CIDADES, Comunidades e Territórios

Feminisms and the spacialization of resistances: keeping the fight alive

The gender perspective in regional legislation on territorial planning and urbanism in Spain. Notes on its rhythms and differences

Resumen Hace quince años que se promulgó la Ley Orgánica 3/2007 de Igualdad efectiva entre Hombres y Mujeres en España. En su artículo 31.3 recoge que “Las Administraciones públicas tendrán en cuenta en el diseño de la ciudad, en las políticas urbanas, en la definición y ejecución del planeamiento urbanístico, la perspectiva de género, utilizando para ello, especialmente, mecanismos e instrumentos que fomenten y favorezcan la participación ciudadana y la transparencia”. Ya existe la perspectiva histórica suficiente para evaluar su repercusión en las distintas comunidades autónomas del estado español y para comprobar el seguimiento de la ley, sus interpretaciones y ritmos de implantación. Así lo hizo en 2018 Inés Sánchez de Madariaga, pionera en España en estudios relacionados con la dimensión de género en el urbanismo, cuando explicó las “experiencias incipientes” haciendo “balance de su alcance y eficacia” (Sánchez de Madariaga, 2018, p.602). En 2020 la misma autora publicaba un lúcido resumen acerca de los orígenes de la investigación académica en España durante las tres últimas décadas (Sánchez de Madariaga, 2020). Otros trabajos de la autora se han centrado en describir la situación de las políticas de género en el urbanismo del País Vasco (Sánchez de Madariaga, 2017) y en recopilar las más recientes conclusiones de varios autores acerca de la integración de las dimensiones de género en el urbanismo español, además de “algunas reflexiones de cara al futuro” (Sánchez de Madariaga, 2020, p.5). No se puede tampoco obviar la dirección de GeneroUrban en la Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, hoy en día Cátedra UNESCO, y su pionera publicación Urbanismo con perspectiva de género (Sánchez de Madariaga, 2004), editado por la Instituto Andaluz de la Mujer, que constituyó un pilar básico en el desarrollo de la normativa estatal del Ministerio de Vivienda, así como en la generación de buena parte de las actuaciones autonómicas en la materia.

Abstract This work studies the gender perspective of the regulations of the different Spanish autonomous communities applied to territorial planning and urbanism. It offers a picture of the current situation in the application of the Spanish Parity Law (2007) and of the versions of each region, and the drafting process of the different legislative corpus that affect a conception of territorial planning where the needs of women as users are taken into account. To that end, each normative reality has been interwoven with the political bias of the autonomous governments, with the presence of women in decision-making positions and with the activity of women’s institutes and research groups. The objective has been to determine if the different regulatory speeds arise from the application of the parity law and the growing presence of women in management bodies, or are to do with other variables such as the governing party that promotes them, the social pressure of feminism, research groups or of professional associations of architects.

Four women at the top: The self-image and media representation of female leaders in Soviet and Post-Soviet Estonian architecture

Abstract Focusing on four case studies of high-ranking Estonian architects, the article analyses the career goals and possibilities for advancement of women in design in the Soviet and the post-Soviet periods. Based on in-depth interviews and representation in mainstream and professional media, the article compares and juxtaposes the architects’ public personas and self-perception as revealed in the interviews, highlighting the conditions of self-realization, organizational and design goals, networks of support and balancing the demands of high-profile design and managerial jobs with personal and family responsibilities. The cases reveal a complicated and ambivalent relationship to feminist agenda and the local specificities of the problem, delineating its possible causes from the Soviet to the post-Soviet period, and at the same time pointing towards the changes that have occurred with the transition from the socialist to the democratic state.

Encarnando o vírus: intervenções epistêmicas e performativas à hegemonia disciplinar na arquitetura e urbanismo

Resumo Nossas experiências no cotidiano, no doméstico, no publico, são dados de pesquisa significativos, para novas abordagens epistemológicas, ou seja, da Arquitetura Feminista a contra o assujeitamento através de um rito normativo que busca demarcar e fixar a lógica socioeconômica sobre nossos corpos. A hegemonia na produção e reprodução do conhecimento na disciplina de arquitetura, assim como suas metodologias, têm sido disputados pelo movimento feminista, principalmente nas últimas décadas do século XX. Falamos de uma visão específica hegemônica da disciplina baseada em normas, valores e ideias, de onde se exerce o poder do material, historicamente resultando no apagamento, desapropriação e apropriação do trabalho exercido pelos corpos femininos, mas não só. Repensar a epistemologia da arquitetura, e o funcionamento dos dispositivos semióticos políticos, implica repensar a ligação vida-território-corpo-espacialidade-vínculo, ampliando os fundamentos que desenham a disciplina. Assim, propomos uma reflexão sobre como podemos esticar a arquitetura com vista a escapar às normas tradicionais sobre o entendimento do espaço, como categoria e conceito diante de uma crise potencialmente produtiva para a construção de uma Arquitetura Feminista. Uma perspectiva de formulação encarnando um vírus para uma epistemologia do cotidiano, do corpo-território, para apontamento de possibilidades de analíticas situadas em diferentes formas epistêmicas e performáticas de intervir, desafiar e contestar a hegemonia disciplinar nos estudos arquitetônicos e urbanos.

Abstract Our everyday experiences, formed in our domestic and public lives, produce and hold significant research data that, if acknowledged, observed and analyzed, can lead to new epistemological approaches to architecture and urban design. With everyday experiences as sources, Feminist Architecture emerges against the normative subjection that demarcates and fixates the predominant socio-economic order in our bodies. The production and reproduction of hegemonic knowledge in the discipline of architecture, as well as its methodologies, have been disputed and countered by the feminist movement, especially since the last decades of the 20th century. Specifically, feminism has challenged the hegemonic view of the discipline, which is based on norms, values and ideas that allows material power to be exercised. Historically this results in the erasure, misappropriation and appropriation of the work performed by feminized bodies, and others. Rethinking architectural epistemologies, implies engaging and exploring the life-territory-body-spatiality bond to expand the foundations of the discipline. Thus, this article seeks to reflect on how we can stretch architecture, while challenging traditional norms on the understanding of space, as a category and concept, in the potentially productive crisis that Feminist Architecture presents. A perspective and alliance with the epistemology of everyday lives, of bodies-territories, to point out the situated analytical possibilities of different epistemic and performative forms of intervening, challenging and contesting the disciplinary hegemony of urban and architectural studies.

fem*MAP Berlin 2049: Feminist spatial systems for a non-sexistcity

Abstract In search of a feminist perspective for Berlin and an answer to the question of what a non-sexist city could and should look like, an analysis of hegemonic and feminist spatial systems was carried out based on practice-based teaching research formats. Using critical mapping (Harley, 1989; Wood, 1992) with a collective-feminist approach, this paper will demonstrate the potential of the map as a tool that allows for a non-hegemonic perspective of space. The mapping research reveals how the dichotomy of the terms public and private determines hegemonic spatial systems and how the concept of commons as a counter-image and third spatial realm opens up a possible typology of feminist spatial systems. Thus, in the evaluation of the results, the need for new common notions in urban planning discourse is discussed.

Struggles at the ‘peripheries’: situated knowledge production and feminist visions for post-extractive environments

Abstract In extractive territories, companies determine local areas, from the scale of shared environments and urban transformations to cultural events. With my observations from two mining communities, I foreground feminist actors who apply spatial practices of care, support, maintenance, and reproduction. They are highly relevant for the endurance of the communities. Two goals frame these observations: (1) drawing attention to feminist actors’ reparative and counter-extractive practices as forms of shared architectural interventions within already documented architectures of mining; and (2) providing situated knowledges together with a material positionality of extraction as a requirement for architectural production based on iron ore. The first town of my fieldwork is Malmberget (literally ‘ore mountain’) in Sápmi / the north of Sweden, which will ultimately disappear as a result of the expansion of mining. The second town is Eisenerz at the foot of the mountain Erzberg (also meaning ‘ore mountain’), in the Austrian Alps, which is likewise in a crisis of identification, over-ageing, and shrinking, because mining requires a diminishing human workforce. Since both communities are in search of new narratives for post-extractive futures, I want to show how architectural research can ‘observe’ differently, foregrounding alternative actors, their feminist ecologies, and their productive spaces. Learning from actors who embroider architectures soon to be lost, curate farewell events for architectures, or preserve the colours of facades in paintings, and also learning from my experience of participating in their processes, I argue that extractive areas are diverse and full of life, pleasure, and creativity. For future scenarios, I suggest activating these situated knowledges to contribute to feminist visions for post-extractive environments.

Maria José Abrunhosa de Castro (1949-1999): arquitetura, planeamento, política, cidade e controvérsia democrática

Resumo Maria José Abrunhosa de Castro (1949-1999) é uma figura incontornável da história do programa habitacional SAAL-Norte, bem como da história da arquitetura da cidade da Guarda. Este artigo estabelece-se como um contributo inicial para o futuro de uma investigação biográfica mais robusta sobre o percurso desta arquiteta. Após uma formação superior envolvida nas lutas estudantis do Porto, no final do Estado Novo, o programa SAAL-Norte foi uma das suas primeiras experiências profissionais. Posteriormente, foi a partir da Beira Interior, nomeadamente da cidade da Guarda, que desenvolveu um trabalho amplo na gestão urbana, na elaboração de projetos e planos de ordenamento, enquanto técnica municipal, durante a década de 80, e como profissional liberal nos dez anos seguintes. Apesar disso, a sua atividade profissional nunca esteve alheia de uma intervenção pública constante, escreveu em revistas da especialidade, participou em seminários e congressos, em programas televisivos e nas atividades da Associação dos Arquitetos Portugueses. Recorrendo a revisão bibliográfica, a entrevistas e a material de arquivo, a investigação aqui apresentada tem como principal objetivo dar a conhecer o trajeto profissional desta arquiteta, em particular a partir da sua produção escrita presente em artigos de opinião publicados em jornais de circulação regional e nacional. A partir de tais documentos, escrutina-se um discurso disciplinar que incide nos contextos específicos do seu exercício e que radica na sua compreensão de que a cidade não pode ser indissociável da política e da democracia, elementos indispensáveis para uma sociedade crítica, informada e envolvida no seu debate.

Abstract Maria José Abrunhosa de Castro (1949-1999) is an undeniable figure in the history of the social housing programme SAAL-Norte, as of the history of the architecture of Guarda city. This article establishes itself as the first contribution to a more robust bibliographical research on the trajectory of this architect. Following an education enmeshed with the contestation of the Oporto student movement, at the end of the Estado Novo regime, SAAL-Norte was one of her first professional experiences. Afterwards, in the 1980s, in the Beira Interior Region, namely, the city of Guarda, she developed a broad line of work in urban management, on the production of architectural projects and zoning plans, as a municipal technician. In the following decade, she worked as an independent professional. Besides this, she detained a professional practice not alien to permanent public intervention, writing in scientific journals, participating in seminars and congresses, TV-shows and the Association of Portuguese Architects. Through bibliographic review, interviews and archival research, the primary goal of this article is to make visible her professional path. By analysing these documents and by focusing on her opinion articles published in regional and national newspapers, this paper examines how she detains a disciplinary discourse that concerns the specific contexts of its exercise. It is rooted in her comprehension that the city is not indissociable from politics and democracy. Furthermore, its discussion should be held by an involved, knowledgeable, and critical society.

The archives of Lina Bo Bardi, Ray Eames, and Marianne Gast. Choral Silences and Polynomial Records

Resumen Un archivo arquitectónico mantiene un aura de objetividad, espíritu científico y crítico. Contiene fondos escritos, gráficos, fotográficos, fílmicos y sonoros. Su acervo se forma como resultado de las búsquedas de información hechas por investigadores y docentes a lo largo de los años. Es un espacio donde se resguardan estos planos, fotos y papeles tan importantes para la génesis del conocimiento. Para nosotras, arquitectas e investigadoras, sumergirse en un archivo es mantener una conversación con la profesional a la que estudias. Investigar a estas creadoras supone dialogar, aprender y discutir con ellas a través de sus dibujos, prototipos, maquetas, fotografías y proyectos. Como docentes, sacar a la luz y poner en valor a estas figuras referentes en la profesión implica dar a las nuevas generaciones modelos alternativos que reflejen la diversidad del mundo actual y les ayuden a pensar su futuro. En este artículo nos aproximamos a los registros de tres autoras indagando en cómo se formaron y estructuraron sus archivos. El análisis diacrónico comparado nos permite comprender tanto su divergencia frente al canon moderno, cuando afrontaban sus proyectos profesionales, como la interpretación y puesta en valor actuales. Los archivos de Lina Bo Bardi, Marianne Gast y Ray Eames constituyen un universo riquísimo de proyectos polinómicos. En ellos hace falta descubrir entre la coralidad y los silencios creativos: podemos volver a escribir un relato plural que no reproduzca los desequilibrios que las silenciaron en la construcción narrativa de la modernidad arquitectónica.

Abstract An architectural classification archive maintains an aura of objectivity and a scientific and critical spirit; it contains written, graphic or photographic items, films, and sound archives. Its collection is formed thanks to the searches for information carried out by researchers and professors over the years. It is a protected space for plans, photos, and papers, so important for the generation of knowledge. For us, as architects dedicated to research, to immerse ourselves in an archive is to have a conversation with the person being studied. To review these creators is to dialogue, learn and discuss with them among their drawings, prototypes, models, photographs, and projects. And as teachers, to cast light and place value on these references is to give new generations alternative models that reflect the diversity of today's world and help them think about their future. In this article we approach the archives of three authors investigating how they were formed and structured. The comparative diachronic analysis allows us to understand their divergence from the modern canon, when they faced their professional projects, and the current interpretation and enhancement of their work. The archives of Lina Bo Bardi, Marianne Gast and Ray Eames constitute a very rich universe of polynomial projects. Their choral dimension and creative silences need to be uncovered: we can rewrite a plural narrative that does not reproduce the imbalances that silenced them in the narrative construction of architectural modernity.

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