The symposium focuses on the emancipatory vision of the modern woman and the emancipatory efforts of the protagonists of the Bauhaus and Functionalism in modernism up to the present day. It examines the role women have played as architects and the paths of their social and professional lives in Central Europe over the past 100 years. Special attention is paid to the migration of ideas and the protagonists, with comparisons in Central Europe and beyond.

The symposium highlights two main perspectives, the first being the projection of the modern and socialist woman (after 1945) as mediated in magazines, film, publications, exhibitions, etc. in the different types of progressive, avant-garde and bourgeois media constructed by either men or women. Did the emancipatory women’s movement run in favour of or counter to the notion of the ideal modern and socialist woman? What is the lasting effect of these mental images captured in the collective unconscious? The second perspective is the lived reality of the female artists, architects and designers who were the pioneers of women's emancipation. Besides their outstanding artworks, special attention should be paid to the hurdles and difficulties of specific circumstances that have hindered female emancipation and appropriate acknowledgement of their achievements up to now. Architecture as a traditionally male-dominated discipline can stand as an exemplary case for the difficulties in expressing female self-determination. What were the strategies that let them follow their individual paths in education, networking, social engagement, etc? How did society’s normative thinking influence their educational and professional careers and gender roles? What was the comparative situation in Germany, Czechoslovakia and in Central Europe?

The symposium is opened by a keynote of Mary Pepchinski, the discussion panel Emancipation NOW and a performance of EBOW on 31 October. On the next day, three roundtables are centred on the topics of Modern Woman – Architect, Socialist Woman – Architect, Representation and Mediation.

Day 1 – 31.10.2019

17:00 Welcome note

Emancipation and Exchange in Central Europe

17:30 Keynote Lecture
Mary Pepchinski – Emancipated women, liberated living? Women architects, professional aspirations and domestic ideals during the Weimar Era

Panel-Discussion

19:00 Emancipation NOW
Mary Pepchinski – Curator of "Frau Architekt"
Petra Hlaváčková – Gender-activist
Martina Pachmanová – Art Theoretician
Gabriela Kaprálová – Architect
Patrick Rössler – Media Theoretician
Franziska Bollerey – Architecture Theoretician
EBOW – Rapper and Architect

Moderation: Helena Doudová and Robert K. Huber

20:30 – 21:00 Break – sound installation

21:00 Performance / Live-Concert
EBOW

Day 2 – 01.11.2019

9:30 Get together

Roundtables (10:00 – 15:30)

10:00 Roundtable 1: Modern Woman – Architect
Franziska Bollerey – Women´s Power in Architecture
Patrick Rössler – "She knows what she wants and she will make a success of it.” The “Bauhausmaedel” and the New Woman of the 1920s
Helena Seražin – First Generations of Slovene Women Architects

11:30 Roundtable 2: Socialist Woman – Architect
Mariann Simon – Challenges of a Profession for Women in Hungary
Petr Klíma – “I created my own playground.” The Architect Růžena Žertová
Míša Janečková – Magazine Images of Socialist Woman / Architect

13:00 Lunch Break

14:00 Roundtable 3: Representation and Mediation
Klára Němečková – Visibly Invisible? Women in design around 1900
Ingrid Ruudi – Feminist curatorial strategies in architecture: “A Room of One’s Own. Feminist’s Questions to Architecture” at the Museum of Estonian Architecture
Adam Nadolny – “Joanna, now you are planting the trees”. Image of a modern women architect in Polish feature films of the 1960s

The symposium is conducted as a part of the festival "re:bauhaus – modern emancipation, education, exchange" developed by the Goethe Institut. It explores the origins of modernism and the political and social conditions of functionalism and Bauhaus in Central Europe. The symposium "Modern Emancipation" was held on 6 September 2019 as part of the Bauhaus Week Berlin 2019 at the bauhaus reuse (festival headquarters of Bauhaus Week) in Berlin.