Gender studies enable a new interpretation of the distinction between urban planning and architecture. Apolline Vranken is an architect with an outspoken interest in gender relations in public and private space, and equality in an urban context. During this lecture she elaborates on public space from a gender studies perspective. She talks about the Journées du Matrimoine and her book "Des béguinages à l'architecture féministe".
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Gender studies enable a new interpretation of the distinction between urban planning and architecture. The division of a range of spatial structures between private and public space evolves into a representation of space in which the boundaries between inside and outside become unclear. It is perhaps through the sense of legitimacy and self-confidence that different forms of feminism try to develop and nurture (empowerment) that the greatest spatial change takes place: gender areas are redrawn by women, due to the lack of investment in private space by men, which leads to fading and disappearing boundaries between public and private, between urban planning and architecture. Already in the 12th century this principle was adopted by the beguines, an urban movement of secular, religious, enterprising women. They developed a way of life and living that was emancipatory and revolutionary: the beguinage.
Since 2014, Apolline Vranken is involved in the Cercle Féministes de l'ULB. She is passionate about gender relations in space, and equality in an urban context. She researched these themes in her thesis " Des béguinages à l’architecture féministe. Comment interroger et subvertir les rapports de genre matérialisés dans l’habitat ? ", published by the Université des Femmes in 2018. After obtaining her degree in architecture in 2017, Apolline joined the editorial board of the magazine A+ Architecture in Belgium for a year. Today, she works as an architect for Urban Platform and as project manager for the non-profit association L'Ilot - Sortir du sans-abrisme. With her platform L'architecture qui dégenre, she initiated the Belgian edition of the Journées du Matrimoine.
