Building Sex: Men, Women and the Construction of Sexuality - Hardcover

Betsky, Aaron

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0688131670 ISBN 13: 9780688131678

Publisher: William Morrow, 1995

Synopsis

Buildings have always been an expression of human sexuality. In this book, architecture critic and curator Aaron Betsky takes a look at the man-made world and concludes that it is just that: made by men and not women. The structure of buildings and the layout of cities in the modern world have almost always been determined by men, and the abstract and alien order of grids and columns that has resulted imprisons us in a way of living based on repression and, in some cases, oppression.
By contrast, it is women who create the interior spaces within these man-created environments. Comfortable, beautiful, seductive, and logical, these interiors act as areas of escape, self-definition, and sometimes even revelation.
Drawing on a wide range of architectural examples, from African mud huts to modern apartment complexes, Betsky explores what effects this division of architectural labor has had on our sensibilities and, indeed, on how we relate to one another as men and women. He believes that although it has always been thus, we do not have to live within this dichotomy between the exterior and the interior, the made and the lived, the masculine and the feminine, forever. It is possible, says Betsky, to create "spaces of liberation, spaces in which we can re-construct our selves and our world."

About this title

Synopsis:

Explores the author's theory that male architects create structures of buildings and the layouts of cities, while women architects create interior spaces.

About this edition

• Publisher: William Morrow
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 0688131670
• ISBN 13: 9780688131678
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 256