Future Cartographies. Feminist Atlas, cadavre exquis and Architectural Deconstruction

Abstract

This article analyzes a pedagogical workshop ex¬perience conducted in the Architectural drawing with laboratory course at University of Trento (ba¬chelor’s degree in construction engineering and architecture). The research advocates for analog techniques and freehand drawing as epistemic tools for analyzing and reconstructing the design genealogy of the great female architects of the 20th and 21st centuries. The core of the project is based on a corpus of 100 drawings by the six Prit¬zker Prize winners (Zaha Hadid, Kazuyo Sejima, Carme Pigem, Yvonne Farrell, Shelley McNamara, and Anne Lacaton) and other key figures, tracing the graphic evolution from the rigor of the floor plan to the abstraction of the diagram and atmo¬spheric perspective or Egyptian axonometry.
The methodology is structured around three stra¬tegies: i) Feminist Atlas, based on Aby Warburg, identifies non-linear formal interrelationships; ii) Exquisite Corpses as a surrealist technique to fo¬ster collective creation over individual authorship; iii) Collective Deconstruction, through an exerci¬se in hybridizing systems to generate new spatial narratives. The theoretical framework draws on Griselda Pollock’s (1988) Vision and Difference to challenge dominant structures of gaze.
It integrates critiques by Beatriz Colomina (1999) on collaboration; Lori Brown on the body and po¬litics; and Despina Stratigakos (2016) on systemic sexism. The workshop proposes a new, inclusive, and collaborative architectural historiography, in which drawing serves as a tool for critical thinking and political engagement.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.20365/disegnarecon.36.2026.15