Women Architects

Did women engage in the making of architecture before the nineteenth century? Although most professions requiring specialized knowledge were deemed socially unsuitable for women, women did play active roles in the built environment in Western Europe before the Industrial Age.  Elite and bourgeois women influenced architectural design as patrons and advisors, and women of lesser means were on occasion employed in building-related crafts and construction labor.  Women’s earliest activities as true designers and builders can be linked to the cultural phenomenon of the Renaissance.  The rediscovery of Antiquity was a catalyst that transformed the identity of the architect and opened the traditional building industry to those who were not master builders.  Both men and women began to design and build as artist-architects and as amateurs.  Yet, these women engaged architecture mostly from the margins of the profession.  Nineteenth-century industrialization brought a dynamic change in the nature of work and lifestyles, opening the door for greater numbers of women to work outside the home. The mechanization of the building industry and changing attitudes towards women’s education and work paved the path for women to move slowly from the margins towards the center of specialized knowledge in the craft and profession of architecture in the twentieth century.

The file attached is not the full article.
Genia Averbuch (1909-1977) was a prolific architect, who launched her career in Tel Aviv in 1930. In fact, she is often described as ‘the unchallenged queen of modern architecture in Tel Aviv’. She was one of the first practicing women architects in Palestine under the British Mandate (Mandatory Palestine, 1920-1948), and among the first modernist architects in the country. In pre-state Israel, Averbuch was a prominent and highly influential adherent of the International Style. She designed with creativity and with sensitivity to the local climate and left a substantial mark on the urban landscape of Tel Aviv, where she grew up, lived and worked throughout her life. Of Averbuch’s total output, her Tel Aviv works have featured prominently in academic research and in the media, gaining acclaim and broad recognition of her contribution to the development of modern architecture in the Jewish Yishuv, and subsequently to Israeli architecture.

After World War II, Zionist women’s organizations, who were active in pre-state Israel, undertook to provide care and education for immigrant children and adolescents in Israel, many of whom were Holocaust survivors who had lost their families. From the mid-1940s through the mid-1950s, these women’s organizations entrusted the planning of their youth villages to Averbuch, offering her an opportunity to mold the image of these new social establishments.

Unlike her Tel Aviv projects, where she strictly adhered to the modern language, Averbuch now had to plan social establishments in rural environments. At first sight, her architectural approach and the style she developed for these projects are surprising. In planning these villages, Averbuch departed from the pure International Style of her earlier modernist work and used forms and materials that seemed to stand in contrast to modernism. She designed pitched red-tile roofs on top of modern white buildings, arcades, and smooth and rough stone-clad walls. These were all extraordinary, even unlikely choices for Averbuch the modernist.

In this chapter I discuss Averbuch’s architecture as manifested in three youth villages: Hadassim Children and Youth Village near Even Yehuda (inaugurated in 1948, commissioned by the Women's International Zionist Organization ]WIZO[), the Horticulture and Planting School in Petah Tikva (1954, commissioned by WIZO and the General Council of Women Workers in Eretz Yisrael), and Ba’it Va’Gan Children’s Home in Jerusalem (1955, commissioned by B’nai B’rith Women of America (BBW). These villages, commissioned all by women’s organizations, were built in the early years of Israel’s statehood, and shed new light on Averbuch’s work. All three represent her varied modernist work, manifesting her interpretation of local modernism and her way of formulating an individual architectural language under the influence of vernacular architecture (genius loci) and natural landscapes.

The first half of the 20th century witnessed the rise of modernist architects. BROKERS OF MODERNITY reveals how East Central Europe turned into one of the pre-eminent testing grounds of the new belief-system of modernism. By combining the internationalism of the CIAM organi za tion and the modernizing aspirations of the new states built after 1918, the reach of modernist architects extended far beyond their established fields. Yet, these architects paid a price when Europe's age of extremes intensified. Using mainly Polish, but also wider Central and Eastern European, examples this book delivers a pioneering study of the dynamics of modernist architects as a group, including how they became qualified, how they organized, how they communicated and their own attempts to live the modernist lifestyle themselves. In so doing BROKERS OF MODERNITY raises questions concerning collective work and the social role of architects today.

Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony Griffin, award winning architects of Canberra, were intimately entwined in the early development and proliferation of Anthroposophy in Australia. Their introduction to Steiner occurred several years after Steiner’s death, nevertheless, anthroposophy became for them a lived experience which was woven into the fabric of their lives and thoughts. Through their reading, correspondence, recruitment activities, lectures, study groups, translation of Steiner, and Anthroposophic Festivals, the thoughts and insights of Rudolf Steiner became a core part of who they were and how they lived their lives. It is now eight decades since the accomplished architects, Walter Griffin, Marion Griffin and their partner in architecture, Eric Nicholls, joined the Anthroposophic Society in Australia (in 1931,1930 and 1934 respectively). They studied and promoted Anthroposophy while working together collaboratively to produce distinctive and distinguished architecture around Australia.

The Museum of Contemporary Art in Belgrade, joint work by Ivanka  Raspopovic and Ivan Antic, with expressive tectonics, rational geometric form, free plan, and interior that elevated visitors’ responses, set a benchmark for museum buildings design. The first prize on architectural competition held 1959-60 was awarded to team Raspopović and Antić. Museum, opened on October 20, 1965, is located in New Belgrade at the confluence of the Danube and the Sava rivers, facing the Belgrade Fortress.

In the history of Serbian architecture, the time of innovation and fundamental restructuring of form begins at the end of the  nineteenth century and reaches full development between the two World Wars. During that period, various sociopolitical factors affected Serbian architecture, creating a framework for deeper insight into distinct aspects of architecture in a broader cultural context. As a case in point, women have been present in the Serbian architectural profession since the beginning of the twentieth century, although the work of many is still not well-known. Some important steps have certainly been taken in order to reconstruct extraordinary lives and careers of a pioneering woman architect.

Il contributo presenta un’esperienza originale di itinerari turistico-culturali dedicati alla scoperta del patrimonio architettonico e dell’eredità progettuale dalle donne in Europa. Questa esperienza ha avuto origine nel quadro del progetto culturale europeo Women’s creativity since the Modern Movement - MoMoWo (diretto dal Politecnico di Torino) e ha prodotto la prima guida incentrata sulle opere femminili: Women – Architecture & Design Itineraries across Europe (2016). Questa pubblicazione pilota coniuga contenuti culturali e turistici per scopi tecnici e informativi e si rivolge principalmente al vasto pubblico, turisti e visitatori locali, famiglie e giovani, studenti e professionisti.
Un approccio di ricerca innovativo e interattivo è stato applicato attraverso il coinvolgimento attivo di donne architetti e designer nel suggerire le opere da includere negli itinerari. È stata lanciata una call tramite gli Ordini degli architetti e degli ingegneri per ricevere lavori da donne professioniste. La call chiedeva il lavoro preferito dall’autore e non necessariamente il più noto, generando così una partecipazione attiva al processo d’individuazione.
Considerando che il patrimonio architettonico progettato dalle donne è raramente incluso nelle guide turistiche o architettoniche delle principali città europee, la guida MoMoWo è un primo passo verso il riconoscimento dei esiti conseguiti delle donne nella costruzione e nel restauro del patrimonio europeo.

Urmila Eulie Chowdhury (1923-1995) was India's first qualified woman architect, a teacher, and a writer. Some historians believe that she was Asia's first qualified female architect. She graduated from the University of Sydney with a Bachelor of Architecture in 1947. Earlier she earned a Cambridge School Certificate from the Windsor House School, Kobe, Japan. In addition, she learned singing and piano at the Conservatory of Music of the Julian Ashborn School of Art, Sydney, Australia, and also obtained a diploma in Ceramics in Englewood, New Jersey, USA.

From the mid-1920s on, single urban Jewish women in Palestine under the British Mandate (1920-1948) experienced a chronic shortage of suitable and affordable lodgings. This spurred Zionist women’s organizations to take action and solve the problem. Their cooperation led to building four ‘Women Pioneers’ Houses’, which offered single immigrant working women modern lodgings and vocational training. Women architects designed the buildings, keeping in mind their future women residents.
The buildings’ architects, who had studied and worked in Europe before immigrating to Mandatory Palestine, applied modernist concepts to the buildings’ design. All the houses followed the highest contemporary standards of living and working environments. They became urban female hubs and notable socio-cultural forces in the city, eventually reaching beyond the female sphere, and offering the public at large a variety of activities. The houses had significant visibility and prominence in the urban landscape and were a source of pride for women.
Article link: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09612025.2018.1455570

“Her glam-punk-goth look makes her one of architecture's most flamboyant and recognizable figures.” (Ott Cit.11.26.2006). What fascinated me was the mind that lurked behind that look. We conversed on Nov 27, 2006.

Studio Odile Decq: https://www.odiledecq.com/
Confluence Institute for Innovation and Creative Strategies in Architecture https://www.confluence.eu/

During the postwar period, the architectural discourses and developments taking place in Estonia, annexed to the Soviet Union in 1940 as the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic (ESSR), were fairly consistent with those of the vast socialist conglomerate. The forcibly introduced, pseudo-classicism of the Stalinist period was followed by a decree of 'abolishing the excesses' from Khruchchev in 1954, implementing a decisive turn towards the rationalization and the industrialization of the building processes in addition to the development of standardized typologies for the cities and in the countryside. Yet beginning in the late 1960s, the growth and economic independence of the collective farms (kolkhozes) in addition to the establishment of a special state design office for them (EKE Projekt) brought about a unique phenomenon of progressive and imaginative rural architecture in Estonia. Here a younger generation of architects found work and were able to experiment with form, spatial program, and materials. Rural architecture was subject to relatively weak ideological controls so it is perhaps not surprising that rural building became the testing ground of innovative ideas and the setting to pursue contextual strategies that explored local identity or expressed a resistant position towards Soviet influence, and engaged in a dialogue with local traditions. The current article discusses four Estonian women architects whose main body of work was realized in rural or kolkhoz environments beginning in the early 1960s and continuing through the 1980s: Valve Pormeister, Ell Väärtnõu, Meeli Truu and Marika Lõoke.

La serie di pubblicazioni scientifiche Ricerche | architettura, design, territorio ha l'obiettivo di diffondere i risultati delle ricerche e dei progetti realizzati dal Dipartimento di Architettura DIDA dell'Università degli Studi di Firenze in ambito nazionale e internazionale. Ogni volume è soggetto ad una procedura di accettazione e valutazione qualitativa basata sul giudizio tra pari affidata al Comitato Scientifico Editoriale del Dipartimento di Architettura. Tutte le pubblicazioni sono inoltre open access sul Web, per favorire non solo la diffusione ma anche una valutazione aperta a tutta la comunità scientifica internazionale. Il Dipartimento di Architettura dell'Università di Firenze promuove e sostiene questa collana per offrire un contributo alla ricerca internazionale sul progetto sia sul piano teorico-critico che operativo. The Research | architecture, design, and territory series of scientific publications has the purpose of disseminating the results of national and international research and project carried out by the

Review of a symposium held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City in October 2007,  entitled "Women in Modernism: Making Places in Architecture." Participants included Beverly Willis, Gwendolyn Wright, Sarah Herda, Toshiko Mori, and Karen Stein. The conversation was moderated by Barry Bergdoll.

In Portugal, the participation of female architects in the development of the profession-in the broad sense of the word: project, research, education, criticism, and policy-is far from having been identified, problematized, and disseminated. The research project [email protected] (Women Architects in Portugal: Building Visibility, 1942-1986) strives to give visibility to female architects-revealing "who?", "when?", and "how?"-and contribute to expanding the history of Portuguese architecture, as well as developing feminist studies and ideas within the discipline. The strategies chosen to carry out this ongoing research intersect with feminist theories and epistemologies, outside and inside architecture. The issues raised require a critical understanding of the processes that sustain the silencing of female architects' voices, imposing limitations on how we understand the profession in its many facets. The feminist historical reflection that we propose is based on the idea that combining the production of knowledge and professional practices is crucial to change gender biases and women's oppression in both fields.

Stvaralaštvo žena arhitekata u Beogradu između dva svetska rata predstavlja nedovoljno istraženu oblast u domaćoj istoriografiji. U prilog tome svedoči i do sada u potpunosti nepoznato stvaralaštvo Katarine Marković-Šajinović, koja je među prvim ženama arhitektama u Beogradu otvorila samostalni privatni biro. Iako su se i druge žene arhitekte bavile privatnom praksom, opus Katarine Marković-Šajinović, koji se sastoji od do sada identifikovanih 15 stambenih objektata, čini je do tada najproduktivnijom ženom arhitektom u domenu privatne prakse. Ovaj rad zato predstavlja prvi pokušaj osvetljavanja do sada gotovo u potpunosti nepoznatog života i rada arhitekte Marković-Šajinović, kao i valorizacije njene stambene arhitekture.

The aims of the present work are to document the context and the content of the copy of August, 1975 of Architectural Design, Women in Architecture and to see the sense and validity of a re-edition or equivalent edition 40 years later. The temporary lapse of the study focuses, basically, about the year 1975 and, about 2015. The resultant study consists of the following parts: Context: a) Study of context in the 70s where it is checked both the social and economic environment and the architectural one, especially regarding to women and architecture. b) Articles that explain the incorporation of the gender perspective to architecture and to urbanism. The magazine Architectural Design 8/1975, Women in Architecture: c) A detailed study of the magazine like an object in itself. d) A critical review of some works of architecture produced by women architects that contributed to the magazine of 1975. A review of the International Seminar Women in Architecture in Valencia: a description of the debate held in Valencia and of the result of the same one, and the same for the international Seminar in London. Considerations for a new edition, today. Conclusions In addition, annexes with conversations with protagonists of the magazine are provided

Notice de dictionnaire consacrée à Antoinette Desmoulins (1611-1692), en religion soeur Aldegonde, bénédictine de la Paix Notre-Dame à Liège, religieuse architecte.
Consultable en ligne sur http://siefar.org/dictionnaire/fr/Antoinette_Desmoulins

Dans les années qui suivent leur établissement en milieu urbain, les religieuses sont amenées à aménager puis à ériger des bâtiments conventuels conformes à leurs besoins et à leur mode de vie. Malgré la stricte clôture que leur impose le concile de Trente, les religieuses se doivent de faire appel à des professionnels du bâti et de passer des contrats avec une main d’œuvre généralement masculine, qu’il s’agisse d’architectes, d’entrepreneurs ou d’artisans.
Cette communication propose d’analyser la manière dont différentes congrégations religieuses implantées sur la « dorsale catholique » (annonciades célestes, bénédictines de la Paix Notre-Dame, ...) sont parvenues à recruter ces hommes de terrain, à guider la conception du plan, à surveiller le déroulement du chantier et le cas échéant, à affirmer leurs compétences. Dans un premier temps, on s’intéressera au discours normatif des règles qui encadre ces rapports avant de les confronter, dans un second temps, aux témoignages et au vécu de ces femmes livrés par leurs écrits (chroniques, annales, biographies de religieuses) aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles, inédits pour la plupart.

About the book:
From the bustle of Johannesburg to the neon of Las Vegas, Denise Scott Brown’s advocacy for “messy vitality” has transformed the way we look at the urban landscape. Unconventional, eloquent, and with a profound sociopolitical message, Scott Brown is one of our era’s most influential thinkers on architecture and urbanism. The anthology Denise Scott Brown In Other Eyes – marking the 50th anniversary of the seminal Learning from Las Vegas – paints a portrait of Scott Brown as seen through the eyes of leading architectural historians and practitioners. It features new scholarship on her education on three continents, her multi-disciplinary teaching, and her use of urban patterns and forces as tools for architectural design – a practice documented in a new comment by Scott Brown, noting that sometimes “1+1>2.”

With contributions by Craig Lee, Mary McLeod, Robin Middleton, Andrew Leach, Denise Costanzo, Carolina Vaccaro, Marianna Charitonidou, James Yellin, Lee Ann Custer, Sarah Moses, Sylvia Lavin, Joan Ockman, Valéry Didelon, Katherine Smith, Inès Lamunière, Frida Grahn, Jacques Herzog, Stanislaus von Moos, Christopher Long, Hilary Sample, Aron Vinegar, Françoise Blanc, Denise Scott Brown, and Jeremy Eric Tenenbaum.

Luz Valente-Pereira (b. 1934, Lisbon) is a key figure of the 20 th century Portuguese History of Architecture, albeit a forgotten one. This research is a starting point for establishing a more solid biography of this pioneer who initiated the first decades of female participation in the architectural field in Portugal. After some professional experience in different contexts, she developed a stable research career at the National Laboratory of Civil Engineering (LNEC) with studies on various spatial scales. We have used different meth-odologies: bibliographical review, consultation of national archives, and an interview with her. Our proposal is not only to create female references but also to broaden the historical readings on women's participation in Portugal throughout the 20 th century.

À partir du XVIe siècle, les ordres religieux féminins se sont implantés massivement dans les villes de l’Europe catholique. Parmi ceux-ci, les ursulines, les carmélites déchaussées, les visitandines, les annonciades célestes et les bénédictines réformées de la Paix Notre-Dame livrent, au travers de leurs écrits (chroniques, annales, récits de fondation, biographies), leur investissement dans la conception et l’édification de leur cadre de vie. Malgré la clôture stricte auxquelles elles sont soumises en vertu des décrets du concile de Trente (1545-1563), elles conçoivent des plans seules ou en groupe, gèrent l’approvisionnement des matériaux, transportent des gravats et sont en relations constantes avec les corps de métier et les professionnels du bâtiment auprès desquels elles tentent d’affirmer leurs compétences et de revendiquer leur place au sein de la société qui les entoure.
Ce texte est issu de ma contribution à la journée d'étude "Femmes, architecture, paysage", organisé à l'INHA, à Paris en 2015.

Lisa Landrum's paper "Modus Operandi of an Architectus Doli: Architectural Cunning in the Comic Plays of Plautus"  appears as Chapter 15.  Also in the book are essays by Karsten Harries, Marco Frascari, David Leatherbarrow, Kenneth Frampton, Juhani Pallasmaa, Steven Holl, and other colleages and former students of Alberto Perez-Gomez including: Ricardo L. Castro, Tracey Eve Winton, Robert Kirkbride, Paul Emmons, Indra Kagis McEwen, Santiago de Orduña, Caroline Dionne, Lily Chi, Louise Pelletier, Lawrence Bird, Lian Chikako Chang, Natalija Subotincic, Stephen Parcell, Graham Livesey, Juan Manuel Heredia, Anne Bordeleau, Peter Olshavsky, and David Theodore.

Paper summary/excerpts: "At least five of Plautus’ twenty extant comedies involve what classicists call an architectus doli, an “architect of trickery.” … Plautus’ elaboration of the cunning slave character has long been considered one of his most original contributions to Latin drama; but the “architect” terms associated with these slaves (and with Jupiter) were likely transposed from the now largely lost Greek comedies that Plautus adapted and translated into Latin. These five imported “architects” were generally ignored in early studies of Plautine inventiveness. They eventually gained attention, however, in an important 1952 study on The Nature of Roman Comedy. Since then, Plautus’ architectus figure has been interpreted in a variety of ways within classical scholarship: as a euphemism for the play’s lowly agent of intrigue; as a proxy for the scheming playwright; and as a media-reflexive figure associated with other craft imagery used throughout Plautus’ plays to qualify and vivify not only acts of scheming and plot construction, but also moral edification. Yet, there are further interpretations to be made and important questions to be asked…This essay cannot answer these questions in full, but it will initiate an interpretation of Plautus’ architectus doli with such questions in mind. By lifting this Roman dramatist up out of the footnotes of architectural scholarship (where he is sometimes merely credited with providing the earliest extant use of the Latin term architectus), the following study prepares the grounds for discovering how the cunning agents and agencies of Plautus’ comedies meaningfully illuminate the modus operandi of architects..."

Women and Architecture. The Woman's Pavilion in Chicago
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This essay presents a contemporary critique of the first pavilion built by a woman for an international exhibition: the Woman’s Pavilion designed by Sophia Hayden for the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893.
This story of personal success and gender inequality is more actual than ever in the current, still challenging conditions of the female professionals involved in the fields of architecture.

Luz Valente-Pereira (b. 1934, Lisbon) is a key figure of the 20 th century Portuguese History of Architecture, albeit a forgotten one. This research is a starting point for establishing a more solid biography of this pioneer who initiated the first decades of female participation in the architectural field in Portugal. After some professional experience in different contexts, she developed a stable research career at the National Laboratory of Civil Engineering (LNEC) with studies on various spatial scales. We have used different methodologies: bibliographical review, consultation of national archives, and an interview with her. Our proposal is not only to create female references but also to broaden the historical readings on women's participation in Portugal throughout the 20 th century.

Ekincioglu, M. (interviewee), 2020, “Archival Innovators: Dr. Meral Ekincioglu”, ArchivesAware!, Awareness and Outreach Resources for Archivists, https://archivesaware.archivists.org/2020/03/17/archival-innovators-dr-meral-ekincioglu/, last accessed on 12.12.2021.

In this installation of Archival Innovators, SAA Committee on Public Awareness [COPA] member Rachel Seale interviews Dr. Meral Ekincioglu on her research project and its findings in regards to diversity and underrepresented architecture communities in archives at pioneering schools of architecture in the United States.

Notice de dictionnaire consacrée à Marthe Jobart  (1645-1717), en religion sœur Madeleine Thérèse de Saint-Joseph, carmélite déchaussée au premier monastère de Nancy, religieuse architecte.
Consultable en ligne sur : http://siefar.org/dictionnaire/fr/Marthe_Jobart

This event has been cancelled for lack of support.
Symposium on Women in Arts on August 4, 2015 at the Katzen Arts Center at American University, 4400 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20016
http://www.wijsf.com/events/symposium.htm