Behind Straight Curtains: Towards a Queer Feminist Theory of Architecture

K. Bonnevier

With this exploration into the queerness and the theatricality of architecture I wish to contribute to a queer feminist critique of heteronormative and sexist structures that repeatedly reduce, ridicule or neglect, gendered and sexual aspects of our built environment. My ambition throughout the thesis is to contribute to an architectural shift; a shift in both the analysis of architecture and the enactment of architecture, towards a built environment which does not simply repeat repressive structures but tries to resist discriminations and dismantle hierarchies. This is a theatrical queer feminist interpretation of architecture which moves within a series of scenes in order to investigate the performative force of architecture; architect Eileen Gray's momentum building E.1027 in the south of France, 1926-29 and the literary salon of author Natalie Barney at 20 rue Jacob held in Paris between 1909-1968 are the main acts together with author Selma LagerlÃf 's former home and memorial estate MÃ¥rbacka, situated in mid-west Sweden, transformed in 1919-23. I look at these cases as different kinds of Enactments of Architecture, that vary in scale and temporality, where the actors and the acts are entangled with the built environment. Each exploration of these cases are framed in lecture theatres in Stockholm; seminar room A3 at the School of Architecture, Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Café Copacabana, Hornstull strand and Turkiska salongen, at Wallingatan 3. In any building activity ideologies and norms are reiterated. What I want to bring into play is that this also works the other way around- subject positions are partly construed through building activities. Feminist and queer perspectives, especially theories of performance, performativity and heteronormativity, are critical strands throughout the thesis to investigate how this happens.