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Women Writing Architecture: Female Experiences of the Built 1700-1900

Project description

Presenting architecture’s past through the female eye

The EU-funded WoWA project is studying women's contributions to architecture via documentary writing from German-speaking Europe, Britain, Chile, Peru and Argentina between 1700 and 1900. Architectural history as a discipline has to look beyond the production of buildings to fully understand the past of the built environment as experienced and shaped by colonised groups, such as women, during a period of dramatic social, political, technological and architectural transformation on both sides of the Atlantic. To that end, the project will explore how women documented built spaces and canonical architecture, aiming to uncover the female agency within architecture in a period that has thus far been considered as male-dominated.

Objective

WoWA studies female experiences of architecture as recorded in documentary writing drawn from specific regions in South America and Europe between 1700 and 1900. While architectural histories often focus on male-dominated processes of design and production, this project takes a new stance by unearthing women’s contributions to the architectural sphere through writing and editing. While not part of the canon, articles, travelogues, domestic manuals, or pamphlets authored by women in the period consistently featured descriptions of or commentary on buildings and cities, but these have never been examined collectively by architectural historians. Through a combination of macro and micro research, close and distant reading, geographical mapping and tracing of experience, WoWA addresses this gap opening up a new corpus and presenting architecture’s past through the female eye.
I suggest that, by exploring women’s writing, we can uncover female agency within architecture in a period that has thus far been considered as male governed. I believe that architectural history as a discipline has to look beyond the production of buildings to processes of reception and appropriation in order to fully understand the past of the built environment as experienced and shaped by colonised groups, such as women. Over a period of dramatic social, political, technological, and architectural transformations on both sides of the Atlantic, WoWA explores specific case studies of women documenting both everyday experiences of built spaces as well as canonical architectural events. Interdisciplinary in method and scope and employing feminist approaches focusing on modes of writing, voice, and subjective experience, the team of PI, Postdoc, and PhD will expose female publics of architecture in and between Chile, Peru, Argentina, Britain, and German-speaking Europe a time of industrialisation, colonisation and revolution, nation building and independence, historicism and professionalisation.

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Keywords

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Programme(s)

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Topic(s)

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Funding Scheme

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ERC-STG - Starting Grant

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Call for proposal

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Host institution

EIDGENOESSISCHE TECHNISCHE HOCHSCHULE ZUERICH
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 1 454 735,00
Address
Raemistrasse 101
8092 Zuerich
Switzerland

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Region
Schweiz/Suisse/Svizzera Zürich Zürich
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
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Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 1 454 735,00

Beneficiaries (1)

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