Most Phallic Building Contest - Symbolism

Symbolism

In art and architecture, acutely vertical buildings are often seen as a symbol of masculinity and horizontal buildings are seen as more feminine. The terms "phallic verticality", "phallic erectility" and "phallic brutality" have been referred to by architectural theorists, including the likes of French sociologist Henri Lefebvre, who argued that buildings of phallic architectural type metaphorically symbolize "force, male fertility, masculine violence". Phallic erectility "bestows a special status on the perpendicular, proclaiming phallocracy as the orientation of space" while phallic brutality "does not remain abstract, for it is the brutality of political power." Lefebvre conducted considerable research into the meaning of high-rise buildings. He said "The arrogant verticality of skyscrapers, and especially of public and state buildings, introduces a phallic or more precisely a phallocratic element into the visual realm; the purpose of this display, of this need to impress, is to convey an impression of authority to each spectator. Verticality and great height have ever been the spatial expression of potentially violent power." Sigmund Freud metaphorically drew a comparison between "high achievement and the acquisition of wealth as building monuments to our penises."

In the 19th century, Thomas Mical argues that surrealists "capitalized on the phallic symbolism of monuments such as the ancient Egyptian obelisk from Luxor in the Place de la Concorde or the Vendome Column" by "supplementing these phallic structures with female counterparts". Jules Breton for example suggested moving the obelisk to La Villette abattoir and designing a large gloved hand of a woman holding the obelisk in a suggestive manner, and adapting the Vendome into a factory chimney with a nude woman climbing it. Auguste Bartholdi's 1870 monument Defense of Paris for instance, a commemoration of Leon Gambetta's escape from Paris in balloon during the Franco-Prussian War, was also subject to debate amongst Parisian artists of the late 19th century as they believed it resembled a testicle. Arthur Harfaux proposed turning the monument into "an enormous sex, the balloon forming a testicle and the phallus being horizontal", while Breton proposed turning it into copulating genitals, adding a twin balloon to form two testicles.

Contemporary scholars in architectural criticism have investigated the relationship between architecture and the body, sexuality, sex, power, and place. Feminists in particular, such as Margrit Kennedy, perceive high-rise phallic-like buildings on the urban landscape as "phallic symbols of male domination, power and rational instrumentality." Esther M. K. Cheung believes the form of monumental high-rise building which grew up in 20th century America can "be read as a phallic symbol of power". The present trend symbolises "Science and technology over nature, incorporating all the maleness which that with sci-fi utopias." Elizabeth Grosz, however, offers a counter argument to phallocentrism in urban design theories, saying "not so much the dominance of the phallus as the pervasive unacknowledged use of the male or masculine to represent the human. The problem, then, is not so much to eliminate as to reveal the masculinity inherent in the notion of the universal, the generic human, or the unspecified subject." Marc C. Taylor discusses phallic architecture and what makes a building masculine or feminine in his book Disfiguring: Art, Architecture, Religion.