Domestic Architecture and the Making of Sexual Culture in English, French, and German-Language Narrative Fiction, 1856-1927

At the intersection of the history of architecture and the history of sexuality, my thesis analyses the ways in which domestic architecture and its literary representations challenged conceptualizations of normative sexuality and the established sexual culture. I argue that the materiality of architecture related to a particular theorization of domestic life, including normative sexuality, which could, thus, be modified by architectural means. On one hand, I will illustrate how literature makes use of new architectures to explore their further impact on sexual culture in late nineteenth-century England, France, and Germany. On the other hand, I will illustrate how actual domestic architecture designed in Vienna at the beginning of the twentieth century, facilitates the performance of non-normative sexual practices. By illustrating the historical role of (represented) architecture in opening the meaning of normal sexuality, my literary analysis contributes to scholarship on domestic studies and ways of living.