black on white lines
paper
matilda schuman a feminist design power tools manual
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contents introduction p.5 premature gratifications p.7 dissolving patterns p.9 dissident living p.11 materiality and containment p.13 mind the blanks p.15 the non-visual perception of space p.17 conclusion p.19 reference list p.21
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introduction In this book you will find a compilation of the posts and instructional diagrams I have been producing for the archandphil.wordpress. com-blog during the autumn semester 2014 at KTH Royal Instiute of Technology. The blog is a part of the course called “Architecture and Gender: Feminist design power tools” and all the blogposts have been a base for discussion during our seminar sessions during the semester. For this publication, some diagrams and texts have been revised due to discussions and comments on the blog. This manual is mainly a personal manual for me. When I have read the assigned texts, I have only chosen to focus on what I could learn from them and try use in my own practice, but my wish is that others also could relate to my power tools. I have chosen to call the publication “Black on white” because a lot of our conversations in class have been about the binary logic we are used to categorize things, feelings, humans and almost everything within. Secondly, I my aim was to make all the diagrams in only black lines onto the white paper. But you can easily see that I failed. My thoughts about why can you read about in the conclusion.
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soup water vegetables pasta tomato sauce wine dessert
step step1: 1: plan your dinner plan your dinner (or design)
(or design)
step 2:2: step rearrange the menu rearrange the menu (or design components)... (or design components)...
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step 3: 3: step ... so you always start with ... so you always start the best bite
with the best bite
premature gratification Katherine Shonfield, one of the founding members of the collaborative art and architecture practice muf describes in the text ”Premature gratification and other pleasures” some of muf ’s most important working methods. It’s a special process, which also operates as a reaction against the traditional and linear work with small scale particular instances vs. big scale general themes. ”Muf ’s work, on the other hand, develops the particular to the general and back to the particular” (Shonfield, p. 14) The process detail/strategy = DETAIL together with the principle of premature gratification is the two strategies – or ”takes” which Shonfield highlights. After the brief description of the processes, some examples of executed projects follow where she explains in detail how the strategies have been implied into the projects. The text promotes an inclusive and joyful architec-
ture and as Shonfield points out, muf ’s processes is like the antithesis of the mentality of the 1940s and 1950s town planning (p. 17) I feel that much of my architectural education has been based on ideals from that particular time, and that’s why mufs manifesto works like a fresh breeze for me. Terms like pleasure and satisfaction is introduced, terms that have been held in the dark by the ruling themes of economy, industrialization and proven methods. The concept of premature gratification was to me completely unknown and I welcome it in to my professional vocabulary, since the joyful and playful can sometimes be hard to argue about. Hard facts often wins over the soft values and humans are logic and reasonable creatures that can put their emotions and instincts at hold. But I think that in every human the child is still there. Everyone wants to start with the good part first, we’ve just been learned that it’s something that grown-7-
ups don’t do.. To create better cities I think we should let ourselves to take the best bite first, and I think the concept of premature gratification can work as an explanatory method and even as a negotiation tactic. To work with the concept of premature gratification also means working in a feminist spirit. As the Swedish journalist and author Katrine Kielos writes about in her book ”Det enda könet/The only sex(My translation, Editor’s note) all hard facts as economy, strategy and logics has historically and traditionally been connected with men, meanwhile soft values as nature, feelings and the body has been connected to women. To introduce and highlight the importance of soft values, of joy and pleasure and to work with erasing these connections to a specific gender is important feminist tasks to work with as an architect.
step 1: study and learn to recognize the patterns of the structure
step 2: dare to break it
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step 3: over and over again
dissolving patterns How can an architectural education that continues to define professional expertise in relation to the history of white, heterosexual, Euro-American male consciousness prepare students to function as effective professionals in pluralistic communities? How will students be sensitized to ”difference” when they are encouraged to suppress their own gender, race and class identities in the process of becoming ”professional”? (Leslie Kanes Weisman, in Lori A. Brown, p. 1)
less visible = less important Man = logical = structure = individual = more visible = more important
When I read the examples that Brown discusses in her introduction, my reaction was that all the strategies she brings up, are strategies implied in a very small scale. Exhibitions, infills, small scale urban projects. I lacked strategies implied in a bigger scale: Where is the city plan, the culture house or the apartment block that was designed with a Everything starts with the education. That is where building process based on a feminist strategy? our foundation and understanding of architecture starts to evolve – a very subjective foundation, The more I analyze my reaction, the more I realformed by our experiences, teachers and profesize and see that I’m also an product of this binary sors. But today we also get influences from all over thinking. Unconsciously, I see the built architecthe world and the architectural education does to- ture, the structural and big scale architecture as day maybe not form our values as much as it used more important than the performances, infills and too. The values is underlined by blogs, magazines, details presented. I am a product of the world that discussions and daily newspapers. favors one thing over another. I am a product of the world that sets the male norm in an advantage The problem is just that the picture doesn’t change. position. The women are not there either. Because of the fact that I see a lack of strategies The question relates to the binary connection path implied in i a bigger scale, a part of me wants to of the specific genders. see more women to take on the tasks in the bigWomen = sensitive = detail = group oriented = ger scale, just for the sake of breaking this binary -9-
pattern connected to gender. On the other hand, one could also argue that it might be impossible to do that in a feminist way: because if we do, we play by the game and then it’s impossible to change the rules. I can truly understand why the feminist strategies are mostly implied in the smaller scale: because that is the scale that allows freedom, the scale of explorations, the scale where the male power structure is not as strong. Where can my actions and thoughts really help to dissolve this pattern? I think the way to go is collaborative work with non hierarchical structures. I don’t think that the future lies in the solo male genius, even though it is the solo male genius that gets most of the attention. But if we continue help each other, encourage and let our visions of the future architecture scene lead us, soon the details will start to play an important part even seen as a big structure. We all have different opportunities and interests to change. Let’s create a new pattern together, both from the outskirts and right from the structures inner core, we need both.
F K
step 1: step eat1:your breakfast in your eatbathroom your breakfast in your bathroom
step 2: step 2: your book sitting in ready read your book sitting in the kitchen sink the kitchen sink
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step 3: step take a nap on top3:of your grand pianotake a nap on top of your grand piano
dissident living
Elizabeth Dillers text Bad Press talks about the body, and how the body is being used in different ways and seen as a productive machine and a project to be as perfect as possible. To me, it’s much about a kind of a dehumanization of the body and it is a constant on-going process all around us. The passage about the white, clean shirt interested me the most. “The shirt is disciplined at every stage to conform to and unspoken social contract” says Diller on page 64. The white shirt is a product, designed in every stage, to be a rational process that is proper in all stages. It is also a product designed for a specific person: a working man. When I was in Paris the last weekend it stroke me how a woman never can be right. Because already
from the beginning, the man is the norm and it doesn’t matter how much you try, because it’s already decided that you as a woman is wrong. You are the second best. I was thinking of this because of clothes. The shirt, tie and suit as the “right” way to dress in a business situation only applies to men, and it creates the unspoken social contract that Diller mentions. As a women you are free to dress like this, but you can never be right because you are not a part of the unspoken social contract. “When worn, the residue of the orthogonal logic of efficiency is registered on the surface of the body. The parallel creases ad crisp, square corners of a clean, pressed shirt have become sought after emblems of refinement. The by-product of efficiency has become a new object of its desire.” -11-
I think it’s time for something else to take place. The social contract of efficiency, cleanliness, properness, perfection is something we can leave behind and focus to the future. I just love Diller’s experiments with the dissident ironing and to me, it’s easy to relate to design. Designers and architects propose spatial configurations of rooms and things, and we t h i n k that we know how people are going to use it. But we don’t really do that. I guess we don’t really use our own apartments really as they we’re designed and let’s take that a step further. It’s time for dissident living.
Impermeable
Step 2: Permeable
FEMINIST DESIGN POW
NO: 4
NO: 4
The materiality sets the ru
EXPLORE TH BETWEEN TH AND THE CO
step 3: impermeable FEMINIST DESIGN POW
The materiality sets the ru
EXPLORE TH BETWEEN TH AND THE CO
FEMINIST DESIGN POW
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Step 3: Open
Step 1: Impermeable
Step 2: Permeable
Step 3: Open
Step 1: Impermeable
step 2: impermeable step 1: impermeable
materiality and containment
The essay Container Technologies by Zoë Sofia discusses the function and the common view of the container and the contained through history by a handful of philosophers and thinkers as Lewis Mumford, Gregory Bateson and Martin Heidegger. She concludes that the phenomena of containing has been labeled as feminine and she sees that this is one criteria that have made the word “passive”, in contradiction to the masculine and “active” tools. But she also argues that is not the full story, and continued: The problem is not just bad metaphysics or misogyny but the structure of production and reproduction itself. The container is a structurally necessary but frequently unacknowledgeable precondition of becoming. (Sofia p. 188) One of my big interests in architecture is the relationship to the skin/outside/container and
the flesh/inside/contained. The materiality of the container specifies how that relationship is configured and the question of materiality interests me. As Sofia points out as her fourth point when she discusses Heideggers essay “The thing”, the discussion of containment also includes the phenomena of incontinence. The skin of a human is an organ in it self and the exchange between our inside to the outside is in a constant flux and one could say that the human skin is leaking. Not all containers are designed to be impermeable or like the jug capable of outpouring: some are are for slow leakage, some for soaking up drips, other for what we hope will be permanent containing. (Sofia, p. 192) Our buildings have facades that is the equivalent of the human skin, to contain the inside and protect from the outside. The activity inside -13-
the buildings affect the facade/the skin just like the flesh and the inner world of the body affects the skin/the facade, and how we handle that is a question of materiality and vision. Today we strive for totally controlled and closed facades, but what if we could be more innovative and play with the materiality and aspects of exchange between the container and the contained? I feel like I could go on forever. The aspect of materiality is also interesting to keep on discussing in relationship to the aspect of containing, also because of the notion that the word materiality comes from matter --> materia (wood, timber, matter) -->mother (because the woody part was seen as the source of growth) and how this relates to the concept of becoming which is linked to the containing...
Step 1:
step 1:the frame. Create create a frame
Step 2:
step 2:the pen to someone else. Give give the pen to someone else
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Step 3:
step 3: use their imagination Let them andthem fill in the let fillblanks. in the blanks
mind the blanks
WALLS AND CEILING:
BATHROOMS:
___
Walls are painted in white. Window has sash and frame in bright aluminum. White painted concrete ceiling with visible joints.
Comfort heating. Floors in cream, matte tile plate, size 60x60 cm. Walls covered with shiny tiles, size 60x30 cm.
Walls are painted in ____. Windows has sash and frame in _____________. _____ painted ____ ceiling with ____ joints.
____ heating. Floors in _____, size ______. Walls covered with ____, size ____.
Imagination is just as important in architecture as in writing. A story when you get to know exactly everything, described in full detail, are not an interesting story. The author or the architect should provide the framework and let (sometimes maybe provoke?) the reader/inhabitant to be as creative and imaginative as possible.
Walls are painted in pink with 40x40 cm golden dots. Windows has broken sashs and frame with louvers in wood. Light blue (dotted) painted concrete ceiling with visible joints (and don’t forget: clouds that mimic the sky)
Totally uncomfortable heating (always too hot and moisty). Floors in raw concrete, in the size of the whole room. Walls covered with flowers (70% white, 30% pink), size ranging from 12 cm to 37 cm. -15-
Let others fill in the blanks.
step 1: Step find aa blanket, Find blanket, shirt or other textile or other
step Step2:1: tie Tieititaround aroundyour yourhead headand and cover close your eyes
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step3:3: Step compose something something amazing amazing Compose withyour yourforgotten forgottensenses senses with
the non-visual perception of space
When you were a kid, you often got the question from time to time: “What would you prefer? Being blind or deaf?”. I had such a hard time to choose. It would be awful to not hear music, but finally I almost always chose to be able to see. I really feel so insecure when I can’t see anything. But when you have to sharpen and trust your other senses you will instead be able to experience new things.
Architects get trained a lot in visual communication. Of course it’s important and something we should be good at. But sometimes it’s good to do things in a totally different way. With that said, I think it’s time to bring in the other senses as the main characters in the play. What a creative task! And also if we were made to try to capture our non-visual design in visual communication. This opens up for a much broader way of designing and working with architecture which also is more inclusive. -17-
I dream about working on a project where the visual perception was a forbidden sense to consider, just to try it. No drawings. No renderings. No text. Everything you considered and designed where how it felt to touch the fake-marble window sill, the oppressing sound of closing the front door or the sauna like smell of the wooden closets when they warm and the wood expands a little in the bright summer afternoon sun.
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conclusion The black lines on the white paper couldn’t help to merge and break free. When the creativity was let free, all kinds of grey fields, textures, dots and everyhing you can find in between the white and the black became present in my diagrams. The binary logic is just a way humans invented so we more easily could sort our impressions and experiences into separate boxes. So we didn’t have to consider or think about everything that is new to us all the time. But the binary, the black and the white, has nothing to do with the full richness and variations that the life as an human can incorporate.
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reference list Readings: Brown, Lori A. “Introduction of Feminist Practices – Interdisciplinary Approaches to Woman in Architecture“, Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2011 Diller, Elizabeth ‘Bad Press’ in Francesca Hughes, ed. “The Architect Reconstructing her Practice”, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996, pp. 74-95. Kielos, Katrine “Det enda könet”, Albert Bonniers Förlag, 2012 Rawes, Peg, ‘Introduction’; ‘Touching and Sensing’ in “Irigaray for Architects”, London: Routledge, 2007 Rendell, Jane, “Site-Writing: The Architecture of Art Criticism”, London: I.B. Tauris, 2010 Shonfield, Katherine, ‘Premature Gratification and Other Pleasures ‘ in “This is What we do: a muf manual”, London: Elipsis London, 2001 Sofia, Zoe “Container Technologies” in Hypatia Vol. 15, No. 2, Spring Other sources: Material description of the planned apartment block ”Orangeriet” by Oscar Properties in Hammarby Sjöstad. http://www.thefreedictionary.com/matter
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