Abstract

The critical historiography of American architect Bruce Goff (1904 -1982) has been, and continues to be, fraught with conflicting narratives regarding his sexuality. Most scholarly and critical accounts of Goff’s work have focused solely on formal analysis of his architecture; yet a significant number have imbricated sexuality into an interpretive analysis of his work, often through the use of a coded language referring to sexuality (specifically homosexuality). Such interpretive approaches to Goff’s work have served to marginalize his inclusion in the canon of mid-twentieth century American modernism. Moreover, recent attempts by critics and scholars to examine Goff under the auspices of Gay and Lesbian Studies and Queer Studies continue to draw from the visual tropes of homosexuality and queerness, thus maintaining the idea of a latent queer sensibility drawn from the signifiers of Camp within Goff’s architecture
Through discourse analysis, a deconstructive approach which aims to examine and unveil language that defines and frames discussion of a subject, this thesis argues that the scholarly approaches to Goff’s oeuvre perpetuate an insubstantial connection between sexuality and interpretive readings of his work. In response to the existing writings on Goff, the author of this thesis proposes instead that Goff drew on a queer genealogy through the writings of Gertrude Stein and the practice of bricolage to construct a space that is actively queer. Refuting essentialized interpretations predicated upon the visual aesthetic signifiers of queerness, a queer sensibility emerges in Goff’s architecture as considered through the lens of queer phenomenology, resulting in a space to be both constructed and physically experienced as queer.