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Feminist theory as it relates to architecture has forged the way for the rediscovery of such female architects as Eileen Gray, Charlotte Perriand, Marion Mahoney Griffin, Lilly Reich, Jane Drew, Lina Bo Bardi, Anne Tyng, Norma Merrick Sklarek, Denise Scott Brown, among many others. These women imagined an architecture that challenged the status quo, and paved the way for future women designers and architects. [1]
In July 1872, Julia Ward Howe, a champion of women's rights, delivered a lecture to the Victorian Discussion Society in London, focusing on women artists. She pondered the absence of female architects despite their perceived suitability and potential in the field.
"Women ought to agitate to be articled to some of our architects, many of whom, unfortunately, have neither taste or ideas, and could do nothing but calculate the bricks wanted, and the profits to be made." [2]
A number of male critics and journalists who specialized in architecture used this opportunity to negatively criticize women entering the architectural field, proclaiming it a "men's profession." These men included Thomas Raggles Davison, the editor of the British Architect, who published an article in 1902 entitled "May Women Practise Architecture?" where he came to the conclusion that "women are temperamentally unfitted to the production of good architectural design" and that "their lightness of touch," and "charming decorativeness lacked the masculine strength of handling needed for architecture." [2] Just 16 years later, in April 1888, Louise Bethune, became the first woman elected to be a member of the American Institute of Architects (AIA).
"The future of a woman in the architectural profession is what she sees herself fit to make it." [3]
The first two architecture programs in the US were developed at both the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1865 and at Cornell University in 1871, both based on the teachings of the Parisian school; Ecole des Beaux-Arts. [4]
The idea of the changing needs of the family can be seen in the houses of Truus Schröder, Eileen Gray and LeCorbusier's Villa Stein de-Monzie. The Rietveld Schröder House is an excellent example of the way that the "modern" lives of the family demanded a new architecture.
"The Schröder House was not only a creative work of artistic design but offered its users a new environment in which to redefine family life, women's rights and the responsibilities of individuals and to each other" [5]
Much like Schröder, Gray designed an architecture that would address the needs of the occupants and the new family unit. Gray worked within the model of modern architecture, LeCorbusier's "5 points of new architecture" for example as well as addressing the issues of the building or home as an experience. [6] This house is of particular importance in feminist theory because it called into question the typical domestic group and gender relations. This domestic group that included a married couple and a woman with her child called domestic space into question.
Jane Drew, a prominent Modernist architect from Britain, served as a principal architect at the firm Fry, Drew and Partners, founded in 1950 alongside Maxwell Fry. One of Jane Drew's most prominent designs was the Pilkington Brothers Head Office in St Helen's, England, built in 1964. [7] [ page needed ] She was an influential figure in making strides for women in architecture, specifically in the modernist era.
Denise Scott Brown, another influential architect, of Venturi, Scott Brown, and Associates, was a graduate from the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London in 1955. In 1967, back when it was incredibly rare for women to become principals of any firm, she became co-principal alongside Robert Venturi. Although their work would most likely be classified as post-modernist architecture, Denise Scott Brown's advocation for women in architecture still applies.
Cini Boeri states in the Breaking Ground: Architecture by Women book written by Jane Hall:
"When I'm designing I never think about being either a woman or a man." [7] [ page needed ]
In 1905, Mabel Brown, of the San Francisco Chronicle, interviewed licensed women architects to further understand why women "remained something of a curiosity" and was told that "it is next to impossible for women to make headway when denied a beginning." [2]
The 1970s saw an increase in recognition of women who were practicing in the field of architecture.
OWA (The Organization of Women Architects), Chicago Women in Architecture, and AWA (The Alliance of Women in Architecture) are just three organizations who developed platforms which aimed to shine a light on the challenges women encounter in the field of architecture due to discrimination, while also offering guidance and encouragement to their members in progressing their professional paths.
There are a number of women in architecture who have continued and extended upon the work of women in modernism, like Tatiana Bilbao, Zaha Hadid, Jeanne Gang, Kazuyo Sejima, Odile Decq, Maya Lin, Elizabeth Diller, Farshid Moussavi, Toshiko Mori, Elizabeth Diller, Sofia von Ellrichshausen, among others. [1] [8]
These women are just a few of some of the most influential architects of our time. It is important to acknowledge that they did not create "feminist architecture" but instead have paved the way for women in this field to advocate for further representation and equality.
For example, Zaha Hadid was born in Iraq, and emerged as a leading architect of her generation, carrying forward the legacy of the women from the modernist era with profound influence. She was the very first woman to ever win the Pritzker Prize in 2004 (a prominent architectural design award given to only a select group of influential designers). In 2015, she was also the only woman to be presented with the Royal Gold Medal for Architecture by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA). [7] [ page needed ] This is especially important for women architects and designers today, as the number of women being acknowledged in these authoritative positions is still incredibly rare.
Another principal architect, Elizabeth Diller, of Diller Scofidio + Renfro, states in the Breaking Ground: Architecture by Women book:
"Rather than trying to kick the establishment walls down, we're walking in through the front door." [7] [ page needed ]
The co-founder of Bubble Architects, Patricia Hickey, stated in the book Where are the Women Architects, "We need to be clear that women are being held back from promotion in architectural offices not because the practice directors think they will not be respected on site, but because the primarily male directors do NOT respect female leaders within the office." [2] This is incredibly important to note as this makes sure we do NOT place the blame on the women in terms of accessing higher, more authoritative positions, and rather hold the primarily CIS-gendered men in these positions accountable for their misogynistic actions.
There is an obscene amount of gender discrimination that women face as they exit architecture school and transition into the current field of design, architecture, and engineering. The unfortunate statistic is that although there is an increase in women graduating from architecture school, there is a continuous decline in licensed women architects, more specifically, women of color. In the book, Where are the Women Architects?" by Despina Stratigakos, it is stated that in the year 2000, 13 percent of registered architects were women, and in 2016, the percentage only grew to 19 percent. [2] Based on this slow progress and data, it might be 2093 before there will be a 50/50 split for both women and men.
Another unfortunate reality for women in this field is the issue of sexual harassment and misogyny. This is especially evident in the construction management side of the field, where women are often looked down upon.
Gerrit Rietveld was a Dutch furniture designer and architect.
De Stijl, incorporating the ideas of Neoplasticism, was a Dutch art movement founded in 1917 in Leiden, consisting of artists and architects. The term De Stijl is also used to refer to a body of work from 1917 to 1931 created in the Netherlands. Proponents of De Stijl advocated pure abstraction and universality by a reduction to the essentials of form and colour. They simplified visual compositions to vertical and horizontal, using only black, white and primary colors.
Dame Zaha Mohammad Hadid was an Iraqi-British architect, artist and designer, recognised as a key figure in architecture of the late-20th and early-21st centuries. Born in Baghdad, Iraq, Hadid studied mathematics as an undergraduate and then enrolled at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in 1972. In search of an alternative system to traditional architectural drawing, and influenced by Suprematism and the Russian avant-garde, Hadid adopted painting as a design tool and abstraction as an investigative principle to "reinvestigate the aborted and untested experiments of Modernism [...] to unveil new fields of building".
Eileen Gray was an Irish architect with no formal training and furniture designer who became a pioneer of the Modern Movement in architecture. Over her career, she was associated with many notable European artists of her era, including Kathleen Scott, Adrienne Gorska, Le Corbusier, and the architect Jean Badovici, with whom she was romantically involved and who taught her architecture and collaborated with her on various buildings. Their most famous work is the house known as E-1027 in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, France.
The Rietveld Schröder House in Utrecht was built in 1924 by Dutch architect Gerrit Rietveld for Mrs. Truus Schröder-Schräder and her three children.
E-1027 is a modernist villa in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, in the Alpes-Maritimes department of France. It was designed and built from 1926-29 by the Irish architect and furniture designer Eileen Gray and the French/Roumanian Architect Jean Badovici. L-shaped and flat-roofed with floor-to-ceiling windows and a spiral stairway to the guest room, E-1027 was both open and compact. This is considered to be Gray's first major work, making indistinct the border between architecture and decoration, and highly personalized to be in accord with the lifestyle of its intended occupants. The name of the house, E-1027, is a code of Eileen Gray and Jean Badovici, 'E' standing for Eileen, '10' Jean, '2' Badovici, '7' Gray. The encoded name was Eileen Gray's way of showing their relationship as lovers at the time when built.
Denise Scott Brown is an American architect, planner, writer, educator, and principal of the firm Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates in Philadelphia.
Modern furniture refers to furniture produced from the late 19th century through the present that is influenced by modernism. Post-World War II ideals of cutting excess, commodification, and practicality of materials in design heavily influenced the aesthetic of the furniture. It was a tremendous departure from all furniture design that had gone before it. There was an opposition to the decorative arts, which included Art Nouveau, Neoclassical, and Victorian styles. Dark or gilded carved wood and richly patterned fabrics gave way to the glittering simplicity and geometry of polished metal. The forms of furniture evolved from visually heavy to visually light. This shift from decorative to minimalist principles of design can be attributed to the introduction of new technology, changes in philosophy, and the influences of the principles of architecture. As Philip Johnson, the founder of the Department of Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art articulates:
"Today industrial design is functionally motivated and follows the same principles as modern architecture: machine-like simplicity, smoothness of surface, avoidance of ornament ... It is perhaps the most fundamental contrast between the two periods of design that in 1900 the Decorative Arts possessed ..."
The International Archive of Women in Architecture (IAWA) was established in 1985 as a joint program of the College of Architecture and Urban Studies and the University Libraries at Virginia Tech.
Truus Schröder-Schräder (1889–1985) was a Dutch socialite and trained pharmacist who was closely involved with avant-garde artists and architects of the De Stijl movement. Together with Gerrit Rietveld, she built a house for herself and her three children — the Rietveld Schröder House — which is today a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Initially credited as a joint designer, this was often forgotten later once Rietveld became a well-known architect. Immediately following their collaboration on the house, she went on to work with Rietveld on multiple other architectural projects as well.
Johanna Erna Else Schröder was a Dutch architect and educator. After becoming one of the first women to practice architecture in the Netherlands, she opened her own architecture and interior design firm in Amsterdam. In the 1963, she immigrated to the United States where she went on to teach interior design at Adelphi University, Parsons School of Design, New York Institute of Technology and Virginia Commonwealth University.
Women in architecture have been documented for many centuries, as professional practitioners, educators and clients. Since architecture became organized as a profession in 1857, the number of women in architecture has been low. At the end of the 19th century, starting in Finland, certain schools of architecture in Europe began to admit women to their programmes of study. In 1980 M. Rosaria Piomelli, born in Italy, became the first woman to hold a deanship of any school of architecture in the United States, as Dean of the City College of New York School of Architecture. In recent years, women have begun to achieve wider recognition within the profession, however, the percentage receiving awards for their work remains low. As of 2023, 11.5% of Pritzker Prize Laureates have been female.
Thekla Schild was a German architect. In 1913 she became the second woman in Germany to earn a degree in architecture.
The Jane Drew Prize is an architecture award given annually by the Architects' Journal to a person showing innovation, diversity and inclusiveness in architecture. It is named after the English modernist architect Jane Drew.
Elsa Mandelstamm Gidoni was a German-American architect and interior designer.
Flora Ruchat-Roncati (1937–2012) was a Swiss architect and professor. She was from Ticino, and became a pioneering figure in the Ticinese School of architecture, which was influential in the mid-1970s, mixing the sensitivity to the traditional with modernism.
Despina Stratigakos is a Canadian-born architectural historian, writer, former vice provost, and professor of architecture at the University at Buffalo.
Elisabeth von Knobelsdorff was a German engineer, and architect.
Elizabeth Diller, also known as Liz Diller, is an American architect and partner in Diller Scofidio + Renfro, which she co-founded in 1981. She is also an architecture professor at Princeton University.