Fantasizing Design: Phyllis Birkby Builds Lesbian Feminist Architecture

Fantasizing Design: Phyllis Birkby Builds Lesbian Feminist Architecture traces the life, work, and networks of lesbian feminist architect Phyllis Birkby (1932–1994), who pushed design professionals and the public to imagine a built environment beyond the confines of existing male-dominated forms. Inspired by the women’s movement and gay liberation, she joined one of the first lesbian feminist consciousness-raising groups, staged a feminist building occupation, and co-founded the Women’s School of Planning and Architecture. Her most groundbreaking intervention, however, was a series of workshops  that encouraged women to imagine and draw their “fantasy environments”—the home and community spaces they would like to inhabit. Fantasizing Design takes Birkby and her circle of friends, lovers, and collaborators as a lens on the broader ways feminists and lesbian feminists have worked to remake architectural practice, domestic space, and the broader built environment.

https://www.centerforarchitecture.org/exhibitions/fantasizing-design-phyllis-birkby-builds-lesbian-feminist-architecture/