“You’re born naked and the rest is drag” are famous words from RuPaul, the queen of drag, capturing the performative nature of gender and self-expression into one sentence.
Katarina Bonnevier describes that architecture is inherently performative and that bodies are connected to architecture. This in turn means that heteronormativity is encoded into the built environment around us, as by repeating the way in which we build over and over again, it becomes naturalized.
This thesis researches how incorporating drag into architectural design, one could start to queer the fragments of urban space to question and break out of binary and normative ways of space-making.
For whom are our cities built? The project looks at drag queens to search for a spatial expression of drag. The result explores the topic of inclusion and diversity around multiple elements of urban space. A space that we all share but are not all included in. In honour of Baltic Pride 2023, taking place in Tallinn, Estonia, where the LGBTQIA+ communities of three countries come together to take space, celebrate diversity and fight for equality, this thesis uses Tallinn’s urban spaces as testing grounds for the project.
The aim of this thesis is to contribute to the discourse of queer architecture and to explore through design how drag can contribute to a more inclusive and diverse future of architecture.
