Thesis 2009 Abstract

Weaving and architecture, conceived simultaneously with cave paintings, are two of the most ancient forms of craft, both enclosing space and providing shelter harmoniously with nature. Like that of architecture, the creation of a useable textile in its basic composition is the interlacing of two groups, the warp and weft, at right angles to create surface and structure. Through her research, textile artist Anni Albers attributes the organization of weaving to the skills of an ancient feminine goddess. Consequently early advancements in architecture, the structural organization of shelter, are a result of feminine inventions. Through Albers’ understanding of ancient cultures she further links women closer to the overall creation of structure, though perceived as a masculine endeavor, from this woven skill.¹

Moreover, it has been the female who has been entrusted with emotional and sensual elements present in the development of shelter since prehistory. Through the creation of a home, women’s mastery of the domestic realm, strengthened and slowly led to gender-defining ideologies. Suburban residential typologies of the post war United States heightened women’s domestic roles through social and environmental isolation of the gender. The suburbs ironically conditioned a homelike sentiment of the built environment, implementing feminine ideals of tradition, sustenance, and continuity with nature.

In the modern world we produce textiles for a predominately indoor existence, underutilizing their benefits as an elementary shelter resource and erasing Albers’ basic relations of weaving and architecture.² Residential design of the post-war housing crisis in the United States disregarded nurturing feminine design principles and sanctioned the suburban typology as a principal relief strategy. Still seen as a preferred housing option today, homes are predominately constructed with methods popularized in the 1950s with advancements only seen in materials. Albers points to similar developments in textiles where the fundamental weaving traditions are unchanged and advancement only occurs with the creation of chemically treated fibers.³ Both are now designed and chosen for aesthetic qualities and overlook mutual advantages of protection, flexibility, connection with users, impact on environment, and overall performance. Tactile engagement, essential to interactions with space, is also largely absent from modern fibers and the places we inhabit.

As historic accounts show, women inherently link architecture and textiles. Through disregarding this connection, the capacity of the planet is suffering due to outdated and unsustainable residential building practices, while quality of life is degrading due to the inability of today’ structures to nurture and engage inhabitants effectively. A modular, structural wall panel system, incorporating indoor and exterior advancements in shelter through textiles and engagement of inhabitants through tactile sensibilities, will again realign these ancient crafts into an effective, modern residential construction solution. The time has come to redefine and redesign suburbia and subsequently women, undertaking the task of weaver and architect, provide the most powerful efforts in the discovery of an appropriate housing construction for the modern era and the future.