The Fe-Male Spaces of Modernism: A Western Canadian Perspective

Abstract

The Provision of improved facilities for women in domestic space and their increased participation in the design process were material aspects of the Modern movement in architecture. While initially directed toward the provision of improved conditions for lower-income families, the main outcome would occur in postwar middle-class housing, particularly in North America. This outcome was associated with a renewal of conservative suburbanization and populist capitalism. The consequences of these design and socioeconomic practices – especially as demonstrated in that significant liminal space between theorized professional production and anecdotal public consumption – for the reinscription of women's presence in domestic space was therefore of considerable import. Scholarly attention has concentrated on the architectural consequences of revised gender relations and on the activity of women designers and architectural writers. This essay seeks to advance discussion of those consequences and activities by means of a situated approach that is centered on a multivalent analysis of the supposed inscription and representation of the modern woman in the Modernist suburban home. The site is the rapidly expanding but physically, socioeconomically, and culturally discreet North Shore area of Vancouver, 1945–65. The location typifies the resuscitation of the middle-class suburb through what might be termed Automod-ernism. The extension of North American trends such as the individual family automobile and home ownership reinforced by laborsaving appliances became a distinct phenomenon of the Modern movement. The time frame corresponds with the postwar baby boom and sustained economic and demographic growth, when child rearing generally kept women, especially of middle-income families, mostly at home.