Jean-Jacques Lequeu and gender in the architecture of the Enlightenment

Abstract

In architecture, androcentrism is considering alternative architectural cultures as effeminate cultures. The classic architecture of power reserves to itself the male condition. But in any building the two human genders as substance are present. The architecture of the Enlightenment, for example, with its virile monumentality, symbolizes the ideals of Reason. It is architecture of spheres and domes. It seems important to investigate the feeling of the concavity in this architecture. In the work of Etienne-Louis Boullée the sphere is often of enormous dimensions and symbolizes the cosmic and the universal. But the dimensions of the buildings of JeanJacques Lequeu allow the sphere translate feelings of maternal protection and shelter. Even in these monumental projects is important the capacity of building to replace in the outside world, to the womb, protected from light and mysterious.