Feminist Space
Exhibitions and Discourses between Philadelphia and Berlin 1865–1912
Feminist Space: Exhibitions and Discourses between Philadelphia and Berlin, 1865–1912 investigates the relationship between gender and the production of public space, namely the exhibitions of feminine bourgeois culture created in Berlin between 1865 and 1912. Feminine exhibitions gave expression to evolving bourgeois feminist discourses that envisioned an expanded public sphere, containing separate and equal, masculine and feminine qualities.
In addition, the exhibitions found at the Woman’s Buildings constructed at the 1876 (Philadelphia) and 1893 (Chicago) American world exhibitions as well as the ideals of the German applied arts movement also informed the conception and design of the exhibitions of feminine bourgeois culture.
As these exhibitions were hugely popular, they attracted attention and stimulated discourses considering gender, design and public space. This book argues that the exhibitions of feminine bourgeois culture along with the texts they inspired contributed to the seminal architectural culture arising in Germany prior to 1914.