Illich traces the evolution of an inherited dwelling into a residential commodity through the ideas of odour, aura, and the utopian city. What made places liveable were homes built and maintained by families and tribes, each with their own cultures, traditions, and auras. These “auras” are the inevitable by-products of life’s processes: nasal signals like…

History/Theory II October 4, 2024 Sanitation Reading Response In her manifesto about maintenance as a form of art, Mierle Laderman Ukeles asserts that society privileges development systems – associated with progress and masculinity – over maintenance systems, which are associated with the domestic, often feminine-coded work of “preserv[ing] the new,” and how it “takes all…

READINGS Ivan Illich, “The Dirt of the Cities, The Aura of Cities, The Smell of the Dead, and Utopia of an Odorless City”, in H2O and the Waters of Forgetfulness, (London: Marion Boyars, 1986). Link to book.  Mierle Laderman Ukeles, “Manifesto for Maintenance Art, Proposal for an Exhibition,” (New York, 1969). Link to manifesto.   Sara…