work in progress 2020-21
Artistic research at KADK in collaboration with Maria Mengel, Anne Romme, Tine Aagaard, Anne Pind and Mathilde Lesenecal.
For centuries architects – from Boulleé and Ledoux to Loos, Hejduk and Abraham – have cultivated the metaphorical house as a form of expression. The metaphorical house reflects attributes, personalities or ideas. The House can address current issues of societal or cultural relevance. It is a portrait in architectural form.
Traditionally, the metaphorical house is often produced by one (male) architect. Adolf Loos’ house for Josephine Baker is the epitome of the metaphorical houses of former times, designed so that the male gaze can observe the female body as an attractive object floating in the inner pool of the house.
With the project ‘the metaphorical house’ we rethink the idea of a house for one singular occupant or idea that represents a unique, stable view of the world, because we perceive this form of representation as being a result of earlier (male-dominated) perception of architecture, creation and settlement. Our houses are metaphors for values that have typically been associated with female values or actions. Values that are often underestimated, neglected, but which are necessary to rethink houses and their habitation in an equal reality.
We go back to the original meaning of the word metaphor, ‘transference’ (from Greek, of metapherein, ‘carry, lead over’) and rethink the creation of the metaphorical house. We work collectively and send the houses rotation, so that all houses are the result of negotiations and dynamic design processes.
The projects is supported by Dreyers Foundation and KADK Artistic Research scheme
Planned exhibitions:
Women in Architecture festival and symposium, ‘The future of Residential Living’, Berlin 2021
‘Practices of Risk, Control and Productive Failure’. Joint Cooper Union – KADK exhibition of faculty work. New York, autumn 2021
