Domestic Architecture, Literature and the Sexual Imaginary in Europe, 1850-1930

This book sheds light on the contributions of architecture and its literary representations to a series of changes taking place in sexual culture during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in France, England, Germany and Austria. By analysing an important set of architectural discourses and literary representations of domestic architecture, the book illustrates the constant tension between an increasing sexual permissiveness and more conservative approaches to domesticity and sexuality. It shows the ways in which literature imagined the impact of new architectural designs on sexual culture that suggested the creation of more fluid forms of organisation of space and sexual mores.

Aina Marti is Associate Lecturer in Catalan Language and Culture, School of European Culture and Languages, University of Kent. Her publications include The Bourgeoisies, Their Homes and Sexualities in Colette’s Claudine＂ in Domestic Space in France and Belgium: Art, Literature and Design (1850-1920), ed. by Claire Moran (London: Bloomsbury, 2020, forthcoming) as well as articles on the same topic.