In this Book

Architecture & Feminist Critical Theory: Selected Writings by Hilde Heynen

Book
2025
summary

Three decades of intellectual work on architectural theory and feminist discourse.

Hilde Heynen is a Belgian architectural theorist whose work bridges neo-Marxist critical theory and current feminist discourse, applying these perspectives to architectural culture. This volume collects her most significant texts from three decades of intellectual work, centred on three feature concepts: mimesis, dwelling, and displacement. It offers readers incisive reflections on architects' roles in shaping societies and the alliance between ideology, societal structures of injustice, political economy, housing and the built environment.

Within a fierce post-critical debate among scholars who have begun to question the relevance of architectural theory to the discipline in the early twenty-first century, Heynen's position remains constant throughout her writings in defence of architectural theory as a social and transformative practice. This collection is essential reading for new generations of architects and cultural theorists interested in modernity, gender and criticality.

Table of Contents

Cover

pp. 1-4

Table of Contents

pp. 5-6

Preface

pp. 7-8

Acknowledgements

pp. 9-10

Introduction. Hilde Heynen in Context, by Lucía C. Pérez-Moreno

pp. 11-34

Section 1. Architecture & Critical Theory

Background Notes

pp. 35-36

Chapter 1. Worthy of Question: Heidegger’s Role in Architectural Theory

pp. 37-48

Chapter 2. Functionalism and its Shadow

pp. 49-62

Chapter 3. Space as Receptor, Instrument or Stage: Notes on the Interaction between Spatial and Social Constellations

pp. 63-84

Chapter 4. Meaning and Effect: Revisiting Semiotics in Architecture

pp. 85-118

Section 2. Critical Theory & Projects

Chapter 5. In New Babylon, One Cannot Dwell: On Dealing with Poetry and Commonplace

pp. 121-132

Chapter 6. Scenes of Ambivalence: Concluding Remarks on Architectural Patterns of Displacement

pp. 133-152

Chapter 7. Signs, Images and Life: Researching the Mimetical Mode of Architecture

pp. 153-166

Chapter 8. A Critical Position for Architecture?

pp. 167-176

Section 3. Projects & Political Economy

Chapter 9. “What Belongs to Architecture?” Avant-garde Ideas in the Modern Movement

pp. 179-198

Chapter 10. The Exodus Machine

pp. 199-230

Chapter 11. The Intertwinement of Modernism and Colonialism: A Theoretical Perspective

pp. 231-242

Chapter 12. Lutopia: An Ideal City in an Ideal World

pp. 243-262

Section 4. Political Economy & Housing

Chapter 13. The Irreducibility of Dwelling

pp. 265-276

Chapter 14. Belgium and the Netherlands: Two Different Ways of Coping with the Housing Crisis 1945-1970

pp. 277-294

Chapter 15. Continuity or Discontinuity? Narratives on Modern Architecture in East and West Germany during the Cold War

pp. 295-308

Chapter 16. About the Displacement of Home

pp. 309-332

Section 5

pp. 333

Section 5. Housing & Feminist Theory

Chapter 17. Mimesis, Dwelling and Architecture: Adorno’s Relevance for a Feminist Theory of Architecture

pp. 335-352

Chapter 18. Places of the Everyday: Women Critics in Architecture

pp. 353-366

Chapter 19. Modernity and Domesticity: Tensions and Contradictions

pp. 367-398

Chapter 20. Uncanny and In-Between: The Garage in Rural and Suburban Belgian Flanders

pp. 399-430

Chapter 21. Anticipating the Future: Three Lines of Development

pp. 431-436

Section 6. Feminist Theory & Architecture

Chapter 22. ‘Matrix of Man.’ Sibyl Moholy-Nagy’s Neglected Histories

pp. 439-456

Chapter 23. Genius, Gender and Architecture: The Star System as Exemplified in the Pritzker Prize

pp. 457-476

Chapter 24. Where Have all the Women Gone? Women’s Visibility in Architectural Culture in Flanders

pp. 477-482

Chapter 25. A Feminist in Disguise? Sibyl Moholy-Nagy’s Histories of Architecture and the Environment

pp. 483-494

Chapter 26. Narrating Women Architects’ History: Paradigms, Dilemmas, and Challenges

pp. 495-514

Coda. The Displacement of Criticality, by Hilde Heynen

pp. 515-530

List of Figures

pp. 531-532

List of Original Publications in Chronological Order

pp. 533-534

Short Curriculum of the Authors

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