NO TIME LIKE THE PRESENT A Manual of Feminist Design Power-Tools
Johanna Nenander, ht 2013
TABLE OF CONTENT Introduction Chapter 1 “The meaning of design” Chapter 2 “Altering the professional role” Chapter 3 “Domestic normativity” Chapter 4 “Morality of development” Chapter 5 “Coming to reading” Chapter 6 “Political vitality” Conclusion Manifesto Bibliography Addendum
This booklet is a collection of my reflections, written weekly in response to readings from the course Architecture + Gender: Feminist Design Power-Tools. It is organized chronologically, in the order they where written, following the overall themes of each week. In each text I’ve tried to summarize the key arguments of every reading with an addition of my own reflections, which sometimes results in positioning myself more explicitly, and sometimes ends in more of a general discussion. The illustrations aims to visualize the main conclusion of respective text and are designed with the pictogram as inspiration. The aesthetics of the pictogram is used to be instructional
and quick to communicate whatever needs to be illustrated. It is often stripped down to the most crucial information and claims to be “neutral” and straightforward in its communication. I am interested in this visual “neutrality”, although questioning the gender representation within the instructions of the pictogram illustration (almost all men, apart from women’s bathroom). The first chapter deals with the issue of architecture and design as materialized ideas, which reproduce our ideals and norms. The second discusses our roles as designers, where the boundary is found between the professional and personal in the practice and process of architecture.
The third chapter returns partly to the theme of the first but goes a little further in defining the relation between embodiments of ideas and the physical objects and spaces themselves. Chapter four and six also share similar reasoning and deals with the construction of reality, how we describe and understand the world and what patterns of thought and political consequences this produces. The fifth chapter deals with the imagery of text; the visual associations and cultural references that are weaved into a text and how the choices of those references includes or excludes the reader. The booklet is concluded with a summarizing reflection.
A Manual of Feminist Design Power-Tools 2013-12-13: Introduction
THE IDEALS
A Manual of Feminist Design Power-Tools 2013-12-13: Chapter 1
THE MEANING OF DESIGN Leslie Kanes Weisman describes in the prologue of Gender Space Architecture “Women’s Environmental Rights: A Manifesto” architecture and design as cultural expressions that are inseparable from its cultural context. This means that our ideas about who and how a space or design is going to be used is embedded within the design, and that the design becomes an embodiment of the set of beliefs that the designer or architect shares. Weisman lists a number of fields within the physical environment where patriarch structures are materialized, creating an unfavorable situation for women. She argues that this is most noticeable, that women are neglected or consciously put aside, within the fields of public space, system of transportation and housing policies. Further on Weisman urges us to act consciously; ”We must ask ourselves who will benefit and who will lose in decisions being made about neighborhoods, homes, and workplaces, and endorse those pro-
posals that make life easier for us and for those groups who have the least.” (Weisman, pp 4). My reflections on Weismans position starts with the idea of the meaning of objects. This is an acknowledged conflict within the theoretical field of architecture, where one side claims that architectural objects are just that, objects, on which we project our interpretations and views and the other side, Weisman included, states that architecture embodies and materializes our views and values. This also means that architecture shapes the people that inhabit it. I hesitate to pick side, recognizing relevant arguments from both positions. But also since I am not sure there’s a conflict - the connection can only be more or less evident. The functionalistic design of the dwelling layout is, to our context, maybe a more relevant example of how ideas of behaviour and norms transforms into design, than the examples Weisman brings up. The typical dwelling layout is “optimized” for the nuclear family, the size (the three room apartment was the most
frequent type in the million program) and the orientation and size of bedrooms (master bedroom and the smaller children’s bedroom) reveals this normative ideal. Also the idea of “optimizing” and spatial efficiency derives from a shift in target group, who the design (dwelling) is for, and since the functionalistic apartments were designed for the “ordinary” family it couldn’t be too expensive. Finally the kitchen design (especially the “parallel kitchens”) is adjusted after the ideal of rationalization in the production process of food –it is (only) meant to be used for heating up prefabricated food (normally executed by one person within the household, the woman). Weismans examples of the materialization of patriarch beliefs in the physical environment are both dated and perhaps too structural. Both infrastructural systems and housing policies should be analysed from an intersectional perspective, but in order to be punchy in the argumentation, I call for more and updated examples of the physical materializations of patriarch structures.
A Manual of Feminist Design Power-Tools 2013-12-13: Chapter 1
PERSPECTIVE INTERPRETER
CULTURAL CONTEXT
A Manual of Feminist Design Power-Tools 2013-12-13: Chapter 2
ALTERING THE PROFESSIONAL ROLE In the introduction to “Feminist Practices Interdisciplinary Approaches to Women in Architecture” Lori A. Brown explains her approach to feminism within the field of architecture and the overall objective of the exhibit and book. Brown describes how the contributors to the book “...work towards making visible the invisible power dynamics at play. The included projects and essays help to re-conceptualize power and create different value systems for design. “ (Brown, Feminist Practices, p. 4). Even though Browns focuses on methods and the processes of design, instead of a theoretical analysis, she shares the same elementary understanding of architecture as a cultural expression as Leslie Kanes Weisman. Architecture and design is described as a materialization of ideas, why including alternative ways
of thinking and practicing is key to achieve diversity and inclusiveness in the physical environment. Questioning the normative conventions within our profession as designers as well as becoming more culturally and socially diverse as an academic and professional group is Browns’ overall ambition for our professional future. Brown is challenging the conception of the professional role of the architect on multiple levels. She urges an interdisciplinary approach and encourages social engagement, outside the boundaries of the office. She also challenges the idea of the power relationship between the client and the architect, which often is conceived as “power over” the client, but in the context of feminist practices, is alternatively defined as “power for” the client. Browns ways of broadening the definition of the professional bound-
aries of designers and demanding engagement and awareness of the social and cultural dimensions our work is inspirational. The focus on approaches and methodologies are more constructive and motivating than the pure theoretical analysis. It brings the gender question within design from an abstract structural level to an understandable scale where we become aware of how we can make a difference through our actions and methods of designing. But it also dissolves the boundaries between private and public in our professional lives, pushing the profession towards lifestyle instead being just a job. It’s not entirely uncomplicated to mix the private experiences of our socio-cultural context with our professional role. It can also mean that I, for instance, limit myself to design only for those who are the same as me; urban living, female, Scandinavian students in their 20’s.
A Manual of Feminist Design Power-Tools 2013-12-13: Chapter 2
SPECIFIC & NORMATIVE
GENERAL & REINTERPRETABLE
A Manual of Feminist Design Power-Tools 2013-12-13: Chapter 3
DOMESTIC NORMATIVITY The focus in Elizabeth Dillers ”Bad press” deals with matters of the private and public, what is considered “proper”, with the body and its social aspects as the point of departure. Diller explains how the view on the body, at the end of the nineteen century, transforms into being understood as an extension of the factory, as efficient and rational man-power. “Scientific management, or Taylorism, sought to rationalize and standardize the motions of this body, harnessing its dynamic energy and converting it to efficient labour power.” (Diller, Bad Press, p. 77). These ideas also spread into the domestic sphere, involving the labour performed within the house, housework, and the man-power that where expected to execute this work, the house wife. A clean, hygienic home, rationally designed for efficient
housework, also had a moral resonance with social consequences. Diller continues to discuss the displacement of the understanding of housework, as less gendered, and today connected to multitasking or leisure. She also shows the connection between social codes and social belongings, and chores within the house, through a number of examples of instructions on how to iron a shirt. The folds and creases create a pattern that says something about the wearer’s status, at the same time as the action of ironing supports the industry of production. The search for the modern “standard”, the ultimate and most rational way, has had vast effects on domestic design since after the Second World War. It is no coincidence that the Neuferts’ “Architects’ Data” takes a domestic focus at this time. But despite the ambition of finding the gen-
eral formula, the recommendations includes a lot of concealed ideas of who the user is and how a procedure is executed. It seems as if design as a carrier or producer of norms is more evident the closer to the body it comes. The kitchen is one of the most revealing spaces in terms of who a design is meant for and how it shows in the built environment. No one questions the standard height of the kitchen counter for instance, even though 90 cm obviously is too short for many of today’s users. The idea of cooking as a procedure that should be performed by one person within the shortest time possible, is materialized in the popular model of the “parallel kitchen”. But today, when taking time to cook and socialize is a sign of social status (time is money) the layout of the kitchen is bigger, more lavished and has a more central position within the layout of the dwelling.
A Manual of Feminist Design Power-Tools 2013-12-13: Chapter 3
THE TRAP
A Manual of Feminist Design Power-Tools 2013-12-13: Chapter 4
MORALITY OF DEVELOPMENT Donna J. Harraway takes an intersectional approach to the discussion about human relations to nature and machines within the Western tradition, in her text “Cyborg Manifesto” in Simians, Cyborgs and Women The Reinvention of nature. Harraway explains how “A cyborg is a cybernetic organism, a hybrid of machine and organism, a creature of social reality as well as a creature of fiction.” (Harraway, pp. 149). The imagery of the cyborg aims to dissolve the way we describe ourselves and our world in dualistic relations; nature or culture, man or woman, black or white, human or machine. Harraways’ fundamental condition is the construction of nature, gender and our social relations, this also generates an elaboration on identity. But the relevance for the discussion
on the cyborg is also predicated on the scientific and technological development that we stand before. Harraway’s objective is to highlight the need for “...taking responsibility for the social relations of science and technology”. She also rejects the desire of one universal, totalizing theory and argues that multiple perspectives lead to a less skewed view of the world. I embrace Harraways way of challenging common and “neutral” views on science, research or medicine, fields that purports to come from a “rational” point of view. Especially the constructed counter-relation of nature vs. culture hold values deriving from the romantic movement of nineteen century, where “nature” is seen as the divine, the sublime and almost replace the role of religious homage. This view is still dominant on
our perception of the world, creating a moral value-system embracing the “natural”. We treat nature as a moral guide book, continuously projecting our ideas on “nature” and explaining why something must be because it is “natural”. The “cultural” on the other hand is not surrounded by this divine glow, since it’s created by humans. This also explains any hesitation towards scientific break-trough’s and why cyborgs or machines might be considered provoking. Recognizing the construction of the concept of the world means taking more responsibility for how we continue to construct it. Scientific and technological development can mean great improvements of our daily lives as well as tools for exclusion and dominance. This development also exposes how the most progressive activity – ironically - brings out the most reactionary responses.
A Manual of Feminist Design Power-Tools 2013-12-13: Chapter 4
PATH PATH OF OF ASSOCIATION ASSOCIATION
A Manual of Feminist Design Power-Tools 2013-12-13: Chapter 5
COMING TO READING - the associative structure of mental illustrations The continuous flow of abstract imagery, illustrations, and visual associations is what frames the emotional reading of a text. A skilfully constructed text anticipates the associations and mental images that populate the readers mind. Hélène Cixous’ “Coming to writing” is a rich flow of overlapping memories, stories, experiences, invitations, all displayed in an associative structure where one passage floats into another without further presentation. She paints her text with biblical imagery; The burning bush, Adam and Eve, the paradise, gardens of love, rivers of Babylon, “the Land that is always promised”. She populates her text with animals;
Mice, Cats, Wolfs, Lamb, Poultry, the Animale, the Dreamfish. She braids other stories and myths into her text, borrowing imagery from our common frames of cultural reference; Tristan and Isolde, Little Red Riding hood, Snow White, Eros, Romeo and Juliette, Tom Thumb, Eurydice and Orpheus, Cinderella. The themes of the text themselves work as associations; The body, the flesh, the blood, mortality, death, pleasure, violence, sickness… This is one sequence of overlapping images. It continues; with force, out of control, nature, shame, identity, women, exclusion, language…
the bodily. Tounge, eating, vomiting, consuming, reading, writing, being, giving birth… Reasons for living and writing is the same; Without reason, madness, wild, punishment, letting go, risk, reborn… Then; Love, the Other, the Source, the endless, dreams, world, water, flow, unleash… The flow is not necessarily linear; an association is rather a jump to the parallel, to the brother or sister of an idea, instead of the offspring. But Cixous always brings us back to the origin; the body.
From language to tongue; always this leap from the intellectually abstract to
A Manual of Feminist Design Power-Tools 2013-12-13: Chapter 5
”ITS ONLY NATURAL” “NATURAL” HIERARCHY?
A Manual of Feminist Design Power-Tools 2013-12-13: Chapter 6
POLITICAL VITALITY In order to illustrate the relation between politics, science and how we understand the material world, Jane Bennett discusses the tradition of “vitalism” through the work of Hans Driesch in her text “A Vitalist Stopover on the Way to a New Materialism”. This “vital materialism” that Bennett describes is an interpretation where technical and natural materialities are viewed as independent actors, with an agenda of their own, beyond the meanings and projections that we lay on them. The explanation of the physical world, in the vistalist sense, defines matter as calculable and deterministic but with a “vital” and “free” property that Driesch calls
“entelechy”. This potent force is what creates change in an organism and what drives stem cells, that have the potential to develop into many different things, to grow in a certain way. This force is neither spiritual, nor an amount of energy, but only the “stimulus for the movement of morphing”. Bennett problematizes Driesch’s vitalism by exemplifying how the same time line of thought can have vast consequences in the political domain. In “The culture of life”, a position defended by for instance George W. Bush, vitalism becomes a way of defending moral views about abortion, embryonic stem cell research and artificial life support. But vitalism could also open up to a discussion in which we, as hu-
mans, become more connected to our environment, makes us a part of our surroundings, and dissolving the boundary between the individual, the collective, nature and other organisms. It seems as we construct explanatory models that suits our purposes to an extent that we at some point must ask weather its even relevant to search for moral guidance within the field of science. These systems and theories are perhaps only a reflection of what we are looking for, rather than an answer to the question. Maybe its more relevant to start from the other end: What kind of society do we want to construct? And who would benefit from that system?
A Manual of Feminist Design Power-Tools 2013-12-13: Chapter 5
In conclusion, I seem to return to a few main themes that pervades in the texts of each chapter. The issue of how ideals are physically materialized in architecture is one of the most central, both in this booklet but also as a persistent struggle in my practice. This is also why the issue lingers, the practical nature of the matter. I think architecture is the most interesting when the theoretical and practical sides merge. But I do wish for a more extensive debate on the “evidence” or examples of how ideals are materialized in architecture. The idea of obsolete thoughts, still oppressing us through petrified architecture is both frightening and
fascinating. Another theme, perhaps not explicitly articulated in the texts but still reoccurring, deals with the political side of architecture. We try so hard to become professionals that have an objective and neutral position, that we fool ourselves thinking that we don’t need a political approach to our practice, when in fact every action is a political action, we can either become aware of where we stand and make a conscious choice, or remain passive “victims” of the political will of others. Everything we produce, weather it is cultural referencing in texts or images of our design, is simultaneously a reproduction of our cultural values, and
we need to take a good look at what values we, as designers, continue to reproduce. Thirdly, I take great interest in our cultural production of “nature” and what moral and political consequences this has. The danger of buying into the common comprehension of nature as something pristine, innocent or even divine is that we loose the interpretative prerogative to “men of science”. If we instead regard nature as the cultural product it is, we empower ourselves to take the first steps towards constructing our own reality. And there’s no time like the present to start doing just that.
A Manual of Feminist Design Power-Tools 2013-12-13: Conclusion
MANIFESTO Six points towards a social reinvention of the architectural practice 1) Who do you design for? Be aware of what values and positions your design embodies.
2) Position yourself! Make use of your socio-cultural identity in your professional role and make visible the power structures at play in your practice. 3) The closer the design is to the body, the more revealing is the ideals and intention of the designer - dare to be specific in design.
4) Don’t get trapped in the conventional way of describing the world. It’s the nuances, not the polarities! 5) Take responsibility for what cultural conventions you reproduce, weather its a reference or illustration. 6) Nature is a social construction Dare to construct your own society!
A Manual of Feminist Design Power-Tools 2013-12-13: Manifesto
BIBLIOGRAPHY Leslie Kanes Weisman, ‘Women’s Environmental Rights: A Manifesto’ in Jane Rendell, Barbara Penner, Iain Borden, eds, Gender Space Architecture: An Interdisciplinary Introduction, London: Routledge, 2000, pp. 1-5. Lori Brown, ‘Introduction’ Lori Brown, ed., Feminist Practices: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Women in Architecture, London: Ashgate, 2011. Elizabeth Diller, ‘Bad Press’ in Francesca Hughes, ed. The Architect Reconstructing her Practice, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996, pp. 74-95.
Donna Haraway, ‘Cyborg Manifesto’ in Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature, London: Free Association Books, 1991, pp. 149Hélène Cixous, ‘Coming to Writing’ in Hélène Cixous, Coming to Writing and Other Essays, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991. Jane Bennett, ‘A Vitalist Stopover on the Way to a New Materialism’ in Diana Coole and Samantha Frost, eds. New Materialisms: Ontology, Agency, and Politics, Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2010, pp. 4769.
Source of inspiration for discussion on the theme of “nature”: William Cronon, “Uncommon Ground - Rethinking the Human Place in Nature”, 1995, W.W Northon & Company, New York, pp. 23-56. Source of inspiration for discussion on the theme of “standard”: Neufert Architects’ Data, Fourth Edition, Ernst Neufert and Peter Neufert. All images are worked through and adapted to communicate and illustrate the essence of each text. They all originate from a collection of pictograms that are passed on from generation to generation of graphic designers and arhitects. There’s never one artist, but rather several, everyone makes small changes to the document before passing it on.
A Manual of Feminist Design Power-Tools 2013-12-13: Bibliography
In response to “LIMITATIONS” posted by Klara Östlund on December 10th
In response to “TEXT – ARCHITECTURE – POLITICS” by Poppe on November 21th
In response to “A READABLE ARCHITECTURE FOR EVERYONE” by Ninel Niazi on November 20th
I am constantly getting back to the same line of thought, similar to what you are discussing, that no matter how extensive the results of scientific research are, we still know so little about the world we inhabit and are a part of. Wikipedia says that 72 % of the universe consists of dark energy, 26 % of dark matter and only 5 % of “ordinary” matter –which we do know a little bit about, while dark matter is one of the unresolved problems within physics. The reason for researching and trying to explain is obviously curiosity and also, it seems, a search for meaning or even moral guidance of how we should live our lives. I think maybe we could start in the other end and start discussing what kind of society we want to live in, instead of interpreting scientific results. What do you think, you’re reasoning is not far from this conclusion? If we cannot see ourselves without the context of our culture why search for some “ultimate truth”? Btw, beautiful illustration!
Your thoughts on the planned environment make me think of my maybe most intense, paranoiac experience concerning our global visual culture. I was watching the documentary about Helvetica by Gary Hustwit, have you seen it? This font, which without words and without revolution, suddenly took over, and now enjoys such a prominent position, that no other font ever had before. I am not sure I recommend you to watch it (can lead to “planning paranoia”), but in response to your question Could we ever get free? I am afraid that the answer is no, not as long as Helvetica has us.
Realize architecture as “psychic building”, with an “emotional structure”, your challenge is inspiring! When I started architecture school I thought I was going to learn how to build a house. What a mistake! Now I think more about why we build and for whom we design. We need to stop reproducing social structures where men and women relate to each other as oppositional polarities and start being more generous and allowing to normative deviation.
A Manual of Feminist Design Power-Tools 2013-12-13: Addendum
In response to “STEP 2. REINVENT THE WHEEL” by Anders on October 9th I come to think of another strategy for escaping cultural context that Atelier van Lieshout performed in 2001. Their art project “AVL-ville” was the construction of a “free state” in the port of Rotterdam. It’s perhaps a parallel to lying, more pretending, but still delivering a sharp critic on our contemporary society. They had their own constitution, currency and flag and produced their own food, alcohol and energy. Somehow they did actually reinvent the wheel.
In response to: “DO MORE FOR LESS” by Havar on November 29th Reading your post, particularly your thoughts on lifestyle and how we value certain jobs, I come to think of another example of how we try to make life easier, and simultaneously overlooking perspective on whom it serves and who’s paying for it. I am thinking of the “RUT-avdraget”, an opportunity to get tax reduction for having professional help with the household work, such as cleaning, doing laundry, cleaning windows etc. I do on one hand appreciate the professionalization of this otherwise unpaid work, that is otherwise mostly carried out by women. I think it can have an equalizing effect if the household work gets valued in economic terms, that way it becomes visible and included in the societal-economic system. But, on the other hand, looking at it from a class perspective, will it only increase the difference between different groups in society, creating a served class and a serving one? What are your thoughts on this?
In response to: “THE NON-VISUAL PERCEPTION OF SPACE” by Matilda on December 4th I share your excitement and curiosity for the non-visual aspects of our profession. It is truly problematic that our educational training is so focused on the visual. Material knowledge is not the same as material experience, and small pieces of samples, which in best case is the closest we get, can never replace full size experience. As it is now, we get very talented in imagining materials and spaces, but I would love a more tactile educational set-up.
A Manual of Feminist Design Power-Tools 2013-12-13: Addendum