[A]rchitecture is more than a stage for the acting out of these performances. It offers a space for other social groups and kinds of social interacti… - Dana Arnold

In architectural history then the focus on the biography either of an architect or sometimes a patron separates ‘architecture’ from the function of the building, the theory of the processes of architecture and the broader social and cultural significance. To this end architecture is presented in a kind of historical cul-de-sac divorced from any contemporary or theoretical meaning it may have.

The invisibility of women in canonical histories might lead us to believe that women have no history. Surely then a female history is an essential tool in the emancipation of women? This is partly because if we have no history we are ‘trapped’ in the present where oppressive social relations can continue unchallenged. Furthermore, history can be seen as evidence that things can and do change.

[B]iography is an essential part of human memory. We think about ourselves in terms of what we have done – our identity is constructed around our past. Are history and biography linked or just two parallel strands? Biographers and historians make choices about how to frame their subject, they draw together fragments to present a possible glimpse of the unattainable whole. An historian might have a thesis or method which drives his/her enquiry whereas a biographer has, perhaps, a particular view of an individual they wish to present. Neither presents the truth, only an interpretation.