Sibyl Moholy-Nagy and the Vicissitudes of Modern Architecture

mardi 22 mars 2022
à 13:00
Cycle de conférences

Hilde Heynen, professor of architectural theory, University of Leuven

Cette conférence reviendra sur la vie et l’œuvre de Sybil Moholy-Nagy en explorant plus largement les relations entre modernisme et féminisme. Sibyl Moholy-Nagy est née en 1903 à Loschwitz, près de Dresde, d’un père architecte membre du Werkbund, Martin Pietzsch. Après la mort de son mari, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, elle commence une carrière d’universitaire en publiant sa biographie (Experiment in Totality, 1950), suivie d'une série d’autres livres (Native Genius in Anonymous Architecture, 1957 ; Raul Villanueva and the architecture of Venezuela, 1964 ; Matrix of Man, 1968). Elle rédige en outre l’introduction de The Architecture of Paul Rudolph (1970) et publie de nombreux articles dans des revues comme Architectural Forum, Progressive Architecture, Bauwelt et Casabella. Elle s’affirme ainsi comme l’une des figures majeures de la culture architecturale des années 1950 et 1960. L’importance de sa contribution vient de sa critique de l’architecture moderniste, en particulier de l'appétence de cette dernière pour les espaces abstraits et neutres, tout comme de son mépris pour les usages quotidiens des habitants. Replacer Sibyl Moholy-Nagy dans ce contexte permet finalement de questionner les enjeux liés au genre dans le modernisme.

Hilde Heynen is a professor of architectural theory at the University of Leuven, Belgium. Her research focuses on issues of modernity, modernism and gender in architecture. In Architecture and Modernity. A Critique (MIT Press, 1999) she investigated the relationship between architecture, modernity and dwelling, arguing that critical theories such as those of Walter Benjamin and Theodor Adorno offer crucial insights when revisiting the Modern Movement. More recently she engaged with the intersection between architecture and gender studies, resulting in the volume Negotiating Domesticity. Spatial productions of gender in modern architecture (co-edited with Gulsum Baydar, Routledge, 2005). She was also the co-editor of Back from Utopia. The Challenge of the Modern Movement (with Hubert-Jan Henket, 010, 2001) and of the Handbook Architectural Theory (with Greig Crysler and Stephen Cairns; Sage, 2012), alongside other volumes. Her intellectual biography of Sibyl Moholy-Nagy is published with Bloomsbury (Sibyl Moholy-Nagy. Architecture, Modernism and its Discontent, 2019) and with Sandstein (Sibyl Moholy-Nagy. Kritikerin der Moderne, 2019).
Hilde Heynen studied architecture and philosophy at the University of Leuven, where she also received her PhD. She was a J Paul Getty postdoctoral fellow, a research fellow at the Radcliffe Institute (Harvard University), and held visiting positions at MIT (Cambridge, Mass.), at the AA-school (London), RMIT (Melbourne) and Harvard. Her work was supported by grants from the Research Foundation Flanders, the Research Council of the University of Leuven, the Netherlands Architecture Fund, the Graham Foundation and the Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Studies.