Windowish Practices, Unreadable Backgrounds and Raw Semiotics. Tracing Minor Architectures and Ecologies of Signs in Women’s Writing

Abstract

Minor architectures can be defined as an open set of spatial practices and know-hows based on the agency of bodies. While these practices escape representation, codification or measurement, they have a fertile relation with literature. After framing this relationship, we analyze the work of three women writers (Carmen Martín Gaite, Ali Smith and Toni Morrison) to unveil them as minor spatial and material practitioners. While they have not been trained as architects many women throughout history have practiced and organized space in meaningful and wise ways, and they have become aware of minor spatial knowledges resting at the core of what architecture can be (and do). By inventing forms of embodied writing and material inscription, they have expanded a minor repertoire of spatial practices.