Myths and Politics: Gender, Racial, and Social Class Interrogations of the Body in Architectural Representation

Putra, Yvette ORCID: 0000-0001-8219-1872 (2024) Myths and Politics: Gender, Racial, and Social Class Interrogations of the Body in Architectural Representation. In: Body Matters, 21st AHRA International Conference, 21st-23rd November 2024, Norwich University of the Arts.

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Abstract

The body is central in architectural representation, emerging from the anthropocentricity inherent in the mythical origins and praxes of architecture, drawing and modelmaking. As a corollary, the body is essential to and ever-present in architectural drawings and models – and at every stage of every architectural process – in which the body conveys the architecture’s function, scale and mood. Architectural representation conjoins the physical bodies of the maker and the viewer with the bodies that exist in the drawn and modelled settings. Recalling that architectural representation channels the architect’s philosophies, thoughts, and visions, the conflation of corporeal and represented bodies thrusts the maker and the viewer into the uneasy paradox of a real yet imagined world. Consequently, both the maker and the viewer participate in the politics governing such worlds. Much-vaunted examples include the drawings of Le Corbusier, with an idealized Modern man equalizing with the Modern worldview, and the sketches of Carlo Scarpa, with their schemata evolving symbiotically with sensual female forms. In this paper I trace the presence and manipulation of the body in such historical examples of architectural drawings and models. In the current context, the making and viewing of architectural representation are backgrounded by the prevailing gender, racial and social class debates. Furthermore, these debates are compounded by the parallel surge of artificial intelligence, which is gaining traction but has already revealed a tendency towards bigotries. Considering these urgent challenges, I seek to not only illuminate the body in architectural representation, but also advocate for a more equitable and meaningful inclusion of the body in architectural drawing and modelmaking. To this end, I deploy my positionality – a female scholar of color – as a methodology to query the body in architectural representation.

Item Type:	Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)
Subjects:	N Fine Arts > NA Architecture
Divisions:	Schools and Research Institutes > School of Creative Arts
Depositing User:	Yvette Putra
Date Deposited:	26 Nov 2024 13:51
Last Modified:	26 Nov 2024 14:14
URI:	https://eprints.glos.ac.uk/id/eprint/14587

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