Designing a room of her own - reading from within Eileen Gray's boudoir-study

Download files
Access & Terms of Use
open access
Copyright: Stewart, Tzu-Mei
Altmetric
Abstract
Since the 1970’s, much of the revived interest in Eileen Gray’s architecture and design has focused on her status as a woman, lesbian, amateur, foreigner, and, regrettably, her personal entanglement with the Modernist architect, Le Corbusier. This has undoubtedly framed our understanding of Gray and her design practice in the Western canon. Gray is positioned in a particular gendered power relation to a cabal of modernist male architects; she is a neglected ‘other’ contributor to the Modern Movement. Gray is overshadowed by male discourses and concomitant subjectivities such that her quiet voice is mostly heard through others. This alternative reading of Gray’s work performatively situates Gray in the very ‘room’ in the home that has historically stymied women’s voices and presence – the study. This reading is theoretically structured around an analysis of the experiences and situatedness of the female body in terms of sexual difference, subjectivity and identity, and is explored through an investigation of the study as a spatial metaphor that describes not only a spatial condition for the production and representation of subjectivity and identity, but also an epistemological condition. This spatial inquiry is subjective and objective, and draws on readings and experiences of situated female bodies, including my own body as woman and practicing architect. This thesis applies a practice of feminist architectural history through examination of use, representation and experience. Against the patriarchal backdrop of Victorian domesticity and the presumed gender neutrality of Modernism, the study, paired with its ‘other’, the boudoir, and their various architectural variations, are spatial representations of the phallocentric tradition. These spaces control women’s access to knowledge production through different bodily practices. Despite its overdetermination of representation, the study is a cultural construct that is socially and spatially organized. Its conceptual and material conditions can thus be appropriated through the planning and distribution of materials, objects and bodies in space. Gray designs her own boudoir-studies, exemplified in the Monte Carlo Bedroom-Boudoir, Villa E.1027 and Tempe à Pailla, as plural and ambiguous spaces for the body and mind. Through her design and architectural work, Gray challenges traditional notions of femininity and domesticity, claiming a freer, more independent mode of living.
Persistent link to this record
Link to Publisher Version
Link to Open Access Version
Additional Link
Author(s)
Stewart, Tzu-Mei
Supervisor(s)
Loo, Stephen
Jones, Mark Ian
Creator(s)
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Curator(s)
Designer(s)
Arranger(s)
Composer(s)
Recordist(s)
Conference Proceedings Editor(s)
Other Contributor(s)
Corporate/Industry Contributor(s)
Publication Year
2019
Resource Type
Thesis
Degree Type
Masters Thesis
Files
download public version.pdf 16.21 MB Adobe Portable Document Format
Related dataset(s)