Architecture from without: Body, Logic, and Sex

Author(s): Diana I. Agrest

Source: Assemblage, No. 7 (Oct., 1988), pp. 28-41
Published by: The MIT Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3171074
Accessed: 09/09/2008 09:50

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DianaAgrestis a principalin the firmof
Agrestand Gandelsonas,New York,and
AdjunctProfessorat the CooperUnion.
1. Francescodi Giorgio Martini,
the similitude between man
and city
Diana I.
Agrest
Architecture from Without:
Body, Logic, and Sex
Somewhereeveryculturehas an imaginaryzone forwhatit
excludesand it is thatzone thatwe musttryto remembertoday.'
For something to be excluded two partsare necessary:
something inside, some defined entity, and something out-
side. In our world of architectureand architecturalideol-
ogy there is such an inside, the body of texts and rules
developed in the Renaissance that, as a reading of the clas-
sics, establishedthe foundations for Western architecture,
and which I call the "systemof architecture."This inside
has been transformedthroughout history, sometimes more
profoundlythan at others;and even through the apparent
breaksof the firstdecades of this century, it has remained
at the very base of Western architecturalthought.
Logocentrismand anthropomorphism,in particularmale
anthropomorphism,have underlain the system of architec-
ture ever since Vitruvius, read and rewrittenin the Renais-
sance and through the modern movement.2 This system is
defined not only by what it includes, but also by what it
excludes, inclusion and exclusion being partsof the same
construct. Yet that which is excluded, left out, is not really
excluded but ratherrepressed;repressionneither excludes
nor repels an exteriorforce for it contains within itself an
interior of representation,a space of repression.3The
repressed,the interior representationin the system of
architecturethat determines an outside (of repression)is
woman and woman's body. The ideological construct of
the architecturalsystem determined by an idealistic logic
and a concomitant system of repressionsbecomes apparent
in the role sex plays within it. The logic in the system of
29

architecturerepressessex in two differentways:sex is
understood in positive and negative terms, and woman
assigned the negative term (phallocentrism);and sex is neu-
tralized or erased through the medium of the artist, who,
sexless, engenders by himself and gives birth to a work, the
product of creation.
Society establishes a certain kind of symbolic orderwhere
not everyone has an equal chance of fitting. Those who do
not fit have to find their place between symbolic orders, in
the interstices;they representa certain symbolic instability.
These are the people often called odd, abnormal, perverse
or who have been labeled neurotics, ecstatics, outsiders,
witches, or hysterics.4In strangeways, woman has been
placed in this category when she has tried to establishher
presence ratherthan limit herself to finding a way of "fit-
ting" within the established symbolic order.
Woman has been allowed to surface from the space of her
repressionas a witch or as a hysteric and thus has been
burned or locked up, ultimately representingthe abnor-
mal. Women who are the bearersof the greatestnorm,
that of reproduction, paradoxicallyembody also the anom-
aly.5 It is through her body and through the symbolic order
that woman has been repressedin architecture,and in
dealing with body and architecturethe obvious question,
What body? is the key to the unveiling of many mysterious
ideological fabrications.Asking what body is synonymous
to asking which gender, for a genderlessbody is an impos-
sible body.
In many of the importanttexts of the Renaissance, that is,
the founding texts of Western architecturalideology, the
body in architectureis not only an essential subject, but
one, moreover, indissolubly linked to the question of
gender and sex, a question that has generatedthe most
extraordinarymetaphors in the elaborationof an architec-
tural ideology. The reading of these texts is a fundamental
operation in the understandingof a complex ideological
apparatusthat has systematicallyexcluded women through
an elaborate mechanism of symbolic appropriationof the
female body.
Two scenes will be presented here, two scenes of architec-
ture: Scene I, The Book of the Renaissance, and Scene II,
The Text of the City.
assemblage 7
SCENE I: THE BOOK OF THE
RENAISSANCE
The Scene of the Repressed:
Architecturefrom Within
Architecturein the Renaissanceestablishesa system of
rules that forms the basis of Western architecture.The
texts of the Renaissance, which in turn draw upon the
classic Vitruvian texts, develop a logocentric and anthropo-
centric discourse that establishesthe male body at the
center of the unconscious of architecturalrules and config-
urations. The body is inscribedin the system of architec-
ture as a male body replacingthe female body. The
Renaissanceoperationsof the symbolizationof the body
are paradigmaticof the operationsof the repressionand
exclusion of woman by means of the replacementof her
body. Throughout the historyof architecture,woman has
been displaced/replacednot simply at a general social
level, but, more specifically, at the level of the body's rela-
tion to architecture.
Architectureas a Representationof the Body
The texts of the Renaissanceoffer a certain clue to the
mode in which man's appropriationof woman's place and
body in architecturehas occurred in a complex processof
symbolization that worksat the level of architecturalideol-
ogy, thereforeat an almost unconscious level. Several texts
are exemplaryof this procedurein variousdegrees, particu-
larly Alberti'sDe re aedificatoria,Filarete'sTrattato d'ar-
chitettura, Di Giorgio Martini'sTrattato di architettura
civile e militare and his Trattati di architettura,ingegneria
e arte militare. And, of course, we cannot forgetVitruvius,
whose De architecturalibri decem is at the base of every
Renaissancetext.
In the several steps in the operationof symbolic transfer-
ence from the body to architecture,the first is the relation-
ship establishedbetween man and nature through the
notions of natural harmony and perfection.6Man is
presentedas having the attributeof perfectnatural
proportions.Thus the analogical relationshipbetween
architectureand the human body appearsto ensure that
the natural laws of beauty and nature are transferredinto
30
 Agrest

architecture.The body thus becomes a mediator,a form of -e

; i:, 'i' r,u
"shifter. "7 -.
.":C:F,
1

It is in Vitruvius that we first encounter the significant -..r

notions that will later be variouslyreelaborated.His text ".' i
clearly posits the issue of the human body as a model for ....... j-
architecture, particularly in his chapter "On Symmetry in t
Temples and the Human Body," where he relates symme-
try to proportion:
The design of a temple depends on symmetry,the principlesof
which must be carefully observedby the architect. They are due l "
to proportion,in Greek avanoyia. Proportionis a correspondence
among measuresof the members of an entire work, and of the
whole to a certain part selected as standard.From this result the
principlesof symmetry.Without symmetryand proportionthere
can be no principles in the design of any temple; that is, if there
is no precise relation between its members, as in the case of those -
of a well-shaped man. Further, it was from the members of the .
-
body that they derived the fundamental ideas of the measures
which are obviously necessaryin all works, such as the finger, -. ~
palm, foot and cubit.8
The relationship between architecture and the human i' t
ji...l:B
4
body becomes particularly important at the moment in ...- --
which the issue of the center - a preoccupation that fil-
ters throughout the history of art and architecture in its 2. Cesare Cesariano,Homo a(d
many symbolic roles - acquires a very specific meaning. circulum

Then again, in the human body the central point is naturallythe

navel. For if a man be placed flat on his back, with his hands
and feet extended, and a pair of compassescentered at his navel,
the fingersand toes of his two hands and feet will touch the
circumferenceof a circle describedtherefrom.And just as the
human body yields a circular outline, so too a square figure may / /
be found from it. For if we measure the distance from the soles
of the feet to the top of the head, and then apply that measure to fi-
i .,
the outstretchedarms, the breadthwill be found to be the same
as the height, as in the case of plane surfaceswhich are perfectly
square.9 ./

The center is represented by the navel, which becomes a K

metonymic object or a "shifter" in relation to gender. It is

a true shifter in that it transforms the body into geometry,
nature into architecture, the "I" of the subject into the "I"
of the discourse. The relationship between these two "I's"
is what allows the constant shifting of genders. 0 This type 3. Antonio Averlino Filarete,
of formal relationship between the body of man and archi- unity of the measure

31
 assemblage 7

r.^"""~~~~ I ~^~ stecture, developed by Vitruvius, will be everpresent in the

f!~ (;~~ttr \1~
~Renaissance texts.

-r' i'b ...y analogical relationship between the body (of man)
~~ .~ ^An
i^~ C^~~ T>\~~~~~
^and architecture can also be found in Alberti's De re
\ _
f/ A~t~~~~ y~~ aedificatoria:

The whole Force of the invention and all our skill and Knowl-
Lf~
^~ ^edge i,~
i ___~~~~~_ ~ the Art of Building, it is requiredin the Compartition:
in
Because the distinct Partsof the entire Building, and, to use such
a Word, the Entirenessof each of those partsand the Union and
i"
_ _ ~~~~\"it^ V
/Agreement of all the lines and Angles in the Work, duly ordered
^ \ I^ ^ \ / ~forConvenience, Pleasureand Beauty are disposedand measured
/
1\?.~~ ^ ^~ .-~
\ , out by the Compartitionalone: For if a City, accordingto the
NO8J
1\ r^Opinion of Philosophers,be no more than a great House and, on
i^t v^ - -- the other hand, a House be a little City; why may it not be said
{u
I'~~~~ \; i~ i ^that the Members of that House are so many little Houses . . .
V\\I~~ {j11~~~ t 1and as the Members of the Body are correspondentto each other,
so it is fit that one part should answerto another in a Building;
whence we say, that great Edifices requiregreat Members."

Alberti is never as direct in his analogies as Vitruvius or as

other architects of the Renaissance. His text offers a far
more elaborate system of metaphorical transformation by
which he develops specific notions that allow for the devel-
opment of an abstract system in a discourse that incorpo-
rates the "laws of nature."

Is / ff^y u,^^- '> \sIf what we have here laid down appearsto be true, we may con-
A?^IM clude Beauty to be such a Consent and Agreementof the Partsof
lw -
i -^+ _ _ _ g!j 4 the Whole in which it is found, as to Number, Finishing and
Collocation, as Congruity, that is to say, the principallaw of
Nature, requires.This is what Architecturechiefly aims at, and
by this she obtains her Beauty, Dignity and Value. The Ancients
_^V^~~~\
2,,4^i~ ^f
.knowing from the Nature of Things, that the Matterwas in fact
\\as1 &J I have stated it, and being convinced, that if they neglected
*this
:1 '!t\-r
.^\1~ iV~ S main Point they should never produce any Thing great or
| /' , / v^^yt)^\ 1 *
,commendable, did in their Worksproposeto themselves chiefly

t J f!i'i J/Compositions;
I . . .

Reflecting thereforeupon the Practiceof Nature as well with

Relation to an entire Body, as to its severalParts,they found
l I*~~~~*"from the very first Principlesof Things, that Bodies were not
4. Di Giorgio, the generation always composed of equal partsof Members;whence it happens,
of proportional systems from that of the Bodies producedby Nature, some are smaller, some
human physiognomy are larger,and some middling.'2

32
 Agrest

The process of symbolization takes place by relatingthe

body as a system of proportionto other systemsof propor- l5.-L,tf !
tion. The body, transformedinto an abstractsystem of
formalization, is thus incorporatedinto the architectural
system as form, through the orders, the hierarchies,and
the general system of formal organizationthat allows for
this anthropocentricdiscourse to function at the level of
the unconscious.

TranssexualOperationsin Architecture
Vitruviusand Alberti point the way to the incorporationof
the body as an analogue, model, or referent,elaboratinga
system for its transformationinto a system of architectural
syntacticrules, elements, and meanings. Filarete and Di
Giorgio Martini, further,eliminate the original ambiguity
of the gender of the body in question by making explicit
that the human figure is synonymous with the male figure.
A differentambiguitywill appearinstead, the ambiguityof
gender or sex itself. In a rathercomplex set of metaphori-
cal operationsthroughout these texts, the gender of the
body and its sexual functions are exchanged in a move of
cultural transsexualitywhereby man's everpresentprocrea-
tive fantasyis enacted.
Filarete startsby making sure we understandthat when he
refersto the "human"figure or body, he means the male
figure:
As I havesaid,the buildingis constructed as a simileforthe
humanfigure.You see thatI haveshownyou by meansof a
similethata buildingis derivedfromman, thatis, fromhis
form,members,and measure.
Now as I havetoldyou above,I will showyou how the building
is givenformand substanceby analogywiththe membersand
formof man. You knowthatall buildingsneedmembersand
passages,thatis, entrancesandexits.Theyshouldall be formed
andarranged accordingto theirorigins.The exteriorand interior
appearance the buildingis arranged
of effectivelyin such a way
thatthe membersandpassagesaresuitablylocated,justas the
exteriorand interiorpartsand membersarecorrectforthe body
of man.13
5. Di Giorgio, anthropometric
architectonic elements
the most common and apparentanalogical relationship
between the body of man and architecturewe are faced
with the exterior. In bringingabout the interior,another
set of metaphorswill be possible, particularlythose that
allow for the permutationof gender. In orderto elaborate
on the question of the interiorof man, Filaretedoes not
stop at the formal analogy;his symbolic operationslead
him to develop his most extraordinarymetaphor,that of
the building as living man:
[Whentheyare]measured,partitioned andplacedas bestyou
can, thinkaboutmy statementsand understand themclearly.I
will [then]showyou [that]the buildingis trulya livingman. You
will see it musteat in orderto live, exactlyas it is withman. It
sickensor diesor sometimesis curedof its sicknessby a good
doctor.In the firstbookyou haveseen, as I havedemonstrated to
you, the of
origins the building and its in
origins my opinion,
how it is proportioned to the humanbodyof man, how it needs
to be nourishedandgovernedandthroughlackit sickensand
dies like man.14

Here the conditions are presentfor the development of a In this manner he slowly and steadilybuilds up a symbolic
double analogy and for possible exchanges and combina- argumentthat unfolds from the building createdas a for-
tions in the body considered as interiorand/or exterior.In mal analogue of the male body, from which even the

33

ordersare derived, to the building as a living body. If the
building is a living man the next necessarystep in the
argument is its birth and its conception. It is at this critical
point that another body will be incorporated:that of the
architect himself.
You perhaps could say, you have told me that the building is
similar to man. Therefore, if this is so it needs to be conceived
and then born. As [it is] with man himself, so [it is] with the
Building. First it is conceived, using a simile such as you can
understand, and then it is born. The mother deliversher child at
the term of nine months or sometimes seven; by care and in good
order she makes him grow.'5
If the building is a living man, someone must give birth to
it - and here the architect appears in the role of the
mother. The figure of the architect becomes feminized in
the act of procreation:
The building is conceived in this manner. Since no one can con-
ceive himself without a woman, by another simile, the building
cannot be conceived by one man alone. As it cannot be done
without woman, so he who wishes to build needs an architect. He
conceives it with him and then the architect carriesit. When the
architect has given birth he becomesthe motherof the building.
Before the architectgives birth, he should dream about his con-
ception, think about it, and turn it over in his mind in many
ways for seven to nine months, just as a woman carriesher child
in her body for seven to nine months. He should also make var-
ious drawingsof this conception that he has made with the
patron, according to his own desires. As the woman can do noth-
ing without the man, so the architect is the mother to carrythis
conception. When he has pondered and consideredand thought
[about it] in many ways, he ought to chose (accordingto his own
desires), what seems most suitable and most beautiful to him
according to the terms of the patron. When this birth is accom-
plished, that is, when he has made, in wood, a small relief
design of its final form, measured and proportionedto the fin-
ished building, then he shows it to the father.16
Filarete takes this transsexual operation to its extreme by
transforming the architect into a woman - or better,
mother. He proceeds to state that just like a mother, the
architect must also be a nurse, and "with love and dili-
gence" he will help the building grow to its completion:
As I have compared the architect to the mother, he also needs to
be nurse. He is both mother and nurse. As the mother is full of
assemblage 7
love for her son, so he will rear it with love and diligence, cause
it to grow, and bring it to completion if it is possible, if it is not,
he will leave it ordered.'1
Filarete pushes his argument all the way to cover the var-
ious aspects involved in the building:
A good mother loves her son and with the aid of the father strives
to make him good and beautiful, and with a good masterto make
him valient and praiseworthy.So the good architectshould strive
to make his buildings good and beautiful.18
First woman is excluded (repressed) by making architecture
an image of man as an analogue to man's body and, as we
have seen, to the point of turning it into a living organism.
Then, in an extraordinary operation that I call here archi-
tectural transsexuality, for which her repression is essential,
woman is replaced - her place usurped by man, who, as
the architect, possesses the female attributes necessary for
conception and reproduction.
Filarete's texts are greatly complemented by those of Fran-
cesco di Giorgio Martini. In his Trattato di architettura
civile e militare and Trattati di architettura, ingegneria e
arte militare, Di Giorgio uses similar analogies between
the human body and architecture, but in his case the anal-
ogy is proposed at the scale of the city.
One should shape the city, fortress,and castle in the form of a
human body, that the head with the attached members have a
proportionedcorrespondenceand that the head be the rocca, the
arms its recessedwalls that, circling around, link the rest of the
whole body, the vast city.
And thus it should be consideredthat just as the body has all its
members and partsin perfect measurementsand proportions,in
the composition of temples, cities, rocche,and castles the same
principles should be observed.19
Di Giorgio further develops this argument so that the ide-
ology can be better translated into specific formal systems:
Cities have the reasons, measurements,and form of the human
body. I am going to describe preciselytheir perimetersand parti-
tions. First the human body stretchedon the ground should be
considered. Placing a stringat the navel, the other end will create
a circular form. This design will be squaredand angles placed in
similar fashion. ...
34
 Agrest

Thus it should be considered just as the body has all the parts
and members in perfect measurement and circumference, the
center in the cities and other buildings should be observed .... <
t Iff
1^-
The palms and the feet would constitute other temples and
squares. And as the eyes, ears, nose, and mouth, the veins, intes-
tines, and other internal partsand members that are organized
inside and outside the body according to its needs, in the same
way this should be observedin cities, as we shall show in some
focus. 20

The reading and reuse of Vitruvius takes on a new dimen-

sion in Di Giorgio, for it is not only part of an analogical
discourse between the body (male) and the city, it is at the
same time central in a representational discourse where the
roles and places of male and female body in relation to
architecture are swiftly exchanged. It is in shifting from the
external appearance to the internal functions and order of
the body that we will be faced once more with a transsex-
ual operation.

And so as it has been said that all the internal parts [of the
human body] are organized and divided for its government and
subsistence, in the same way that inside and outside partsof the
body are necessary, it is that each member of the city should be
distributedto serve its subsistence, harmony, and government ....
I thereforesay that first of all the main square [piazza]should be
placed in the middle and the center of that city or as close as
possible, just as the navel is to man's body; convenience should
go second to this. The reason for this similitude could be the
following; just as it is through his navel that human nature gets 6. Di Giorgio, IIMonte Athos
nutrition and perfection in its beginnings, in the same way by
this common place the other particularplaces are served.2'
Although Di Giorgio never mentions the sexual organs,
But this can only be an analogy after some operations of
they have an analogical presence in some of his designs for
substitution are performed: The umbilical cord is the tie to
cities, where the male sexual organ occupies the place pre-
the mother, the woman. Di Giorgio says "like the navel is
viously analogically assigned to the various partsof the
to a man's body," yet the relationship of the man's body to
body. That which has been taken must be negated;it is the
the umbilical cord is one of dependence. He does not pro-
denial that goes with repression.
vide nourishment; rather, he is nourished by the mother at
the beginning of life. Thus for this analogy to work for the I propose three instances in this play of substitutions: First,
city, the female body should be taken as the symbolic ref- the male body is projected, represented,and inscribed in
erence; instead, it is replaced by the male body and man's the design of buildings and cities and in the texts that
navel is transformed into the city's "womb." In the produc- establish their ideology. The female body is suppressedor
tion of this architectural analogy man's body is functionally excluded. Second, the architect himself is presentedas a
transformed, feminized. woman in relation to the reproductivecreative functions,

35

7. Di Giorgio, fortresses
operatingas a "literal"sexual replacement. And third, the
male body becomes the female body in its functions of
giving nourishment, that is, life, to the city; man's navel
becomes woman's womb.
It is remarkablethat the replacement of the female body by
the male body always occurs in relation to the maternal
function: reproduction. It has been said that we live in a
civilization in which the consecrated- religious or secu-
lar - representationof femininity is subsumed by the
maternal.22In this perspective, the whole operationappears
to be a veiled representationof the myth of Mary.
In Filarete, the architect, a man, gives birth like a woman.
In Di Giorgio, the center of the city, based on the configu-
ration of man's body, gives subsistence, like a woman's
body, through the umbilical cord from the womb to the
rest of the city. In one case men's fantasiesof conception
and reproductionare placed in the figure of the architect,
in the other they are set in the principles organizingthe
formal configuration of the city. Woman is thus sup-
pressed, repressed,and replaced.
Suppressed, in the analogical relation between body and
architecture. It is man's body that is, accordingto the clas-
sic texts, the natural and perfectlyproportionedbody from
which architecturalprinciples and measurementsderive.
Repressed, in the model of the city. Woman's unique
quality, that of motherhood, is projectedonto the male
body. Thus woman is not only suppressed,but indeed her
whole sexual body is repressed.
Replaced, by the figure of the architect. The male,
through a transsexualoperation, has usurpedthe female's
reproductivequalities, in the desire to fulfill the myth of
creation.
Motherhood more than womanhood has been appropri-
ated, but motherhood has always been confused with
assemblage 7
womanhood as one and the same: the representationof
femininity is subsumed by the maternal.
In the art of the Renaissance, Mary, Queen of the Heav-
ens and Mother of the Church, was an everpresentfigure.
It is in this ideological context, that of Christianism,that
the treatisesof Alberti, Di Giorgio Martini, and Filarete
were developed. (Fantasiesof male conception can also be
found in the texts of other men, including St. Augus-
tine.)23 The power of this ideology was evidenced in the
mode of representingreligion and its concomitant myths.
A most powerful one was that of the Virgin Mary. The
nature of the mother/son relationshipbetween Mary and
Christ and the belief in the immaculate conception leads
towardthe possibilityof pregnancywithout sex: woman,
ratherthan being penetratedby a male, conceives with a
non-person, the spirit. This conception without sex (sin) is
the negation of sex as an essential part in the reproductive
process, and ultimately, in the birth of Christ.
This religious ideology was all-encompassing. In a move of
perfect ideological representationin a particularsubregion
of ideology, that of architecture,the architect, by usurping
the female body, can give birth to buildings or cities, and
just like Mary, he can conceive without sex, through spirit
alone. Man is thus placed at the center of creation.
The architecturaltreatisesmentioned here develop a sys-
tem of rules elaboratingan ideology that allows for the
transformationin philosophy, Christianism,and the power
structureof the Church to filter through the subregionof
architecture.24
Woman (mother/Mary)was necessaryas an imposing
image within the system;woman outside that system, if not
suppressed,had to be burned. On the one hand, Mary;on
the other, heretics and witches, those who pointed out the
system of repressionsand the possibilityof a certain demys-
tification. Men's mechanism of the assumptionof the
maternal role, through Christianism, may also be a mech-
anism of masculine sublimation.25
36

SCENE II: THE TEXT OF THE CITY
The Return of the Repressed:
Architecturefrom Without
The system of architecturefrom within is characterizedby
an idealistic logic that can assume neither contradiction
nor negation and, therefore, is based upon the suppression
of either one of two opposite terms. This is best repre-
sented by the consistent repressionand exclusion of
woman. Woman does not fit the symbolic order;she is
offside, in the cracks of symbolic systems, an outsider.
It is in that outside that we stand. It is from that outside
that we can project better than anyone the critical look.
Woman can place herself from without the system of
architectureby accepting heterogeneityand by including
positively the negated, woman herself. In the ideological
realm of architecturethis implies the negation of the "sys-
tem of architecture"through a critical work and the inclu-
sion of the denied, the excluded, the hidden, the
repressed.
This discourse from without incorporatesheterogeneous
matter, includes negation, and is psychoanalyticaland his-
torical. Woman, representingboth the heterogeneityof
matter through her body26and the historical negation
of her gender, is in the perfect position to develop such
a discourse. Woman, a discourse of heterogeneity,
"representsthe negative in the homogeneity of the
community."27
To take a place from without the system is not simply to
include what has been negated, or excluded, or to surface
the repressed:a more complex process occurs. The classic
architecturalproject of the city (as a body) is a reflection in
the mirrorof a totally formed, closed, and unitary system.
We are dealing now instead with a representationof a frag-
mented body.28 The architect cannot recognize himself or
his system of rules in the mirrorof the city as did Di Gior-
gio or Filarete. The body as a metaphor of the fragmented
architecturalbody, which cannot be recomposedwithin
the system of architecturalrules, will be that referential
outside.
Agrest
It is the explosion, the fragmentedunconscious, where the
"architecturalbody" does not reflect the body of the sub-
ject, as it did in the Renaissance, but instead reflects the
perception of the fragmentedbody as the built text, a set of
fragmentsof languages and texts, the city. The body can-
not be reconstructed,the subject architect/mandoes not
recognize itself in architectureas an entity in front of the
mirror.The system has been broken;architecturecannot
be recognized again as a whole.
We will take that built social unconscious of architecture,
the city, a text, for it is not the result of the creation of a
subject, product of a logocentric, anthropomorphicsystem.
There is no subject. Here are only fragmentsof texts and
languages to be read, and in this reading they traversethe
subject, in the position of reader-writer.
The Street:Streetwalkers
The city presentsitself as a fragmentarytext escaping the
order of things and of language, a text to be "exploded,"
taken in pieces, in fragments, to be furtherdecomposed in
so many possible texts, open in a metonymy of desire.
To design is not to reclose but to affect the openings and
be affected by them to play an intersectionbetween the
two subjects, that of the readerand that of the writer, by
an operation of shifting through the "I."The subject gets
caught in the text and becomes part of the text.
This subject, woman, writes as she reads, where the
repressionhas failed, where the system is fragmented,and
where she does not want to be reconstructedby finding in
it the reflection of an enclosed, homogeneous, unitarysys-
tem. She reads there and activatesthe absence of the
repression/replacementof her body.
The street is the scene of her writing, with her body fol-
lowing the role that she is given in the evaluation of her
body as merchandise. The street is the scene of architec-
tural writing. The privaterealm is the scene of the institu-
tion, where woman and her body have an assigned place:
the house.
Wife in the kitchen. Whore in the street.
37
assemblage 7

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38
 Agrest

8. Diana Agrest, ParkSquare,

Boston: A Fiction, 1978

39

Rather than worshiping the monuments, we take the
streets, we "playhouse," taking a critical view of the family
as a hierarchical system and of the rules of architecture
that go with it.
The city is the social scene where woman can publicly
express her struggle. She was/is not accepted in the institu-
tions of power;she is dispossessed(of her body) and is with
the dispossessed.The public place is a no-man's-landready
to be appropriated.The scene of the city, of the street, of
the public place is that of the dispossessed;there she is "at
home."
(A place outside the accepted institutions is taken and
assumed through various texts and readingsof an open and
heterogeneous quality.)
Reading from Without
I think of this project. I have a vision, a realist image of
unreal events. It flows without knowing like a mystic pad;
the city like an unconscious of architectureunveils itself,
three modes of time in three analogues of experience:per-
manence, succession, simultaneity.
A registerof urban inscriptions, these three together-
now I am reading, now I am writing- the boundariesare
not clear. I can read the words, the unsaid, the hidden,
there where no man wants to read, where there are no
monuments to speak of an establishedand unitarysystem
of architecture.
Like an optical illusion the grid becomes an object, then
the fabric, then the object again. The apparentcontradic-
tion and undialectical opposition between object and fabric
at the base of this process develops a text from the inclu-
sions and juxtapositionof these opposite terms.
All of a sudden an erasure, the erasurenecessaryto
remark, reinstatethe obvious not seen, the tabula rasathat
could become fabric, the object that would ratherbe a
public place.
The refoules(repressed)of architecture,the public, the
negation all become the material of my fictional configura-
tion. The (project)marksI make are organized through a
contradiction- a negation through an affirmation.Negate
assemblage 7
the city to affirm the city. It is the affirmationof the era-
sure of the city in order to reinstateits trace. The critical
reading is taken from the subject:I am spoken through the
city and the city is read through me.
Notes
This text originatedin the fall of
1971 as a proposalfor an article to
be entitled "Architecturefrom
Without: Matter, Logic, and Sex."
Although my interest in the mate-
rial was very strong at that time, I
did not have the opportunityto
develop it until 1986-87. The orig-
inal abstractwas only four pages
long, but it contained all the ele-
ments necessaryto develop this
article. During the process of
development, I realized that the
second part, "Architecturefrom
Without," could not be expanded
in the same manner as the first
part, "Architecturefrom Within."
For the later section posits a prem-
ise for and an approachto critical
work. I believe that this critical
approachto architectureis present
in my work producedthroughout
these years in practice, theory, criti-
cism, and teaching. I want to thank
Amy Miller and David Smiley and
especially Judy O'Buck Gordon for
her initial incentive and persistent
interest in this essay.
1. Catherine Clement, "La Coupa-
ble," in La Jeune nee union (Paris:
Union Generale d'Editions, 1975).
2. Even Le Corbusier'sModulor is
entirely based on a male body.
3. Jacques Derrida, "Freudet la
scene de l'ecriture,"in L'Ecritureet
la difference(Paris:Editions de
Seuil, 1967); English ed., "Freud
and the Scene of Writing," in Writ-
ing and Difference,trans. Alan Bass
(Chicago: Universityof Chicago
Press, 1978).
4. See Clement, "La Coupable."
40
5. Ibid.
6. Francoise Choay, "La Ville et le
domaine bati comme corps,"Nou-
velle revuede psychanalyse9 (1974).
7. For this notion, see Diana
Agrest, "Design Versus Non-
Design," Oppositions6 (1976).
8. Marcus Vitruvius Pollio, De
architecturalibri decem;English
ed., The Ten Booksof Architecture,
trans. Morris Hicky Morgan (New
York:Dover Publications, 1960).
9. Ibid.
10. Roman Jakobson,"Shifters,
Verbal Categoriesand the Russian
Verb,"paperdelivered at Harvard
University, 1957.
11. Leon BattistaAlberti, De re
aedificatoria(1485); Architectureof
Leon Battista Alberti in Ten Books,
facsimile reprintfrom the Giacomo
Leoni translationof 1726, with a
reprintof the "Life"from the 1739
edition, ed. Joseph Rykwertand
Alex Tiranti (London, 1955).
12. "You have seen briefly the
measures, understoodtheir names
and sources, their qualities and
forms. I told you they were called
by their Greek names, Doric, Ionic
and Corinthian. The Doric I told
you is one of the major quality;the
Corinthian is in the middle, the
Ionic is the smallest for the reasons
alleged by the architect Vitruvius in
his book [where]he shows how they
were in the times of the emperor
Octavian. In these modes the
Doric, Ionic and Corinthian corre-
sponded in measure to the form or,
better, to the quality of the form to
which they are proportioned.As the

building is derived from man, his
measures, qualities, form and pro-
portions, so the column also derives
from man: The polished columns,
according to Vitruvius, were derived
from the nude man and fluted from
that well-dressedyoung woman, as
we have said. Both are derived from
the form of man. Since this is so,
they take their qualities, form and
measure from man. The qualities,
or better Ionic, Doric and Corin-
thian, are three, that is large,
medium and small forms. They
should be formed, proportioned,
and measured according to their
quality. Since man is the measure
of all, the column should be mea-
sured and proportionedto his form"
(Alberti, De re aedificatoria).
13. Antonio Averlino Filarete,
Trattato d'architettura(1461-63);
Treatiseon Architecture,translated,
with an introduction and notes, by
John R. Spencer, 2 vols. (New
Haven: Yale University Press,
1965).
14. Ibid.
15. Ibid.
16. Ibid. The emphasis is mine.
17. Ibid.
18. Ibid.
19. Francesco di Giorgio Martini,
Trattati di architettura, ingegneriae
arte militare (1470-92); Italian ed.,
edited by Corrado Maltese and
transcribedby Livia Maltese
Degrassi, 2 vols. (Milan: Edizioni I1
polifilo, 1967). Translationshere
are my own.
20. Ibid.
Agrest
21. Ibid.
22. Julia Kristeva,"StabatMater,"
in Histoiresd'amour (Paris:Editions
Denoel, 1983); English ed., Tales
of Love, trans. Leon S. Roudiez
(New York:Columbia University
Press, 1987).
23. Ibid.
24. This question of the relation-
ship between humanism, Christian-
ism, and the Church is an entire
subject on its own and should be
treatedat length outside the context
of this article.
25. Kristeva,"StabatMater."
26. Julia Kristeva,"Matiere, sens,
dialectique,"Tel Quel 44 (1971).
27. Ibid.
28. Jacques Lacan, "Le Stade du
miroir comme formateurde la
fonction du Je," in Ecrits 1 (Paris:
Editions du Seuil, 1966); English
trans., "The Mirror Stage as For-
mative of the Function of the I," in
Ecrits: A Selection (New York:Nor-
ton, 1977).
Figure Credits
1, 4-7. From Francesco di Giorgio
Martini, Trattati di architettura,
ingegneriae arte militare, 1470-92.
2. From Marcus Vitruvius Pollio,
De architectura,translatedinto Ital-
ian, with commentary and illustra-
tions by Cesare de Lorenzo
Cesariano, 1668.
3. From Antonio Averlino Filarete,
Trattato d'architettura, 1461-63.
8. Courtesy of the author.
41