EVE’S HOUSE. Feminine projects for the city

Abstract

Eve’s House is the denomination of an association born in Rome in 1999. Founded by a group of women, architects, planners and historians, teachers and photographers, the association aimed to foster the relevance of women’s concern for historical investigation as well as in planning the city, the dwelling, the public spaces, and the environment as a whole.

Early inquiries in the field were published in the magazine «Controspazio», under the directorship of Marcello Fabbri. The issue no. 2, 1996 of the magazine, entitled Eve’s House in Paradise (echoing Joseph Rykwert On Adam’s House in Paradise, 1972), offered a closer look at the architecture seen through the lens of the female approach, searching for the link between women and architecture, in theory, in history and in design. The research includes a historical reflection on the domestic space; an essay on dwelling in ancient Greece; a series of articles on the work of young European women planners and designers, and on the housing policy in Italy after WWII.

Controspazio issue no. 2, 2001 was dedicated to The gap: a key to understanding gender differences and to its multifarious meanings. The essays introduced the work of women architects whose contribution has been ignored in canonical architectural histories; they also analysed the spaces and voids that urban designers left unplanned as residual and left over, and the Universal Design not to exclude everybody’ s need for housing in contemporary city.

Eve’s House is interested in practising the “care”, an attitude, an expertise, a knowledge, a revolutionary tools that belonged to women’s histories and that influenced the government and the project of the human habitat. Many women’s groups, active in Italy, are currently experienced this practice of female involvement.

Eve’s House is the house of Tamara Alderighi, Maristella Casciato, Luisa Castelli, Assunta D’Innocenzo, Laura Gallucci, Annalisa Marinelli, Silvia Massotti, Claudia Mattogno and many other women.