Abstract
This article explores how homemaking and programming operated as spatial tactics that reshaped institutional architecture in early 20th-century Latin America. Through a close reading of photographs from welfare, health, and educational facilities, it identifies domestic gestures not as ornamental excesses but as acts of architectural agency. These gestures softened the institutional rigidity and created spaces of care within structures originally designed for control. In parallel, programming joy or ‘recreating’—through gardens, music rooms, parlours, play areas, and beach outings—introduced activities that demanded new spatial forms. These additions complicated institutional planning, often driven by female workers and caregivers. Together, homemaking and recreating operated as a form of architectural domestication that both contested and nuanced Foucault’s concept of discipline. Rather than pure spaces of surveillance and control, these institutions reveal an undercurrent of affect, joy, and relational care, quietly rewriting the architectural script from within.
- Almandoz, A. (2024). Modernización urbana en América Latina: De las grandes aldeas a las metrópolis masificadas. RIL Editores.
- Arendt, H. (1998). The human condition. University of Chicago Press.
- Beauvoir, S. de. (2007). The second sex. Vintage Books.
- Belarmino, C. A. (2024). A mulher na arquitetura e no urbanismo: Trajetórias profissionais entre as décadas de 1910 e 1960 no Rio de Janeiro [Doctoral dissertation, Universidade de São Paulo, São Carlos]. https://doi.org/10.11606/ T.102.2024.tde-26032025-094528
- Bissett, T. (2022). Conflicts of care: Contesting visions of urban reform in Toronto. Journal of the Society for the Study of Architecture in Canada, 47(1), 43–57. https://doi.org/10.7202/1095165ar
- Boletín de la Beneficencia Pública del Distrito Federal. (1920–1922). La beneficencia.
- Burke, P. (2019). Eyewitnessing: The uses of images as historical evidence. Reaktion Books.
- Certeau, M. de, Giard, L., & Mayol, P. (1998). The practice of everyday life (Vol. 2: Living and cooking). University of Minnesota Press.
- Certeau, M. de. (1984). The practice of everyday life. University of California Press.
- Dickey, B. (2020). No charity there: A short history of social welfare in Australia. Routledge.
- Dirección General de la Asistencia Pública Nacional. (1918). Memoria de la Dirección General de la Asistencia Pública Nacional 1915–1917. Talleres Gráficos del Estado.
- Foucault, M. (1995). Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison. Vintage Books.
- Goffman, E. (1961). Asylums: Essays on the social situation of mental patients and other inmates. Anchor Books.
- Guerín de Elgueta, S. (Ed.). (1928). Actividades femeninas en Chile. Imprenta y Litografía La Ilustración.
- Guy, D. J. (2009). Women build the welfare state: Performing charity and creating rights in Argentina, 1880–1955. Duke University Press.
- Heidegger, M. (1971). Building dwelling thinking. In Poetry, language, thought (pp. 143–161). Harper & Row.
- Hennock, E. P. (2007). The origin of the welfare state in England and Germany, 1850–1914: Social policies compared. Cambridge University Press.
- hooks, B. (2015). Yearning: Race, gender, and cultural politics. Routledge.
- Hultzsch, A. (2022). Otras prácticas: Historias de la arquitectura con perspectiva de género. ZARCH, (18), 30–41. https://doi.org/10.26754/ojs_zarch/zarch.2022186968
- Hultzsch, A., & Pérez-Martínez, S. (2023). Reading-with: A collaborative method for inclusive architectural histories. Architectural Histories, 11(1). https://doi.org/10.16995/ah.10332
- James-Chakraborty, K. (2022). Expanding agency: Women, race and the dissemination of modern architecture. ZARCH, (18), 16–29. https://doi.org/10.26754/ojs_zarch/zarch.2022186967
- Kahn, L. I. (1961). Form and design. Architectural Design, 31(4), 145–154.
- Krauss, R. (1979). Sculpture in the expanded field. October, 8, 31–44. https://doi.org/10.2307/778224
- La Congregación de las Hermanas de la Providencia de Chile. (1924). Santiago.
- Labarca, A. (1914). Actividades femeninas en los Estados Unidos. Imprenta Universitaria.
- Lange, T., & Schaad, G. (Eds.). (2022). Care [Special issue]. gta papers, 7. https://verlag.gta.arch.ethz.ch/en/ gta:book_a324cf64-9f28-4a0c-83ba-21d09c068523
- Le Corbusier. (2007). Toward an architecture (J. Goodman, Trans.). Getty Research Institute. (Original work published 1923).
- Marcus, C. C., & Barnes, M. (Eds.). (1999). Healing gardens: Therapeutic benefits and design recommendations. Wiley.
- Peluffo, A. (2009). Caridad y género: El imperio de la solidaridad femenina en el Perú del siglo XIX. In Y. Eraso (Ed.), Mujeres y asistencia social en Latinoamérica, siglos XIX y XX (pp. 33–56). Alción Editora.
- Pollock, G. (1999). Differencing the canon: Feminism and the writing of art’s histories. Routledge.
- Ponce de León, M. (2012). Gobernar la pobreza: Prácticas de caridad y beneficencia en la ciudad de Santiago, 1830–1890. Editorial Universitaria.
- Puericultorio Pérez Araníbar. (1930). [Photographic archive]. Lima, Peru.
- Reglamento provisional del Hospicio de Insanos. (1897). Imprenta Liberal.
- Revista enciclopédica de la beneficencia pública del Distrito Federal. (1917). Departamento Tipográfico de la Escuela Industrial de Huérfanos.
- Rodríguez, M., & López, V. (1910). Álbum histórico de la Sociedad de Beneficencia de la Capital 1823–1910. Lit. A. Bianchi.
- Ronner, H., & Jhaveri, S. (1987). Louis I. Kahn: Complete work 1935–1974 (2nd ed.). Birkhäuser.
- Scott, J. W. (1986). Gender: A useful category of historical analysis. American Historical Review, 91(5), 1053–1075. https://doi.org/10.2307/1864376
- Scott, J. W. (2008). Unanswered questions. American Historical Review, 113(5), 1422–1429. https://doi.org/ 10.1086/ ahr.113.5.1422
- Scott, J. W. (2010). Gender: Still a useful category of analysis? Diogenes, 57(1), 7–14. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 0392192110369316
- Singer, A. (2002). Constructing Ottoman beneficence: An imperial soup kitchen in Jerusalem. State University of New York Press.
- Sociedad de Beneficencia Pública de Lima. (1913). Álbum fotográfico. Casa Editora M. Moral.
- Spain, D. (2002). How women saved the city. University of Minnesota Press.
- Sullivan, L. (1896). The tall office building artistically considered. Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine, 403–409. https://archive.org/details/tallofficebuildi00sull
- Trattner, W. I. (1999). From poor law to welfare state: A history of social welfare in America (6th ed.). Free Press.
- Utting, B. (Ed.). (2024). Architectures of care: From the intimate to the common. Routledge.
- Vaughan, L. (Ed.). (2019). Designing cultures of care. Bloomsbury.
- Wagner, M. K., & Weber, G. (Eds.). (2025). Yes, we care: Das neue frankfurt und die frage nach dem Gemeinwohl. Spector Books.
- Young, I. M. (2005). House and home: Feminist variations on a theme. In S. Hardy & C. Wiedmer (Eds.), Motherhood and space (pp. 115–147). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-12103-5_8
APA 7th edition
In-text citation: (Montealegre, 2026)
Reference: Montealegre, P. (2026). Homemaking and recreating: The domestication of institutional architecture.
Feminist Encounters: A Journal of Critical Studies in Culture and Politics, 10(2), Article 20.
https://doi.org/10.20897/femenc/19068
AMA 10th edition
In-text citation: (1), (2), (3), etc.
Reference: Montealegre P. Homemaking and recreating: The domestication of institutional architecture.
Feminist Encounters: A Journal of Critical Studies in Culture and Politics. 2026;10(2), 20.
https://doi.org/10.20897/femenc/19068
Chicago
In-text citation: (Montealegre, 2026)
Reference: Montealegre, Pía. "Homemaking and recreating: The domestication of institutional architecture".
Feminist Encounters: A Journal of Critical Studies in Culture and Politics 2026 10 no. 2 (2026): 20.
https://doi.org/10.20897/femenc/19068
Harvard
In-text citation: (Montealegre, 2026)
Reference: Montealegre, P. (2026). Homemaking and recreating: The domestication of institutional architecture.
Feminist Encounters: A Journal of Critical Studies in Culture and Politics, 10(2), 20.
https://doi.org/10.20897/femenc/19068
MLA
In-text citation: (Montealegre, 2026)
Reference: Montealegre, Pía "Homemaking and recreating: The domestication of institutional architecture".
Feminist Encounters: A Journal of Critical Studies in Culture and Politics, vol. 10, no. 2, 2026, 20.
https://doi.org/10.20897/femenc/19068
Vancouver
In-text citation: (1), (2), (3), etc.
Reference: Montealegre P. Homemaking and recreating: The domestication of institutional architecture. Feminist Encounters: A Journal of Critical Studies in Culture and Politics. 2026;10(2):20.
https://doi.org/10.20897/femenc/19068