Author: Adrian Gee

SUMMARIES

Home Planning and Gender in Mandatory Palestine

This article examines the role of gender holds in domestic planning, particularly through the analysis of the Jewish population boom in Palestine during the 1930s. During this time, demand for housing in Palestine was at an all time high due to the increase in immigration, especially in Tel Aviv. This new problem intrigued Germany, which lent its modern ideals to the area and with them, the German ideal of a household. The small kitchens were criticized in Palestine, particularly by females, which led to a call for a larger female presence in the field of architecture. Unfortunately, the ways of the times meant that female architects were often disregarded because the idea that a woman’s place was in the domestic home, and not in intellectual fields, was ever present. One female architect the article focuses on is Lotte Cohn, who proposed the idea of optimizing kitchens for use (instead of hiding females) so that kitchen operators (primarily women during the time) could spend less time in the kitchen and instead focus on other things. She proposed taking space from the bed rooms in order to make room for the larger kitchens, but her ideas didn’t gain traction until later on.

An Alternative to Functionalist Universalism

This article surveys the change in domestic “habitat” throughout the 1950’s, primarily by surveying architectural developments in Morocco during this time. At the time, Morocco consisted of multiple different cultures living side by side to one another, as the French had built their structures to the pre-existing local structures. To combat these new societal problems that were arising, new ideas were developed that attempted to provide housing for the “greatest number”. These ideas included a shift away from the universalism that was present in modern architecture and a greater focus on designing structures that in some way account for the cultural differences of the ones that are to be inhabiting it. A system of designing neighborhoods along a grid was also developed during this time. Though these advances were targeted toward providing a resolution to the unique problems Morocco faced, they were criticized by some as a way of colonizing Morocco.

Accumulation by Dispossession

This article advocates for the importance of the “right to the city”, which the author describes as the human right to modify its environment (on an urban scale) to suit its needs. The author further explains that, though humans are entitled to this right, it is often neglected because of the societal obstacles one must overcome in order to make a change to the city they live in. Perhaps the factor the author criticizes the most is the fast rate of urbanization in the modern age, and specifically the rate at which cities are built and then rebuilt. According to the author, the thing to blame here is the surplus capital that is generated by a capitalist market. With a surplus of capital, there is a tendency to invest in urbanization, which in turn changes the city environment. The author alludes to the idea that increasing the level of control the city’s inhabitants have over the use of surplus resources through further democratization should, in theory, work toward protecting this right to the city.

CRITICAL RESPONSE

This response is primarily in response to the first article of this weeks reading. It boggles my mind that modernism, with its emphasis on universalism and functionalism, has continued through what seems to be the 1950s without focusing on expanding the functional elements of the kitchen. For all of these scholar’s arrogant takes on modernity and their insistence of it being the way of the future, its hard to believe they’d missed such a glaring contradiction in their designs for so long, and all thanks to traditional gender roles. At that time, the primary function of the kitchen space that was to be embellished through architecture was keeping the female homemaker out of sight, and not the actual smooth and efficient functioning of the space for its intended use. Perhaps its my own 21st century bias peeking through, but I would love to hear what asinine justification a modernist from the 1930’s would use to defend inhibiting the actual function of the kitchen in order to keep the homemaker more out of sight.

APPLICATION

Mural on the exterior of Ashby Supermarket in Berkeley, CA

The idea of the “right to the city” and how it can be actually be infringed upon by cities being built and then rebuilt too quickly had me thinking about this mural on the side of the Ashby Supermarket in Berkeley, CA in my neighborhood when I was growing up. I remember there was a period of time where it was being repainted almost every year consistently, because someone thought they had a better idea of what should be represented there than the current mural. It had probably gone through 5-6 different iterations during my 6 year stint in elementary school. I feel like this serves as the perfect example of the “right to the city” getting in the way of itself, as the constant changing of this mural completely devalued it: it had no cultural importance or established history to anyone, and instead was universally known as the wall that always changes. Ironically, after I had left the area, the wall has found some level of consistency, as the same mural has been stuck on it for the greater part of a decade. I hope this is symbolic that cities on the larger scale can eventually settle down and find their sense of consistent identity that is also fluid enough to preserve its inhabitants right to the city.

TAKEAWAYS

• Though touted as universal and functional, modernism in architecture missed the mark on some pretty key elements of functionalism, particularly in the kitchen space, due to societal sexism and traditional gender roles
• The relationship between architecture and the expression of culture continues to be a very complex one
• The right to change one’s environment to fit their needs can be easily impeded, even by other’s changing the environment to fit their needs too quickly