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Rapid urban expansion, increasing feminine professionalism, and new social roles enabled women to make influential contributions to urbanism, urban architecture and urban theory in the post-war years. At the same time, women began to examine their role in society, and reflect upon how architecture and urbanism impact their public and professional lives.
This seminar explores the roles played by women in shaping urbanism between 1945 and 1990, notably the contributions of women to urban theory, the design of cities and public architecture. In addition, it will consider how cities began to change to accommodate women and their needs, in addition to reflecting upon how the mass media portrayed women in cities
during the period in question.
The seminar will be organized around three distinct components. First, it will examine how authors including Sylvia Federici, Rebecca Solnit, Simone de Beauvoir, Susanna Torre, Elizabeth Wilson, Audre Lourde, among others, theorized and wrote about women’s presence in cities of the 19th and 20th centuries. Secondly, it will survey of public architecture and urban design by women, realized between 1945 and 1990 in diverse locations in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas. Urban theory by women (notably Saskia Sassen, Sybil Moholy-Nagy, Alison
Smithson and Denise Scott Brown), will be also be discussed. Thirdly, portrayals of women--- as protagonists of urban design, as conscious and engaged users or as the flâneuse ---in film and other popular media will be reviewed and analyzed. In conclusion, students will consider how to integrate women’s impact upon the post-war city into the canon of urban history and theory: Do we amend the inherited “story” about recent urban history or does the inclusion of women require another means of writing, synthesis, and explanation? Indeed, taking the
words of Audre Lourde, as a point of departure, are the “master’’ tools” inadequate to build up this new house?
Text, presentations and discussions will be in English. Students can submit find written
reports in German or English.
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