Freudian Fridays: Top 12 Yonic Monuments
Some time ago, in an earlier edition of our weekly psychoanalysticle Freudian Fridays, we looked at some of the most overt, excessive and unsubtle phallic monuments built by man. While the need to put power, potency and might into concrete (and steel and glass) expression smacks of typical late-capitalist chauvinism, it would be a mistake to assume that all ambitiously psycho-sexual buildings take phallic forms.
“Yonic,” phallic’s less well-known sister, refers to any form that evokes the shape of female genital and reproductive organs. Not surprisingly, many yonic buildings tap into womb forms to create a sense of peace, warmth and nurturing. Others tap into the notion of motherhood in the name of nationalism and the motherland. Follow us, then, as we dive head-first into Listicles’ Top 12 Yonic Monuments.
Anish Kapoor’s “Cloud Gate” in Chicago
Womb and vagina in one, visiting tourists pass in and through the bean’s passage to enter Chicago.
China Central Television Headquarters, Beijing
The first of several expressions of the nation-as-big-enveloping-womb yonic building trend.
The Chanel Pavilion
This sinewy, curving, unfolding tribute to conspicuous consumption taps into yonic forms’ mysterious, inviting pleasures.
The Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles
Visitors must pass under its shiny, smooth, peeling lips to enter the high culture palace inside.
The Esplanade, Singapore
More womb-like from the ground but clearly vaginal from the sky, this performing arts complex plays on visitors’ most primal urges for return to the mother’s womb.
JFK Monument, Dallas
How fitting that our nation’s most sexually hyper-active president should be memorialized inside a mysterious chamber only accessible through a long, vertical partition.
The Kunsthaus, Graz
A floating womb of a cultural center, its lighted surface also creates the inviting impression of comforting warmth within.
London City Hall
With its tilted egg shape, London’s municipal HQ projects notions of nurturing, care, health and security to its citizens.
German Parliament, Berlin
A womb-shaped dome on the outside reveals a vaginal canyon of mirrors and glass on the inside, conjuring primal human needs for security, attentive care and government transparency.
Shinjuku Skyscraper, Tokyo
Though its tallness is undeniably phallic, this Tokyo tower’s rounded form and peeled edges create an impression of peering into an enclosed and protected space that is unmistakably yonic.
Concert Hall, Tenerife
Winged, peeling, delicate and enveloping all at once, complete with glowing rounded interior.
Arc de Triomphe, Paris
A short man’s (Napoleon) self-important claim to ownership of the vastest motherland ever, this yonic form puts mothering and nurturing to the service of nationalism. With that in mind, this clip from 1919 of the French celebrating the end of WWI, basically amounts to monumental, national incest:
Here’s one to add to your list. Around these parts people call the Oakland, Christ the Light Cathedral, the Holy Humble Vagina. It’s great to just sit on the banks of the lake and watch people discover it; proper ladies strolling by, chuckling to themselves. I say, Good form.
Nice pic here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/DamonTighe/Oakland#5226654716930961282
So THAT’S why I like that building in Shinjuku so much!
[...] Top 12 Yonic Monuments [...]
[...] the video served to help illustrate the idea that some monuments derive symbolic power from their yonic shape, it turns out to have been uncannily prophetic. That Freudian slip foreshadowed this week’s [...]
think you gotta put the Vietnam Memorial in there too
[...] 12 yonic monuments: http://www.listicles.com/2009/01/freudian-fridays-top-12-yonic-monuments/ [...]
[...] Top 12 Yonic Monuments [...]
[...] Top 12 Yonic Monuments [...]
no gateway arch in St. Louis? are you even looking?