‘Critical Spatial Practices: A Feminist Sketch of some Modes and what Matters’

This essay sets out some modes and matters, which are a current feature of the work of a wide range of practitioners and theorists from various disciplines, interested in feminism and architecture. It is an attempt to describe – here and now – ­­the quality of the interdisciplinary encounter between architecture and feminism. The ‘here’ is defined by the place of writing – my own position as an intellectual who travels but is located within the academy in London, UK, and the ‘now’ by the time of writing – the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century. My setting-out notes some characteristic modes of working for feminists engaging with architecture, and in so doing also draws attention to specific matters of concern. It is not intended to be an overview survey or a detailed analysis: but rather to put in place some markers, which highlight several particular thematics and their relation to one another. This setting out has therefore a certain precision, but also selectivity: it describes work that I have encountered directly, right here, right now, and which I consider to offer a critical feminist alternative to conventional architectural practice.

Publication Details: ‘Critical Spatial Practices: A Feminist Sketch of some Modes and what Matters’, Lori Brown (ed) Feminist Practices (London: Ashgate, 2012).