Domestic Architecture, Literature and the Sexual Imaginary in Europe, 1850–1930

Martí-Balcells, Aina

Uncovers the impact of architectural practices and discourses on the sexual imagination
Includes unpublished sources from German, French and English architectural archives
Sets out new approaches to architectural theory and the uses of literature
Establishes a link between the Architectural Humanities and the History of Sexuality
Discovers the powerful role of architecture in suggesting sexual practices
This book sheds light on the contributions of architecture and its literary representations to a series of changes taking place in sexual culture during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in France, England, Germany and Austria. By analysing an important set of architectural discourses and literary representations of domestic architecture, the book illustrates the constant tension between an increasing sexual permissiveness and more conservative approaches to domesticity and sexuality. It shows the ways in which literature imagined the impact of new architectural designs on sexual culture that suggested the creation of more fluid forms of organisation of space and sexual mores.