Displaying the Dis-Play: Reorienting the Architecture of Playboy

While feminist debate in architecture has gained more theoretical strength within the last several decades, discussions regarding gender and space have pointed to certain matters of concern for the phenomenon of 'separate spheres', a social and architectural derivation that this thesis sets out to challenge. Within a gendered dimension, this begs the question: how can we mediate divisive issues and unsettle the patriarchal model as embedded within certain architectural configurations? This thesis will intervene upon 'Playboy Architecture', as an architectural imaginary that has radically transformed the uses and techniques of the domestic scene in North America. Various themes relating to this exemplification of gendered space will be unpacked to prompt a contextual method that will acknowledge the problem of sexual difference. Through a self-reflexive process, the emerging project positions itself within poststructuralist-feminist scholarship as it sets out to challenge binary stereotypes while revealing the fissures immanent in this discursive model.