Hypersexual City: The Provocation of Soft-Core Urbanism

273 Pages·2017·6.1 MB·English

by  Nicole Kalms

Hypersexual City
Much of feminist architectural scholarship focuses on the enormous task of
instating women’s experience of space into spatial praxis. Hypersexual City: The
Provocation of Soft-Core Urbanism suggests this attention to women’s
invisibility in sociocultural space has overlooked the complex ways in which
women already occupy space, albeit mostly as an image or object to be
consumed, even purchased.
It examines the occupation of urban space through the mediated representation
of women’s hypersexualized bodies. A complex transaction proliferates in the
commercial urban space of cities; this book seeks to address the cause and
consequence of the increasing dominance of gendered representation.
It uses architectural case studies and analysis to make visible the sexual
politics of architecture and urbanism and, in doing so, reveal the ways that
heterosexist culture shapes the spaces, behaviour and relationships formed in
neoliberal cities. Hypersexual City announces how examining urbanism that
operates through, and is framed by, sexual culture can demonstrate that
architecture does not merely find itself adrift in the hypersexualized landscape of
contemporary cities, but is actively producing and contributing to the sexual
regulation of urban life.
Nicole Kalms is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Architecture at Monash
University in Melbourne, Australia. Nicole is the founding Director of Monash
University’s XYX Laboratory based in the Faculty of Art, Design and
Architecture. In this role, Nicole leads a team of interdisciplinary researchers
examining the complex interaction of space, gender and communication in cities.
Hypersexual City
The Provocation of Soft-Core Urbanism
Nicole Kalms
First published 2017
by Routledge
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and by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2017 Nicole Kalms
The right of Nicole Kalms to be identified as author of this work has been
asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the
publishers.
Trademark notice : Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered
trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to
infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Names: Kalms, Nicole, author.
Title: Hypersexual city : the provocation of soft-core urbanism /
Nicole Kalms.
Description: New York : Routledge, 2017. | Based on the author’s
thesis (doctoral–Monash University, 2015). | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016045675| ISBN 9781472475725 (hardback :
alk. paper) | ISBN 9781315556987 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Architecture and women. | Architecture–
Psychological aspects. | Sex role. | Cities and towns–Social aspects.
Classification: LCC NA2543.W65 K35 2017 | DDC 720.1/03–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016045675
ISBN: 9781472475725 (hbk)
ISBN: 9781315556987 (ebk)
Typeset in Sabon
by Saxon Graphics Ltd, Derby
Contents
List of figures
Preface
Acknowledgements
List of case studies
1 Introduction
2 Critical contexts
Introduction to the case studies
3 Hypersexualized media in urban space
4 Hypersexualized strip in urban space
5 Hypersexualized architecture in urban space
Conclusion
Index
Figures
1.1 Newman house, Cassandra Complex, St Kilda West, Melbourne,
Australia, 2001
2.1 Cover, Learning From Las Vegas , Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown
and Steven Izenour, 1972
3.1 Viktor & Rolf advertisement for Bonbon perfume, Bourke Street Mall,
2014
3.2 Inventory of contemporary urban advertising types
3.3 Facial expressions of central characters in advertisements
3.4 Playboy advertising, Malvern Central, Melbourne, Australia, 2013
3.5 Detailed elevation of Playboy advertising in context
3.6 Victoria’s Secret shop front, Bristol, UK
3.7 Territory of Bras’n’Things campaign
3.8 Spatial development of Playboy Inc
3.9 Ksubi Advertising, Melbourne Central, General Pants & Co., 2011
3.10 Territory of Ksubi campaign
3.11 Drawing adapted from Ksubi ‘I Love Sex’ badge, Melbourne, 2011
3.12 Detailed elevation of Ksubi advertising in context
3.13 Territory of Calvin Klein campaign
3.14 Drawing adapted from Calvin Klein advertising, 2010
3.15 Controversial wall advertisement for Windsor Smith shoes vandalized by
protestors, Hawthorn, Melbourne, 2000, by Barry York
3.16 Drawings adapted from Dolce and Gabbana advertising, 2007; Duncan
Quinn advertising, 2008; Loula advertising, 2008; Jimmy Choo
advertising, 2006
4.1 ‘Ginger, Carlisle, Pennsylvania’
4.2 Legal brothels in metropolitan Melbourne
4.3 Kings Street precinct, Melbourne
4.4 Elevational study of King Street strip clubs, Melbourne
4.5 Kittens Car Wash, Bentleigh, Melbourne, 2014
4.6 Axonometric drawing of Kittens Car Wash, 2010
4.7 Detailed elevation Kittens party bus
4.8 Surfers Paradise Meter Maids, 2016
4.9 Territory of Meter Maids, Surfers Paradise, Australia
4.10 (i) A Meter Maid on her way to a photo shoot with the local paper,
Chevron Island, Surfers Paradise, Queensland, February 2005. (ii) Meter
Maids selling their merchandise on The Esplanade, Surfers Paradise,
Queensland, February 2005. (iii) A Meter Maid getting wolf calls from
tourists on a bus, Surfers Paradise, Queensland, February 2005
5.1 Diller + Scof dio, Soft Sell , 1993. Video installation presented in an
entrance to an abandoned porn theatre in Times Square
5.2 Ann Summers store
5.3 Interior view of the Fun Factory with ‘Mr Pink’ dildo
5.4 Interior view of the Fun Factory
5.5 Dan Graham, Girl’s Make-up Room , 1998–2000. Two-way mirror glass,
perforated stainless steel, wooden stool, cosmetic articles. Edition of 2 +
AP 170 × ø 300 cm
5.6 View of Napolean Perdis Chapel, Studiobird, South Yarra, 2014
5.7 Axonometric drawing of Napolean Perdis Chapel
5.8 Elevational study of the Newman house
5.9 Playboy Magazine covers over four decades
5.10 Axonometric drawing of the Newman house
5.11 Façade detail of the Newman house
5.12 Beyoncé Building, Elenberg Fraser, 2015
5.13 Crowning Glory , Cassandra Complex, 2005
5.14 Pole Dance , Solid Objectives, 2010
5.15 Axonometric drawing of Pole Dance
5.16 Subway sign, New York, 2016
5.17 The Esplanade Apartments
5.18 Axonometric drawing of The Esplanade Apartments, SJB Architects
5.19 Axonometric drawing of Sex box (verrichtungsbox ) Compound, Sihlquai,
Zurich
5.20 Axonometric details of Sex box (verrichtungsbox ) × 2, Sihlquai, Zurich
5.21 Store display, Selfridges, Faye Toogood, London, 2015
5.22 2 Girls Building, KUD Architects, Abbottsford, Australia, 2015
6.1 Typologies of hypersexuality
Preface
The title of this book, Hypersexual City , implies a range of possible
explorations for the research that follows. Certainly the statement ‘hypersexual
city’ infers a relationship between the two elements – that of hypersexuality and
that of the city. The ‘hyper’ prefix suggests a moment of excess, where visual
modes of sexual expression are amplified. Thus the alignment of hypersexuality
with the city signals a reconceptualization of both terms that has important
implications for structuring and shaping sociocultural space.
A guide to the argument developed in this book is revealed in the subtitle The
Provocation of Soft-Core Urbanism. To explore the hypersexual city through the
notion of ‘provocation’ is important because it predicts for the reader a complex
and, at times, unresolved territory with which the research engages. Various
spaces and positions are enlisted – placing urban policy and media space
alongside an array of feminist positions and discourses on architectural
representation – to reveal how the occupation of these sites is contested and
politicized.
The term ‘soft-core’ is used in the fullness of its pop-cultural meaning and
alludes to the book's context within pornographic culture. 1 This subtitle places
‘urbanism’ purposefully alongside what might ordinarily be perceived as an
incongruent partner. In the discursive world of pornography, ‘soft-core’ has been
noted as receiving little academic attention, despite the evidence that ‘pornified’
culture is thriving. 2 Softcore exists in a liminal ‘middle ground’ that is
supposedly ‘middling – too middle of the road, too middle class, too
middlebrow’ to be of concern. 3 While ‘hardcore’ is understood in pornographic
circles as a transgressive practice, the presence of hardcore has normalized the
soft-core qualities that now occupy many parts of urban life.
Indeed, leisured society in neoliberal cities has been engaged with the ‘codes
and conventions of the pornographic’ since the mid-1990s. 4 Regarding this
interest, scholarship is characterized by split positions and the camps are
variously divided. Academics question whether or not soft-core is actually
genuine pornography, and others cite the consumer uptake of ‘porno-chic’ as