MADWOMEN: Legitimising Public Domesticity

Abstract

Mad Women investigates how a contemporary translation of domesticity is being negotiated today. It recognises the developing conflation of the domestic realm and the workplace which has historically been viewed in spatial opposition. It takes the position of the limited visibility of women architects, in which a great majority operate within this blurred condition. Sited on the margins of St. Kevin’s Arcade on Karangahape Road, Auckland, is the proposed headquarters for the recently established group, ‘Architecture and Women NZ’ (A+W:NZ). The arcade’s public lounge is used to experiment the absorption of active domestic life into the fibre of the workplace culture, to address the desire to be in both environments simultaneously. The shifting boundaries between public-private and the urban-domestic are explored through a multilayered drawing process that reconceptualises its reciprocating dual nature into an inclusive territory that places women and their work visible in a spatial and social context. A major component of this research is the compilation of a timeline overview of women in architecture in New Zealand since the19th century, presented at the ‘Between Silos’ exhibition in Auckland on 20-29 September 2013. The thesis does not claim to be conclusive or an exhaustive study of history; rather it has stimulated a systematic recording of women gaining place in architectural history. It constructs a conceptual framework for the ongoing inquiry of the gendered nature of Home and its reinterpretation today, as an active model of ‘public domesticity’. It engages in the current climate thinking of mutual inclusiveness and legitimises a position within the margins, with the ability to influence change and generate a more robust profession for years to come.