order to reproduce the State through différance.
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3. Legitimate because I think?
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Just as a female is legitimate because the collective is in-itself, an architect is legitimate because of the notion of différance. A female can be assumed to be illegitimate because the collective differs to and remains different from the State–sponsored ideal figure. An alternate reading of différance would be that it legitimizes the existence of the female by locating the collective being within the composite. If, as postulated herein, the interpretation occurs in the moment of recognition, then legitimacy for the female is sponsored by the State. Therefore the apparatus that attempts to negate the status recognizes personhood for the female collective. In this regard the female could be located as an eccentric figure that constitutes an unknown, not an unknowable figure.
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VII. Is Différance Mobile or Fixed?
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Is différance, as articulated within social systems, fixed or mobile? “A walk through a forest or a Japanese garden is invigorating and healing because of the essential interaction of all sense modalities reinforcing each other; our sense of reality is thus strengthened and articulated.” (Pallasmaa 30)
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A. Mobile system
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1. Locally bound, globally accepted.
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Is the question of différance and the location of, or negation via, the deferrals the appropriate response? Could recognition that our modalities of thought always reinforce that which exists as a negation? If we are to conclude that marginalization, negation and denial serve to oppress, we have to recognize that within the moment of recognition the bodies termed subaltern or sub-human are affirmed as being in-itself. The affirmation of existence allows for an agency to exist therefore allowing the collective female as well as the collective architect to re-craft various trajectories regarding the potential identity. If space is bound to occupancy then the existence of the female in any spatial formation concretely locates a form of privilege. Are current forms of spatial production locating female bodies sufficient? What or who has the authority to deem the environments sufficient? If current paradigms of thought are the determinants, then that which exists would be deemed insufficient due to an inherent lack of political and economic will associated with the produced forms.
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2. Globally accepted only as it is defined within the homogeneity of local practices.
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The practice of architecture has become globally integrated as a tool of the privileged. Along with globalization comes denial of privilege as well. Therefore localized practices locating the female body, which were once fixed, are strengthened and re-articulated through the use of media as global practice. In current form architectural practices and architectural modalities of thought unwittingly relocate the bodies of females into those environments that deny access to privilege as defined. Institutions that house typologies of female production (e.g. cafes, salons, libraries, primary schools, daycares, retail facilities and restaurants) function locally to consolidate, reify and affirm the monolithic illusion of the collective female. The uses of these institutions of denial promote the notion of différance that serves to reinforce the existence of the State as the ‘one.’ In the case of the State, the ‘one’ would be defined as that which serves all within the realm of différance.
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3. Mobility through sedentary bodies.
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The notion of mobility is a derivative of localized practices that form networks through architectural objects. Even though architectural objects are static, these objects form social networks. Just as human beings form social networks, buildings form social networks that transfer meanings across territories. The nature of these meanings begins to operate in a performative manner similar to Judith Butler’s notion of gender performativity. As Butler suggests, the nature of the performance remains only subversive with an inherent agency. Unlike human objects, built objects maintain a degree of predictability. As a result of this predictability, built objects within the social network mobilize State- sponsored agendas of domination. The State utilizes the normalization of the social categories to maintain the notion of différance. Through the occupancy of gender categories, built objects occupy gender roles.
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B. Fixed System
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1. The image does not equate to the practice.
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The social practice of mobile fixity is an aspect of the subversion that seeks to normalize the standardization of culture. As suggested by Adorno, the State seeks to standardize culture by defining what it means to be an everyday practice within the spatial occurrence of the everyday. If the ‘norm’ only exists within a frame of reference as defined by the State, then the reading serves to cast the degree of illegitimacy upon parallel frames of reference. The ‘norm’ is used to deny the existence of that which is knowable. Herein lies the conundrum of the notion of ‘mobile fixity’ in that the ubiquity of the State relies on mobility that is typically established through static bodies. Static bodies house that which signifies the ideal and attempts to legitimize the ideal as universal. The ubiquity of occupancy is a goal of the State that is continually undermined by language formations that differ in form and content.
2. What are examples of categories that attempt to legitimize fixity?
Herein the notion of female space has been referenced within typologies such as cafes, salons, libraries, primary schools, daycares, retail facilities and restaurants because these object types are primarily occupied by feminine bodies. Within the realm of built objects these constructions serve as occupiers of State power by consolidating bodies of figures in order to subvert collective thought from power structures meant to deny them privilege.
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3. Is the stability of these categories essential to the acceptance of feminine space?
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The stability of sites of female occupation is essential to the production of the State. If the purpose of the State is the production of the State in-itself, for-itself, then the continued existence of the built environments that house bodies that reinforce notions of différance must be maintained.
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VIII. Who are We Without Bricks?
What is at stake for the architect as a professional? “We might therefore associate becoming
with a process of adaptation and assimilation which is related to formation rather than form, but nonetheless operates through form.” (Leach 98)
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A. Becoming Irrelevant – Neal Leach, “Camouflage”
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1. The crisis is the business of practice not the practice as a business.
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What is the practice of business? Architecture has become a business of legalities. Architects have assimilated legality as a means not only to understand who they are but also who they are to become, which is irrelevant. Architects, who are crafters of ideas written through an artful crafting of wood, have become generators of contracts intended to protect them from that which they espouse to know – buildings.
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2. A history of master builders.
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From this history that imaged architects as thinkers, makers and visionaries, architects have devolved into a collective of servants. Throughout the official and unofficial history of the practice, architects have endeavored to engage the world through imagery.
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3. Creating sub-categories to legitimize the business.
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Now architects merely create categories: academy or practice, residential or commercial, cultural or institutional, etc. These categories further fragment the practice of architecture in order to promote the business of practice. The creation of a continuum of sub-categories allows for the production of members in order to create and maintain categories. Are the categories necessary for the practice of architecture? I would suggest that categories are destructive; instead of consolidating the practice into something recognizable, categories fragment the practice.
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Conclusion | Arguments Regarding Feminine Space
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What are we to understand through an analysis of space regarding the female? The ability of discourse to locate spatial formations of female subjugation occurs through the continued use of professional practices modeled upon structures of inequality. While architects assert political authorship and authority over the built environment, the works – buildings – endeavour to mimic, unwittingly, practices of denial.
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Architecture as a practice of idealists authoring notions of grand utopian existence should not be resigned to accept the continued denial of subjectivity of female space. The continued subjugation of female space not only maintains an oppressive social order for women but also promotes inequality. Through the construction of the feminine, other figures of alterity are produced within social space. Architecture as a global practice affects personhood and space while serving to facilitate the mobility of that which constitutes equality. If personhood is to be liberated from pre-existing forms of subject- hood then space, as social object, must be liberated from illegitimate forms of the unnatural.
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IX. The Practice of Feminism
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What are we to understand through an analysis of space regarding the feminine?
“For many women architects, the critical point is not just the undermining of binary oppositions, but the denial of women per se. Can you play Eisenmans’s game if you’re not permitted to play, or not even recognized as a potential player? Or more importantly, can you create different games – new forms and spaces – if your very existence is denied? Must the rejection of essentialism imply absence?” (McLeod 9)
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For McLeod the denial of a collective existence is the crux of the matter not whether or not one is a woman practicing architecture. If creating a collective feminine space, then one must presuppose that the collective in question maintains a viable presence. The existence of a feminine presence can be challenged through an analysis of architectural typologies that legitimize the segregation and denial of access of women to capital.
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Feminism is a social ideology, not women practicing architecture. Architecture as practice parallels the social practice of différance locating feminine bodies. Both practices deny select bodies the autonomy to operate without intervention. The ability of women to practice architecture will not grant any additional access to the means of spatial production due to the status of the profession as mere agent of the State.
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Concerning space, the primary location for any reconciliation regarding the production of space must be located within the academy. Through inter-disciplinary discourse the hegemony that currently serves State interests by standardizing educational institutions. The academy is currently constructed to serve the practice therefore reifying structures of différance.
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If an agency exists then for whom does it exist? The agency in question is the agency that will allow females, as well as the architect, to operate as a being independent of structure, which J.S. Mill noted as being coercive and unnatural.
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The inequality located through the use of the female body serves in part to legitimize maleness as a means of occupying space of privilege. The use of the female body while unique in its biology remains standardized through the use of its visible form. The legitimacy of the ‘other’ will remain within the continuum as long as spatial practices are used to mask crafting feminine space. Architecture as a viable practice cannot exist as merely a State sponsored agency. The State will continue to underwrite spatial practices and privileges that deny the existence of a viable feminine space and architectural space.
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Architecture has become globally insignificant. The ability of global practices of standardization serves to re-introduce an integration of practices of denial. As long as the authors of these practices seek to establish a global hegemony through these practices, female space will continue to be crafted. The co-authors of these sites of denial are the very female architects who locate their identity through the practice of architecture.
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In order for a female space of limited spatial bias to be crafted the crafters must relocate their identity as architects and females. Thusly, crafters seek to re-establish multiple hegemonies through the utilization of bio-power to subvert the natural and the unnatural.
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| Works Citied
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Adorno, Theodor W. 2003. The Culture Industry. New York: Routledge. p. 12.
Johnson, Barbara. 1998. The Feminist Difference: Literature, Psychoanalysis, Race, and Gender. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. p. 18-19.
Baudrillard, Jean. 1991. The System of Objects. Chicago: Chicago University Press. p. 14.
The System of Objects. p. 255.
Butler, Judith. 1999. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge. p. 29.
Van Kijk, Hans. "Styles and Strategies," Architecture and Legitimacy, Rotterdam: Nai Publishers, 1995, p. 12-13.
Karl Heinrich von Boetticher, see Kenneth Frampton, Boetticher, Semper and the Tectonic: Core Form and Art Form‘, what in What is Architecture, edited by Andrew Ballantyne (London: Routledge, 2002), pp.138-52
Foucault, Michel. edited by Jeremy R. Carrette (1999). Religion and culture: Michel Foucault.
Lefebvre, Henri. 1991. The Production of Space. Massachusetts: Blackwell. p.14.
Mill, John Stuart. 2005. The Subjection of Women. New York: Barnes & Noble. p. 301.
Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. 2001. The Gay Science. Cambridge: University Press. p. 301.
Holl, Steven; Pallasmaa, Juhani; Perez; Gomez, Alberto. 1994. Questions of Perception: Phenomenology of Architecture. San Francisco, CA: William Stout Press. p.30
Pallasmaa, Questions of Perception. p.31
Leach, Neal. 2006. Camouflage. Cambridge: MIT Press. p. 98.
Ruskin, John. 2007. The Stones of Venice Vol. III: The Fall. New York: Cosimo. p.194
Derrida, Jacques. "Différance," Margins of Philosophy, Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press, 1982, p. 17. McLeod, Mary. “Everyday and Other Spaces“; Architecture and Feminism, p.9