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portant. From writing letters to creating
a comfortable home, women have played
a leading role in the greatest events in the
history of humanity, although the official
history hasn’t paid attention to them. In my
view, there is a reassessment of the roles of
gender in architecture, an acknowledgement
of those aspects in the heritage of humanity
that seem minor details in the discourse of
major academies or museums, but which are
essential to social progress. Those who went
to war were able to go because someone had
taken care of them when they were little,
had provided them health, an education…
In all those tasks women have played a
prominent role. That is why I think that
perhaps another perspective of art and of
history could make us see that we do have
a female heritage.
CP: The relationship between architecture
and feminity offers interesting examples. A
Victorian house can seem very feminine, in
the sense that it is very legible, filled as it
is with human traces, footprints: you can
immediately figure out where the reading,
smoking, and cooking took place. It was the
product, all of it, of an ethic of detail that
followed a discourse, which could be linked,
at the same time, to the female universe.
Later on the house became more abstract:
with Le Corbusier the dwelling became a
‘machine à habiter,’ but after that it was
not even ‘for living,’ but simply a pragmatic
way of tackling a program erasing all dis-
course. I would say the world has gradually
given in to abstraction because the market
has set more abstract guidelines and less
connected to women’s traditional universe,
which is more specific and has to do more
with caregiving.
IC: Yes, I think the market is perhaps ac-
countable for that shift towards the abstract,
but also towards the epic: that situation in
which only the great possession, the great
feat, the great emblem, the great achieve-
