The Architect: Reconstructing her Practice

"This extraordinary collection is destined to become a key text that marks where the real force is in architectural discourse today. One by one, the assumptions that organize the production and reception of architecture are transformed in a breathtaking display of creative rigor. By gathering together these writers and designers, Francesca Hughes forces the field to face its future." -- Mark Wigley, Associate Professor of Architecture, Princeton University "The Architect: Reconstructing Her Practice brings an elegant and personal vision to a wide range of ideas about a most critical subject." -- Richard Rogers, Richard Rogers Architects Limited

At a moment when the architectural profession is beginning to shift from its traditionally male domination, The Architect: Reconstructing Her Practice examines how the introduction of women to the main body of architecture might bring about a reconstruction of the orders that pervade architectural production and consumption. In a collection of autobiographical essays in which practice is both the site and the vehicle for change, twelve American and European architects reflect on the nature of critical practice and its relation to architecture. The contributors were chosen not only for the distinguished quality of their work, but also for the range of architectural practices they collectively encompass -- from the intersection of theory and philosophy to the intersection of building process and industry. Together, they present a compelling and provocative critique of architectural culture. All show a willingness to transgress the various mediums and territories of architecture, to recover and reopen certain discussions lost in the architectural discourse they have inherited. The Architect: Reconstructing Her Practice argues that women architects -- insiders by their education and their adoption by and of certain professional institutions, and outsiders by their difference, their gender-related experience -- are ideally placed to critique the body of architecture and to challenge certain accepted aspects of our built and unbuilt environment. Furthermore, it is the woman architect's ability to be simultaneously marginal and mainstream that provides a unique opportunity for the critical reconstruction of architectural practice. The essays: Gender Changes: Changes Gender · Francesca Hughes Battle Lines: E.1027 · Beatriz Colomina Rear Window · Martine de Maeseneer Aside · Françoise Hélène Jourda Bad Press · Elizabeth Diller A Practice of One's Own: The Critical Copy and Translation of Space · Dagmar Richter Diversion · Nasrine Seraji-Bozorgzad Losing it in Arch_it_ecture: Object Lament · Catherine Ingraham Invisible Lines · Christine Hawley Projects/Recollections · Merrill Elam The Return of (the Repressed) Nature · Diana Agrest A Cold View · Margret Hardardottir Nature Morte · Jennifer Bloomer

Francesca Hughes is on the faculty of the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London.