Gender Segregated Spaces in China Late Qing Churches

Thomas Coomans  is professor of architectural history and program director of built heritage conservation at University of Leuven (鲁汶大学). His research focuses on architectural transfers and cross-cultural exchanges in 19th- and early 20th-century Europe and China. 

How could strict Confucian gender discrimination accommodate with Christian gender segregation in late Qing church architecture? Before the 19th century, men and women were in separate church buildings, but in the 19th century different architectural and spatial solutions were experimented in order to bring man and women in the same building. The lecture focuses on these gendered spaces in North China churches from the 1830s to the early 1920s, before gender discrimination was relaxed in Chinese society.

A photo showing a Christian community posing in front of its parish church in Hubei (Yichang region). From Thomas Coomans.