Gender and space and feminist architecture have always played a crucial role in our program. In a recent article to celebrate Women’s Day, our director Carmen Mendoza Arroyo explains that feminist practice in architecture and urbanism in development and humanitarian design “means giving a voice to the invisible, the most vulnerable, such as women that stay at home, those that work in the informal economic sector, those that have to take up roles that they did not have in their original countries, and adapt. Feminist urbanism is designing for all the communities that usually have not been addressed through traditional planning.”
With our program, we aim to challenge the status quo of traditional architecture and urbanism shaped by the patriarchal society with two principles – inclusiveness and diversity. “Our understanding of the field has a lens which brings equality to the table, be it in our design of buildings or designing at an urban scale. (…) When design is inclusive, it is addressing a diverse approach to that of the status quo, which only looks at one way of using the city and buildings, that of men or of powerful groups,” Mendoza Arroyo points out.
Working with feminist pedagogies can also allow us to rethink our current crises – such as the COVID-19 pandemic – from a feminist and intersectional perspective and examine how they are crossed by gender, class and race, as our professor Apen Ruiz wrote in her Feminist Reflection in this Time of Abnormality.
The below list collected by our staff features of some of the most influential and relevant books and readings on feminist architecture, feminist urbanism, gender, space and cities, as well as the intersectional and multicultural aspects of our profession.
In no particular order:
- Kern, L. (2019). Feminist City, A Field Guide.
- Brown, L. A. (2011). Feminist Practices: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Women in Architecture.
- Collectiu Punt 6. (2019). Urbanismo Feminista. (In Spanish)
- Muxi, Z. (2018). Mujeres, Casas y Ciudades. (In Spanish, soon in English).
- Stratigakos, D. (2016). Where are the Women Architects?
- D’Ignazio, C. and Klein, L. F. (2020) Data Feminism.
- Eddo-Lodge, R. (2017). Why I’m no longer talking to white people about race.
- Sánchez de Madariaga, I., & Neuman, M. (2020). Engendering Cities, Designing Sustainable Urban Spaces for all.
- Sánchez de Madariaga, I., & Neuman, M. (2016). Mainstreaming gender in the city. The Town Planning Review, 5, 496–504.
- Borden, I., Penner, B., Rendell, J. (Editors). (1999). Gender Space Architecture: An Interdisciplinary Introduction.
- Sandercock, L. (Editor). (1998). Making the invisible visible. A multicultural planning history.
- Jarvis, H., Kantor, P., Cloke J. (2009). Cities and Gender.
- Cox, A. (2014). The Body and the City Project: Young Black Women Making Space, Community, and Love in Newark, New Jersey. Feminist Formations, 26(3), 1–28.
- Falú, A. (2009). Women in the City – On Violence and Rights. Women and Habitat Network of Latin America. Ediciones Sur.
- Valdivia, B. (2018). Palabras clave Del urbanismo androcéntrico a la ciudad cuidadora. From the androcentric urbanism to the caring city. Habitat y Sociedad, 11, 65–84.
- Doderer, Y. P. (2011). LGBTQs in the City, Queering Urban Space. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 35(2), 431–436.
- Fenster, T. (2005). The right to the gendered city: Different formations of belonging in everyday life. Journal of Gender Studies, 14(3), 217–231.
- Doan, P. L. (2007). Queers in the American City: Transgendered perceptions of urban space. Gender, Place and Culture, 14(1), 57–74.
- Watt, P. (2018). Gendering the right to housing in the city: Homeless female lone parents in post-Olympics, austerity East London. Cities, 76(May 2017), 43–51.
- Dunckel-Graglia, A. (2013). “Pink transportation” in Mexico City: reclaiming urban space through collective action against gender-based violence. Gender and Development, 21(2), 265–276.
- Newcomb, R., & Newcomb, R. (2006). Gendering the City, Gendering the Nation: Contesting Urban Space in Fex, Morocco. City and Society, 18(2), 288–311.
- Ortiz Escalante, S. (2018). La seguridad urbana desde el urbanismo feminista. Barcelona Societat. Revista de Investigación y Análisis Social, 12, 1–15. (In Spanish)
Feature Image: Photo by Rostyslav Savchyn on Unsplash