Olivier Vallerand | Université de Montréal (original) (raw)

Books by Olivier Vallerand

Sexuality and gender have long been influential in understanding the construction of domestic spa... more Sexuality and gender have long been influential in understanding the construction of domestic space, its meanings, often revealing a binary division of private and public, female and male. By reconstructing the foundation of queer critiques of space and by analyzing the representation of domesticity in contemporary art and architecture, Unplanned Visitors shows the blurring of private and public that can occur in any domestic space and explores the potential of queer theory for understanding, and designing, the built environment.

Olivier Vallerand investigates how queer critiques, building on pioneering feminist work, question the relation between identity and architecture and highlight normative constructs underlying domestic spaces. He draws out a genealogy of queer space in theoretical discourse in architecture, studying projects by Mark Robbins, Joel Sanders, J Mayer H, Elmgreen & Dragset, Andrés Jaque, and MYCKET, among others. These works blur the traditional borders between architecture and art to emphasize the tensions between private and public and their impact on assumptions about domestic space and family structure. The challenges in moving from experimental installations to built environments suggest how designers must acknowledge and respond to the social contexts that shape architecture, rethinking how domestic spaces can be designed to allow everyone to better manage the expression of their self-identification through their living environments.

Unplanned Visitors poses a challenge to traditional architectural theory and history, but also suggests a renewed and more inclusive ethics whereby designers explicitly address social and political power structures. The potential of a queer approach to architectural design, history, theory, and education is precisely to enact a method that creates more inclusive buildings and safer neighbourhoods for everyone.

Papers by Olivier Vallerand

Nouvelles pratiques sociales, 2021

GRIS-Montreal « demystifies » sexual and gender diversity by mobilizing experiential knowledge th... more GRIS-Montreal « demystifies » sexual and gender diversity by mobilizing experiential knowledge through a biographical approach in order to deconstruct received ideas and stereotypes. Different issues of representation, representativeness and legitimacy mark the use of intimate experiences as an intervention method. This article presents the reflection developed when trans and non-binary experiences were added to the mission of GRIS, initially created to demystify only sexual orientation, on ethical sensitivity, methodological challenges and preferred narrative methods. / Le GRIS-Montréal « démystifie » la diversité sexuelle et de genre en utilisant une formule mobilisant les savoirs expérientiels et l’approche biographique dans le but de déconstruire les idées reçues et les stéréotypes. Différents enjeux de représentation, de représentativité et de légitimité marquent le recours au témoignage intime comme méthode d’intervention. Cet article présente la réflexion développée lors de l’ajout des réalités trans et non binaires à la mission du GRIS, initialement créé pour démystifier seulement l’orientation sexuelle, sur la sensibilité éthique, les défis méthodologiques et les méthodes narratives à privilégier.

Somatechnics, 2020

Queer space discourse in architecture has often been about reclaiming sexualized spaces or spaces... more Queer space discourse in architecture has often been about reclaiming sexualized spaces or spaces used by LGBT people as being part of architectural history. However, critical practitioners have sought to expand from an understanding based on an essentialist understanding of queer bodies to link instead the experience of built environments to the repression of non-normative/non-compliant bodies. This article discusses projects by J. Mayer H., Andrés Jaque/Office for Political Innovation (OFFPOLINN), and MYCKET that build on a queer understanding of architecture and design to explore relationships between bodies, the materiality of domestic spaces, and communal identities, challenging binary understandings of architectural design spaces and linking them to the configuration of citizenship. J. Mayer H.’s work on data-protection patterns and thermo-sensitive materials uses bodies as material in developing a discourse on privacy stemming in part from queer people's experience of oppressing policies. OFFPOLINN's projects on IKEA and on gay cruising digital environments question the role of architects by underlining the close integration of advertisement, online social networks, and urban and architectural policies in relation to the experience of citizenship and migration. Finally, MYCKET's queer feminist performative architectures attempts to reframe the neutrality of the architectural modernist tradition to celebrate the messiness that comes with thinking of space as designed for a diversity of people. The three practices expand architectural discussions of domesticity beyond an understanding of the house as a container for family life and towards seeing it as a nexus of social and political relations that converge around the body.

Contentious Cities: Design and the Gendered Production of Space, 2020

Queer space discourses emerged in architecture in the early 1990s, but similar to how the word qu... more Queer space discourses emerged in architecture in the early 1990s, but similar to how the word queer itself is understood in different ways, they have been understood in divergent and not always compatible ways. Thus, historical studies interested in reclaiming gay and lesbian designers or studying spaces used by lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and trans people (LGBT) coexist with psychanalytically-oriented readings of urban and architectural forms and challenges to normative architectural approaches informed by queer theory. Furthermore, mirroring changes in the way society at large has included notions of gender and sexuality in public discourses, discussions of gender identity and trans issues in architecture and planning were almost non-existent until very recently. With many queer space architects and thinkers closely associated with the academic world, it is not surprising that some of them have used their teaching forums to develop and share thinking about queer space. This chapter explores how queer and feminist educators have sought to imagine modes of teaching that go beyond the study of LGBT-oriented spaces to embrace queer and feminist critiques in both course content and teaching methods. Some have focused on making visible the contribution of diverse people to the design disciplines, others have instead interpreted queer design as challenging ideological assumptions inscribed in pedagogical methods, as well as in form and composition principles, while others have looked more closely at occupation of space and human relations impacted by design. The methods presented here were gathered through interviews with architecture, urban design, and interior design educators in North America, Europe, and Australia; differences between professional and institutional contexts were often part of the discussions.

The Plan Journal, 2019

Until recently, discussions of the relation of sexual orientation with the built environment have... more Until recently, discussions of the relation of sexual orientation with the built environment have mostly focused on gay men at the expense of lesbian women and trans people. This study thus presents a review of discourses in architecture and design as well as interviews with lesbian designers to understand how and why queer women have been almost invisible. The privileged position of men allows expression of their sexual orientation with less risk than women who are already facing discrimination. Furthermore, structural inequities have forced women architects to focus on issues of equality and inclusion for all women, with the side effect of often silencing how other forces such as sexual orientation or race combine to create more complex power relations. Invisibility is a problem, however, as it limits the ability to respond adequately to diverse social needs and to sustain more inclusive design disciplines. Bringing to the foreground the intersection of identities with experience of space can encourage younger generations of architects by offering role models and diversifying the range of life experiences informing the design of spaces.

Santé LGBT : les minorités de genre et de sexualité face aux soins, 2020

Genre Éducation Formation, 2019

En tant qu’espace privilégié pour la construction identitaire et pour le développement du jugemen... more En tant qu’espace privilégié pour la construction identitaire et pour le développement du jugement critique, l’école québécoise a pour mission de transmettre des connaissances et des valeurs, mais aussi d’accompagner l’apprentissage d’une citoyenneté engagée. Le débat comme dispositif didactique est l’une des entrées retenues pour initier les élèves à la délibération démocratique. S’appuyant sur les savoirs coconstruits par le GRIS-Montréal, un organisme communautaire québécois « démystifiant » la diversité sexuelle et de genre, cet article présente une méthode pédagogique où le témoignage est au cœur d’une démarche de conscientisation préalable au débat. Il convient d’abord de déconstruire les préjugés, avant d’envisager débattre de façon critique de questions touchant à la diversité sexuelle et de genre. Le témoignage personnel offre alors des prises efficaces pour sensibiliser les élèves, en accolant à des réalités méconnues des expériences vécues qui s’éloignent des théories ou des points de vue désincarnés.

Revue Genre Éducation Formation, Dec 2019

Platform, 2019

https://www.platformspace.net/home/raising-a-family-in-the-academy

Interiors: Design/Architecture/Culture, Apr 1, 2019

https://doi.org/10.1080/20419112.2019.1565175 Despite its emergence in architectural discussion... more https://doi.org/10.1080/20419112.2019.1565175
Despite its emergence in architectural discussions in the early 1990s, more than 25 years later, the idea of queerness has yet to fully transform the way we practice, teach or even experience spatial design. While obviously focused on how gender and sexuality play a role in the building of personal and collective identifications, queer theory becomes much more interesting when used to think more broadly about how different elements intersect in our experience and use of space. Unfortunately, despite most of the thinking about the relation between queerness and architecture taking place in the academic world, its impact on architectural pedagogy has been quite limited and very few designers have learned from queer theory’s insights. This essay develops different innovative teaching methods through interviews with educators across the world and focuses on how interiors education can become a vessel for queer and feminist ideas to impact architecture and design education at large. These strategies include embracing failure and disruption, supporting students, and becoming engaged activist educators. They focus on bridging a gap between different groups, on helping designers to acknowledge the limits of their designs and to maximize the possibilities offered by their design decisions. Queering design means building relations, offering layered opportunities, multiplying possible experiences. Queering design pedagogy in turn means multiplying points of views, opening the discipline to not only other disciplines, but to the everyday, and thinking about how our experiences as human beings, impact and transform our designs.

Revue Jeunes et société, 2018

http://rjs.inrs.ca/index.php/rjs/article/view/126/76 L'article compare l'évolution des attitudes... more http://rjs.inrs.ca/index.php/rjs/article/view/126/76

L'article compare l'évolution des attitudes des jeunes rencontrés par le GRIS-Montréal, un organisme qui lutte contre l'homophobie et favorise, par le témoignage, une meilleure connaissance des réalités homosexuelles et bisexuelles en milieu scolaire. Quatre temps de mesure échelonnés entre 2001 et 2017 ont permis de dépouiller 7 122 questionnaires remplis par des élèves du secondaire âgés de 12 à 18 ans (moyenne de 15 ans). Les résultats montrent d'abord qu'un plus grand nombre d'élèves mentionnent aujourd'hui des attirances sexuelles autres que seulement pour le genre opposé. Ils montrent ensuite une évolution positive sur quinze ans des niveaux d'aise des jeunes pour l'ensemble des dimensions étudiées à l'aide du questionnaire. Toutefois, si les niveaux d'aise par rapport à la plupart des dimensions augmentent alors que les jeunes avancent vers l'âge adulte, avec un changement particulier entre 14 et 15 ans, le niveau d'aise par rapport aux droits des personnes gaies et lesbiennes diminue avec l'âge chez les jeunes rencontrés. De plus, alors que le niveau d'aise par rapport aux lesbiennes n'est pas affecté par le genre des répondants, le niveau d'aise par rapport aux gais est significativement plus petit chez les garçons. L'article se termine en discutant la nécessité pour le GRIS-Montréal de répondre aux besoins des jeunes quant à leurs conceptions de plus en plus sophistiquées de l'orientation sexuelle et du genre, ainsi que les défis que posent de tels changements. Mots-clés : diversité sexuelle, école secondaire, témoignage, attitudes, Québec

GRIS-Montréal: A Witness and Contributor to Secondary Students’ Changing Attitudes to Sexual Diversity
Our article explores changing attitudes among students who attend workshops offered by GRIS-Montréal, an organization dedicated to fighting homophobia and to raising awareness of the realities faced by homosexuals and bisexuals in the school system. In the context of four separate surveys conducted between 2001 and 2017, secondary students between the ages of 12 and 18 (average age of 15) completed 7,122 questionnaires. To begin with, the results show that a larger number of students now acknowledge feelings of sexual attraction other than those for the opposite sex. Furthermore, over the course of 15 years, young people have grown increasingly comfortable with all of the issues raised by the questionnaire. But although comfort levels with most issues increase during the transition to adulthood, with a particular change occurring between the ages of 14 and 15, comfort levels with gay and lesbian rights actually decrease with age. And while the gender of the respondents does not affect comfort levels with lesbians, boys are significantly less comfortable with gay men. The article concludes by discussing the essential role of GRIS-Montréal in addressing the needs of young people with respect to increasingly sophisticated conceptions of sexual orientation and gender, as well as the challenges posed by these changes.
Keywords: sexual diversity, secondary school, testimonials, attitudes, Quebec

Le témoignage sexuel et intime, un levier de changement social?, 2017

Féminismes et luttes contre l’homophobie : de l’apprentissage à la subversion des codes, 2016

Dans le cadre du 82 e congrès de l'ACFAS, le colloque Féminismes et luttes contre l'homophobie : ... more Dans le cadre du 82 e congrès de l'ACFAS, le colloque Féminismes et luttes contre l'homophobie : zones de convergence a permis d'aborder le thème des luttes à l'homophobie. Une table ronde a réuni des membres de divers groupes qui, chacun apportant son expertise, utilisent l'éducation afin de faire de l'école et de la société en général des espaces plus sécuritaires et ouverts à la diversité sexuelle. À cette occasion, l'organisme GRIS-Montréal a joint ses expériences à celles des autres en dressant un portrait de ses actions et de ses réflexions sur l'expression de genre dans la démystification de l'homosexualité et de la bisexualité.

To fight homophobia in schools in Québec, many teachers rely on community or- ganizations such as... more To fight homophobia in schools in Québec, many teachers rely on community or- ganizations such as the Groupe de Recherche et d’Intervention Sociale (Research and Social Intervention Group) to address sexual diversity in class. This article documents major outcomes of these workshops as seen by students. Students iden- tified topics related to sexuality and gender inversion as controversial, especially when involving men. The authors present how GRIS leaders decided to adapt intervention practices following such findings.

Depuis plus de 20 ans, le Groupe de recherche et d’intervention sociale (GRIS) de Montréal réalis... more Depuis plus de 20 ans, le Groupe de recherche et d’intervention sociale (GRIS) de Montréal réalise des interventions de démystification de l’homosexualité et de la bisexualité dans des écoles de Montréal et des régions environnantes. Son 20e anniversaire est une occasion de procéder à un bilan et à une réflexion critique sur ses activités. Trois enjeux sont discutés dans cet article, soit le rôle du discours religieux dans la réception des interventions, l’importance de la déconstruction des rôles de genre dans la lutte contre l’homophobie, la lesbophobie et la biphobie, ainsi que le tabou entourant la sexualité.

Mots-clés : homosexualité, bisexualité, intervention, homophobie, hétérosexisme, éducation, Montréal

For more than 20 years, GRIS-Montréal (Groupe de recherche et d’intervention sociale) has been dedicated to demystifying homosexuality and bisexuality through workshops in schools of Montreal and surrounding areas. Its 20th anniversary is a good opportunity to proceed to a critical assessment of its activities. Three challenges are discussed in this article: the impact of religious discourse on workshops’ reception, the importance of deconstructing gender roles in the fight against homophobia, lesbophobia and biphobia, and the taboo surrounding discourses on sexuality.

Keywords: homosexuality, bisexuality, intervention, homophobia, heterosexism, education, Montreal

Nouvelles pratiques sociales, 2021

Somatechnics, 2020

Contentious Cities: Design and the Gendered Production of Space, 2020

The Plan Journal, 2019

Santé LGBT : les minorités de genre et de sexualité face aux soins, 2020

Genre Éducation Formation, 2019

Revue Genre Éducation Formation, Dec 2019

Platform, 2019

https://www.platformspace.net/home/raising-a-family-in-the-academy

Interiors: Design/Architecture/Culture, Apr 1, 2019

Revue Jeunes et société, 2018

http://rjs.inrs.ca/index.php/rjs/article/view/126/76 L'article compare l'évolution des attitudes... more http://rjs.inrs.ca/index.php/rjs/article/view/126/76

Le témoignage sexuel et intime, un levier de changement social?, 2017

Féminismes et luttes contre l’homophobie : de l’apprentissage à la subversion des codes, 2016

Mots-clés : homosexualité, bisexualité, intervention, homophobie, hétérosexisme, éducation, Montréal

Keywords: homosexuality, bisexuality, intervention, homophobia, heterosexism, education, Montreal

PhD Dissertation: This dissertation is an examination of queer critiques of domestic spaces. How ... more PhD Dissertation:
This dissertation is an examination of queer critiques of domestic spaces. How do these critiques, building on feminist practitioners and theorists, highlight assumptions present in mainstream domestic representations and the ways in which these representations reinforce certain normative constructs? Archival material, interviews and installation visits are used to analyse exhibitions and installation projects that blur the traditional borders between architecture and art: exhibitions curated by queer space theorists and practitioners (Queer Space and House Rules, both 1994) and art projects by Mark Robbins (Households, 2002-06), Dorit Margreiter and the Toxic Titties (10104 Angelo View Drive, 2004), and Elmgreen & Dragset (The One & The Many, 2010-11; The Collectors, 2009; Tomorrow, 2013). The projects chosen, inspired in part by the emergence of queer theory in the late 1980s, address issues of normative domesticity through an emphasis on the tensions between private and public, and traditional and non-traditional family units. These questions are highlighted in these projects by the shift in context that transforms everyday domestic environments, often assumed to be neutral containers and havens for private lives, into objectified art pieces presented in (public) gallery spaces; this shift emphasizes the normative aspects of most domestic architecture. This study is completed by an analysis of two architectural projects, Elmgreen & Dragset’s own studio-house in Berlin (the Pumpwerk Neukölln, 2006-08) and the BOOM retirement neighbourhoods in Palm Springs and on the Costa del Sol (unbuilt). The two projects are attempts to implement some of the queer critiques discussed into actual buildings; the architects and artists involved faced various challenges in this move from installations to built environments that echo the resistances associated to traditional notions of domesticity.
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Cette thèse porte sur les critiques queers des espaces domestiques. Comment ces critiques, inspirées par des praticiennes et théoriciennes féministes, soulignent-elles les présupposés présents dans les représentations de la domesticité ainsi que les façons par lesquelles celles-ci renforcent certaines constructions normatives? Des archives, entrevues et visites d’installations sont utilisées pour analyser des projets qui brouillent les limites traditionnelles entre l’architecture et l’art : des expositions organisées par des théoriciens de l’espace queer (Queer Space, 1994; House Rules, 1994) et des projets artistiques de Mark Robbins (Households, 2002-06), Dorit Margreiter et les Toxic Titties (10104 Angelo View Drive, 2004) et Elmgreen & Dragset (The One & the Many, 2010-11; The Collectors, 2009, Tomorrow, 2013). Ces projets, inspirés en partie par l’émergence de la théorie queer à la fin des années 1980, s’intéressent aux questions liées à la normativité domestique en mettant l’emphase sur les tensions entre le privé et le public et entre les conceptions traditionnelles et non-traditionnelles de la famille. Ces questions sont soulignées par un déplacement de contexte qui transforme des environnements domestiques associés au quotidien, souvent considérés comme étant des enveloppes neutres protégeant la vie privée, en objets d’art présentés dans des galeries; ce déplacement souligne les aspects normatifs de la plupart des espaces domestiques. La thèse est complétée par l’analyse de deux projets architecturaux, la maison-atelier de Elmgreen & Dragset (la Pumpwerk Neukölln, 2006-08) et les développements pour retraités BOOM (non construites). Ces deux projets sont des tentatives de mettre en œuvre certaines des critiques queers dans des bâtiments habitables; les architectes et artistes impliqués se sont heurtés à des défis divers qui montrent les résistances associées aux conceptions traditionnelles de la domesticité.

Canadian Architect, Oct 1, 2020

On the surface, the work of playwright, actor and director Robert Lepage is multifaceted. But at ... more On the surface, the work of playwright, actor and director Robert Lepage is multifaceted. But at its core is often a dialogue between his hometown, Quebec City, and the world, and a concern with the relationship between memory and contemporary experiences. Those dichotomies are embodied in the architecture of Le Diamant, the new home for Lepage’s theatre company, Ex Machina. The state-of-the-art facility, designed in joint venture by Coarchitecture, In Situ, and Jacques Plante, gives Lepage and his team a Quebec City stage for their internationally recognized works. - https://www.canadianarchitect.com/stage-jewel-le-diamant-theatre-quebec-city-quebec/

Canadian Architect, 2019

Quebec’s motto, “Je me souviens,” appeared for the first time—carved in stone—as part of Eugène-É... more Quebec’s motto, “Je me souviens,” appeared for the first time—carved in stone—as part of Eugène-Étienne Taché’s elaborate façade for the province’s Parliament Building in Quebec City. The 19th-century building continues to blend architecture and politics in the present-day, with an impressive addition opened in May. The project is both a complex and careful intervention to what is certainly one of the most symbolically important heritage buildings in the province. (https://www.canadianarchitect.com/national-treasure-pavillon-daccueil-de-lassemblee-nationale-du-quebec-quebec-city-quebec/)

Canadian Architect, 2018

The Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) welcomes visitors to its current exhibition, Utopie Ra... more The Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) welcomes visitors to its current exhibition, Utopie Radicali: Florence 1966-1976, with Remo Buti’s Piatti di Architettura (1962-1975), a long table set up with plates adorned with architects’ drawings. This domestic setting hints at the Museum of Modern Art’s seminal 1972 exhibition Italy: The New Domestic Landscape, curated by Emilio Ambasz, which first introduced 1960s Italian design to a North American audience. The CCA exhibition focuses on the more radical representatives specifically from Florence, adding lesser-known protagonists to the more famous Superstudio, Archizoom, and 9999 that were part of the MoMA exhibition. But whereas the earlier exhibition presented these investigations through “environments” that were directly criticizing the political and social contexts of their era, the CCA presents an archivist’s point of view that takes away some of the political power of the original projects.

Canadian Architect, 2018

Gilles Saucier and André Perrotte have built an impressive legacy based on close relationships: w... more Gilles Saucier and André Perrotte have built an impressive legacy based on close relationships: with clients, with partners, and—most of all—between themselves. The two met during their studies at Université Laval’s architecture school in the early 1980s. In 1988, while working for Cayouette Saia in Montréal, they realized a goal they had since their university days and started their practice. This desire to achieve what they see as important for them and their clients, combined with their shared appreciation of drawing and making, characterizes their career and practice.

Canadian Architect, 2018

The CCA explores a groundbreaking architectural education mode. "How to engage people with buildi... more The CCA explores a groundbreaking architectural education mode.
"How to engage people with buildings?" In the early 1970s, this question guided a team of architectural historians and educators to devise a pioneering program for the United Kingdom's Open University, an experiment with mass education that is still ongoing. Forty years later, the question is still relevant, and even more so for an institution like the Canadian Centre for Architecture. Since the built environment is experienced by everyone , it follows that architecture should thus be one of the more " democratic " disciplines. And yet architectural education has paradoxically remained generally closed in on itself, organized around professional elites and academic historians that rarely dialogue between themselves and even less with a broader audience. While there have been attempts to rethink or challenge traditional ways of teaching design, in both architecture schools and more alternative practices, such as the Women's School of Planning and Architecture , they have been fairly limited. The University Is Now on Air: Broadcasting Modern Architecture, the CCA's current exhibition on the Open University's course on modern architecture, is thus a welcome opportunity to think about how to reach a wider audience for both universities and institutions such as the CCA itself. But it also challenges common thinking about the production and diffusion of knowledge.

Canadian Architect, Nov 2016

OMA's new pavilion for a Quebec City museum puts generous public spaces and an international-cali... more OMA's new pavilion for a Quebec City museum puts generous public spaces and an international-calibre art collection in the foreground.

Canadian Architect, Jun 2016

A young Quebec firm experiments with a unique program in a heritage setting.

Canadian Architect, Jan 2016

STGM Architects leads by example in the design of their sustainable new Quebec City offices.

Canadian Architect, Feb 2015

Architectural Histories, 2020

Scandinavian duo Elmgreen & Dragset have often engaged the dualities inherent to their practice. ... more Scandinavian duo Elmgreen & Dragset have often engaged the dualities inherent to their practice. Initially a couple, they developed their work from their individual experience, building on the tensions between performance and craft, architectural spaces and art objects, politics and spectacle. With Tomorrow (Victoria & Albert Museum, 2013) and Past Tomorrow (Galerie Perrotin, New York, 2015), they used a single character and a duplicated setting, the apartments of Norman Swann, a retired architect, to express how societal questions relate to the domestic. This paper will discuss how the relocation of the installation, from London to New York, allows the artists to underline and question some of the issues that support the work, including imperialism, classism, ageism, health, and museum institutions.

October 2013, Victoria & Albert Museum. Two women are sitting on a couch, debating how old a man ... more October 2013, Victoria & Albert Museum. Two women are sitting on a couch, debating how old a man is… but the man – and its apartment, where they are sitting – is an invention of artists Elmgreen & Dragset, the latest in a series of characters inhabiting full-scale domestic spaces set up by the artists in museums and galleries. Elmgreen & Dragset present these homes as a nexus of intimacy and social networks, as places of identity-building, both intimate and social. The imaginary status of those spaces, however, brings up questions. How can a temporary space – exaggeratedly and deliberately constructed and ironic – designed for a thinly-developed character feel “real” enough that visitors discuss its supposed owner as a real person while others phone the host institution to complain against the privatisation of the Museum? What differentiates an institutional space from a domestic one and how can these differences disappear so easily? Where – if there is even one – is the limit between the intimate “private” and the social “public”? The paper builds from Elmgreen & Dragset’s domestic inventions, analysing most importantly the physical changes made to the spaces and the architectural strategies deployed, to suggest that domestic spaces are always understood by first attempting to imagine one’s personal story and that, by extension, they are always understood as part of a collective identity, of complex and varying social networks.

Les artistes Elmgreen & Dragset ont développé depuis 2005 une série d’expositions présentant leur... more Les artistes Elmgreen & Dragset ont développé depuis 2005 une série d’expositions présentant leurs lectures de différents thèmes sociaux par le biais d’installations à très grande échelle. Dans les trois plus récentes, ils aménagent dans des espaces d’exposition des habitations imaginaires pour des personnages fictifs. Chaque œuvre suggère que le domestique constitue le point de focalisation de larges questions sociales, tout en brouillant les limites traditionnelles entre espaces institutionnels et domestiques. En s’intéressant aux transformations architecturales apportées Elmgreen & Dragset, la conférence analyse leurs critiques des relations entre public et privé, domesticité et institutionnel, ainsi qu’espace, objets et formation identitaire.

This paper discusses how the project 10104 Angelo Drive, a filmic representation in an art galler... more This paper discusses how the project 10104 Angelo Drive, a filmic representation in an art gallery of the John Lautner-designed Sheats/Goldstein residence, underlines the tensions between its original purpose as a nuclear family house, its current owner’s use and its queer potential. Through a performance by queer artists-activists the Toxic Titties then captured on film by Dorit Margreiter (2004), the work follows recent scholarly discussions of the normative aspects of homes, and in this case more specifically modernist houses, challenging the assumptions linked to the modern home seen as a space of experimentation towards “better” living or “purer” forms. The paper also questions the existing discussions of the work that have often ignored the Toxic Titties’ involvement to focus on the more formal aspects of Dorit Margreiter’s film. This disconnection underlines how the Toxic Titties’ queer reimagining of the house presents a challenge not only to normative domesticity, but also to normative representations of domestic architecture.

Coming from sculpture and performance art, Norwegian and Danish artists Elmgreen & Dragset have d... more Coming from sculpture and performance art, Norwegian and Danish artists Elmgreen & Dragset have developed since the mid-1990s a body of work critical of spatial structures, with many of their works engaged in physically transforming space on an architectural scale. They have always been explicitly involved with issues of gender, sexuality, class, and race, attempting to deconstruct how the assumed neutrality of the modernist environment is in fact designed and understood in relation to people’s self-identification. Their recent large-scale installations have seen them increasingly engaged with domesticity, presenting critiques close to queer space theory that have reverberated in their own living spaces.
In the design for their Pumpwerk studio-house, a former water pumping station converted in 2006-8 after the end of their personal relationship in collaboration with architect Nils Wenk, Elmgreen & Dragset question expectations about the privacy of domestic queer lives. The artists’ juxtaposition within a single building of “private” living spaces and “public” studio spaces presents a clear critique of domestic planning, setting aside both the traditional family model and the dichotomy of private and public, associated for a long time with gender divisions. Furthermore, the spatial organization positions queer lives, long forbidden to be presented in the daylight, as valid and worthy of being seen by all.

Since its opening in 2005 on a site left empty by the demolition of the Berlin Wall, architect Pe... more Since its opening in 2005 on a site left empty by the demolition of the Berlin Wall, architect Peter Eisenman’s Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe has not only served as a public space of remembrance, but has also become a “tourist magnet”. In its shadow, another memorial was inaugurated in 2008, the Memorial to the Homosexuals Persecuted under the National Socialist Regime. Its designers, artists Elmgreen & Dragset, chose to respond to Eisenman’s project through the use of a formally similar “stela” that they isolated and pierced with a window displaying a video of two men kissing. While both memorials share formal similarities and have been victims of controversies over the course of their design and construction, their scale, temporality and visibility place the two memorials as very different spaces. Furthermore, their neighbouring positions at the heart of touristic Berlin raise questions about the visibility of different groups in public space and tourist networks.
Elmgreen & Dragset’s comment on queer lives’ visibility in their Memorial project comes as a direct continuation of some of their previous art projects, most notably their Cruising Pavillion / Powerless Structures, Fig. 55. Built in 1998 in a Danish public park, this project shares many formal, contextual and conceptual elements with the Memorial that point to the attempt to make it more than a simple commemorative space, to create a monument to the recognition of diverse queer lives in the public sphere. This call for recognition has also influenced the design of Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset’s own living spaces and studio in a converted pumping station in Berlin, a project that took shape in parallel to the development of the Memorial.
This paper argues that the design of the Memorial to the Homosexuals, by proposing a different relation to the body than the Memorial to the Jews, creates not only a memorial to horrible events from the past, but also an awakening to a current situation. It is a critique of the relative invisibility that still burdens sexual minorities and an opportunity to create a space (both social and physical) for queer lives and bodies in the public. Elmgreen & Dragset shape this critique through strategies of mimesis, temporality, and scale that echo challenges brought forward by queer theorists. The memorial also continues their ongoing project of using art installations and performances to highlight how space is gendered and sexualised.

This paper investigates the impact of the transposition of spaces understood as “private” in the ... more This paper investigates the impact of the transposition of spaces understood as “private” in the public space of the gallery, using two critical projects at the intersection of art and architecture. The first, Mark Robbins’ Households project (2003-2006), documents a number of living spaces housing a variety of people (of diverse age, sexual orientation, marital status, etc.) through a photographic exhibition and catalogue. As developed throughout Robbins’ career, Households presents a large number of (perceived as) queer people, without however presenting them as separated from the other “households” represented. In its concept and formal resolution (full-scale photographic reproductions montaged to remind viewers of panel paintings), the work raises questions on popular presumptions about the adequacy between dwelling and dweller and on the public meanings of these spaces. In parallel, it also addresses issues of interior decoration and furnishings to question popular assumptions about how they appear appropriate or not to a person’s identification. Without trying to assert or not these assumptions, the paper seeks to deconstruct the means by which they appear initially and the tools used by Robbins’ work to question them. Robbins’ work is then compared to artists Elmgreen & Dragset’s large-scale installation at the 2008 Venice Biennale where they imagined and designed two different domestic spaces, a family space and a gay bachelor pad. By offering visits of apparently lived spaces, the artists question what is assumed as family space and confuse accepted symbols of domesticity by putting them out of context and blurring the usual limits and barriers between private and public acts/spaces.

En 2008, à l’ombre du Mémorial aux juifs assassinés d’Europe conçu par Peter Eisenman, un Mémoria... more En 2008, à l’ombre du Mémorial aux juifs assassinés d’Europe conçu par Peter Eisenman, un Mémorial aux homosexuels persécutés par le régime national socialiste a été inauguré. Ses concepteurs, le duo d’artistes scandinaves Elmgreen & Dragset, ont choisi de répondre au projet d’Eisenman par l’utilisation d’une stèle formellement similaire qu’ils isolèrent et percèrent d’une fenêtre présentant un film montrant en boucle deux hommes s’embrassant. Si les deux monuments partagent une similarité formelle, ils sont perçus de façon différente en réaction aux manipulations de l’expérience corporelle voulue par les différents concepteurs et faisant appel à des effets d’échelle, de temporalité, de visibilité et de mimétisme.
Cette communication suggère que la conception du Mémorial aux homosexuels, en proposant une relation différente au corps, crée non seulement un mémorial à des événements horribles du passé, mais propose aussi un éveil à une situation toujours actuelle. Le Mémorial présente une critique de l’invisibilité relative qui opprime toujours aujourd’hui les minorités sexuelles. Il présente aussi une opportunité d’ouvrir un espace (tant social que physique) pour les personnes homosexuelles dans le domaine public. Elmgreen & Dragset forme cette critique par le biais de stratégies qui rappellent les idées mises de l’avant par les théoriciens queers. Le Mémorial continue aussi leur projet de proposer des installations artistiques qui souligne l’importance de la sexualité et du genre dans l’utilisation et la compréhension de l’espace.

In 2008, a Memorial to the Homosexuals Persecuted under the National Socialist Regime opened in B... more In 2008, a Memorial to the Homosexuals Persecuted under the National Socialist Regime opened in Berlin in the shadows of Peter Eisenman’s Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. The designers of the Memorial, artists Elmgreen & Dragset, chose to respond to Eisenman’s project through the use of a formally similar “stela” that they isolated and pierced with a window displaying a video of two men kissing. While both memorials share formal similarities, their contrasting manipulations of the body experience through scale, temporality and visibility place them as very different spaces.
This paper argues that the design of the Memorial to the Homosexuals, by proposing a different relation to the body than the Memorial to the Jews, creates not only a memorial to horrible events from the past, but also an awakening to a current situation. It is a critique of the relative invisibility that still burdens sexual minorities and an opportunity to create a space (both social and physical) for homosexual bodies in the public. Elmgreen & Dragset shape this critique through strategies of mimesis, temporality, and scale that echo challenges brought forward by queer theorists. The memorial also continues their ongoing project of using art installations and performances to highlight how space is gendered and sexualised.

Doing research on buildings designed for or used by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (LGB... more Doing research on buildings designed for or used by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (LGBT) people is difficult and problematic. Because sexual orientation is illegible through any particular physical signs, LGBT people are often identified through the spaces they visit. Bars, as built artefacts of important social meeting spaces, are thus of primary importance. Past bars have, however, largely disappeared from urban landscapes. The role that bars play in creating a built history of these minorities is implicitly acknowledged in the design of these spaces, but also in the rare cases where they are included in architectural history. Traces of nostalgia are often present, longing for a time where, paradoxically, LGBT people had to hide and mask their “difference”. In their design, LGBT bars not only reuse and transform the existing in search of a mythicized past, but erase some parts of it in the process.
The paper focuses on the architecture of two of Montréal’s large gay bars built in the past three decades. Although quite different in many aspects, they both defer to earlier times and practice a culture of demolition and reconstruction. Constantly transforming themselves, they try to imagine a past that never was while erasing their present condition. In the context of Montreal’s bilingual roots, this nostalgic urge also interestingly refers and mediates references to French and English colonial legacies. In the absence of existing traces of queer histories, I argue that the design of these spaces allows them to reconstruct a lost history.

Inspired by the McGill Cultural Mediations & Technology 2010 graduate studio, this paper suggests... more Inspired by the McGill Cultural Mediations & Technology 2010 graduate studio, this paper suggests how queer theory’s notions of performativity and relationality can open up new understandings of the virtual’s relation to the “real” and of its potential to be something else than a representational tool. The studio’s brief, to “produce a model of the student’s take on the System”, called for a rethinking of each student’s research project, representation of this project, and relation to other students’ project. Trying to find such a “model of models” questions what constitutes our relation to the model, to the digital tools, to our project, and to other’s project. How can the model retain the character of the project is simulates without being a mere representation?
Modeling a model of models rethinks simulation as a conflation of the separate simulations attempted to understand different projects. In trying to refer to the set of relations developing outside of the model, it aims at setting in place non-hierarchical relations between the elements, i.e. the different representations of each project. However, these non-hierarchical relations are oriented through the choices the person exploring the model is asked to make. It is not oriented towards any particular sets of reference; it is trying to offer a variety of possible relations from an initial starting point.
By using directly the artefacts developed by each participant instead of trying an interpretation of them, the focus is put on the possible relations between them. However, the relations are interpreted through the mechanisms chosen to explore these relations. The mechanisms require an engagement from the observer in the model similar to the outsider engagement towards the original sets of relation it depicts. How these relations are presented encourage a critical engagement that creates a new set of relations with each of the project separately and with the whole network of projects and relations. The model is thus performative as it situates itself within a set of pre-existing referents and tools, while simultaneously questioning this situation in relation to an outsider. The model takes significance and meaning as it is being used, as it enters in relation between the pre-existing conditions, its creator and its user.
The case studied in this paper not only questions the relation between the “real” and the model, but also the relation to the tools used. It questions the knowledge necessary to use digital means and transform the output usually expected from various modeling technologies. The transformation of the tools thus becomes itself a message that surrounds and adds to the model.

Because sexual orientation cannot be identified through any particular physical signs, lesbian, g... more Because sexual orientation cannot be identified through any particular physical signs, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people (LGBT) are often identified through the spaces they visit. Bars, as important social meeting places, thus have a particular significance in LGBT histories. Even if popular culture has long linked architecture/space and sexual orientation, LGBT-oriented spaces, either domestic or public, are rarely discussed by architectural historians and theorists, as they are often perceived as everyday or vernacular spaces. Furthermore, when they are discussed, a formalist interpretation often hides or ignores the importance of sexuality and the body in the design and use of these spaces. As built artefacts from LGBT minorities, however, they are of primary importance as they embody and shape the evolution of the relation between LGBT people and society at large.
Discussions of LGBT-oriented spaces start to appear in the late 1970s, mostly in geography and sociology, and morph into queer space analysis in the early 1990s. From then on, these spaces irregularly surface in both academic and professional architectural publications. These discussions, however, vary greatly and too often focus on buildings or neighbourhoods used by gays and lesbians and understood as demarcated space from heteronormative space instead of thinking of queer space as imminent and challenging to (hetero)normativity. This broader concept offers strong potential for a political understanding of architecture. This paper thus suggests that queer space theories can inform research on LGBT-oriented architecture as an active vector of expression.
The paper argues that queer spaces gain political meaning through a recontextualisation of the private in public space. More than passive backgrounds for everyday activities, queer spaces actively display queer bodies. The juxtaposition of “private” queer erotic desires and “public” everyday activities in queer spaces creates conditions for changes and challenges to normativity. This paper compares two of Montréal’s gay-oriented bars to discuss how space is designed to blur the barrier between private and public and thus stage queer lives. Based on interviews with designers and owners, visits and plan analysis, the paper also engages with concepts developed by queer art and architecture theorists: John Paul Ricco’s “queer sex space theory” and “minor architecture”, Christopher Reed’s understanding of queer space as imminent, and Henry Urbach’s discussion of the “closet” and “ante-closet” metaphor as both concealing and disclosing identities.

Because sexual orientation cannot be identified through any particular physical signs, lesbian, g... more Because sexual orientation cannot be identified through any particular physical signs, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people (LGBT) are often identified through the spaces they visit. Although investigations of spaces used by queer people have appeared in other disciplines earlier, only since the early 1990s have discussions of queer space surfaced in architectural publications, albeit irregularly. Understandings of queer space vary greatly, ranging from gay- and lesbian-oriented buildings or neighbourhoods seen as demarcated territory to queer space as imminent and challenging to normativity. The latter offers strong potential for a political understanding of architecture; however, elements of temporality and relationality inherent to queer theory are often hard to reconcile with a physical understanding of queer architecture. This paper suggests that queer space theories can inform research on LGBT-oriented “public” architecture through an investigation of the potential of the architecture of gay clubs as an active vector of expression.
Bars, as built artefacts of important social meeting spaces for LGBT minorities, are of primary importance as they embody and shape the evolution of the relation between LGBT people and society at large. The paper focuses on two of Montréal’s large gay bars. Their development occurs simultaneously with important changes in social visibility for LGBT people in Québec. After a first decade as predominantly gay space, Montréal’s Gay Village becomes gradually queered as the 1990s progressed. In this context, I discuss how changes in gay bars embody contrasting lifestyles within the LGBT minorities and shape relations with society. As gay architecture gains importance as a vector of identity for an increasingly homonormative community, it remains queerable and constantly challenged by insiders.

Since the early 1990s, discussions of queer space and queer buildings have surfaced irregularly i... more Since the early 1990s, discussions of queer space and queer buildings have surfaced irregularly in architectural publications, both academic and professional. Understandings of queer space, however, vary greatly, ranging from gay and lesbian oriented buildings or neighbourhoods as demarcated territory to queer space as imminent and challenging to normativity. The latter offers strong potential for a political understanding of architecture; however, elements of temporality and relationality inherent to queer theory are often hard to reconcile with a physical understanding of queer architecture. As much focus has been put to challenges to heteronormative models in the context of domestic environments, this paper suggests how queer space theories can inform research on LGBT-oriented “public” architecture through an investigation of the potential of gay clubs architecture as an active vector of expression.
The paper focuses on one of Montréal’s large gay complexes. Montréal’s Gay Village’s development shortly preceded the emergence of “queer” and occurred simultaneously with an explosion of social visibility for lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgendered people in Québec. After a first decade as predominantly gay space, the Village was gradually queered as the 1990s progressed. In this context, I discuss how changes in gay bars embody contrasting lifestyles. As gay architecture gains importance as a vector of identity for an increasingly homonormative community, it remains queerable and constantly challenged by insiders. The paper engages more specifically the political potential suggested by three art and architecture theorists: John Paul Ricco’s notions of “queer sex space theory” and “minor architecture”, Christopher Reed’s understanding of queer space as imminent and engaged with camp, and Henry Urbach’s discussion of the “closet” and “ante-closet” metaphor as both concealing and disclosing identities.

LGBT architecture – that is architecture purpose built for queer clients or users – has rarely be... more LGBT architecture – that is architecture purpose built for queer clients or users – has rarely been represented as such in professional architecture and design publications. Self-described as “the world’s first building built from the ground up by gay money, political influence, and organizational strength,” (Ward, 2002, p. 73) the San Francisco Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Community Center was only published once, a few months after its completion in 2002, in the professional magazine Architecture. This paper expands from the representation of this project to discuss queer visibility in the architectural world and the potential of “gay architecture” as a building type.

Victories in the struggle for homosexual rights have lead to increased visibility for gay and les... more Victories in the struggle for homosexual rights have lead to increased visibility for gay and lesbian communities. Montréal’s Gay Village is a relatively recent and strong illustration of this visibility, both symbolic and in actuality, as a self-defined gay neighbourhood. But as a gay minority slowly built a “community” with landmarks and institutions, what space was left for smaller groups within it, for real “queer” living?
The Bourbon Complex is a gay-oriented entertainment and touristic complex established in 1993 as an expansion of pre-existing commercial institutions. Popular histories of Montréal’s Gay Village consider it as one of its foundational institutions. Self-described as “the largest gay complex in the world”, it has housed a hotel, a sauna, bars, numerous restaurants, and a cabaret-style theatre in a constantly changing and expanding setting. Of the three complexes that anchored the Village at the beginning of the 1990s (Station “C”, Sky and Bourbon), the Bourbon was originally the least mixed space and interestingly, the only one to have no specific lesbian space.
As a purpose-built “gay” space, the Bourbon Complex is also purposefully themed. From a French-Canadian perspective, a nostalgic American theme links the complex’s architectural style, names of commercial establishments, and marketing. Such an approach was unusual in the Village at the time the Bourbon first opened. One of its most famous components, the Club-Sandwich Diner, appropriated the catchphrase Retour vers l’original, a pun on the French title for the recently-released Back to the Future movie trilogy, but also a reference to the pioneering efforts of its developer and a nod to the built-in historical associations of the Complex.
This paper documents and investigates how the developer and his architects created and publicized a large and expressive “gay” space in Canada’s second-largest city, and how marginal groups gradually queerified it. It also explores how the Bourbon has contributed to the construction of the Village as a sexuality-based tourist destination.