Exploring Gender in Vernacular Architecture By Jessica Ellen Sewell

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WHAT DO MARBLES IN A SCHOOL PRIVY, HOTEL CONFERENCE ROOMS, SUBURBAN SPLIT LEVELS, AND SMALL TOWN MAIN STREETS HAVE TO DO WITH GENDER?
 

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In Exploring Gender in Vernacular Architecture (University of Tennessee Press, 2025) Jessica Ellen Sewell considers the gender of those who create and shape spaces, how gender ideology contributes to and manifests itself in built form, and what research methods make the observation of gendered experience possible. She discusses single-gender, mixed-gender, and queer spaces, providing a comprehensive look at how gender influences the design and construction of those spaces, how those spaces are used, and the relationship between gender and the broader architectural landscape. In her study, Sewell also provides an expansive view of how gender intersects with other categories of power and difference, such as race, class, and age, and how this intersectionality contributes to the design and use of built spaces.

About the Author

Jessica Ellen Sewell is an associate professor of urban and environmental planning and architectural history and co-director of the Center for Cultural Landscapes at the University of Virginia. She is the author of Women and the Everyday City: Public Space in San Francisco, 1890–1915.