Feminism and architecture: origins and evolution from reflection to design practice

Abstract

Combining feminism and architecture means understanding and designing the spaces we inhabit through a gender perspective capable of overturning stereotypes and clichés, unfortunately still widespread despite the research developed by many feminist scholars. These have initiated a new historical perspective that has changed the methodologies of analysis, bringing out many women who were left in the shadows. Recomposing memories to build gender genealogies and elaborating theoretical reflections to give substance to feminist approaches have been the two most recurring approaches, to which a third line of reflections and practices is being added, more recently, related to the design approach. The article briefly retraces some emblematic figures of recent history and then dwells on contemporary projects in which, finally, women are key actors in imagining, proposing, and creating an inclusive city that knows how to take charge of everyone’s needs, but also desires, at an intergenerational and intersectional level. Alongside the work of memory, the elaboration of a knowledge that is not neutral, but positioned on our being women, enables implementation practices that shape and give life to new types of space in which it becomes possible to break old dichotomies and gender discriminations.