Several feminist movements have identified and documented it, the city and the architecture, until now mainly shaped by men for men, produce spaces that are more difficult to appropriate and to inhabit by all. This inequity in front of the space participates to reinforce the existing gender discriminations. The right to the city is differentiated and restricted for a variety of populations.

The exhibition Des corps dans la ville : architectures, féminismes et espaces construits attempts to show that a feminist approach to space, in its working methodology as well as in its conception and realization, can participate in initiating a bifurcation towards places more open to the appropriation of bodies in their diversity.

Although discrimination is largely societal, the way in which spaces are conceived and constructed influences the way in which they are occupied. The fields of intervention that participate in the rebalancing are multiple, ranging from urban programming, to public space to domestic spaces, and re-interrogates in depth the methods of project.

The first part of the exhibition provides a historical and legal review of the mechanisms at work that have helped to produce various forms of spatial inequality. It allows us to understand, in all its complexity, the situation in which we find ourselves and to identify the obstacles to be overcome but also the levers to be activated. The second part of the exhibition presents a set of projects that offer stimulating leads. It is structured around four themes that illustrate four major actions: moving, subsisting, working, taking place.

Des corps dans la ville : architectures, féminismes et espaces construits attempts to make visible what may have shaped the spatial inequalities that have produced the city we inhabit today, and proposes avenues for change.

Mahé Cordier-Jouanne; Louise Duplan; Anna Kern; Anne Labroille; Julien Lafontaine Carboni; Benjamin Moron Puech; Léa Mosconi; Paule Perron at MAIDF – Maison de l’Architecture Île-de-France

Scenography: Lina Jaïdi & Paule Perron – minor architects; Graphism: Mahé Cordier-Jouanne; Woodworker: Matière à jouer; Photographs ©Camille Lemonnier