Advance Notice: Doing Research on Woman Architects – Problems and Potentials: Flora Ruchat-Roncati at ETH
Lecture by Eliana Perotti and Katia Frey – Monday the 27. November 2017 – 10:00 to 11:00 – HIL H 40.9 – ETH Hönggerberg
«So wie das Kompositkapitell einer tuskanischen Säule ist meine Dimension vielteilig, zerschnitten, wie zerschnitten und vielteilig diejenige der privilegierten Frauen ist. Frauen, die auf nichts verzichten, nicht einmal auf Ausdrucksräume, die allerdings Kompromisse akzeptieren und sich in die Lücken hineinfügen, unruhig bleiben und wie Chamäleons die Farben zu ändern lernen, um sich den lokalen Talebanen entziehen zu können.»
(Flora Ruchat-Roncati, Eröffnungsrede zur Ausstellung ihres Werks am Institut für Geschichte und Theorie der Architektur der ETH Zürich im Dezember 1997)
Doing research on women architects calls up a series of primer challenges that concern pragmatic issues, as solving the problem of source gathering, but it also requires substantially awareness on methodological questions, in a broader sense.
Presenting our research and team, currently working on the SNF project Flora Ruchat-Roncati at ETH 1985–2002. Professor, Planner, Theoretician at the Architectural Department of ETH, we would like to address some nodal points of methodological discussion, as biography, career-telling, life-cycle approach and oral history. Questioning our concrete research needs by investigating the professional profile of Flora Ruchat-Roncati, we also employ these historical tools, combining them with traditional instruments of architectural research as archival surveys. Our aim is to re-question both category of devices, utilizing them in regard to our specific requirements and in sight of a productive outlook.
The topics we would like to discuss with you on the background of our case study concern the relevance of biographical research for gendered studies today, the story-telling modus as communicative strategy, the perniciousness of alternative historiography and the precariousness of reception and visibility strategies