Krasny, Elke. ‘Architecture and Care.’ 2019

Krasny, Elke. ‘Architecture and Care.’ In Critical Care. Architecture and Urbanism for a Broken Planet, edited by Fitz, Angelika, Elke Krasny, and Architekturzentrum Wien, 33-43. Boston: MIT Press, 2019.

Architecture in its broadest sense provides shelter indispensable tothe continuation of human life and survival. This is evidently a form of care. Yet historically, architecture has not been considered a form of caring labor. Despite this fundamental function of archi-tecture to provide protection for humans from sun, wind, snow orrain, and to give the support necessary for maintaining the vitalfunctions of everyday living, the idea of the architect is linked toautonomy and independent genius rather than connectedness,dependency, social reproduction and care giving. While the idea of the architect being an artist, traditionally gendered male, has beenmost influential over centuries, the notion of the architect being acarer, traditionally gendered female and considered menial laborperformed by racialized others, has been completely absent fromthe discourse on architecture.