by Érica Maria de Barros Martins
Abstract
This paper addresses the issue of women's invisibility in architecture and seeks to make explicit the importance of a historiographical review with feminist perspectives. The myth "Ariadne's Thread", a story from Greek mythology, serves as a basis for this discussion. By taking into account the thoughts of contemporary authors, the title of the first architect addressed to Daedalus is questioned through reflection on what it is to make architecture/be an architect.
Key Words: Feminist Architecture, Myths, Greek Mythology, Architect, Ariadne.
This article is part of a master's research that studies the invisibility of women in architecture and starts from the discussion of a myth coming from Greek mythology as an invitation to a complex and necessary dialogue about women in architecture, from a feminist perspective. It is in this sense that concepts of the architectural discipline need to be reviewed.
The first issue of Lina's magazine begins with a provocation that makes itself urgent: "Where are the women architects?" Behold, there is an easy answer to answer. Regardless, the argument is complex, because female architects are everywhere, yet hidden through stories that bloom the heroic male acts, overvaluing them.
This discussion is not about a competition to define who was the first architect, but about understanding the situation, valuing relevant achievements, understanding and criticizing how history has been written and told. And as Colomina's statement, when interviewed by architect Kiri Robyn McKenna, reinforces:
"It's not just a matter of adding a few names or even thousands to the history of Architecture. It is not just a matter of human justice or historical accuracy, but a way to more fully understand architecture and the complex ways in which it is produced." (Colomina, 2017)
And we still have Zaida Muxi (2018) stating that woman's invisibility in architecture results from a historical lack of male interest in recording women's performance and that Plutarch, in his book The Virtues of Women (43-60 AD) [1], explains that his contemporaries purposely avoided positioning women in their histories. Despina Stratigakos (2016), likewise, exposes the issue for historians, emphasizing that there are several and complex reasons why women are forgotten. She considers that until recently, researchers admitted that there were no female representatives before the mid-twentieth century and, consequently, there was no search for these names. Thus, they were unlikely to find female characters casually, considering that traditional research methods focus on archives and libraries, institutions that have slowed the collection of female work.
To rewrite history is not necessarily to discover other places but to observe between the lines through the primary sources and reread, revise and review in a way different from the hegemonic perspective. It is considered, therefore, that one of the main reasons to study the performance of women is to show the reality of the profession in its different variants and dynamics. This article aims to promote a debate on alternative historiography from the particular women's gaze.
According to Diana Agrest (2008), the transition to modernity was responsible for narrative creations that authorized the erasure of women in history. The transformations that occurred in this period are more profound than most changes that occurred in previous eras. Evolutionary theories were developed that represent "grand narratives," told in a plot that involves a mishmash of veiled messages. The author adds that post-modernity, on the other hand, is characterized by the disappearance of these grand narratives, with the question of individuals as dominant, as beings who have a definite past and a prophesiable future. The post-modern perspective visualizes diverse, heterogeneous, and plural claims for knowledge. And it is at this time that feminist perspectives are inserted in the debates and the new history. Therefore, the period incorporated several relevant discussions, although women have not yet reached their deserved place of equality.
Anthony Guiddens (1991) states that the era of modernity is past and, contemporaneity is a transitional moment, at a threshold beyond modernity and postmodernity. This period has been given a wide variety of terms named by many different authors. A time when the consequences of modernity are becoming more radicalized and universalized. A time of liquidity, fluidity, volatility, uncertainty and insecurity, a concept of continuing modernity, or as Zygmunt Bauman (2001) defines it, liquid modernity, that is, a "time when the referents that made possible the uprooting and re-rooting of the old into the new are liquefied and thus lost."
The stories created have left easily identifiable traces, with the appropriate modifications provided by the passage of time. An example of thinking that remains active as a consequence of the ideals of modernity is the maintenance of some myths that are not exclusively phenomena of the past, they are under constant construction.
Raphael Patai (1972) states that myths should be seen as ways of acting in actuality. There is a relationship between myths and aspects of cultural life called customs, rites, institutions, beliefs, etc. The author points out that "new customs and new social situations create new myths." These paradigms guide people's lives and have the "power to attract, fascinate, and influence"; they validate laws, beliefs, religion; authorize customs and institutions; justify sociocultural events and even natural phenomena.
The text " Praise of Ariadna"[2] by Josep Quetglas (2002) brings the Greek myth of Ariadne's Thread. A fantastic story, which talks about human beings in society, the receptacle of diverse interpretations. It has been told for over 3,000 (three thousand) years and continues to be transmitted, ever since, through oral history.
It is relevant to contextualize the plot so that a better understanding of the text is possible. It begins with Daedalus, an astute craftsman, considered one of the most skillful and creative craftsmen in Athens, known for his inventions and the perfection of his handiwork, symbolizing human ingenuity, the "thinking with our hands". The myth takes place after he was exiled from Athens to Crete for having murdered Telos, his disciple who proved to be very talented.
After Daedelus arrives in the city of Crete, the King of Minos entrusts him with building a labyrinth to imprison a monster with the body of a man and the head of a bull, the Minotaur. The beast was the fruit of the improper union of his wife Parsifae with a bull of uncommon beauty. This being became ferocious and had to be imprisoned. From then on, the builder of the labyrinth is considered the first architect in history, and it is precisely the appreciation of this work that needs to be reviewed.
As a punishment, the city sacrificed seven men and seven women from Athens every year to supply the beast's needs. Theseus, son of the king of Athens, decides to end this and sets out to kill it. An oracle reveals to him that he would only overcome the obstacle with love's help. Upon arriving at the place, the young boy meets Ariadne, the daughter of the king of Minos, and both fall in love. To save him from the beast and to guarantee that he would return alive from the mission, she had the idea of giving him a sword and a ball of gold thread and proposed that he tie it at the entrance of the labyrinth and unwind it to be able to find the exit on his return, serving as a guide and guaranteeing the success of the plan.
The strategy worked. Theseus manages to kill the monster, and with Ariadne's thread, he was able to find his way back and takes with him, Ariadne herself. Later, he abandons her on a deserted beach in Naxos. Dionysus rescued her, whom she marries on Olympus, where he offered her a golden crown. This crown became the constellation of Ariadne.
The myth of Ariadne, which has numerous philosophical and psychological interpretations, is told from conventions that strengthen the stereotypical idea of how the support of a passionate woman can lead the hero to victory and strengthen the secondary female role in traditional society. As Brunel confirms:
Ariadne's adventure begins, for us, at the moment when she falls in love with Theseus. But in three moments in this adventure, Ariadne is successively the initiator of the hero, the abandoned lover, the woman betrothed by the god. These three stories make her an exemplary woman figure, and more precisely of a woman who loves. She is passionate, whose secret lies in unknown wisdom, a nameless suffering, a divinity that exceeds. In the radical femininity of her loving passion, there remains a dark spot that forever escapes men. (Brunel, 1988, p. 67)
The story makes explicit the male vanity that can be directed to the critique of the Star System [3], a theme widely discussed by Denise Scott Brown. The architect highlights the insistence on the heroic individualism of this system, generating intimidation of collaborative work as if team activity diminished the credit of the achievement, as well as the importance of publicizing women's achievements through awards, or other forms of recognition.
The craftsman's stardom generated competition to the point where he would not tolerate the idea of a rival. The young Telos showed remarkable skill, and instead of thinking about the possibility of a partnership, Daedalus threw him from a high tower. Minerva, the protector of the skilled, watching him falling, prevented his death by transforming him into a bird, which received his name, the partridge. Once again, a woman saves a man.
Josep Quetglas (2002) breaks paradigms and states that Daedalus is not worthy of the title of the first architect for the creation of the labyrinth. The author disqualifies the work and declares that it is not architecture, justifying that it is a construction that makes no sense and serves to get lost, being impossible to find the way out
According to Fuão (2003, p. 24), "The labyrinth is the space for disorientation. It is the metalanguage of the existence of space, of raw space." and continues Fuão (2003, p. 25) "It expresses the existential world, symbolizes the unconscious, the error and the distancing from the origin of life. The very thread that unravels the logic of the labyrinth constitutes in itself its origin. Ariadne unravels the labyrinth. She untangles the challenge created by stretching the thread. Therefore, the architect was not the one who built the equipment but the one who unraveled it.
Therefore, Ariadne should have the title of the first architect. For she was able to understand, give meaning, and completely decipher that construction. With a simple gesture, as a great professional does, she unveils the place completely and gives it meaning, which, for Quetglass (2002), is architecture. It is necessary to strip the heroic wrapping of the task of deconstruction done by Ariadne, as the author explains:
At the same time as Ariadne shapes the labyrinth, describes it, destroys it – disarms it, disarticulates it, renders it ineffective as a trickster's trap, reveals its mechanisms of suggestion. Architecture, therefore, can only be deconstructive. (Quetglas, 2002, p.165)
And it is in this essence, of reviewing the architectural concepts already established, that architecture needs to walk. Questioning the ideas established by society and reinterpreting the "myths" that carry messages based on archetypes. It is possible to identify, for example, the image of the skillful, inventive, and accomplished man portrayed by Daedalus. The archetype of the stubborn woman, capable of anything to carry out her will, is represented by Queen Parsifae. The model of the monster, the product of an improper union between a woman and a man, is also observed. Thesisum represents the hero, and he can save everyone, and Ariadne is only the passionate woman who is ready to help her lover.
Understanding that stories are told through existing points of view formed by several factors and understanding that every story told can be revisited is a starting point.
History is not a simple meritocracy: it is a narrative of the past written and revised – or unwritten – by people with agendas. (Stratigakos, 2016, p. 65, our translation).
In this way, we proposed a new reading of these characters, resignifying each one of them, such as Ariadne herself, a woman capable of saving a man who goes on to solve a question, without thinking of a plan, but it is not she who wins the title of heroine. The deconstruction of these paradigms directs to relevant actions for future perspectives within the profession, thus allowing Architecture to be rethought, making it more inclusive.
Footnotes
[1] - Els mérits de les dones, 2011.
[2] - The text " In Praise of Ariadna" is written in Spanish and the character's name in Castilian differs from the name in Portuguese, called Ariadne.
[3] - Term, entitled by Denise Scott Brown, used to denote the system that values renowned architects, making them a brand name.
References
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Brunel, P. (org.) (2000). Dicionário de mitos literários. 3. ed. BrasÃlia/Rio de Janeiro: Editora UNB & José Olympio.
Colomina, B. (ed.) (1992). Sexuality and Space, Princeton Papers on Architecture, Vol. 1, Princeton: Princeton Architectural Press.
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Guiddens, A. (1991). As consequências da modernidade. 5 ed. São Paulo: Unesp.
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Stratigakos, D. (2016). Where are the women architects? Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Waisman, M. (2011). O Interior da História: historiográfica arquitetônica para uso de latino-americanos; tradução de Anita Di Marco. Ed. Perspectiva. São Paulo.
Author: Érica Maria de Barros Martins, Architect and urbanist, Fortaleza, Ceará