We see the mayor of West Hollywood trying to explain how architecture — which he pronounces "architexture" — has to do with race and gender.WATCH: The *very real* mayor of West Hollywood attempts to explain—to an increasingly hopeless @BenKawaller—the epidemic of “racialized” and “gendered architecture” in his city.
— The Free Press (@TheFP) May 29, 2024
Get more of “Ben Meets America!”—West Hollywood edition: https://t.co/yGvWguqS4x pic.twitter.com/4Npwfh0DUf
He's got a tough argument explaining the connection to race, but come on, architecture is obviously gendered! I'm thinking of skyscrapers and phallic symbols, but here's something I found at The Architectural Review: "The gender of genius," by Hilde Heynen. Excerpt:
The [19th-century] Romantic notion of genius referred to men of great intellectual and artistic capacities, who were in touch with their feminine side – for great art requires sensitivity, emotionality and love. The great artist, for the Romantics, was thus a feminine male....
[The Pritzker Prize] citations for the laureates from 1979 to 2010... applauded [architects] for their capacity for ‘permanence’ and ‘timelessness’, praised for producing work that is untouched by fashion, that is ‘persistent’, ‘classic’ or even connected to ‘cosmic solitude and fate'....
Men... are mostly seen as competitive and ambitious, striving for mastery and control. Masculinity is thus bound up with notions such as rationality and creativity, whereas femininity is seen as connected to the body and to emotions. In the jury citation for the Pritzker Prize winners, masculine values easily win out in terms of how often they are called upon to justify awarding the prize....
The gradual disappearance of women during the long march towards the top is in part explained by our romantic notion of the architect as artist and genius. As Naomi Stead has noticed, the figure of Ayn Rand’s Howard Roark in The Fountainhead, the ‘arrogant and virile hero architect, casts a long shadow over any discussion of authorship in the discipline’, infusing it with a mystique heralding the creativity of the individual artist-designer...
The entanglement of the architect’s role with masculinity seems to be enduring and difficult to turn around....
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57 comments:
Everything that doesn't fall down is masculine. It shows expertise in math and theory.
Yes. Skyscrapers are clearly phallic. I think about the many attempts to design office buildings fitted into expensive urban real estate, modeled after female genitalia. They didn’t work very well.
Progressives are race obsessed. (What else is new??)
So, basically every human habitation after the cave is masculine? Women need to work in 30 story underground caverns to feel good about themselves.
...which he pronounces "architexture"...
Ick! That's almost as bad as "eckspecially".
"architecture is obviously gendered! I'm thinking of skyscrapers and phallic symbols"
What makes them "symbols" rather than an efficient use of space and creative application of engineering principles? Are there any buildings that are feminine "symbols"?
"Men... are mostly seen as competitive and ambitious, striving for mastery and control."
"are seen" Meaning, all cultures understand the difference?
"The gradual disappearance of women during the long march towards the top is in part explained by our romantic notion of the architect as artist and genius."
It couldn't be relative talent and "ambition," could it?
"The entanglement of the architect’s role with masculinity seems to be enduring and difficult to turn around"
Until recent decades, the entanglement of any leading creative role with masculinity seemed to be enduring and difficult to turn around. The jury is still out on whether it truly can be. Example: in more egalitarian countries women appear to be choosing "feminine" paths that suit their tastes and abilities rather than "ambitiously" pursuing leading roles in other fields. Example 2: after more than half a century of women's lib, leading to women overtaking men in advanced education, all the female entrepreneurs taken together can't match the contributions of one of the top male figures.
Buildings can only go horizontal or vertical to add floor space. And when land is expensive (e.g. NYC), you have to go up.
The Nebraska State Capitol is majestic and one of the great skyscrapers of America. It wouldn't quite be the same if it was shaped like a vagina.
Just don't leave your car unlocked in West Hollywood. Or drop your car keys. Gardena is safer.
That mayor talks a lot like Kamala Harris. Many many words that say absolutely nothing.
When asked a hard question, replies "Well don't you know the answer? Why are you asking?" before then reverting back to Harrisesque WordSalad.
The video is great. Never a single example given.
I never thought of it, but of course I pronounce it architexture. It's a West Coast accent.
I've been reading about Elizabethan architecture. Their manor houses were shaped like an E (Elizabeth) with the middle stroke much shortened. So, was that male or female architecture? In the succeeding era, the Caroline era, the English built houses with barrel-vaulted roofs, with cupolas which drove a rounded hole right through the middle of the house, and with columns everywhere; the whole integrated into a garden setting with flowers in square beds, caves, grottoes and flowing brooks. Again you wonder - was this male or female? And, whichever it was, why is its male (or female) not like the before-male (or female.) Perhaps the Caroline era was really trans. After all, it was named after Charles I and II, not any sweet Caroline.
Sometimes a building is just a building.
It's nice that those types of people have an enclave like West Hollywood.
I'm glad I wasn't doing the interview. About 30 seconds in I would have started beating that mayor over the head with the microphone.
What an asshole
John Henry
I’d argue the pyramid is a feminine construct. As are stadiums and racetracks. Function dictates shape, of which there are few as a baseline, and millions as embellishments.
So maybe all architecture is a mix of both in varying proportions.
Doesn't everybody think that this interview would have been a whole lot better if the journalist just told that *sshole that he is full of sh*t? Without this kind of sense-checking confrontation, how can we even expect that this is ever going to go away? We're just enabling it to continue by pretending to be civil about something we find outrageous.
I'd like to point-out the woman at the beginning of the video.
She cocks her head sideways while reciting her lefty pablum into the microphone from behind the dais.
I've noticed this tic is prevalent, mostly among liberal woman, trying to convey a sense of superior empathy in public policy discussions, oftentimes accompanied by a vocal fry for emphasis.
In that sense, I guess the Leaning Tower of Pizza is an example of female-inclusive architecture?
Ick! That's almost as bad as "eckspecially". But not as bad as eckcetera.
Diversity (i.e. color judgment, class bigotry): racism, sexism, etc.
We need another twin towers to capture the feminine gender. Pethaps more pentagon style structures, too. A black rock?
If you cannot paraphrase what someone is saying, what they are saying is nonsense. I learned that back in the 70s in a UC Berkeley class in rhetoric. It becomes more applicable with every passing day.
Eggcelsior!
Men build everything, so how can it NOT be "masculine"?
We need buildings that reflect western civilization. Tourists go to Europe to see the beautiful churches and buildings. Why are we not building beautiful buildings here in the USA? Talking about race is the last refuge of the scoundrel. Its always to excuse some racket or graft or to excuse something shoddy.
@Sebastian: "Are there any buildings that are feminine "symbols"?"
Yes. Underground parking. Capable of accepting many visits and/or visitors. Costs money to get out.
LOL! Could that mayor be any more obviously gay?
That z-axis is so damned sexist!
I don't get my drawers in a wad until somebody uses architect as a verb.
First, I think about the price of war against all who engage in this detestable practice. Then I go on with my day, but I'm not the same person I was before the affront to my senses.
Don't do this, and avoid anyone who does.
The Vietnam war memorial is an obvious vulvic symbol — a huge gash in the ground.
Hizzoner was giving a seminar on using a barrel full of impressive sounding words to say exactly nothing.
Couldn’t answer the question. Every example mentioned had nothing to do with race or gender. He’s just quoting the playbook. Buzzwords.
He’s a gay Kamala Harris.
The human body is clearly a phallic object that is feminine gender adjacent.
Even George Costanza knew how to pronounce the word.
Skyscrapers are phallic.
Underground garages are yonic.
People that work in the public sphere like Professors hate things that are built by builders.
Actual productivity reminds them how pointless their lives are.
Hole in the Wall restaurants are feminine?
Costanza
Can't stands ya.
"We see the mayor of West Hollywood trying to explain how architecture — which he pronounces "architexture" — has to do with race and gender.'
This is everything wrong with government in general and liberal government in particular.
Did you notice all the buzzwords and gobbledygook?
I love the first slide shot with the acronym. It's like being back in my brief stint in education where (as far as I know) I was one of only two conservatives in a group of 100 faculty and admins.
Oh, and why is she a white chick and not a black lesbian or some flavor of trans?
West Hollywood had better get with the program...
"Just don't leave your car unlocked in West Hollywood. Or drop your car keys. Gardena is safer."
Classic San Francisco joke if you're a local:
What do you do if you drop your wallet on Polk Street?
Kick it over to Van Ness...
Women can build a mean grass hut.
but come on, architecture is obviously gendered! I'm thinking of skyscrapers and phallic symbols
FFS, do you see a tree or say Giant Saguaro cactus and think "that's a penis so it must be male"? Because that's what the statement above sounds like. Absurd. Buildings rise upwards because physics and limited land space make building taller buildings more practical than wider buildings. Architecture might embellish the facade around a skyscraper, but that it is a skyscraper (ever taller building) is not gender. That's before we get into many New York City skyscrapers doing double duty as radio towers, which again physics suggest the higher the better coverage. If you want to see them as phallic symbols, then it says something about you and not the architect, just as Libs of TikTok videos says more about Chaya Raichik than the "Libs" of TikTok.
A cupola in front is just a bonus hole.
The Twin Towers were conceived as transgender, constructed as masculine, then aborted as a homage to the feminist? Genderism can be a queer, productive, and wicked thing.
As the gay capital of L.A., West Hollywood is where many scoffable ideas are born, bred and blown to the web.
When pressed, there are no answers, just more questions.
Notably, West Hollywood is one of the least diverse areas around LA.
That's really all one needs to know about the racialized architecture in West Hollywood.
Althouse:
... architecture is obviously gendered! I'm thinking of skyscrapers and phallic symbols, ...
Anyone looking at a tall building and thinking is reminds them of a dick has some issues. This doubles if they presume and promote that the architect meant it to look like a dick. Same goes for an underground garage reminding someone of a vagina.
There are three ways to get the most floor space from lot space. Build up, dig down or do both. Building up is phallic, digging down is yonic and I guess doing both is fucking - who knows. Someone would find some moronic and disparaging equivalency to sex.
To avoid all this, the only way is building a one-floor shop and hoping your business survives.
Idiocy. It's like seeing sex in carrots and onion rings.
Ralph L:
Women can build a mean grass hut.
Men vs Women: The Island proves otherwise.
planetgeo @9:15 AM
Hilarious.
Leland:
just as Libs of TikTok videos says more about Chaya Raichik than the "Libs" of TikTok.
So if I quote you, it's me not you? Interesting.
The guy in the suit is just talking in circles because he doesn't understand what he's talking about.
"If civilization had been left in female hands, we would still be living in grass huts" — Camille Paglia.
"If civilization had been left in female hands, we would still be living in grass huts" — Camille Paglia.
Kind of obvious if you ever to to any job site or watch any construction crew doing dirty and dangerous work.
The only women present on road crews are holding the stop signs.
Women are too smart to get their hands dirty/die young : )
Part of West Hollywood smells like pee. Is that gendered?
Sometimes a skyscraper is just a skyscraper.
Freud was a delusional nitwit whose cockamamie speculations, especially his early theories of psychosexual development, have next to no bearing on the modern practice of psychiatry. The popular imagination still clings to them for smug explanations of phenomena they don't understand, especially among the kind of over-educated self-congratulatory left-wing white female humanities majors who see phallic symbols everywhere.
The younger Freud basically thought everything that was longer than it was wide was a phallic symbol, and that those who paid them undue attention were in a state of arrested development that reflected a maladaptive fear of masculine power. Later he drifted away from such foolishness, as evidenced by his famous late-in-life quote about "sometimes a cigar is just a cigar", but the damage was done. Look at how many arguments about gun control devolve into accusations that guns are somehow a substitute for an inadequate penis. Comically, such arguments are frequently directed from childless, unmanly leftists towards gun-owning men with large families and no deficiencies at all in the organs of generation. If the lefty soy-boys actually knew their Freud, and not his pop-psychology caricature, they'd realize that his finger was pointing at them rather than the targets of their insinuations.
Leave it to a West Hollywood Mayor to start babbling about literal holes -- entrances to subways, transportation hubs; then open space, green space, walkable space -- when asked about gendered architecture. To him, gendered space is apparently the absence of something, or a hole in something. And then he carefully avoids saying anything about safety and zoning. He wants to say it, and he actually means that, but he won't let himself talk about the inherent danger of public shared spaces, or public transportation, or public libraries.
Meanwhile, West Hollywood has one of the highest crime rates of any community, of any size, in the entire U.S. Annually, you have a one in 13 chance of being victimized in some way -- property or violent crime.
So this is just bizarre crime denial coated with a patina of bizarre sexism cloaked in bizarre sexual innuendo, all tied up with zoning codes. That's exactly what I want from a mayor.
My personal experience with gendered architecture: Locked doors, fences, and walls. Women are very effectively locked out of spaces while large and strong grown men can simply climb over the walls and fences or crash through doors. They don't even think twice about it.
You see this practice all the time in movies with the protagonist or villains evading capture. My own experience came at the UC Davis where I was forced to get signed permission to use the sculpture yard and obtain a key to enter the sculpture yard, while the guys I knew could and did enter the yard at will by climbing up and over the wall. This very macho mentality was upheld and rewarded by the so called feminist chair of the art department. In hindsight I guess that it gave her a tingle in private parts.
If every skyscaraper is a penis, then every sports stadium is a vagina. And that makes the teams on the field the equivalent of sperm. I guess those in the stands are just an STD.
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