METAPHORICAL REPRESENTATION OF SPATIAL EXPERIENCES AND SEXED SUBJECTS

While interpreting the spatial composition of public and private spaces through Irigaray’s and Lacan’s theories, it can be argued that the Robie house does not accommodate for different sexed subjects but only the male subject. Even though a metaphorical stance is applied to understanding spaces that influence the psychological viewpoint, Wright’s attempt at creating public and private spaces that, through an architectural perspective, accommodate the sole purpose of socializing or having privacy while allowing a female subject to exist. Although, throughout the two architectural time periods, it is vivid that the spatial compositions in suburban residencies have adapted to a more inclusive and more female considerate spatial arrangement as seen through Ban’s Naked House. However, it can be understood that gendered spaces will not cease to exist unless the psychological and metaphorical understandings of spaces have diminished in order to create the natural and unforced balance between spatial arrangements that lessen the concept of gendered spaces and allow subjects to co-exist.

METAPHORICAL REPRESENTATION OF SPATIAL EXPERIENCES AND SEXED SUBJECTS

Through Irigaray’s perspectives derived from symbolic representations of objects and spaces, she is able to make the female subject more included in society through a positive metaphorical, yet psychological comprehension of female qualities resembling or mimicking spatial compositions. This symbolic parallel can be seen through Irigaray’s analysis on Plato’s philosophical text, The Republic, in which she states that “men – with no specification of sex – are living in one, same, place. A place shaped like a cave or a womb” (Irigaray, 1985, p.243). Thus to Irigaray, Plato’s myths “relegates woman to a secondary, supporting and material role in the production of the human subject” (Rawes, 2007, p.36), in other words, the ignorance undermines a woman’s powers and capabilities.

Figure 6: Mobile compartments of the Naked House

Photo credits: Hiroyuki Hirai

By means of Irigaray’s symbolistic representation, the flexible composition that Ban has integrated through unsealed and mobile compartments (figure 6) allows for fluidity and adaptability that directly correlates with Irigaray’s theory of feminine spaces which suggests that “spatial experiences and relationships with other people can be reconfigured into fluid, permeable boundaries, rather than discrete finite spaces” (Rawes, 2007, p. 34). Even though Irigaray promotes female qualities by depicting the negative associations of women through a positive light, she believes that “woman has been aligned with [negative] ideas of incompletion, infinity, and formlessness, because

of her unstable physical fluid powers” (Rawes, 2007, p.38), expressing Lacan’s ideology upon the function of the female-absence. Therefore, it can be argued that Ban’s flexible and fluid spatial composition of the Naked House could contradict the norms of designing through a feminine lens, as the spaces may not be functional or designed for stability. However, Irigaray further states the parallel between a female subject’s physical ability to adapt, change, and produce with the ability to rearrange the spaces in the Naked House suggesting the fluidity within the Naked house metaphorically represents “the positive nature of woman’s powers of material and psychic transformation” (Rawes, 2007, p.39).

Figure 8: Living room of Robie House - 1910

Photo credits: Frank Lloyd Wright Trust

Figure 7: master bedroom (top), kitchen space (bottom) of Robie House - 1910

Photo credits: Frank Lloyd Wright Trust

Contrarily, to both Freud and Lacan, a female subject is associated with voids, holes, and blind spots because “a woman’s castration is defined as her having nothing…nothing like man” (Irigaray, 1985, p.48). Therefore, a space, with the symbolistic representation of voids or holes, would tend to have a composition of darkness and emptiness portraying a lack of existence or being. As seen in the Robie house, the more feminine on private spaces such as the bedrooms or kitchen spaces (figure 7) are composed of minimal amounts of natural light and propose a rigid and inflexible atmospheric space. The living room (figure 8) however, a more public and social space, in comparison is composed of large repetitive windows allowing substantial amounts of natural light. Furthermore, the spacious area with flexibility of spatial arrangements with furniture and an expressive amount of detail can be argued to represent an external space. Supporting the Lacanian theory of associating femininity with voids and holes, the composition of the public interior spaces in the Robie house, due to the commendable qualities, can be connoted with masculinity consequently suggesting a patriarchal interpretation of space.

Exploring the spatial compositions of both Ban’s Naked house and Wright’s Robie house through the theoretical framework of Irigaray, Lacan, and Freud, it is evident that throughout the time period, spaces that mimic the negatively connoted qualities of femininity have been reconfigured to recognise the existence and socially include the female subject. However, it is evident that space is represented in a bias to psychologically influence the users’ views and experience. The spatial depiction is a manipulative approach of the respected society’s hierarchy as means to manoeuvre a spatial experience as one will not be given the opportunity to differentiate between sexed subjects or being silent contributors in promoting the feminine-absence in society.