Lines in Practice: Thinking Architectural Representation through Feminist Critiques of geometry
Abstract
To design, negotiate, quantify, legislate and produce buildings, architecture uses a highly codified system of drawing that is based in Cartesian geometry. The work of three feminists, Donna Haraway, Julia Kristeva and Luce Irigaray uncovers problems and limits of geometry and raises questions for its unchallenged use within the architectural discipline. The work suggests figurations-imaginaries for changethat might be productive for critical architectural 'representations'. How have artists and architects disrupted linear conventions, and what implications might these challenges have not only for how architecture is represented but how it is practiced?References
Alsop, W. (1993) Architectural Monographs No. 33: William Alsop and Jan Stormer. London: Academy Editions.
Alsop, W. (2000) Interview with the author. 26.06.00
Betterton, R. (1996) An Intimate Distance: Women, Artists and the Body. London: Routledge.
Bloomer, J. (1992) Tabbies of Bower. Assemblages, 17:6-29.
Brodsky Lacour, C. (1996) Lines of Thought: DiscQurse, Architectonics and the Origin of Modern Philosophy. London: Duke University Press.
Burns, C. (1991) On site: Architectural preoccupations. In Kahn, A. (ed.) Building/ Drawing/Text. Princeton: Princeton University Press, pp. 147-165.
Derrida, J. (1976) Of Grammatology. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press.
Derrida, J. (1989) Edmund Husserl's Origin of Geometry: An Introduction. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
Descartes, R. (1954) The Geometry of Rene Descartes. New York: Dover Publications.
Descartes, R. (1968) Discourse on the Method and the Meditations. London: Penguin ClasSlCS.
Evans, R. (1997) Translations from Drawing to Building and Other Essays. London: AA Documents.
Flax, J. (1993) Disputed Subjects: Essays on Psychoanalysis, Politics and Philosophy. New York: Routledge
Flax, J. (1991) Thinking Fragments: Psychoanalysis, Feminism and Postmodernism in the Contemporary West. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Haraway, D. (1997) Modest Witness@Second_Millenium.FemaleMan©_Meets_ Oncomouse TM. London: Routledge.
Harding, S (1986) The Science Question in Feminism. Milton Keynes: Open University Press.
Hawley, C. (1996) Invisible lines. In Hughes, F. (ed.) The Architect: Reconstructing Her Practice. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 164-181.
Husserl, E. (1989) The origin of geometry. In Derrida, J. (ed.) Edmund Husser/'s Origin of Geometry: An Introduction. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
Ingraham, C. (1998) Architecture and the Burdens of Linearity. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Ingraham, C. (1996) Losing it in architecture. In Hughes, F. (ed.) The Architect: Reconstructing Her Practice. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 148-163.
Ingraham, C. (1991) Lines and linearity: Problems in architectural theory. In Kahn, A. (ed.) Building/Drawing/Text. Princeton: Princeton University Press, pp. 63-84.
Irigaray, L. (1993a) An Ethics of Sexual Difference. London: The Athlone Press.
Irigaray, L. (1993b) Sexes and Genealogies. New York: Columbia University Press.
Jackson, B. (2000) Interview with author 28.09.00.
King, G. (1996) Mapping Reality: An Exploration of Cultural Cartographies. Basingstoke: Macmillan.
Kristeva, J. (1992) Jackson Pollock's Milky Way. In Benjamin, A. (ed.) Journal of Philosophy and Visual Arts, London: Academy Editions, pp. 34-39.
Kristeva, J. (1984a) Revolution in Poetic Language. New York: Columbia University Press.
Kristeva, J. (1984b) Desire in Language. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Lacan, J. (1997) Ecrits. London: Routledge.
Lessing, D. (1968) Going Home. St. Albans: Panther Books.
Lichtenberg Ettinger, B. (1993) Matrix Halal(a)-Lapsus; Notes on Painting. Oxford: Museum of Modern Art
McKee, F. (1999) Kathy Prendergast: The End and the Beginning. London: Merrell.
Muf Art and Architecture (1998) Shared ground. In Hill, J. (ed.) Occupying Architecture: Between the Architect and the User. London: Routledge pp. 119-134.
Oliver, K. (1994) Reading Kristeva; Unravelling the Double Bind. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Perez-G6mez, A. (1983) Architecture and the Crisis of Modern Science. Cambridge MA: MIT Press.
Pollock, G. (1996) Avant Gardes and Partisans Reviewed. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Pollock, G. (1995) After the reapers: Gleaning the past the feminine and another future from the work of Bracha Lichtenberg Ettinger. In Lichtenberg-Ettinger, B. Halal(a)-Austiwork. Jerusalem: Israel Museum, pp. 130-165.
Robbins, E. (1994) Why Architects Draw. Cambridge MA: MIT Press.
Serres, M. (1982) Hermes: Literature, Science and Philosophy. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press
Turnbull, D. and Watson R. (1993) Maps are Territories: Science is an Atlas. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Wigglesworth, S. and Till, J. (1998) Table manners. Architectural Design, 68:31-35.
- The contributor(s) (authors) warrant that the entire work is original and unpublished; it is submitted only to this Journal and all text, data, figures/tables or other illustrations included in this work are completely original and unpublished, and these have not been previously published or submitted elsewhere in any form or media whatsoever.
- The contributor(s) warrant that the work contains no unlawful or libelous statements and opinions and liable materials of any kind whatsoever, does not infringe on any copyrights, intellectual property rights, personal rights or rights of any kind of others, nor contains any plagiarized, fraudulent, improperly attributed materials, instructions, procedures, information or ideas that might cause any harm, damage, injury, losses or costs of any kind to person or property.
- The contributor(s) retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- The contributor(s) are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- The contributor(s) are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
- Geography Research Forum may disseminate the content of the publications and publications’ Meta data in text, image, or other print and electronic formats to providers of research databases (e.g. EBSCO, GeoBase, JSTOR) to facilitate publications' exposure.
