The Anamorphic Phallus within Ledoux's Dismembered Plan of Chaux  

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The Anamorphic Phallus within Ledoux's Dismembered Plan of Chaux is a text by Paulette Singley, first published in the Journal of Architectural Education, Vol. 46, No. 3, 1993.

The text below is taken from the phallic architecture page at Wikipedia of July 2013.

In his initial draft for the House of Pleasure in Chaux, Ledoux drew upon allegorical ideas in his design with the union of man and woman, a physiological interpretation of intercourse and penetration. Private bedrooms were designed to "thrust out from the circular ring of the building, metaphorically representing penetration, the circular ring representing the vaginal passage and womb of the female.

The second revised design is said to "subliminate both elevated site and female gender" with a "lonely phallus", without the original planned animated circular ring representing the female reproductive organs. Ledoux drew upon phallic and sexually charged inspiration in other buildings which he designed; his design of Besancon Theatre for instance was fueled by the exigencies of prostitution and ancient sexual ritual. However, in comparison to the likes of Jean-Jacques Lequeu, who gained notoriety for his pornographic architectural concoctions, Ledoux's architectural inspiration was relatively mild, and he is said to have omitted towers from his designs on occasion as he was aware that they would be frowned upon shamefully by general society as a too obvious representation of the phallus; Ledoux's "missing erection" is explained to this effect in Jacques Lacan's Significance of the Missing Phalus.