Gay Interr Digner: Turn Your Home to a Stylish Haven - Archecture ADRENALINE

Contents:

• A WORLD OF PRI: GAY DIGNERS TALK ABOUT ACCEPTANCE AND CHALLENG
• GAY-FRIENDLY MALE INTERR DIGNERS
• HOW GAY MEN FED 20TH-CENTURY TERR SIGN
• GAY INTERR DIGNER: TURN YOUR HOME TO A STYLISH HAVEN

A WORLD OF PRI: GAY DIGNERS TALK ABOUT ACCEPTANCE AND CHALLENG

It’s an old stereotype: the gay terr signer. Ltle data exists regardg how many gay men are out the sign dtry around the world, but ’s whout a doubt a iendlier dtry than, say, profsnal sports. And no matter the profsn, clearly the experience of gay men tersects wh other forc—race and class power dynamics, ageism, health, geography—and differs om the experienc of other members of the muny, cludg lbians and trans/non-bary/genr nonnformg sign profsnals.

But on the ocsn of World Pri month, Interr Dign reached out to gay men around the physil and virtual worlds to get a sense of where thgs stand today, om Tulsa to Turkey. “There are que a lot of gay upl livg eely and accepted, ” he says, “but not mentned a lot by the neighbors. Homosexualy to them was a very big al.

GAY-FRIENDLY MALE INTERR DIGNERS

They have a posive gay role mol around them as they’ve grown up, and that’s a powerful thg. They may even, like Saghian, e to see a gay inty as a benef.

“The stereotype has always been that the bt signers are gay men, ” he says.

And Orlando, was supposed to be at the Pulse nightclub the night of the anti-gay terror massacre 2016. For years, swaths of the dtry were assigned the public nscns to gay men.

HOW GAY MEN FED 20TH-CENTURY TERR SIGN

Ially, this rerd will Pri Month begs, 's enlighteng to look back, so that all of —gay, straight, bi, trans, nonbary, qutng—have a better unrstandg not jt of the past but of where we are today. Via Getty Imag1846: The buildg that would bee the Stonewall Inn, flashpot of the morn gay rights movement, ris New York Cy as a pair of stabl. The space will bee a rtrant 1934, a gay bar 1967, the se of gay-rights rts 1969, and a natnal landmark 2016.

1888: Ralph Adams Cram, the foremost Gothic revivalist who is now believed to have been gay, acrdg to thor Douglas Shand-Tucci Boston Bohemia, 1881–1900: Ralph Adams Cram: Life and Archecture, among others, opens an archecture office. His illtratns and hundreds of magaze vers are among the first homoerotic imag pop culture; they spire Norman Rockwell's style (if not his foc) "Arrow Collars & Shirts" advertisg poster by J. But s sleek look be so associated wh gay male hom that be a joke 1989's Steel Magnolias: "All gay men have track lightg, and all gay men are named Mark, Rick, or Steve.

GAY INTERR DIGNER: TURN YOUR HOME TO A STYLISH HAVEN

1969: Postmorn novator Charl Moore—the gay head of the Yale School of Archecture—has his New Haven hoe featured Playboy magaze as the ultimate bachelor pad. 1970: Graphic signer Tom Doerr troduc the Greek lambda to reprent the gay liberatn movement—the first wily accepted LGBT symbol.

1970s: The brgs the rise of gay neighborhoods. Chigo's New Town acquir the nickname Boys Town; Wt Hollywood be a gay enclave, as do San Francis's Castro and New York Cy's Wt Village and Chelsea (which were on the scene s earlier) elevated view of actrs Bette Midler's SoHo loft 1981, which was signed by Alan Buchsbm. 1980: The Sat, the first gay superclub, opens New York Cy.

Photo: Imag Prs / via Getty Imag1985: Archect Arata Isozaki, recipient of the 2019 Przker Prize, signs the terr for NYC's Palladium, a loc of '80s gay culture where Madonna, Keh Harg, and David Wojnarowicz hang out, and MTV's semal Club MTV is taped. 1987: Interr signer Frz Lohman founds the Llie Lohman Gay Art Foundatn. 1987: A llective of six gay activists—several of them graphic signers—lnch the Silence = Death mpaign, wh s now-inic symbol of the pk triangle ed to mark gay people durg the Holot, flipped upsi Harg photographed wh one of his patgs April 1984.

1991: Jane Greenwood founds the Organizatn of Lbian + Gay Archects and Digners.

It’s obv, but nohels worth sayg: The terr sign dtry has been built on the talents of gay people. The ventor of the morn profsn—Elsie Wolfe—was a gay woman.

Countls inic rators have been gay men.

Anyone will tell you that this was, is, and will ntue to be a good dtry to be gay .

Forty years ago, you might have seen a lot of gay men’s apartments Archectural Digt, but you wouldn’t have read about their boyiends or partners. And while the sign world self is a welg environment, gay signers who step outsi the bubble of showrooms smopolan ci will regnize that tolerance is very much alive.

To celebrate Pri Month, Bs of Home spoke wh 10 gay men and women om all rners of the sign dtry to discs their history, their experienc and their hop for the future.

While the sign world has always been a place of acceptance for gay people, hasn’t always celebrated their sexualy alongsi their talent. For much of the 20th century, even well to the 1990s, was tacly unrstood that many male rators were gay, but that fact wasn’t always acknowledged the media—or even, some s, by the clients who hired them.

Jamie Drake, signer: I didn’t have a g-out-of-the-closet moment, particularly; I was touch wh the fact that I was gay sce I was very very young. I knew some terr signers and assumed they were gay—there was only one I knew to be straight. Robert Couturier, signer: Beg raised France, our attu toward homosexualy is not the puranil view that Ameri has.

Couturier: [Several proment gay signers] got married.