Architecture as Feminist Practice

Intervention describes forms of architectural action that engage directly with societal, political and disciplinary discourse. Feminism serves as a systemic strategy for analysing and transforming societal power structures. Interventions expose structural inequalities, reveal fractures and controversies, and extend architectural debate into the public realm.

“The truth will set you free. But first it will piss you off.”
Gloria Steinem

Architecture is inherently political. Critique, position and public discourse are integral to architectural action. Architecture develops its societal relevance through built space as well as through the discourses, conflicts and processes of negotiation in which it participates.

Interventions emerge through different constellations and collaborations, within and beyond institutions and organisations, and across a range of formats. One example is the symposium ROOM AT THE TOP! – Feminist Activism as Architectural Practice, held at the PBSA/HSD. Taking Denise Scott Brown’s essay Room at the Top? Sexism in the Star System in Architecture as its point of departure, the symposium explores the significance of feminist activism for architecture, teaching, practice and disciplinary discourse. Within university policy and institutional development, this position informs the work of the Gender Diversity Action Team (GDAT) at Hochschule Düsseldorf. The publication Architecture – A Women’s Profession similarly operates as an intervention within architectural discourse.

Architecture both reflects societal power structures and provides a means for transforming them. Eliminating structural inequalities is intrinsic to the development and democratisation of the discipline. In this context, feminism provides an analytical and transformative framework that connects critical thinking, empowerment and democratic processes of negotiation.