Gender Masquerade: Role-playing Creative Couplings

Unfortunately, nowadays architects still follow the nineteenth century’s romantic concept of the design genius which pressures them to become an expert on edifying by themselves. Regardless of what the star system's gatekeepers and academia portray, architecture comes to life through collaboration and interdisciplinary nourishment. With the ascent of women’s participation in architecture in the twentieth century, several women found a way of contributing to architecture by collaborating with their husbands: artist Margaret Macdonald and architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh worked together, so did artist Ray and designer Charles Eames, and fellow architects Aino and Alvar Aalto. Others did it as lovers, like Anne Tyng while working under Louis Kahn, and not all of them were western nor heterosexual. What are the controversial and positive contributions of couplings—a term Colomina coined in 1999 for professional partnerships that are also intimate?.

Stereotypical gender roles need to be unmasked, so why not do it in a playful way?. The course consists initially of online seminars and group discussions on feminisms and architecture, followed by activist events and workshops that will conclude on a theatrical story-telling of a historical coupling. In pairs or groups, participants will analyse gestures, and design the script, scenography and costumes for the performance. With their whole body-experience, they will make visible the ghosts of architectural history and engage critically with issues of architectural labour. Check-out the videos and photographs on https://www.couplingstactic.com/performing

Bio

Inés Toscano is an Argentinian doctoral candidate for the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, an educator and mistress architect (MA) based in Berlin, Germany. Through her research and website www.couplingstactic.com she is mapping architectural couplings as a labour strategy towards gender equality in architecture. A visiting lecturer at the Dessau International Architecture Master Program from Hochschule Anhalt  in Germany since 2018, she has completed feminist coursework with “Mapping Bauhaus Couplings,” “Coupling Portrait,” and several editions of  “Gender Masquerade.” Her research has been published in architecture magazines and journals; and presented at international symposiums on Architecture, History, Theory and Gender.

Submission: final performance video and documentation of process (script, sketches).