How to Colonize a House
Dena Baker
Beatriz Colomina in War on Architecture: E.1027, is talking about the tension between violence performed upon architecture and Le Corbusier’s attempt to occupy architecture more meaningfully. Her goal is to turn Corbusier’s method on its head by naming it for what it is—colonization—while also acknowledging some of Corbusier’s intent. I found her point about Le Corbusier’s photograph fetish and the deficiencies of a photograph through quoting Victor Burgin to be interesting, “We know we see a two-dimensional surface; we believe we look through it into three-dimensional space, we cannot do both at the same time—there is a coming and going between knowledge and belief.” (29). This to me seems to imply yearning. The same yearning one feels when, for instance, watching films—being exposed to an image awakens yearning from the soul but does not satisfy such yearning for the experience. We see the image, but we are never really there. And architecture is composed of images, so perhaps Corbusier’s colonization of architecture is an attempt to offset this yearning. It is not, however, an excuse for “colonizing” and defacing Eileen Gray’s design (28).
Luis E. Carranza’s in Le Corbusier and the Problems of Representation was about the male gaze being a main perpetrator in the politics of women being seen, or rather looked at (70). It reminds me of a quote by Margaret Atwood in her book The Robber Bride about the unavoidable presence of male fantasies, “Even pretending you aren't catering to male fantasies is a male fantasy: pretending you're unseen, pretending you have a life of your own, that you can wash your feet and comb your hair unconscious of the ever-present watcher peering through the keyhole, peering through the keyhole in your own head, if nowhere else. You are a woman with a man inside watching a woman.” It’s appropriate that she mentions the “keyhole” in one’s own head, as if the male gaze can transcend the boundaries of the intangible and unseen and can create architecture to invade wherever it travels.
Architecture and design can influence the degree to which people feel seen. Being seen means being acknowledged; acknowledgement of the values of different religious, ethnic, and age groups, as well as the values and rights of different genders. In accordance with Colomina’s and Carranza’s discussion, I will ponder the values of two groups—what values does the male gaze operate under? What values do the woman and her body operate under?
According to the points made by Carranza, the male gaze operates under values of control, “...the act of seeing objectifies the person observed by subjecting him or her to a curious and controlling gaze.” (71). In addition, according to Colomina’s thoughts on Le Corbusier’s photograph fetish, I could argue that the male gaze also operates under the value of yearning. Yearning for what? I am unable to name what this is without specifically reading Le Corbusier's mind, but his actions remain the same—he defaced a woman architect’s design. If I had to guess, I would say he was yearning for an experience. As for the values a woman and her body operate under, I will name yearning for an experience as one. As well as the yearning to feel seen, as mentioned earlier, most groups of people have.
The male gaze can and has implemented its values in architecture. One way I can name is the partitioning of the mosque. A number of modern mosques feature an architecturally informed partition between men and women worshippers. Misogyny is to blame for this, rather than the values of the religion of Islam. Among the earliest mosques ever built during the days of the revelation of Islam, the Prophet Muhammad’s Mosque in Medina, Saudi Arabia, had no partitions. The mosque was one big open room in which groups of men and women prayed with no architecturally implemented barriers between them. This is Islamic tradition. Many modern mosques, however, do feature architecturally implemented barriers between men and women, and oftentimes the women's “section” of the mosque is much smaller or doesn’t even exist. This is an example of the male gaze practicing its values of control and objectification. Additionally, it is an example of the woman’s body not feeling seen—seen rather as a sexualized body than as an individual with values. The yearning of a woman and her body to feel seen and participate in an experience occurs in the partitioned mosque. The woman is not colonizing the mosque, she is praying in it. The male gaze, however, does colonize the mosque by transcending architecture, tradition, and the values of women and their bodies by implementing a partition where there never was one. Not unlike Le Corbusier’s colonization of Gray’s house.
Bibliography
Atwood, Margaret. The Robber Bride. Toronto: Seal Books, 1999. Print.
Beatriz, Colomina, “War on Architecture: E.1027” Assemblage, No.20, Violence, Space, (April., 1993): 28-29
Luis E. Carranza, “Le Corbusier and the Problems of Representation,” Journal of Architectural Education 48/2 (Nov., 1994): 70-81
