Hi everyone. Um We're excited to
start this series of presentation. Um I'll go ahead
and introduce our presenters, Um Alex Bala, a
graduate er in 2018, graduate of Virginia Tech with
a Bachelor of Architecture, Bala is an incoming Master
of Arts candidate in Architectural History and Theory at the
University of Texas at Austin. Bala is currently in Warsaw,
Poland on a Fulbright fellowship where he is operating under
a dual research capacity. Principally, his goal is to collect
study and curate a comprehensive account of works of the
Polish postwar architects, designers and artists [inaudible].
In addition, as, as the recipient
of the 2000 Milka Bliznakov Research Prize Bala is studying
and reflecting on the design of a general plan for
the city of Tychy in southwestern Poland and the legacy of
its urban for urban form up to the present day
as a represent as a representative, early modernist design.
Thank you. [Applause]
Thank you for that bridged [inaudible]. First of all,
let me just extend my gratitude to Paula, Sharon and
Donna and the board of advisors at the all the
other organizers for making me feel truly welcome here again
for giving me the opportunity to present some of my
recent proving. It's been such a wonderful a few
days back, wonderful lineup of presentations yesterday. It's
been such a pleasure to meet some of the invited
guests. Hopefully I can provide a modest contribution to
the ongoing festivities as I'll ask everyone to briefly shift
their attention to Poland specifically to the Polish postwar context
in the city of Tychy in the southwestern region of the
country. Some of the sharpest and most
vibrant color photographs, which capture different buildings and urban
scenes during the nascent years of the city of Nowe Tychy or
New Tychy, around the 1960s, can now be found online,
courtesy of the John Reps -Urban Explorer folder from
Digital Collections at Cornell University Library. The image on
the title page of the Loom of Early Modernism in
Nowe Tychy. It was labeled either by John Reps himself
or the archivists at Cornell, responsible for digitizing his
photographic reels as the outskirts of the city and this
particular, still. In fact, unbeknown to whichever
source for whom the photographed must have obviously delineated a
clear borderline between any built development, the surrounding untapped
land. The image of the city from the outskirts
is in fact staring dead on towards the designated new
center of Nowe Tychy, marked and occupied by the D housing
estate or osiedle D, which would later be called [inaudible]. in
In Polish, Osiedle might relate to something between a housing estate or
a neighborhood. It could range between a single housing
block or a collection of housing blocks that include other
amenities, services, parks or ancillary spaces. So
even at the supposed new center, what appears as
a repetitious concatenation of freestanding residential blocks that align at
least appear to align an almost perfect Cartesian sequence and
dilate from a single point of origin that compounds to
the overall form and logic of the urban plan for
the new city at this point of origin is actually
just slightly out of frame in this particular image,
but it would exist just off to the right and
was identified as a future train station. That would
be located at the intersection of the main railway line
that would bisect the city from east to west,
and the green belt, which was a corridor of
urban park space that would bisect the city from
north to south. And based on the intersection of
these two coordinate axes would structure the urban form of
Nowe Tychy. One axis would be used to transport a
collectivized workforce to the industrial plants of the region,
and another would provide an isle of leisure and regeneration
from the toils of industry, and the caption for
this particular newspaper clipping reads, Nowe Tychy passengers depart.
Yes, you must depart here firstly because the city
is really worth seeing, and secondly, because the
root for the for the planned high speed electric railway
ends here. Downtown is already facing the trench of
the central station, but there's no high speed railway
yet and it is not known when it will come.
So, the city of located in the southwestern
polish region of Silesia has largely been avoided and overlooked
as a place of any significant interest due to its
recurrent reputation across Poland as nothing more than a former
Communist era satellite town that supplemented the local mining industry
in the second half of the 20th century with disposable
labor and expedient housing provision, but arguably more than
any other polish city, the legacy of which remains
are so heavily mired today with not only the memory
and image of its own recent Communist past, one
that in graves a full impression of the entire country
during its communist period, in a single built form
Stems headlong from the source of the city's soul designated
charge. At the launch of its commission in the
early 1950s, the focal task of the new city
was to harbor a small section of the nationwide expanded
industrial workforce that would be capable of accelerating the economic
production and viability of the newly established polish People's Republic
with the PRL, a government that was freshly invested
into power after the end of the Second World War
and which would come to dominate polish society. Nearly
half a century of authoritarian Communist rule. The full
span of the history of the PRL, including its
political, economic, technological, and even aesthetic tides
and victims would directly echo in the course of his
development due to the singular marriage between the city and
the political landscape that incubated its existence. It is
precisely this historical interlink which continues to operate as the
primary mechanism that encloses the limits of the city's popular
reputation across Poland to this day, to consider the
form of ticket as an artifact of design and technology
that was forged under a double track that straddled the
overall economic and industrial imperatives related to state collectivization and
their relationship to some of the more abstract political themes
that were enunciated in the spirit of state socialism during
the early PRL, and which acquired the modes of
their expression through state controlled media and other forms of
propagandistic display, primarily through channels related to print,
radio and film, as well as the continual practice
of organizing parades and demonstrations, demonstrations would be to
recognize that both the immediate exigencies and abstract ideals of
the early PRL converged as a condition of combined manifestation
through their proportionate expression in the city's architectural and urban
character. The subsequent phases of the outlined quadrant that
you see in the center and the red dot.
That's where the Mhm photograph from the title page was
taken from the subsequent phases of the implementation of the
city's original plan And the swelling of its urban fabrics
that continued all the way up until the juncture of
the 1989 transition into the contemporary period. I have
seen the city progress under the mantle of state backed
state backed stewardship and guidance By the vision of its
two leading authors and team of urban planners. Though
it's palpable transformations have been so especially braved in such
a short span by the 1st and 2nd generation denizens
of its first full term population to date, many
of whom can comprise the posterity of its incentive workforce
can in fact be observed through either detailed analysis or
even a brief visit that unfolds firsthand, a dense
array of historical permutations that stratify the city's various districts
and insights into the record of its construction, the
patent features of its diverse architecture and urban fabrics that
in just half a century has grown and stretched so
rapidly and far beyond the margins or functions of its
original plan for a new workers settlement. That the
city has now increased to a considerable level complexity as
a contemporary and proliferate urban condition, one whose own
conurbation and robustness today as an area, as an
area of sustainable economic activity and living should suggest enough
to transcend the connotation surrounding the circumstances of its early
life, unfortunate and yet it can also be argued
that it is largely due to the structure of the
original plan, since it was first conceptualized and implemented
under the auspices of the fledgling new political system,
which has remained firmly anchored in the course of the
city's build out up to the present day Through into
the post 1989 contemporary period. But it is crucially
reinstated and helped to maintain the socio economic and socio
spatial stability, integral to its form. In recent
questionnaires that solicited information from local residents regarding the current
socio spatial differentiation. President. Some respondents acknowledged there
is no clear division between good and bad neighborhoods where
there are no larger, there are no larger diversities
into him. You cannot see blaring poverty and then
the post 1989 contemporary period, the appearance of unemployment
germane to the shock privatization of the economic system stratified
the population in Poland and populations and other former eastern
bloc countries. The varying degrees due to new categories
of socioeconomic class that have since been generated in comparison
to the low but relatively balanced living standards during the
communist period. And take it However, the effects
socioeconomic stratification have been less disproportionate and overstated than in
other urban or industrial areas in Poland. The structure
of the original plan still predicates the overall form of
the city despite the rapid growth and transformations that have
since crowded the basil framework of its early buildings and
lines of infrastructure. Nevertheless, in accordance with the
original plan, so it remains, did glom aerated
into dispersed neighborhoods and districts in which different groups and
classes of socio economic rank exist in physical proximity,
where access to resources, transportation and services are uniformly
distributed throughout the city. And this is one of
the early sort of schematic Ideations from the mid 1950s
, the general sort of structure layout of the plan
with the central quadrant and using the intersection of the
green belt cutting the city from north to south and
the railway line cutting the city from the east to
west. These two authors and later adam she actually
, they married during the process of working on the
plan for for the for the new city In the
1960s. And you can see adam Schiff scott pointing
at the northwestern most corner of the central quadrant for
the new city, which is the same that area
that you saw in the title no title page or
Schadler or Estate. Deep adam Schefter. Both adam
adam were recruited from the, from the Department of
Urban Design at the Warsaw polytechnic 1949 and charged with
the design of the general plan. For now,
Both remained as lead supervisors and continued to spearhead the
implementation and build out of the general plan for the
new city up until the 1980s. In this image
, the distribution of workers across urban blocks and start
to see the labeling of these different districts which are
labeled from A to Z. Not all out letters
in the alphabet made it, but they did start
with A and the last at the very top left
. And then the last district that was actually built
After 1989. His district. See you Susanna at
the very bottom right. And all of the districts
we're actually in. Dude with feminine names that didn't
come from. The planners actually came from the residents
that were living in each district as a way to
identify on a more personal level with each district that
the residents lived in. So I kind of like
to think of it as a some sort of suppressed
anima in the urban form that somehow comes back uh
, into the way that users residents appropriate and assimilate
the spaces that they occupy even to the point where
eventually the planners themselves, especially the local press,
began picking up on these new female names for the
different districts that it even being became incorporated into the
studies and plans that were published by the design team
members of the design team themselves. So for example
, Magdalena em in the name of Magdalena and then
the caption reads that the district which was actually chiefly
designed by Adam herself, Received an award that was
granted from the Ministry of Land Development and Environmental Protection
in 1975. Nowadays, when you can find the
commentary that you can find on the same district,
people complain that lacks important elements of social or service
infrastructure. However, the proximity of shopping centers means
that satisfying basic consumers. Not a problem for residents
. That's not an issue of the plan itself.
I think that's just the issue of shopping strips that
have since invaded the framework of the city. In
an interview with Adam Schiff ska and 1989 for the
Art and Design journal Project interviewer asked in asking them
to reflect on their experience of designing. Interviewer asks
before asking my next my next question, let me
quote an example from a personal experience In the 1970s
for a TV program, one of the protagonists put
up a giant paper mache skull on the blind wall
of a high rise on which he lived. This
was his protest against the dullness of the full housing
estate, which is the one that you can see
about the decoration was only there for two days.
Years have passed since, but some of the residents
still call it the school in the state. And
this was an unintended but interesting experiment confirming that Warsaw
natives, this particular estate, Warsaw need buildings with
an individual trait. Did you take that into consideration
and planning and encouraging his basic responds, spontaneously created
names give rise to give rise to local patriotism,
make people more attached to the places in which they
live. Can there be a bigger satisfaction to an
architect or a town planner? Obviously, this was
an element that was totally unaccounted for in division for
the design of the new city by either hurt or
Adam Cska, it's kind of coming response. And
but so, for example, the issue of the
school estate reference to actually reveals a subversive element of
the tournament against the hegemonic socialist landscape for western capitalist
societies. The techniques of Vermont that were developed by
the board and the situation ist directed a campaign of
cultural insurrection against the capitalist system, whose aim was
to smutty the conduits of the commercial market. So
, advertisements, posters, products, messages of consumption
and disrupt the patterns of their circulation through mass media
, but in the question of this whole estate regarding
the uniform housing estates prevalent in movies and frankly,
all across Poland, or a similar technique observed in
the infamous Broad No. 2000 installation by Pablo Atomic
, who's arguably Poland's most internationally renowned contemporary artists working
today is exhibited worldwide. Representative represented Poland many different
art finales. The artist illuminates the mark of a
new millennium with the participation of the state residents.
It becomes a clog on the signpost of a suppressive
reality implicit in the form of the housing estate,
which reintroduces if only for a short glimpse plane of
profound symbolic order and communal life that was left stifled
under the vision of a new society and another to
hit Since the post 1989 transition into the contemporary period
. Mhm. Mhm. The lives and upbringings of
many of the residents of today alongside thickening of the
city's physiognomy over the last half century and the complexity
of its urban character have together shared a congenial and
parallel track with mutual elaboration fully in laces the identity
of the city with the memory and pedigree of the
residents involved in its early formation, the individuals and
institutions are now participating in its continuing development, rarely
in such a case as to hit as the growth
and realization of a new town progress to become a
sufficiently dense urban condition whose own evolution coincides at the
same pace with the sociological and cultural patterns related to
its context, as well as the modes of in
habitation that have become adopted by its residents, along
with the original planners have equally have played an equally
pivotal and reciprocal role. For example, in endowing
the names of the districts in which they live with
more personable uh huh labels of attachment and I was
, even when I was speaking to the curator at
the city museum, I had the chance to visit
, they said that even nowadays um families are giving
are naming their Children based on their their daughters,
based on the district in which they either they live
in which they were born. The city as an
accumulation of physical structures and lines of network and communication
along with the sociological and cultural makeup of its conservation
are both congruent segments to his history that embarked from
the same point of departure at the origin of its
vision and institution, into the new political landscape in
the early years of the PRL. And the image
that you're looking at right now is actually the main
thoroughfare that would have cut. That would have bisected
the city a little bit above the railway line from
east to west and it was originally called or october
Revolution Avenue, which is now or Independence Avenue.
And this is a changeover that's not specific to hit
itself. You can see this practically every city in
Poland every city had Lenin Street or Stalin Square or
october Revolution Avenue. Now the names of the streets
and also monuments have changed over to john paul,
the Second Avenue or Independence Avenue or other names related
to carefully selected narrative of polish heroism and patriots.
What's also unique about Poland compared to other former eastern
bloc countries is that the polish flag didn't change from
the PRL uh to to the contemporary government, the
dissolution of the soviet union or Yugoslavia, each individual
country somehow regained their emblem. Uh but the polish
flag remained exactly the same. The banner of white
and red. and I would actually argue and agree
it's been useful to think of 1989 as a kind
of speech and its urban register. I would actually
argue that the same uh flag are not the same
flag, the same cloth that's flying over and october
revolution avenue has remained unhinged is now flying over Independence
Avenue is in fact an entirely different flag because it's
now suddenly embroiled in a very different crossfire of significant
ation and celebration of very different opposing ideas of a
shared commons for shared cause. The partnership of Adam
Schiff ska and itself was only fully formalized as such
with the onset of its professional pairing from the start
of the Commission for Nobody And along with the partnership
, single handed supervision of the subsequent phases of the
plan's implementation and the prolonged build out of the city's
urban form which continued into the post, contemporary period
, he was executed through a collaboration which also sealed
the joint undertaking between both of its authors into perpetuity
due to the nature of the professional of their professional
and personal relationship and the long term trust of the
commission itself. The collaboration between the two authors ended
up melding the partnership of Adam Chef scott and they
have into a sole authorship figure which for the remainder
of its individual components lives would condense the surplus of
its focus into the, into the design realization and
study of the general plan for moving a single near
lifelong endeavor which not only bounded the identity of their
collaborative practice into a conscripted effort that was tasked to
deliver and oversee the project for the new city.
one that would also initiate an ongoing research pursuit that
treated the project itself as a testing ground for the
implementation of various planning principles as a postulate site for
the analysis of new urban forms and living patterns,
which also provided the source material that consumed the various
topics of Adam Schiff ska and Baha'i teachings. Both
remained as full time faculty of the Warsaw polytechnic for
the rest of their lives and would commute between Tokyo
and Warsaw. They were working on the project as
well as a culture, the context, the contents
of many of their theoretical reflections and publications, majority
of which either expressly addressed the project for which provided
other commentaries or studies on urban designs, which Adam
scott and they have also jointly investigated and proposed both
of them mhm. Both Adam scott and they have
strongly felt that as part of the generation of architects
who completed their training towards the end of the war
entered the workforce in the years immediately following that,
they would focus the trajectory of their practice towards the
reconstruction of the devastated homeland to fulfill the purpose of
their education that they received by avowing moral obligation to
rebuild the fabric of our society. This was indicative
of the general sentiments that were held by many polish
architects and builders at the time whose newfound professional duties
during the years of Reconstruction were inextricably groomed by their
experience of the war and the realities that were suddenly
faced by the state of the polish landscape, physically
and psychologically wrecked country that was left abruptly stranded and
complete ruin. In light of personal convictions, the
commission from endowed the pair of Adam with the perfect
opportunity to instrumental eyes their trainings and skills in both
architecture and urban design, International rebuilding campaign, which
their service would be mobilized to the avail of supposed
greater cause greater future. Both believed that they could
help furnish a newly assembled industrial proletariat that was marshaled
by the PRL government in its six year plan In
1952, 1955, of rapid industrialization with an urban
environment whose collective standards of living and equalized patterns of
in habitation with themselves resound with the vision of a
shared socialist cause. In the book, Contemporary Architects
published by Pal Grade McMillan in 1980, you can
find a profiling of with Adam Jessica and and be
heard which ah the two together and they were always
referenced together uh say that the architects task resulting from
the needs of rapid population growth has changed from the
scale of one building to the scale of the building
complex. One should therefore not speak merely about the
architecture of buildings. Rather one has to compose and
create the architecture of space, its form proportions and
tensions generate the framework of people's lives to a much
greater extent than the particular buildings and in the same
profiling. Uh archer who is a friend of the
was living in the UK at the time, also
offers her insight into the nature of their practice.
She says they have been involved in forming a team
for most of the tasks, tasks in which they
have been engaged to exceed the capabilities of two people
. Their basic principles include the acceptance of the social
role of the the architect town planner. They regard
their profession as being a social service and the belief
that architectural and town planning are inseparable. The designer
should not think to himself, I built my town
or my town includes, but should instead regard the
town as belonging to the people who lived there,
for whom he designs only a certain framework that they
can assimilate, accept and and develop their basic assumption
in the planning was that it would be a new
town with no existing routes. I had to have
a clear pattern that can be easily comprehended from a
social point of view. It had to be a
socialist city where there could be no good or bad
districts. In the 1977 issue over the pre eminent
polish architecture journal Architecture, which profiled some deleting urban
scale schemes that were being proposed or completed at the
time by key architects such as Oscar Hansen and the
partnership with, by the way, all four studied
at the Warsaw polytechnic and continue to would continue to
practice and teach in Warsaw. The very grouping of
these disparate architects into a composite report of leading urban
scale designs that were showcased within the leading Architecture journal
. The PRL would not only attempt to highlight the
individual approaches of these key figures, but also differentiate
a range of attitudes that were adopted towards fundamental issues
related to problems with mass housing and land development at
the urban or even broad national scale. The journal's
interview with the partnership of briefly comments about the distinction
between her own partnership and the project for nobody,
For example, Hansen's project for the linear continuous system
from 1968, as well as three developments for various
Warsaw districts, she says, quote this point,
for example, we are essentially different from Hanson creating
the parallel systems and from Skandinaviska creating a picture of
an ideal neighborhood unit. These are excellent districts,
but there must be a system of higher rank that
sticks it as a whole. The town is not
the districts within the center, but it is an
organic creation. This is our credo, the very
idea of a system of higher rank to which the
partnership duo was fully devoted would attempt to instance she
ate in the design ah a condition of what adam
shots can be heard would have called the crystallizing element
that could help organize and structure the various layers of
urban space and the design from the central crystallizing element
that the authors anticipated though, which would never be
realized was the plan for the new train station and
the surrounding developments at the intersection of the green access
and the railway line which would provide a nucleus point
for the entire city Francesca goes on to say we
aim to create a certain net having clear traces of
the socially used spaces. Different from individual space is
the space of living and the nearest surroundings. The
work on the planet ticket led us to the theory
of elements crystallizing the plan. During the first step
, we were guided by intuition for the elements crystallizing
the plan. We consider those that are clear for
everybody. The assumptions of. To her, the
crystallizing elements were the two main lines of the square
of the center which are for its inhabitants absolutely clear
and readable. They orient inhabitants in which the place
in which place they are in relation to the square
. It's a little sketch of the primary crystallizing element
encircled by the main railway station and then smaller crystallizing
elements in the different districts. Mhm So the issue
of ah but they are and they had upbringing and
the milieu that they were exposed to in Warsaw before
in the years leading up to the war, also
during the years during the war and right after um
First of all was about 12 or 13 years older
than Francesca was born in about 1912. He had
completed his education and training and started working in various
planning offices before the outbreak of the war. And
Adam Schiff ska uh actually completed her education during the
war. Uh and herself was interned at a concentration
camp in Ravensbruck, which interned a large segment or
a large amount of polish women. Um but in
the years and the decades of a couple of decades
leading up to the war, the presence group in
Poland, which is a kind of the polish bauhaus
sort of this style or structuralist. A team that
band together at the Warsaw polytechnic would have included architects
and planners and sculptors and other artists from previous.
The generation that preceded Adam Cska and Ahead. And
a lot of these members of presence uh taught at
the Warsaw polytechnic. They were mostly limited to the
architecture faculty and both graduated from the department of,
from the faculty, the cadre of urban design.
So they wouldn't have wouldn't have had much exposure um
to some of the figures from that were involved in
the presence group that were teaching in the architecture faculty
. Um but it was, and an aura of
modernism of early modernism that was attached to some of
the ideas of the bauhaus and the style which was
maybe in the air at the time. So,
for example, the catalog from the present exhibition from
the polish national design exhibition in Poznan, the activities
of the prison's associate association manifests itself predominantly as a
new cooperation between architects and painters. Creatively, each
of them has their own issues to address an architect
, architectural ones, the painter, painting, one's
sculptor, sculptural ones. While the result of finished
piece is a coconut hole. These general themes tackled
by people working in various art disciplines and realized through
each of their arts respected means, formed a common
artistic platform, leading to a self aware, self
aware works to the completeness of each object. So
it has a kind of resonance with idea of,
for example, is um quince to work for the
unity of the designs that have echoed the spirit of
the bauhaus and apart from a very fragile sort of
link between Adam Cska and any of the members of
the presence group that but at least I that I
was able to find in one source, but that
hasn't been confirmed that she worked in the office after
she graduated. He was one of the leading members
of the group and on the left, you can
see his pre war villa house that he designed for
himself in Warsaw has a kind of functional ist machine
aesthetic maybe reminiscent of the german back wound estates.
Um And then for example, another two other key
leading figures in the presence group. Also one of
the more famous architect, husband and wife architect partnerships
between Stanislaw Krukowski and Barbara's Kowalska. I had a
slightly different sort of approach to their interpretations of other
strands of early modernist ah attitudes. So for example
, the spatial in plainer shearing that they sort of
and deformations that they explored in their own villa.
I might have taken its cue from from the the
style movement. Um but these were all sort of
individual experiments. Ah and in the 30s and the
40s the rhetoric of especially surrounding the faculty of Architecture
and design at the polytechnic became increasingly oriented towards addressing
issues of mass uh scale housing. And the two
founders of the president's group actually was another, probably
the most famous uh partnership duo between shimon circles and
Helena. So if you know your system history,
you've probably encountered the name. She was actually the
secretary of the organization Up until uh about uh early
to mid 1940s. And so the tenor became increasingly
oriented towards issues of mass scale housing unless these sort
of individual experiments or sort of stylistic tryouts of different
sort of aesthetic a trends the early modern period actually
still Kosova was she was the secretary of the organization
. You can see her picture here between uh Secret
Gideon and the bustier. And she was actually helped
edit draft the Athens Charter. So I think all
of this sort of stems back to this particular diagram
and of course, for as much as it was
first conceptualized Between 1913 and 1916 as a new housing
unit prototype and standardized building method designed to economize the
construction process, of course, later advanced as a
performance assembly technique goes to help aid the reconstruction effort
following the widespread devastation incurred during the First World War
, arguably, no single building scheme alone has exercised
more reverberant effect on the discipline of architecture or the
general building culture, the succeeding modernist period as an
abstract idea, the crusades maison domino, possibly due
to its fast it'll compression into a single perspective rendering
of a primitive column and slab structure. Undergirded by
a reinforced concrete poured frame, the image of the
domino as imbued the architectural discipline and building culture with
described clarity of its unembellished representation, strong iconography and
construction, material logic. So, in a 2014
, special issuing of log devoted to the centennial celebration
of the Domino scheme and its entry onto the main
stage of a new building era as a leading catalyst
of the early modernist movement, Pier vittorio Carelli posits
that the dissemination of the image into architectural and building
culture occurs at a moment when the possibility of its
conceptualization marks the first major convergence refusing of architecture with
the economic processes of industrial production. This very convergence
of architecture into the hands of the market, initially
championed by Le Corbusier as the basis of the domino
scheme, would also later become a primary motivation.
The diverging projects of disciplinary T. That would seek
to resist the marriage between architecture and the industrial economy
and building industry, and the resistance towards the apprehension
of architecture as a coalescence of market forces implied in
the domino scheme, it was primed to be achieved
in one of two ways, either by pronouncing the
ingrained structures of formal argumentation intrinsic in the modernist vocabulary
of syntactic relations between building elements, geometric figures,
and by insulating their prescriptions as a trans historical and
therefore autonomous sub structure of formal effects underlying the surface
mannerisms of any particular style or period, or by
deploying the available repertoire of monitors, techniques, and
formal and organizational devices as instrumental tools to help project
possible alternatives. The singular and hegemonic social and political
vision attributed to the early modernist movement. So,
the case for either a critical or projective architecture as
the basis for disciplinary t bifurcated on the difference between
modes of engagement related to autonomy and instrumentality, both
streams of disciplinary that emerged in the 20th century.
Attempt to recuperate architecture from its takeover by the industrial
economy as subscribed by the directives of market control and
as such, diverging their reading and appropriation of the
domino as either a possible self conscious formal index oriented
towards its own internal processes, science systems and self
guided mechanisms or by accelerating the mobility of of instrumental
applications implied in the social and political vision of the
domino in order to project alternative visions all using the
same formal and organizational devices made available in the modernist
repertoire. Yeah, that's already 20 45 minutes.
I don't know. I'm so sorry. We're just
getting to the good 45 minutes. Sorry, everyone
. So I'm gonna be even faster than the next
person. Yeah. Claire Robinson is an assistant professor
in the school of Architecture at the University of Arizona
where she teaches courses in modern architecture theory and history
. She received her doctorate in architecture from the University
of California Berkeley. Master of Architecture from Harvard Graduate
School of Design and Bachelor of Arts from smith College
recently examined the architecture and planning of the mid 20th
century, especially social environment on college campuses for their
educational, social and economic. In addition to campus
community centers, she studies called architectural development and the
social landscape of the medicine, please. Mm hmm
. So, mm hmm. So, back to
the United States. This paper examines the Humphries,
is author of the 19 college unions. A handbook
on campus Humphries was not an architect but hostess of
Willard's strength the usual at Cornell University, um 1932
and 1939. That was the year she worked two
of those years between 30 she spent traveling north to
study and then to begin writing the first and I
would also say the last most sense of on college
unions. A graduate of Greenville Women's College now furman
University and later Cornell with the masters. Her pioneering
efforts to study student unions ignited the integration of women
into the association of college unions, influence the planning
and design of buildings and recast the role in student
operations and leadership. College union buildings first appeared in
America at the University of pennsylvania and Houston Hall and
18 96, Harvard University in 1902. and Brown
University call him later In 1903. But the national
movement to construct such buildings took hold during the 1920s
, shortly after World War I. When that then
fledgling social institution then called the Association eight, you
say that gained momentum. Um And here's an image
of the conference delegates in 1930. Um They met
regularly after the Cold War. What and the picture
of Edith to the side the A. C.
You not directly responsible for the construction american university campuses
operated as a fraternal organization of union director staff and
students. Until your early 1930s, women joined efforts
to carry out your mission, which in a broad
brush strokes involved assembling and disseminating information about type in
social programs. So Edith lt Humphries outs then was
one of those two crowd, you might see a
tall, She is the shorter one just beside image
and I think beside her as charlotte trainer from how
can I resist MS delegation Individual buildings constructed in the
1920s and Cornell Building harness the social aspirations, progressive
era to create social spaces for students. Although A
C claimed the debating society Cambridge is the earliest present
architects of americans private social clubs to on one hand
, create an organized spaces for breeding games. Yeah
, yes. And on the other hand, to
up the students socially and set economic patient materials part
and furnishings common week. The earliest buildings akin to
America's private clubs, similarly segregated women but were otherwise
open, meaning that membership, but women were soon
involved affairs and challenging the sentence space is not just
an image. I'm sure here the ball is in
the name. Um, at Cornell and I'm just
using Cornell example. Um, in these plans,
you might be able to notice that on the left
, there's a separate entrance for women in two different
lounges that women were able to used on one side
of the building and that the main entrance being on
the right on the ground floor was for men and
men had access to the upper floors, including a
dormitory, a billiard room. Um, and of
course the memorial hall and library and there was a
lounge in between that these two groups could um,
mix on a formal or will say supervised occasions.
Okay. And then here's a few images of women
using um, the building and at different points in
history, college and university campuses built student unions without
orchestrated effort between 18 96 and 1914. In 1914
A. C. You formed it actually had yet
a different name at that time, but it doesn't
matter. It soon became imperative for the organization to
assemble information on planning, design and operation of extent
buildings. So members of A C. You had
held conventions, but I would say irregularly before World
War One and regularly afterward, but the meetings were
not enough to capture the student union movement nationwide.
Thus, in 1923 and 25 the A. C
. You spearheaded the first round of studies conducted as
surveys by mail, the results reported in their bulletin
conveyed to general conclusions that older unions were either inadequate
in size or lacking programs or both. And secondly
, that an ideal complete union, I would also
mention fictionalized Union would have 40 different types of spaces
. So in an ideal union rooms would range in
size and purpose from alumni offices to barbershops, candy
counters, dance halls, locker rooms, music rooms
, radio, broadcasting room, smoking rooms. Um
, I think you get the idea that the student
union had become more comprehensive and complex and also a
coed idea. This is data pulled actually from,
from Humphrey's work, indicating that essentially by the start
of the war that most new unions constructed were accommodating
both men and women in the college Humphries book college
unions was seminal and significant. She followed her.
She came after those sort of cursory studies to complete
it, she secured financial support from the Association of
College unions, the Teachers College at Columbia University and
the Elmhurst American committee. And I only mentioned that
because the donor of Cornell was in fact a woman
whose husband died and that's not the only case in
which a woman has donated a considerable amount of money
to construct an entire building for the purposes of students
socialization. So I mentioned that that there's a period
of time when women are that with money are the
guardians of say, um the sort of social um
discourse among men and women. So at the onset
of her work in in Elmore's was her name.
So at the onset of her work in 1935,
the Ace, you had only 43 member schools and
only 33 of these member schools had physical facilities for
union activities. Like a dedicated building. 30 schools
participated in Humphrey study by completing comprehensive surveys of union
activities and facilities Which were in addition to those from
the 1920s. And Humphries personally visited 55 campuses with
some kind of student activity space sort of reaching beyond
the association's official member roster. She also interviewed key
campus personnel such as steins of men and women,
Y. M. C. A Secretary's presidents of
student government and presidents of universities. So based on
this research, she charted how student unions developed from
what she called the debate stage exemplified by the english
debating societies at Oxford and Cambridge to the club stage
, exemplified by Harvard Union and Houston Hall and the
democracy stage and finally the community recreation stage. All
of these stages occurred before World War two, when
campuses had few provisions for housing and when the Y
. M. C. A greek and other societies
had only a partial role fulfilling the social needs of
students. Articulation of these stages allowed Humphries to discuss
. For example, the rise of student government and
the inclusion of women in union activities during the democracy
stage as well as the diversification of activities included in
unions during the so called community recreation stage. So
her final work contained eight chapters on topics ranging from
the significance and purpose of unions to the building's financing
, staffing and sort of governing organization of the union
with seven dependencies. It amounted to the most concentrated
data on unions. It was a true handbook and
this is a photograph of the copy I have held
onto for now, six years out of the Arizona
library and and a and a map of of where
she went. So humphreys was the first really to
stitch the student union movement together at a national scale
instead of relying on directors and staff to attend national
conventions, Humphries went to the schools like showed up
. I ask why why study and write a book
on college unions. Why her. So according to
humphreys written acknowledgement, she stated that quote, the
needs and perplexities I felt as a staff member in
one of the leading university recreation centers of the country
. We're not unlike those of many recreation group workers
. She continues, I recognized the college union as
a potentially unique social laboratory and like my colleagues wanted
to see and understand the student union movement in its
entirety. So in researching her, I have learned
that she began work toward a PhD, which might
be another reason unstated to begin such a project.
And I sorted out that she was available to travel
, say compared to her, her her boss who
is foster coffin. You'll see its image in a
minute. So unlike the male married, um sort
of male married directors of union, she was able
to actually travel. I also gleaned just how the
leadership of a. c. you encouraged her to
complete the project, which may explain why she finished
the project a decade later after marriage in 1939 and
a birth of a child. So turning to the
, to the archive on it. Oh, not
yet. I have to introduce you to a couple
individuals because that's how I found her archive. That
wasn't finding aid with her name on it. It
was, it was finding AIDS with these gentlemen's names
on it. So, um the first uh person
that you need to know about is porter butts who's
at the top. He served as the union director
, the Wisconsin union between 1928 when it opened in
1968 when he retired. He was also editor of
Publications for the Association of College Unions between 1936 and
1970. So almost the same period of time and
he was not an architect but a career long advocate
of student union buildings. He corresponded regularly with Humphries
while she was writing her book and worked as a
consultant. Um Student union planner during the post war
period. The second gentleman Michael hair um was a
new york based architect in practice with first Livingston Elder
and then later Don Hatch and after designing the theater
edition at the Wisconsin union. Um he worked as
a student union architectural consultant and hear read and offered
input on at least one of Humphrey's chapters on the
one on about buildings. And then finally foster coffin
. The third gentleman, he was director of Willard
Straight Hall, her boss. He was an A
C. U. Leader and worked as a consultant
. Um Now and again, not as regularly as
porter butts though. So no, they are the
archives that are not hers. Mhm. So correspondence
with butts occurred with frequency during the 1940s. It's
clear that butts nicknamed mister Union himself was a champion
of humphreys and college union buildings. He also was
an eloquent writer and he pinned articles for the association's
quarterly bulletin, scripted a promotional film about college unions
in the fifties and published his own books on the
state of the college unions around the world and the
college union idea In 1967 and 71. Thus their
letters to each other and the two on the right
are there are between them contained formative commentary on the
role and purpose of college unions as well as apologies
for delays and promises to complete the manuscripts do.
And I'm, I'm familiar with this. So as
far as I can tell, they were each other's
intellectual counterparts similar in age but with different ambitions and
context, but had a long career as a union
director and leader with a see you Humphries, married
and assumed the role of wife and mother before returning
to her alma mater as acting dean and finally a
faculty member. Mm hmm. The social education papers
from which these are from. Also at the University
of Wisconsin also contain evidence that the union director,
um, at Cornell foster coffin offered feedback on chapter
titles and that the architect, Michael Hair offered feedback
on sections of the books, but lutz's voice is
the most persistent and engaged in Humphrey's work. Um
, the first letter on the left requires a little
bit of explanation. It's representative of several letters written
on Humphries behalf. As far as I can tell
. Men established context with publishing houses and there was
some doubt as this particular letter evidence is that the
book was not even needed, the Carnegie corporation from
which the it is from initially thought someone would just
check with a nearby union before you commenced building a
new project on your campus, which was an idea
that perpetuated a fraternity and actually negated the professionalization of
student unions. And it's the second idea i is
the reason why I think porter butts and foster cough
and fought for Humphries project. But sand coffin wanted
to see student unions recognized as a serious collateral organization
for colleges and universities. So correspondence with foster,
coffin archived Carnell and I went to Cornell looking for
her right. She was not there as a subject
heading, um, was similar. It was familiar
. It was social and it was also, um
, business. So here's a letter actually, um
, pinned in her hand, um, giving him
an update on where she is and also some sort
of social family um, ideas and information. Yeah
, it's in his papers, however, it became
clear just how significant her achievement would be. It
was coffin who introduced the idea of Humphrey's attending the
national convention To his colleagues in 1934 and after reading
several letters written about her exchange between foster and other
organizers of the convention. It became clear how she
was unsettling a few convention traditions, admitting a woman
to the convention changed everything. It meant that the
men had to change their manners that they're familiar sort
of bunking with friends or new acquaintances had to change
. And of course the sort of informal topics that
they had, um, as they were attending the
convention. So Trailblazer, she was one of the
first, so to conclude, I think I'm okay
on time. Right. Okay. Um, there's
a number of ways to comprehend or grass per influence
. And so here's one, the book itself,
but the book chapter in particular on the union buildings
the longest actually of all the chapters is one measure
of her influence. She reports, um, in
this chapter, the most popular programs and I'm showing
you the pages of those programs, but also expands
on less common spaces worthy of consideration. For example
, employee recreation rooms, relaxation rooms for women,
um, living quarters for four quarters for faculty and
student union staff members. Those are all very uncommon
spaces, but it was a platform for her to
expound upon ideas that she imagined as being socially significant
. Despite the data that said 90% of unions have
a ballroom, for example, that's one. And
I don't have the number of books that were in
circulation, but I do have a letter from butts
requesting how many copies he should make that he sent
this request to all the directors. Um, and
I've discovered that most union directors had a copy and
anyone who wrote the association asking about unions were invited
to buy a copy. So we'll say it's 300
just just, that's the number of unions built in
the 19 fifties. So the second line of thought
in her influences Humphries, direct contact with universities through
her travel. And here I'm actually quoting from herself
describing um what that travel was like. Um,
the first section upon learning of my visits throughout the
country as Sage Dean Emeritus um said to me,
you should have as much fun telling about unions as
Marco Polo had in relating his travels and she thought
he's right, right. I'm sort of paraphrasing what
I have put here for a quote and she goes
on to say that within union walls, I've experienced
forces at work so human and challenging that a record
of my observation should have an appeal even although it
lacked the magic and novelty of MArco Polo's accounts.
Right? So she face to, face to face
interacted, had coffee tea meals with individuals around the
country and to the side I'm giving you data that
a C UI has actually generated of um, the
timing of union buildings and I noticed a gap but
I noticed it because I'm in Arizona, she went
to Arizona but there was no union until 51 and
then the final way and this is sort of a
summary slide of how I'm um, training her influence
is it was an indirect influence and all the universities
in which porter butts consulted and which architect Michael Herr
consulted and there's no master list of their consultation efforts
. I certainly wish there were. But these are
the universities that I know that one or the other
or both of these gentlemen consulted for in the first
half of the 1950s, her book being published in
46 and again in 51, her ideas about buildings
are fresh and probably in the hands of these two
gentlemen as they travel. So I'll leave it at
this image and thank you. Thank you. So
, we're gonna have a little bit of change.
We're gonna have five minutes break and then we're gonna
continue with our two next presenters. And then at
the very end we're gonna have it Q and A
. With all presenters this morning. Okay, thank
you. So we started with yeah, let's come
back coming. It's 11 the next presenter, Dr.
Shelley Roff. Shelley Roff is an associate professor
at the University of Texas at San Antonio. And
the 2019 recipient of any any H faculty award for
Hispanic serving institutions for her forthcoming book entitled Treasurer of
The City, the public sphere and the civic urbanism
in late medieval Barcelona. Her research and publication have
addressed the architecture of medieval and early modern Spain the
Spanish colonial America and the history of pre-modern women
women working on construction sites in Europe. Her current
research with Dr. Miguel Marti Maties is an archival project
that investigates the appearance of women. Women in the
buildings. Accounts and municipal records in 14th to 15th
century volunteer Spain Dr. Roff received her PhD in Architectural
History from Brown University and she is the recipient of
numerous grants and fellowships, including the Fulbright Foundation and
the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, please. Mhm,
mm hmm. Did you want kids or do
you? I'll just use this. That's fine.
Okay, historians of the built environment have assumed until
recently that before the modern era, women had little
or no involvement in the making of architecture other than
a role as patron. Now, when I say
the premodern period, I mean anything before the 18th
century, it was just an accepted fact that women
were not to be found on the construction site.
Although construction was a major part of the economy in
late medieval and early modern europe women could be found
in large numbers in certain crafts and trades that were
determined to be genteel enough for the fair sex,
like spinning and laundering and rumors had it in the
archive that a woman could not or should not enlist
in the carefully guarded membership of the building trades.
Now, this is actually true. Many of the
building trades had carefully guarded secrets. Yet almost every
one of these craft workshops or building trades also had
wives, sisters and daughters living in the same household,
whom it can be proven in some cases,
helped from time to time in the workshop upon the
death death of a master. His widow. Not
always, but often enough inherited the workshop and continued
to manage and direct the work until the oldest son
came of age. We know about this because the
archive provides us with with evidence in diverse regions of
europe. Usually during times of economic crisis of journey,
men and other masters complaining, requesting that laws
be passed to keep the women out references encountered in
archival documents. Two women's engagement or association with building
has been noted in 20th century scholarship as unusual,
perhaps unique to their specific archive. And this information
has most often been relegated to a footnote in their
study. Thus, the student or scholar interested in
knowing more was left with the impression that women made
virtually no contribution to this aspect of the pre modern
economy. Mm hmm. Only in the last few
decades has the true nature of women's contribution to the
construction site in europe. Come to the fore in
20 skip there, just a minute. Um,
only a handful of scholars have delved deeper into their
archives and found a few cases of medieval and early
modern women working in a range of occupations in Europe.
And I'll show you some of them for example,
poor women hired from manual labor, women working
as slaves, women working with their husbands, sometimes
with their fathers in the building trades, women continuing
the workshops of their deceased husbands and women supplying and
transporting building materials to their particular sites. Now the
number of women encountered were few at any given site.
Yes, they were there latent in the archive.
In 2010, I published a survey of these
women across Europe in a chapter in the book Medieval
Women and Wealth. And during this research, I
came across an interesting quote I wanted to share with
you And this is a quote by the 16th century
architect and writer Philip Barked alarm. Um and he
wrote, can anything be found which can employ and
busy more people of either sex than building poor people
who would otherwise have to go and beg for their
bread. Well, I found that fascinating And I
kept on looking for more. This project has been
ongoing since 1995 um in general, so it's been
going on for a long time, but only recently
I connected with Dr Miquel Marti Maties in Valencia.
Um and we began to work on an archival project
there and made a pretty amazing discovery. What we
want to present today is new research from the Municipal
Archives in Valencia, which illustrates an unprecedented number of
women involved in the billing process in the late medieval
period. Today's paper is the first public presentation of
that work and as a framework through which to present
this discovery, we would like to engage the theme
of this symposium, which highlights the archive itself as
a place of Latent connections, a potential well of
existing evidence that has not yet been developed or manifest
and rest quietly waiting human investigation. Our objective is
to take you into the archive itself to show you
the general scope of the documentation project To give you
a glimpse into just one municipal building account in 1380
. Trust me that's enough right there and to discuss
why we believe these latent women have not surfaced in
scholarship until now. I always wondered with all the
local historians, all the work being done on Valencia
, not a mention of a single woman. Lastly
, um, we would like to address why these
women are, why we think these women are important
to the history of architecture and two women's studies in
general. Yeah, Now the research project is focused
on public works that were managed by Valencia City government
in the 14th and 15th centuries in order to understand
the nature of public work construction in Valencia. A
brief introduction to the city's layout and its history is
essential. Valencia was formerly a Muslim city that was
conquered in 1238 by the first who was the king
of the Crown of Aragon. The king gave incentives
to christian immigrants who came to the crown to settle
in valencia in the form of freedoms that could not
be had in sin. Your real land. In
1269, the king seated the existing Muslim walls and
ditches that surrounded the city to the new Christian immigrant
immigrant population. Almost a century later, the municipal
government of Valencia discussed the need to build new fortifications
further, a field that would better protect the expansion
of the city and its agricultural fields. I'm demonstrating
that expansion in this slide In 1356, King Peter
III concerned with an ongoing threat of conquest by Pedro
, the cruel of Castile ordered the city government to
begin this project. Right away. This became the
first public works project undertaken by the Valencia in city
government And the records of payment to workers in the
14th century provides us with the very first evidence of
women working on construction sites in Valencia. Now,
our research on these women is based in an archive
called the arch Evo municipal de Valencia Which houses the
city records dating back to the mid 13th century documentation
on municipal architectural projects in the late medieval period can
be found in several medieval manuscripts, uh several manuscript
series, I should say in this archive for which
generations were kept in large wood boxes such as you
see on the lower right here. Um and these
boxes were in houses that were purchased by um the
city government. They didn't have an official town hall
necessarily back then. Today, the archive resides in
an 18th century palace, which you see on the
left. The most important series in this collection for
our project, which I've highlighted in white is called
the, which means walls and ditches, Which spanned
from the 14th to the 19th centuries. Now,
an organization called the june to the summer's eve eyes
, let's go forward here, the june to the
more device they are aboard, um, which is
in basically in charge of this construction on the walls
and ditches. This was a board of ecclesiastical,
military, royal and municipal members established by the king
in 1358 to assess the damage caused to the new
walls under construction and other parts of the city after
a violent storm caused the Turia river to flood the
city. This board oversaw the construction maintenance and repair
of bridges crossing the river into the city, the
fortifications and their exterior protective ditches and the roads entering
the city. The jurisdiction of this board soon was
extended to all public works in the city by the
15th century. Now we have divided this documentation project
into two phases, Their chronological, the first phase
1365-1400, that dates 1365 indicates the very first surviving
manuscript of the motor devised series, which also provides
the starting point Of evidence for the women's employment on
these projects are very first woman actually comes from 1365
. These manuscripts were produced annually, but unfortunately many
no longer exist, which creates an issue with developing
a chronological and global understanding of these women's participation.
The phase one manuscripts, which is what we're gonna
be looking at today are accounts of payments to workers
who supervised and in the manual labor of partially deconstructing
the muslim walls and constructing new Gothic era structures.
Our project is to transcribe these manuscripts and place the
data on the men and women into a relational database
that would allow us to conduct analytical searches now.
Whereas the Phase one manuscript and the majority of the
city's expenditures were centered exclusively on the city's defensive projects
In the 15th century, which is phase to go
forward here. Um, this is when they begin
to address a variety of needs that are needed in
the city for public institutions and other kind of infrastructure
for a fastly growing city things such as public hospitals
and new government buildings. Thus far between the two
centuries, over 200 women have been found working on
city walls, bridges and other civic architecture Sponsored by
the municipal government in the 14th and 15th centuries.
These women played an important role in the city's commercial
activity and its prosperity and also we have found middle
class and aristocratic women who were influential sponsors and funding
municipal public works. Now, let's look at the
actual documents Today, we will present to you an
analysis of just one manuscript from Phase one which documents
women working on the building of the city walls.
Um, notice the term here. Um, the
area was the Department of Public Works who carried out
the decisions of the to the device. Also,
that term sought sobre area was the name of the
official counting book where payments were recorded daily, the
individual accounting books were recorded in a specific year and
were written on a vegetal fiber paper and they were
bound together inside. Go forward here. Oops here
we can see one up close. Um you can
see that each of these books of paper were bound
inside of a parchment cover. Most of the manuscripts
are different looking from municipal manuscripts because they are long
and narrow. So an example here from the side
and they often have the date on the spine and
most have describes names on the front cover and sometimes
a few notes and even a few of them have
an emblem of the king and of the city painted
on front The earliest area that has survived in a
manuscript recorded as the one in 1380 which you can
see the date on the side here. If you
open the 1380 manuscript to any page within, you
will see um kind of looks like a ledger,
right? You'll see a list of names and amounts
paid and I want you to notice that the list
of names are arranged in groups um with a little
break in between above each group is a phrase that
states and I'm just translating here for you the day
of the week and the month. And also a
phrase that says these were workers were paid and then
underneath it's the names and amount they're paid. Um
The first group for each date is a list of
men and then following that will be a separate group
of a list of women's names. Um Usually they're
about the same number of names of men and women
in these separate groups. Throughout the 1380 manuscript,
the number of women and men working in each separate
gang were fairly equal and also was equal. The
number of days worked. Um for each day of
work, Each separate gang of women and men had
its own male supervisor and one or 2 male assistants
and each person was paid according to their position.
In the hierarchy, The evidence shows that women workers
were usually usually earned less than half the wages of
their male counterparts, about 12 dinners compared to the
men's 20. Um, no Children are mentioned as
workers. Although this actually can be found in many
other sites in europe. As a point of comparison
for the salaries, um, there seems to be
the norm And during the construction of Toledo Cathedral in
the 15th century, um, there are a few
women who were noted and being paid at half the
rate of the male workers, but usually about the
same amount as the young boys who worked for the
masters. Um, taking this evidence, we began
to ask this question, what can be known about
these women if all we know is their names and
how much they were paying. Well. If this
was all we could know about these workers. This
is gonna be pretty darn dry information to peruse through
hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of pages. And let
me tell you the transcribing process is painful until I
met Dr Michael marty Mattias. I was not willing
to go through these books. I have actually seen
a lot of them in different cities of europe and
I just wasn't willing to do it. And he
convinced me that we could thank you miss most often
the only identifying feature of the purse, each person
is their name, which really is meaningless. Unless
we can build a chronological narrative on individual workers or
we can uncover latent connections between them. I'm just
going to summarize here a few points of sociological interest
that we've uncovered through an analysis of this data.
Some women's names are accompanied by additional information, such
as their marital status and the name of their husband
or father and their profession. One is not related
to the labor at hand, interesting. The men's
names don't have this info. Mhm. In some
cases, the woman's profession is indicated as that of
her husband. Sometimes it's not clear and in other
cases it is clear that she has a profession that
is separate from her spouse and even separate from the
job she's doing in the moment we have found only
rare, a rare few indications of ethnicity. So
usually nothing sad. And a logical assumption is that
most of the workers here were the immigrants which were
um christians mainly coming from the region of Catalonia after
the conquest. Now, something else that we've been
able to assess um is where these workers were from
. one may logically assume that all of those um
who are recorded and much of them don't mention any
kind of town of origin. So we have to
assume that they're living in the city of Valencia.
And we created this map here. Um I've organized
organized this information into a map because there are quite
a number of both men and women where they do
mention a town of origin. That's not the city
of Valencia. Um You can see they come from
very diverse places, both near and far from Valencia
, which is in the far right hand corner.
You'll notice the Brown looking area, Kingdom of Valencia
. Um The red dots that I placed here are
towns where just women came from to work on the
walls. The blue dots are towns where just men
came from and the green dots indicate towns where both
men and women traveled from. For those traveling a
long distance, the greatest numbers seem to have come
from Andalusia. The next question we wanted to ask
was, what were these women doing? This is
a little bit of a problem because after the names
and what they were paid, they didn't actually tell
us what they were doing. We just know that
they got paid and there was no differentiation between what
the men, the gangs of men were doing and
the gangs of women were doing. Are they doing
the same thing? This is gonna take a while
for us to kind of figure this out. Um
The actual activities have to be deduced from other historical
sources and archaeological examination of the materials of the existing
remnant of walls. Now, let's look a little
closer with those walls Here we're looking at the 11th
century walls, um some of those muslim walls that
still exist within the city and they are made of
something called tapia, which in english we would call
tabby concrete tapia is a rammed earth wall um that
was used in Moorish construction on the Iberian peninsula and
adopted by later christian Spaniards. Um an analysis of
the existing Gothic era walls which are fairly similar demonstrates
that they were made of something called tapia valenciana,
which is actually an improved reinforced rammed earth construction.
It's improved because they use brick to reinforce it.
Another historical source indicates that the earth excavated for the
exterior ditches just outside the walls were then being that
earth is then being used in the construction of the
tapia walls. Now, interestingly, the 1380 manuscript
does specifically cite a few women who are not part
of a gang whose activities were congruent with tapia construction
techniques. These women were transporting rubble and earth as
well as bringing carts with bricks to the site.
Now from this, we have deduced that the gangs
themselves were working directly on the construction of the wall
, which involves some potential activities such as constructing the
wood frameworks that you see. Um they'll build a
world framework and then they will pour into it,
notice the little um pulley with the bucket there,
they'll dump into it the tapia mixture um and then
they leave it there to dry and then they move
the former to the next little piece. So from
the outside, the wall actually looks like large adobe
blocks, but it's actually built on the wall as
you build the wall itself. That makes sense.
Now I want to show you something really precious.
I've been looking all over europe for images like this
And I've only found one And it's in 10 well
which is in in the Kingdom of Aragon. It's
actually not that far from Valencia and it's a ceiling
fresco and there's lots of frescoes there, but just
one little panel has these women in it and they
weren't identified a long time ago as women and what
they're showing them doing is engaging in the very activity
. I think of construction tapia walls, I need
to do some further research into this. I've had
this for a while, but it takes a while
to get there. Um but I want you to
notice um the pulley and the and the little bucket
and then the other ones, you know, up
above. She's carrying some kind of basket in a
bucket and then the basket below or it might be
some kind of barrel. Um there, she's mixing
something up. God, just fabulous, So excited
when I found this. Like, it's too good
to be true. Okay, now not everything was
built out of tapia, for example, the gates
and bridges needed to be built out of real stone
masonry. And in this case they're using great Gothic
era technologies, like the best stone technology available at
this time and the kinds of construction techniques um,
that you would be using then, um, we
go forward here. So I just want to ask
a few more questions. One thing is we kind
of have an idea what they're doing. But do
these women have any significance in the world today?
They were poor women working on construction sites. Well
, Michael and I believe they do because their work
is an aspect of the history of the built environment
that has been occluded. It goes against the grain
of what we have been taught to think about women
in historical periods, especially the middle ages. These
women's inclusions have made them invisible as a subject even
to those who study women. If the facts have
always been there in the archive, we must ask
why have they been overlooked and for so long.
One of the reasons we have found is that historians
who study premodern women's work naturally have focused on research
in the areas where the greatest number of women and
qualitative information can be found. Of course we have
to get tenure. Right. These women, these
women would be in the textile crafts, um domestic
service and other traditionally female forms of work for those
who study the archival documents of guilds, Even even
the building craft guilds. The mention of women is
quite rare. Historians have encountered the occasional mention of
women in this context, have often placed this information
in a footnote, as I mentioned earlier in the
presentation. Now, another thought about this. If
they're not just spinning, um, we might look
to architectural studies themselves architectural historians, despite the fact
that historiography and projects have kind of moved away from
patronage, moved away from looking just at elite architecture
and look more vernacular civic technology, other other aspects
of architecture. Still people aren't going and using the
municipal documents, which brings me to the final reason
. And I think the most important reason why people
have not been studying this. They're not going to
be studying patrons. They just don't want to study
the manuscripts. And just one note about why perhaps
the most important reason why you have to transcribe hundreds
of pages, hundreds of pages of lists, Nate
dates, names and amounts paid. It's boring.
If the women are listed at all outside of valencia
, they don't even usually tell you their name.
They usually just list a number of women, just
they just list the gender like for women and that's
it. So it's hard to put together a study
with this. I'll show you something else. When
you look up close at a page of the manuscript
um notice that the paper looks very fresh and the
ink is dark and it's easy to read. And
if you know anything about reading historical documents, this
just doesn't look right where the wormholes where the stains
, where I was like it's it's kind of shocking
when you open these. I've opened them in several
cities and it looks like the minute they finished recording
it, they closed it. And 1000 years later
Michael and I were there like nobody wants to do
this. Um And I think what's gonna help today
, what can we do about this is technology,
technology is our answer. You know we can use
G. I. S. Mapping, we can
use relational databases, we can use scanning and searchable
PDFs and I think in the future and I hope
because I can't go around all over europe and do
all this myself that other people are gonna join in
on this. And you know we can have this
wonderful collaborative pan european project where we document all of
this someday. Thank you. So I'm gonna continue
with the next presenter. Michelle Laboy is an assistant
professor of architecture at Northeastern University as a designer with
degrees in architecture engineering and airborne planning. She's interested
in how trans disciplinary thinking in design creates condition of
socio ecological resilience, her research and teaching. Our
focus on how buildings are grounded in a in a
place socially structurally and experience experientially to enable adaptability to
changing environments. Seminal to that work is an ongoing
examination of ecological thinking in architectural theory and practice and
especially the role of women in imparting architecture agency.
Michelle has master degrees in architecture and airborne planning from
the University of michigan and a bachelor of Science in
civil engineering from the University of Puerto, rico.
Michelle also worked for 10 years as a senior associate
at Marian Thompson architects in Cambridge, a practice dedicated
to architecture that is sustainable, site driven and deeply
connected to the land to the land escape. Her
practice has ranged in the scale from urban design,
two small interactive installations in public space, including many
award winning educational and residential and and residential projects.
Please thank you all thanks for the introduction and thank
you for inviting me here. I am really deeply
honored to be part of this group of excellent presenters
and I've really enjoyed every presentation and and and have
I'm leaving with a lot to think about. So
thank you. Um I'm going to try to be
as quick as possible because I'm sure I'm between you
and lunch, so that's always a hard place to
be. Um um I'm going to talk about my
my the the topic of my talk is reading between
the lines I know I'll just start on ecology,
feminism and family. It's it's work that's been in
progress in my in my career for the last five
or six years, I've been working on this and
really as a kind of side project to understand many
things about my own work, I am not a
historian, but I consider history an essential part of
design research or research on design uh to be able
to position one's ideas in a broader discourse on this
discipline. As was just said, my research looks
at how design creates conditions of socio ecological resilience,
especially through the way that buildings are grounded in a
place, not only structurally, but also culturally and
ecologically and broadly speaking, that means that I look
at the relationship of building and landscape through various forms
of performance. I have to remember to do that
. Um I arrived at Aino Aalto like a handful
of other researchers through Alvarado toe um the famous architect
from Finland known for a humanist and naturalist approach to
modernism. This is in some ways a project that
elucidates for myself, my own network of influences which
comes from being a student and a friend of Professor
Caroline constant who wrote the book on Eileen Gray and
uh many in aspen and many other Scandinavians and working
with architect and landscape architect mary ann Thompson. Um
as I started defining a research agenda as an assistant
professor, I was interested in exploring some of these
early manifestations of a type of work that is architecture
that has a deep connection to landscape as a way
to generate healthier, more sustainable or resilient environments for
people I came to discover that Albert had a female
partner uh and most shockingly that she may have had
a significant role in what is their most seminal work
, The pioneer sanatorium on the left. Where is
she is shown posing in furniture designed by them in
for the sanatorium and the Villa Myra on the right
um residential, they left for one of their patrons
in this project. We see most evident in these
two projects, we see most evident a conviction conviction
that architecture should be an instrument of experiencing the landscape
to heal, to inhabit nature. On a side
note that chair that somebody was sitting on yesterday is
from designed for that sanatorium, so that it's known
as the premier chair. Um So who was,
I know, I know Marcia Alta was born in
Helsinki in 1894 and lived a relatively short life.
She died of cancer in 1949 uh days short of
55 in the span of her life is the white
line on the far left. Um She was married
and worked as a partner with Alvar Aalto for 25
years and that's the yellow line in that timeline.
But as many women we have heard about in this
symposium, her contributions to their joint work were obscured
, edited or simply ignored, fully attributed to the
male partner. Well, there are instances of some
competitions that they submitted separate entries for, for the
most part for anyone who has tried to understand her
independent voice. There are two periods of time in
her career that you need to pay close attention to
. That is her time in school and training in
other offices. Um, which happened before she knew
Alvar and the time after 1935 when they founded the
company, our tech, uh, those are the
two red lines in that timeline. The period this
period after 1935 is the time when I know worked
first as artistic director and then starting I think 1941
as managing director of our tech, leaving more of
a paper trail in the business, but also where
she spent most of her time involved in projects that
alto actually had a little, a lot less to
do with. Um, as he had stayed more
involved in their architecture studio, which was a separate
business. Um, so now I showed two more
events after her death. That is 1953 when Goran
Shield met Alta That's his biographer in 1976 when Albert
died and when she'll published Altos biography. So it's
important to note that she'll never met Aino Aalto.
Um, the biography is in three volumes and was
followed by a collection of Alvarado's writings and lectures and
what he claims is the complete catalog of their work
. Um, but the reality in the biography he
talks about, I know not knowing her often as
a witness or a quiet partner in a secondary role
, but it mentions with what I interpret as a
rather dismissive note, a draft of a lecture uh
that uh that I know is presumably gave to a
group of female architects called the Architect Club in Finland
, in which she stressed the importance of women architects
concentrated and things most important to them housing Children um
and family issues in planning, uh daycare, schools
, libraries and spaces of gathering for young people.
Um I searched many places and I asked multiple sources
for this draft of this lecture. No one seems
to have it, but this would have been one
of the only times when I know would have articulated
in public her interests and her view on the role
of women in architecture or even her own views about
architecture. Was she really saying women had to do
womanly things in her their career? Was it a
different motivation? It is hard to know for sure
, but I have spent a great deal of time
researching and trying to speculate what the answer might be
now the collection of essays. The second group of
the I guess the fourth book that she published is
called, in his own words, uh completely edits
and I know out of the ideological foundation of the
Alto studio promoting the idea of the man as the
sole author by emitting this draft of innocence lecture,
which he mentions in a different book, as far
as I could tell. Shield has been the only
one who has seen it. And emitting a well
known article that she published about their apartment in Turku
, the design of the apartment in Turku um which
is connected to very famous parts of their body of
work. And perhaps there are more edits or emissions
in this that we will never likely know what else
might have been omitted. And then of course,
the catalog of works which mentions in passing that she
took, she led the projects that had to do
with kindergartens, uh schools for and and places for
young people. Um and and says, you know
, she did that and and and and shows two
of them in the catalog, but does not mention
the hundreds of projects I found in the archives that
are related to that work um as if they were
not part of their body of work. So,
I wrote about my findings in two publications first,
the 2015 Aalto Finland Aalto Beyond. Finland Book described
what I discovered in the archives about her role in
designing for Children, especially how this typology brought together
her integration of progressive pedagogy um landscape garden and architecture
. The second was an invitation by Nina Levine from
the Bard Graduate center in new york to take a
closer look at some of those projects for Children in
the arctic are a portion of the Alto Archives.
So I helped select and explain projects on Children's spaces
that were featured as part of a 2016 exhibit at
the Bard Graduate Center in new york city. And
and I wrote a section of the exhibit catalog,
very small section called the exhibit catalog catalog is called
Arctic and the outdoors, creating a Modern World,
which was published in 2017. And I'm very proud
to say that this book of which I only have
a very, very, very infinitesimally small part on
uh, one last year's award for um, the
Society of Architectural historians on the exhibit catalog. Very
exciting. So I was intrigued to present these ideas
here when I saw that there was a call on
the subject of expanding the archives because I would like
to hear about and perhaps share my own experience with
this subject and a series of questions that I'm still
thinking about. How do we analyze and expand what
we see in the professional archives, which are very
well kept of a partnership where the woman has been
kept in the shadows of a very famous male partner
. Um can we read between the lines of a
dominant within those dominant narratives by taking a closer reading
about of what their social and professional networks said about
her. Can we interpret from the choices the women
the women made about projects to head or the professional
space? She tried to create for herself on her
own? Was she choosing to work on what was
left what he left for her or what was expected
? Or was there an ideology driving her decisions?
Can we find her hand in their joint work by
looking at what she did on her own? Um
So I first visited the um the Albuterol to Foundation
Archives in 2014 and I want to stress, they're
called the Alvar Aalto Foundation Archives, which are connected
to the Alva Alto Museum Again, Albert Alta Museum
. Uh these are located in Jyvaskyla Finland and it
is it has a collection of drawings and photographs of
the work of the Alto studio, but it also
has a collection of documents from arctic. Uh the
company partly founded by the outer males with their major
patron Marie, Mayra Gulliksen and the historian Nils Gustav
while mostly known as a furniture company. Now at
the time it was conceived of as a venue to
promote modern art and design, a place for lectures
and exhibits and a design service firm. Um and
in that archive, it includes a few architectural projects
that she did, you know, did on her
own and they're kind of buried in the arctic arctic
archives, an indication that she kind of made of
space a professional space for her own um to understand
her time before, although I relied on an interview
with a review of the scholarship of the first expert
, scholar on I know woman and kokonin who separately
mentions in her book in those interesting gardens in china's
interest in Children's spaces, Her interest in montessori pedagogy
, her interest in interior design, but she did
not attempt to put together into an ideology. This
idea perhaps do not speculate about what specific ideas she
brought to the partnership um or I don't know what
else, but I propose that so many of Alvarado's
most discussed. Um Humanism has to do with the
integration of nature in architecture, the attention to detail
in architecture and the and furniture design, which was
so evidently and consistently per uh something she pursued on
her own even before working with Alto. Uh similarly
um a recent monograph published in 2004. The first
monograph on her work, I noticed a brief mention
of her internship at a landscape architecture firm before meeting
Alto and a carpentry apprenticeship. Uh two facts that
I think lets us speculate on what values and skills
she was adding to. Uh there there there joint
architecture training um as as and I also looked at
the university to see some of her work and her
transcripts, which suggests she combined these interests in her
thesis project, which was the design of a nursery
school, a program that again, I think combines
her interest in pedagogy garden furniture and building uh into
an integrated and sensory experience. Uh This year,
the ultimate museum shared with me the only journal they
have of hers as far as they know, Parts
of which were shown in the arctic exhibit in new
york. Her. And I went through it.
Her journal entries are full of lists and not not
paragraphs, just lists and textual descriptions of rooms,
um materials and products of everyday life from her travels
. We also see a manager in her involved in
noting pricing and listing sources for products and we find
sketches for certain items of special interest to her,
I think, from a design point of view,
some furniture, some patterns, but also architectural details
of riser pipes for radiators or a window wall,
which she paid a lot of attention to surfaces designed
to be covered with plants. Again, an attention
to function to details and to uh botany in architecture
. Yeah. Um in the Alto Archives, there's
all of some of the architectural drawings have this quality
of combining scales, space planning and sensory experience rooted
in a kind of pragmatism, functionality, and an
extreme attention to details of construction, especially on the
edges and thresholds between inside and outside, which is
an important aspect of what we know as the work
of the Altos, especially at that very formative time
when she was alive and was her partner, his
partner, luckily in some pages of her journal,
we find notes about significant architecture projects that she may
have been working on at the time when she was
writing this journal with the Alto studio. So like
the famous Victory librarian Vibert from 1935 and this one
you see notes of her thinking about furniture made out
of wicker about plants and vines that needed to be
included. A curtain behind the wash basin of the
Children's library, but also the washbasin itself, which
is actually a uh an element of um of early
childhood pedagogy and hygiene and many of the kind of
themes that were prevalent in kind of modernist and progressive
thinking in architecture. Um And and this confirms some
of the connections I had speculated about. In one
of my pages of the arctic, our exhibit book
, we see the famous photograph of the library's Children's
Action, a sketch of the famous curtain behind the
Children's washbasin, the organic motifs on her textile,
but also what Israeli mentioned again, the washbasin itself
. Um and I think by understanding the broader context
of influences and interests, we can see where she
invested attention to create a fully integrated idea of an
architectural space that had a strong social environmental agenda as
I see it. Um Since then, the outer
foundation um Archives has been looking more closely at this
portion of Eno's work and to digitize some of the
work on Children's spaces, resulting in a major exhibit
in 2016 in the museum in Finland. Um an
effort for which I shared some of my drafts writings
with them um and a portion of the arctic exhibit
um at the broadway dance center featured very prominently.
This work As part of that search. The alta
foundation archivists found a brochure on Children's furniture for health
clinics promoting the art tech have been certified by the
national finished agency in charge of expanding the health system
for Children and expecting matters especially after the devastating wars
. So that became kind of important part of their
marketing. Um, this brochure included many pieces designed
by Aalto by, you know, that I found
on the archives. Um, and based on the
number of projects listed in the archive, this may
have become a lucrative market for for arctic. So
the promotion of children's furniture and exhibits, which she
also took a big leadership role in it, including
Mama's exhibit in 1938, expanded our techs market of
furniture internationally and continues to be part of the Delta
collection that's sold today at our tech. This find
this finding on this brochure underscores also the importance of
having archives where multiple researchers can access over time because
I think each researcher brings a very specific interest or
a lens or perspective and can guide the process of
uncovering or at least reframing the value that we might
see in parts of the archives that may have seen
unimportant. Um, many other documents are believed to
be in the hands of a family, her family
, um, their grandchildren now, but we do
not know what or how much they're, they're fairly
private, but what is emerging is the very real
potential that I know is not only part of a
very, very a group of very progressive designers.
Many women committed to the project of modernism to improve
the lives, especially women of Children through an emancipatory
power of planning and design of cities, buildings and
landscapes. But equally important to her. Her international
itty sorry intentionality and business savvy in identifying and creating
markets and focusing on the creation of a brand.
Uh, to continue to intelligently speculate on in Los
Altos career. We need to not only expand the
number of researchers and perspective studying her very limited archives
, but also expand the search to include archives of
figures who may have encountered her during that time.
The wider network of people, ideas and projects that
might have influenced her. But also the potential for
many designers who were influenced by her work. Uh
, and this is a fairly reductive diagram of that
idea that I've started to think about. So in
reviewing all the literature to understand the ways in which
I know was talked about almost always in passing.
I began to notice a network of these ideas and
influences that aligned with her work and interests. I
started mapping this inner circle of thinkers, mostly designers
through the 1929 signed Congress that alto attended, which
connected them to a second ring of thinkers, including
a number of important women that influenced politics, design
and planning regionally and even globally whose archives I think
should be studied from this point of view, themes
of modern life of art and everyday life, Children's
well being, um Individual liberty, freedom are all
kind of present there um including ah um you know
a letter from Alto that's mentioned, where he talks
about the two women who were at sea in 1929
which one of which was Margaret shoot Lubetzky, the
designer of the famous Frankfurt kitchen that is believed to
have influenced my nose, ergonomic design work and competition
entries, but also the designer of nursery schools in
the soviet union, Japan, Istanbul and Bulgaria,
which could have influenced enough's work in kindergartens as well
. Um and actually should Trotsky has a small part
in the archive here which I have not seen but
I would love to um in addition to the influence
of Montessori ideas and freedom and integrate geology, there
are many other types of influences but I think uh
and including a failed magazine project that Albert altar was
planning with Gregor Paulson that was going to invite as
one of the first writers Ellen Wagner who important figure
in feminism that you know, seen as sort of
a precursor to eco feminism. Um but her closest
and possibly most influential connection was the mark alias couple
in Sweden. That includes um Sven and Viola Marc
Elias venice, famous architect in Sweden. Uh they
stayed with each other many times. They vacationed together
. They shared many social dinners over the years um
and VM R kelly's worked directly with Alva Myrdal,
who is an important figure um in leading up the
kind of project of collective housing in Sweden and uh
promoting ideas of social welfare uh and communal living that
would um provide a kind of individual liberty, especially
for women. So I'm curious about that aspect of
the work, but it was Viola Martellus, who
the wife of that famous Swedish architect in an adult
. A friend who had one of the few quotes
about the I know in Altos biography that I think
it's an example of where we can, where I
can think about, you know, reading between the
lines saying that I know took more of an interest
in social issues than Albar. And how should I
say her talent was deeper than his. Um Does
this suggest a more genuine conviction? Does it explain
her dedication to this large, large volume of relatively
invisible work? Even if it meant not seeking credit
for it? Does this suggest that she was the
talent? Not just the muse of Alvear as many
have called her? We don't know. So,
to conclude This 2005 Review of the only monograph of
Aino Aalto, a review by Richard Weston of Cardiff
University acknowledges her work, but says there is a
world of difference between talent and genius and no amount
of special pleading about the fact that they're working methods
were marked by absolute equality and that projects were jointly
signed will convince me that history has been unkind in
assigning to Albar the creative credit for the work of
their partnership which was which was cut short by china's
death from Cancer in 1949. So I think this
quote this is 2005. I think this quote illustrates
the challenges of archive research on women architects who were
partners with famous men because in search for rare examples
where you can prove that they led or worked independently
on something we end up needing to focus on the
hidden work, the less known work, otherwise you
are limited by the lasting effects of that dominant narrative
of male authorship on the more famous projects. And
I think this common missed the point that to find
a nice quiet but very significant voice to present in
his work by herself means unfairly leaving out many important
seminal works that were jointly authored but cannot be separated
. Uh It also makes the point that we also
traveled to congress is like Siam to promote their ideas
, their ideas. She was doing the essential work
of running a business, a very successful one and
a family and managing an illness premature in life as
well. Yet in that less glamorous work, I
think we find clues to the intersection of a deeper
social and economic agenda of an essential and equal partner
. Thank you. Yeah. Mm hmm. So
now we're gonna have a um a panel discussion or
question and answer. Should I close this? Mhm
. Oh yeah I would sit in the elder chair
but it's too low. Mhm. And too uncomfortable
. Mm hmm. You've come to an interesting,
there is some invisible nature. Sure. Mhm.
But we had a tradition having swiss architects come here
for. So they came because Olivia archives is over
there and they stayed with the students they stayed quite
Well. one was Carl thank you. So this
is interesting meaning because Rebecca Chester worked with personal,
she got in any case those people and there were
three of them. Okay police. There was a
tradition which you made cross of swiss circuit conditions.
What's that work? So that's Florence Moser. So
they essentially lived that. Yeah. What? Lawrence
? Mhm. The latest he came back cheers.
He says that upper has made special drawing fit on
her hospital. Don't know if Cambridge never. So
that she could continue working on the dormitory. Thank
you. So here's my question. 50 years after
the baby in the paper house. Yeah, yep
, collaboration. Yeah, baker house is such a
special agent. Okay. Stand for them on that
to find research through because he was very interesting.
The street. Yeah. 15 years work. My
wife. It was, yeah it was, she
died while he was still going. So have you
come across presentations from that on the day for us
. I mean for me, can I imagine that
there would be a conference for dormitory. Any of
them, What you're talking about is credit the baker
house many, many subtle ways you really have to
analyze. Yes. Yeah. That symposium, I
have not and I'm glad you mentioned this so that
I can look closer. It has not been yet
in my reader, although I did notice that in
the museum there was an exhibit when I was there
last time that that did mention some correspondence between them
about between Alto and I know about the baker house
, which is one of the few places where like
they it's actively mentioned like she was, he was
he was consulting with her on this on this project
and it's so close to home for me, the
the baker house that I've kind of left it as
like that's the thing I'm gonna do when I run
out of things to do in Finland or somewhere else
, but I I should get involved in that work
as well. Thank you. Okay. Okay.
Thank you. Um I wonder if you have published
already on the subject of furies and they've so how
do you deal with the issues of corporate for publishing
the illustrations, those frescoes, the images and whatever
images that are coming. Yeah. Um I've published
that one chapter in 2010 which was the general survey
of women in Europe um working in building trades and
in um um and a construction site and those are
all the instances where there's just very few women just
here and there. Um The valencia archive is a
recent project and well, the last two years and
we're going to be publishing a book on it,
but it won't be out for a while Because I
have another book to finish 1st and in terms of
images, there are very few images to work with
in europe in general and they're all copyrighted. Some
of them are at the bibliotheque nationale in paris,
the one that I have in Teruel. Um I
have permission from a photographer, personal permission to use
it. Um but if you wanted to publish it
, you'd have to go to him or someone else
to get a copyright. Yeah, I have a
question that's for all of you. I want to
start with Michelle because you are saying something. I
just want to ask you to repeat the last paragraph
of what you're saying because I think you had said
what I found interesting about all four papers together was
the way that you're talking about both the absences and
the inclusions in the archive, those things that we
barely could bind the laden the missing just so barely
there and how to start finding the significance in it
and how to start drawing connections between them. And
I think Michelle your last bit that you said,
you had to say so quickly because it's something um
it was brilliant. And so it's one thing that
I couldn't quite catch at all because I think you
were trying to say and what do we do or
how do we work with? We make sense of
and theorizing position these absences and omissions and kind of
the histories of not knowing the history. Yeah,
Well that is something that it's a question I have
. I don't know that I can answer it.
Uh I think it's worth asking and worth pursuing because
I'm not a historian. I'm hoping that others help
me answer that. Uh but I think yesterday,
um one of the presentations had a map of networks
and connections and I was talking later and and you
know, I thought this is very important because that
way of thinking which is incredibly complex and you know
, kudos to you. That's insane. Because I'm
just putting like that there's like six people around.
I know it's really hard for me this, this
is like ridiculous. Uh just the idea of having
uh kind of open sourced network or a kind of
archive digitally that that maps those connections where you can
have multiple people focused on different women across the globe
who might have interacted in some way or another might
help us makes sense of kind of this larger project
that I think many women designers were involved in,
that we're not, you know, given credit for
. So I think that's where things become more clear
when you find the one quote from someone I just
met I know and you know she whatever, somebody
told me the other day that I'd fall in water
. There's a mention of the visit of the Altos
there and something about Froebel and kindergartens and I was
like oh some they might have talked about this.
And so I haven't seen it. But like there's
many ways in which you can start to think about
. Okay, maybe a scholar and frank Lloyd wright
finds correspondence on this with. I know and that's
a way in which like their map and my map
can start to connect and and hopefully the other map
. And that would be an interesting way of at
least developing an idea of who was influencing who or
who was talking to whom or you know, making
sense of something that's very obscure. I don't know
if anything what's happening because I think that that's something
that you all are all four of you are really
pointing to with either new methods significance is as well
as methods of thinking about these new discoveries. Yeah
. Well, so I have this massive Excel file
that I think I need to expand into a network
, the Excel files. All the consultants and there's
a lot of them that worked on union stuff and
architects. Um And then to add to my Excel
file. This question actually of women because this is
my subject is broad and then it's all student union
building 1765. But um this is really the only
woman whose name. Mm hmm. Um early on
in the process of having this building type becomes official
. So I went to Cornell knowing that there were
folders with hostess labeled on them. But not,
you know, I didn't ever mean I found her
letters everywhere. So it wasn't just that was just
I think it's interesting. I thought she was raising
her hand and I think it's interesting in a way
and following up on what you were saying, it's
um placing a little bit of attention on peripheral vision
. So usually we're looking for something that we're going
in to see if we can find information. But
all of you are one way or another just looking
at the periphery as if it was peripheral vision and
finding other people that can give you indications about,
you know, what's not there in the center.
And I think it's really quite fascinating. I think
I'm sort of suffering from the opposite problem though because
is so well exposed in the center and just dive
straight in and it's she's been so well documented and
her name has been so well attributed that I just
it's so difficult for me to parse out either one
figure from the other from the partnership, especially in
the context of the joint design for the new city
. Um, but maybe it's interesting to think that
she could be in the periphery of somebody else that
you don't know. Yeah. I mean it's it's
a kind of unique case anyway. If I'm thinking
of a larger 20th century Polish context, especially during
the times of the PRL where a lot of state
run offices employed up to half of their workers were
women. They were usually subordinated to draft people.
They weren't sort of leading design teams except for this
upper echelon of a few women that shared the spotlight
with their male counterparts. Um, that it seems
like especially it's especially pronounced in the case of head
chef scott is that the partnership itself was so melded
together that it's, it's, I think as soon
as I started the laminate one figure from, from
the other within the context of the project, I'm
stepping into something like their biography, which isn't necessarily
the approach that I wanted to adopt. So you
get this sort of super exposure with these few women
architects and then very little sort of information workforce.
I'm sorry. But you know, I'm just going
to say I like that you use that word periphery
because the only way that I can really know more
about these women is to literally get out of the
archive and look for other types of sources, anthropological
, archaeological, other secondary history, but also to
go to other archives, for example, um,
the women from Teruel that worked in on this site
, did they work on the cathedral of which has
worked on for a very long period of time at
the time when the frescoes were made. I mean
, that's a whole nother article right, there is
there a connection. So, so these stories can
be built kind of like that network idea, you
start to connect things like, oh, I remember
that name from over here and eventually you begin to
piece together a history. Um yeah, I have
a question for Alex actually too. Mhm. I
have called during the PRL or during socialist years in
eastern europe, generally in the period the Republic of
Poland, there's particularly active role of the church.
It's not suited or it's not really pushed, they're
down as as much as the rest. It also
belongs to the so I'm wondering in terms of the
relationship of rapport between the state, which is in
the planning and that, which is of the church
, whether throughout your research, you have come across
of uh whether conflictual again or some type of population
ship in terms of people that's there and there's a
in the naming, does faith play any influence or
any role in the naming of the districts that you
mentioned in your it's not really answer the second reverse
. Not that I'm aware of, but so of
course, it's no secret that the church, especially
with the onset of the solidarity movement, became sort
of the opposition space, the space for the opposition
voice in the PRL because it was sort of coming
to an end and of course when the city first
started to roll out. Mhm. It's interesting actually
, there isn't just older existing fabric. Hope it
was a village that the new development would be crafted
to this old existing and fabric. And then,
but the way that the planners decided to commence the
development is that there is this church in the old
village just still still existing and directly across from the
church as if that kind of face off. They
build a house of culture in a kind of modernist
. All right. Well, in an opposing aesthetic
, obviously opposing ideological uh language and stance. And
it's uncanny. I mean, if you're there,
you have these two, it's like a, I
don't know, king pieces or a king and a
queen sort of squaring off with this plaza in between
. And then from that moment you sort of roll
out with the new development and the development of the
new city, which has a totally different character to
the existing, to the old fabric. Um,
And of course churches were not permitted to be constructed
, especially during the hardline years in the 50s.
And then starting after the thaw. So starting in
the 60s and the 70s, residents would band together
actually and self organized uh, and be able to
procure materials from donators because they couldn't go to the
building industry and started to build churches and worship spaces
for themselves. Mm hmm without the approval of the
planning authorities. And no, I mean, there
are a number of these sort of instances of churches
that were built sort of beneath the radar or quickly
built before the authorities had come in. Cut it
off. I told them to tear it down.
Mm hmm. What's funny is I was even talking
to dr Semolina on the break. There's this one
district actually a the first district which wasn't designed under
the plan of was the only district that was designed
before the plan. Their plan was adopted. It
was the only one that was designed in the Socialist
realist style. And the entrance to this district was
positive. In the center is adorned by this sculpture
of a woman with its called Woman with a travel
. It's a worker looking up to the future staring
into a new socialist society. And after the collapse
of the system, I think it was actually a
99 or 2000 directly on the other side of the
street of the sculpture and directly in her line of
sight they start a construction of a new church and
has its entrance directly on axis with where this woman
is staring as if to say that she is now
contributing to the alright. So it's this return of
repressed strand of religious worship that I mean it's constantly
and the residents are constantly constructing these fabricating these stories
and and sort of I don't want to call them
language games but sort of fables that they told themselves
to help assimilate. I think the legacy of a
very difficult past. Mm hmm. Okay. That's
it. We'll be back break. Thank you very
much. Thank you. Mm hmm.