Dom Adama, Dom Ewy: dyskurs różnicy w (pod)tekstach historii architektury

English Title: Adam's house, Eve's house: discourse on difference of (sub)texts of architecture history

In: Rocznik Historii Sztuki, 30 (2005), pp. 31-45

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Translation of abstract (English)

This is the first article in the Polish historiography dedicated to architectural issues analysed in the context of gender-studies. It also includes the elements of critical and literary ecphrasis, analysing the selected scientific texts and bell-letters (descriptions of house building). The authoress focused on two main issues: pre-modernist shaping of house space as a realisation of patriarchal scenario (so-called patriarchal principle) and a tradition relating to it, connecting the concept of architectural creativity (architectural profession) with male activity. Architecture and the texts on the subject as a realisation of culture codes had developed and reproduced the scenario in which the creator = "father/author" of architecture is a man (a house of the first architect, Adam in Eden, or Odysseus house in Homer's poem as the canonical "men's houses"). Women are subordinated to this space and passive (so-called "hidden women"). Starting from Vitruvius, Alberti and Palladio, where the basic patterns of space genderisation (canon) were made as a function of power, the authoress traces this tradition in the Polish literature (theory of architecture), from the earliest texts (the 17th century) to the 20th century. At the same time she observes the systematically increasing interferences into a design process: activities of the female amateur architects and so-called female "domestic engineers", which requires asking the question, whether and in which way their performances led to the destruction of traditional house space. From it follows a question of "woman-author", i.e. the degree of women’s participation in change of architectural/cultural paradigms, also in Poland. This problem - in authoress’ opinion - requires thorough analysis. The issues outlined in the article pertain to the pre-modern period as preceding the development in the 20th century, along with modernism, a new in the history of architecture group of professionals: the first generation of women with professional architectural education - concludes the authoress.