Bodies on Bodies: Queer Sex and Architectural Fantasy in New York City

Abstract

Queer sexuality has continuously shaped the urbanism of New York City, by inhabiting its forgotten areas and reimagining them as spaces that embody queer fantasies and desires. Today, neoliberalism, gentrification, and LGBTQIA+ discrimination continue to threaten queer spaces, while the growth of online hookup culture has brought a renewed agency and visibility to queer desire. This thesis reimagines a soon-to-be demolished building in New York’s West Village, into an object of queer sexuality. Using a fantasy methodology that interprets queer history and culture through journaling, sexual experiences are translated into fragmented design interventions. These interventions explore topics including affect, embodiment, kink and materiality through their own architectural and queer references. The design fragments intervene with the existing structure in unique ways that, at the scale of the building, preserves it as an architectural ruin, while intimate connections and incisions create new relationships and opportunities at the scale of the body.