Gender and Space

What role does gender play in the theoretical understanding and concrete experience of architecture and urban space? This course investigates the significance of gender in the production, use, and representation of architectural and urban spaces, and within the historiography of architectural and urban history. The approach is interdisciplinary, drawing on new research in the fields of architectural history, urban studies, queer theory, geography, social history, and film theory. Topics range from the relationship of power, gender, and space in nineteenth-century Boston, women\’s consumer pleasures in Victorian London, the rise of the female flbneuse, playboy apartments, and gay geographies, to the professional practices, public image, and built projects of women architects. The goal of the course is to open up new ways of thinking about the interrelationships among architecture, urban space, the body, and gendered identities.