Description

The forgotten private lives of history's most famous gay architects

Homosexuality is still a taboo subject in architectural history. When historical architectural personalities have lived outside the heterosexual norm, their private lives are readily shrouded in obscurity. As long as penal laws endured, social existence was constantly threatened, and hiding was a necessity. Defensive strategies were needed to protect themselves. To track down these outsiders of the past, historical sources must be read queerly. This volume brings together 35 portraits of gay architects from the Baroque era to the modern age in North America, Europe and Palestine, presenting surprising biographies, admirable houses and, not infrequently, intelligently designed refuges with which the protagonists protected their private lives. Featured architects include: Stanford White, Ralph Adams Cram, Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue, Bruce Goff, Charles Moor, Lionel Pries, Barry Dierks, William Alexander Levy, Paul Rudolph, Horace Gifford, Luis Barragán, Geoffrey Bawa, Horace Walpole and more.