Hysteria: re-placing women in architecture

Abstract

The paper sets out to re-place women within the realm of architecture. Hysteria intertwines the creative powers of women with what has been historically construed as a psychological disorder. Western Philosophical thought traditionally locates women as 'other. Their creativity has been appropriated through this means. Women are left to inhabit the margins. Hysteria questions this positioning and allows boundaries to be transgressed and subverted. Hysteria is re-defined as an enabling devise to transcend bodily and socially defined constraints. It allows women to reveal/reassert their creative role in architecture.