Archinect - News

Buildings Speak: NPR special will explore the impacts of women on American architecture for International Women’s Day

2024-03-06T13:57:00-05:00

For this year's International Women’s Day on March 8, NPR is airing a special one-hour documentary produced with help from the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation (BWAF). The piece aims to shed light on the overlooked contributions of women in architecture to an American mass audience for the first time.

Narrated by the great Oscar-winning actor and producer Frances McDormand, ‘Buildings Speak: Stories of Pioneering Women Architects’ is a collaboration with producers The Kitchen Sisters. The special draws three of the figures (Julia Morgan, Amaza Lee Meredith, and Natalie de Blois) featured in the BWAF’s unmissable New Angle: Voice podcast series, the third season of which also premiers on International Women’s Day with a special focus on the architecture of the 1970s.

Tizziana Baldenebro, the new executive director of the BWAF, commented: “They are trailblazers, groundbreakers, skyscraper visionaries — women who changed the skyline and the built environment that surrounds us tod...

Oliver Wainwright on RIBA's '100 Women: Architects in Practice,' a new primer for industry-wide change

2024-02-29T13:40:00-05:00

We’re not there yet. In an industry where the gender pay gap has widened in recent years, where all-male panels at conferences are not unusual, and where macho culture still prevails on building sites, a book like this, sadly, still has a place.

Writing for The Guardian, critic Oliver Wainwright says he hopes RIBA’s new publication 100 Women: Architects in Practice, which we previewed in December, will encourage competition judges, academic panels, awards juries, exhibitions organizers, and rebuke “the headhunters who claim women never apply, [...] the clients who say they just can’t find women with the right experience.”

Many of the architects included in the book, namely Mariam Kamara, Suhailey Farzana, and others, are women whose practices are informed by and in service to decolonization in the developing world à la the 2023 RIBA Gold Medal winner Yasmeen Lari and 2021 Soane Medalist Marina Tabassum. (The profiles are divided into 18 geographical "sub-regions" based on the UN's geoscheme.)

The 320-page book was written by Harriet Harriss, Naomi House, Monika Parrinder, and Tom Ravenscroft, with Alison Brooks responsible for the foreword.

Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation and A+D Museum unveil "Built by Women" exhibit in Los Angeles

2020-02-25T14:02:00-05:00

The Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation (BWAF) and the Architecture and Design Museum in Los Angeles (A+D) have announced the latest iteration of the Built by Women exhibition, a program designed to celebrate "the breadth of achievement by women at the building industry’s highest levels in cities across the nation."

The exhibition, which features the work of 56 women-led architecture, landscape, engineering, and construction projects from the L.A. area, goes on view on May 15th at the A+D Museum and is timed to coincide with this summer's American Institute of Architects (AIA) Conference on Architecture, which is slated to take place in Los Angeles May 14-16th.

The Santa Monica Public Library by Moore Ruble Yudell Architects & Planners. Photo by John Linden

The exhibition is curated BWAF's all-female jury, a group made up of: Carrie Byles, FAIA, LEED AP, a partner at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill; Andrea Cochran, FASLA, president of Andrea Cochran Landscape Architecture; ErLeen Hatfi...

Tiffany Brown wants to bring more black women into the architecture field with her project “400 Forward”

2017-12-13T17:42:00-05:00

“I try to be the face that I was looking for growing up,” Brown said. “So if I go into a room or an auditorium and just one person is interested in architecture, then I’ve accomplished my mission.” The name comes from a milestone this past August, when the 400th African-American woman became licensed as an architect. There are 110,000 licensed architects in the country.

Raised in Detroit, architectural designer Tiffany Brown won a 2017 Knight Arts Challenge grant for her project “400 Forward”, which aims to bring in more black girls and women into the field of architecture and urban planning. According to Brown, only 0.3 percent of U.S. architects are black women.

Blair Kamin's standout Chicago architects of 2016 are all female, "but that's incidental"

2016-12-22T12:36:00-05:00

Jeanne Gang completed three exceptional projects, including the dramatic Writers Theatre in Glencoe, and saw construction begin on her 98-story Vista Tower [...] Carol Ross Barney finished the latest extension of Chicago's downtown Riverwalk [...] Juanita Irizarry, executive director of Friends of the Parks, led the successful fight against George Lucas' planned narrative art museum [...] What unites these achievements? Probably the fact that gender, in the end, had little to do with them.

Only one student enrolled in a Yale course about women architects, despite grievances against poor representation

2016-11-18T15:09:00-05:00

“This is not a position that has been strongly represented in this school historically,” [said Professor Kathleen James-Chakraborty, who believes] The crux of the issue is whether courses that champion diversity in architecture should be taught as optional, specialized seminars or integrated into the curriculum of the school.

Now with Deborah Berke as dean, the Yale School of Architecture is working to offer more courses focusing on women in architecture such as “Expanding the Canon: Making Room for Other Voices”, an optional seminar that would've been taught by visiting professor Kathleen James-Chakraborty. But only one student enrolled in the class “despite students voicing grievances about a lack of female representation”, the Yale Daily News reports.

James-Chakraborty questions if such diversity courses should become a requirement in the school's already rigid curriculum. Some female students say that YSoA still feels like “a gentleman's club”, and that the “student body is not well-primed to see the ‘radical nature’ of the course.”

More on Archinect:

Deborah Berke shares her vision as incoming dean at the Yale School of Architecture

Yale Dean Deborah Berke advocates pluralism in pedagogy

Struggles persist for women in the architectural workforce

When the pressure is on, dedicated architecture students sho...

Phyllis Lambert receives 2016 Wolf Prize in Israel

2016-06-03T18:47:00-04:00

The one and only Phyllis Lambert continues to rake in architecture honors from around the globe. She received the American Academy's Brunner Memorial Prize this past April and was bestowed the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement during the 2014 Venice Biennale. Most recently, the former Canadian Centre for Architecture Director has been honored with the 2016 Wolf Prize in Israel. Past laureates include Eduardo Souto de Moura, David Chipperfield, and Peter Eisenman.

More on Archinect:

Phyllis Lambert recognized with 2016 Arnold W. Brunner Memorial Prize

Phyllis Lambert named as 2014 Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement recipient

Phyllis Lambert steps down from Canadian Centre for Architecture

What architecture means to Zena Howard, project leader of the National Museum of African American History and Culture

2016-04-14T19:14:00-04:00

"And to me, as an African American, just realizing that this has actually come to be, that there's an actual National Museum for African American History and Culture on the Mall of Washington, D.C., and this museum should have happened years and years ago, but the realization that finally in America we're at a place where we can accept it ... It's one of the most prominent sites on the Mall. It's not somewhere tucked away.

Architect Zena Howard talks about what first drew her to architecture, the National Museum for African American History and Culture on which she worked as Senior Project Manager, and her outlook on the status of women in architecture.

More on Archinect:

Read an excerpt from the new “Where Are the Women Architects?” book

Meet Hossein Amanat, the architect who designed Iran's most famous monument

"An Angry Passion": Round-Up of Global Tributes to Charles Correa

How sexist is architecture? Female architects share their experiences

2016-04-13T12:54:00-04:00

After Ms. Hadid died on March 31 at 65, The New York Times, in an informal online questionnaire, asked female architects among its readers to talk candidly about their experiences in the profession: the progress they’ve made and the obstacles they still face on construction sites and in client meetings. Below are edited excerpts from a few of some 200 responses we received.

Architecture, already a tough field, can be even more challenging if you happen to be female. As Christine Matheu from Bloomington, Indiana recalls in this article, “There was a time when women were not allowed to be members of the Century Club. About that same time, as a young architect trying to survive, I was doing exhibition design and had been hired by an N.Y.C. art collector to do an installation of Piranesi prints for the Century Club. When the club learned that I was a woman architect, I was not allowed to install the exhibit. I, like many other women architects, found it much easier and less humiliating to just strike out on my own. I have been in my own practice now for 20 years.”

Also, a lifetime pro tip: STOP CALLING WOMEN OVER 18 GIRLS. Thanks!

Read an excerpt from the new “Where Are the Women Architects?” book

2016-04-11T20:08:00-04:00

As the stories of Hadid and Scott Brown show, the pairing of architecture prizes (or at least the big ones) and women raises hackles. Hadid won the Pritzker Prize amid talk that she did not deserve it; Scott Brown did not win the prize amid talk that she did not deserve it. No solo female architect has won the Pritzker Prize since Hadid, nor has a husband-and-wife architectural team ever been honored. Indeed, to date, of the 39 Pritzker Prize laureates, only two (or about 5 percent) are women.

Excerpted from her new book, Despina Stratigakos sheds some light on the Pritzker's lack of awarding women architects in their own right.

More on Archinect:

Despina Stratigakos on the emerging "third wave of feminism" in architecture

Why Zaha Hadid's gender and ethnicity mattered so much

Why International Women's Day matters (for architects)

Latent Complexity: Denise Scott Brown and Katherine Darnstadt (Latent Design) on Archinect Sessions #39

Why Zaha Hadid's gender and ethnicity mattered so much

2016-04-05T13:29:00-04:00

"It's a triple whammy," [Hadid] told the BBC Radio 4 in February. "I'm a woman, which is a problem to many people. I'm a foreigner — another problem. And I do work which is not normative, which is not what they expect. Together, it becomes difficult." Like any high-profile architect, Hadid was expected to produce strong, functional designs. But as a woman, she also faced the added pressure of having her work interpreted as some sort of gender statement.

More on Archinect:

Zaha on Zaha: "I always thought, you know, I should do well because the work is good."

“We just loved her”: Frank Gehry remembers Zaha Hadid

Fun game: spot the double-standards in this Zaha-bashing piece!

Zaha Hadid: 'Being an Arab and a woman is a double-edged sword'

Despina Stratigakos on the emerging "third wave of feminism" in architecture

2016-03-17T18:21:00-04:00

In 2000, women represented 13 percent of registered architects; today, that number stands at 19 percent. If this rate of progress holds, we’ll have to wait until 2093 before we reach a 50-50 gender split...Yet numbers alone won’t ensure retention if architecture’s gender-biased professional culture remains unchanged. Ten or 20 years from now, we may still be asking ourselves, 'Where are the women architects?'

Despina Stratigakos — whose Architect Barbie collaboration sparked heated debate a few years ago — reflects on architecture's glacial progress toward gender equity as well as the profession's emerging "third wave of feminism".

More related to equity in architecture:

Why International Women's Day matters (for architects)

AIA's Diversity Survey shows some progress, but still skewed perceptions

Latent Complexity: Denise Scott Brown and Katherine Darnstadt (Latent Design) on Archinect Sessions #39

Being an architect is sexy, according to modern society

The young Iranian architects who designed Tehran's new popular bridge

2015-04-21T13:30:00-04:00

Leila Araghian was 26 when she came up with Tabiat bridge. Five years on, the 270-metre structure is a reality, despite sanctions, garnering awards and paving the way for a new, more avant garde generation of Iranian designers.

Correction: Leila Araghian informed us that, contrary to the Guardian's depiction, the bridge design was a joint effort and commissioned to Diba Tensile Architecture, the company Araghian co-manages. The design team for Tabiat bridge was comprised of Leila Araghian, Alireza Behzadi, and Sahar Yâsaei.

What would our cities be like if they were designed by women?

2014-12-05T17:13:00-05:00

Nowhere in the world has a city yet been conceived and constructed along the lines that these women planners would like. Nowhere in the world do women, and others who share the inclusive goals of gender planning, have the political power or access to capital that such an urban renewal project would require.

Archinect remains committed to addressing the gender gap in architecture. If you haven't already, listen to our first podcast, which was devoted to the subject.

Kathryn Gustafson wins 8th Obayashi Prize

2014-11-21T21:41:00-05:00

Landscape architect Kathryn Gustafson of Seattle-based Gustafson Guthrie Nichol and London's Gustafson Porter recently received the eighth annual Obayashi Prize in Tokyo. Established by the Obayashi Foundation, the prize is awarded to a recipient whose work is in tune with the Foundation's mission of supporting interdisciplinary design research in relation to cities and urbanism.

Smithsonian American Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC by GUSTAFSON GUTHRIE NICHOL

Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial in Hyde Park, London UK by GUSTAFSON PORTER

Find out more on Bustler.

Sheila Kennedy of KVA MATx wins 2014 Berkeley-Rupp Prize

2014-09-15T18:47:00-04:00

Sheila Kennedy — a principal of KVA MATx and the first woman to hold the title of Professor of the Practice of Architecture at MIT’s School of Architecture & Planning — was announced today as the 2014 recipient of the Berkeley-Rupp Prize.

Awarded every two years by the UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design (CED), the $100,000 Berkeley-Rupp Prize is given to a distinguished design practitioner or academic who has made significant contribution to advance gender equity in the field of architecture, and whose work exhibits commitment to sustainability and community. The prize consists of a semester-long professorship, a public lecture, and a gallery exhibition at the CED. Deborah Berke of Deborah Berke Partners received the inaugural Berkeley-Rupp Prize in 2012.

Kennedy is scheduled to begin her residence in January 2015. On February 4, she will give a public lecture on soft infrastructure followed by an open studio exhibition showcasing her work in progress at Wurster Hall on the U...

Built By Women NYC is searching for 100 of the best NYC projects built by women

2014-09-10T19:49:00-04:00

Being a woman practicing in the fields of architecture, engineering, construction and the like is already a triumph in itself — let alone leading the design and construction of a built project. To honor this, the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation just launched Built By Women NYC, a project that highlights 100 outstanding buildings or built environments — historic or contemporary — located in New York City that were built/designed/constructed by women.

Until October 31, BxW NYC is accepting nominations of women who were directly responsible for leading the design (architecture, engineering, or landscape) or led the construction (either from the development or construction management team) for the structure or built environment. Projects must be completed or have broken ground and located in New York City.

Anyone of any gender is welcome to make a nomination! Women can also nominate themselves.

The jurors for BxW NYC include:

Deborah Berke, FAIA, Principal, Deborah Berke Partners
Joa...

Mecanoo’s Francine Houben named AJ Woman Architect of the Year 2014

2014-02-07T13:51:00-05:00

The Architects' Journal (UK) announced Francine Houben, creative director and founder of Dutch firm Mecanoo, as the recipient of the AJ Woman Architect of the Year 2014. The award honors design excellence and strong leadership among women in architecture.

Houben received the prestigious award in a ceremony at London's Langham Hotel on Feb. 7. Projects of Houben and Mecanoo include the high-profile Library of Birmingham, La Llotja de Lleida, and the Kaap Skil maritime and beachcombers museum.

Upon receiving the award, Houben said, "'I feel privileged to be a woman, to be a mother and to be an architect, which was not always an easy combination. It was also a privilege to design the Library of Birmingham, here in the UK. Libraries play an essential role in the emancipation of young women all over the world. I’m very proud to be able to design more projects with a ‘Dutch touch’ in the UK. I strongly believe that architecture is about teamwork, about being visionary and supportive at the ...

Arab Women in Architecture Film

2014-02-06T12:53:00-05:00

This 56-minute documentary film features interviews with nineteen Arab architects from Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, and Saudi Arabia. It explores the subject of the practice of architecture by Arab women architects and features stories on their experiences, challenges, and achievements. In order to facilitate viewing, the film is divided into six sequels.

The film was first screened during the Award's sixth cycle ceremony, which took place on January 7, 2014 at the German Jordanian University's Othman Bdeir House for Architecture and Design in Amman, Jordan.

2014 AIA Gold Medal posthumously awarded to Julia Morgan, FAIA - the first female recipient

2013-12-12T19:42:00-05:00

Fifty-six years after her death, the Board of Directors of the AIA voted today to honor the AIA Gold Medal to Julia Morgan, FAIA (1872-1957) — the first woman to ever receive the award. Morgan will be honored at the AIA 2014 National Convention and Design Exposition in Chicago.

Considered as the AIA's highest honor, the Gold Medal recognizes an individual's work that has majorly influenced the theory and practice of architecture. Morgan's most famous works include Hearst Castle; Asilomar YWCA in Pacific Grove, CA; and St. John's Presbyterian Church in Berkeley, CA.

Here are more details about Julia Morgan:

"Morgan won a litany of firsts she used to establish a new precedent for greatness. A building technology expert that was professionally adopted by some of the most powerful post-Gilded age patrons imaginable, Morgan practiced for nearly 50 years and designed more than 700 buildings of almost every type. The first woman admitted to the prestigious architecture school at the E...

Weeksville Heritage Center by Caples Jefferson Architects

2013-11-06T15:41:00-05:00

Following a strong architectural language of repetition, movement, rhythm, and proportion the ‘weeksville heritage center’ designed by American firm caples jefferson architects PC serves as a gateway to a 19th century african-american freedman’s settlement. the sustainably built complex is located in brooklyn, new york and features a new two-story, 23,000 sq ft building and 41,000 sq ft of landscape that redefines the site’s context.

Weeksville Heritage Center is a new sustainable cultural center designed by Caples Jefferson Architects PC. It is a two-story, 23,000 sq ft new building and 41,000 sq ft interpretive landscape, located at the intersection of Buffalo Avenue and Bergen Street in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, NY. In the 1960’s, four remaining buildings from this Brooklyn settlement were rediscovered. through 40 years of impassioned community support, the site eventually grew to serve as a focal african-american heritage site.

The primary purpose of the new structure and landscape is to serve as a gateway to the historic houses on the premises - remnants of the 19th century free African American community of Weeksville - with state-of-the-art exhibition, performance and educational facilities, as well as to provide a green oasis for visitors and the local community. The main lobby includes introductory exhibits and leads to a gallery, a lecture and performance space for 200, classrooms...

ArchiteXX and the Wage Project to inform women in architecture on important salary negotiation skills

2013-10-18T13:52:00-04:00

Especially for recent graduates, knowing how to smartly negotiate salaries can be a little confusing--and what with the ongoing issue of the gender wage gap. To offer help on the popular topic, ArchiteXX (formerly Women in Architecture) and the Wage Project will hold their first event tomorrow, Oct. 19 in New York City.

Led by Evelyn Murphy, the workshop event will teach all women practicing in architecture--from recent graduates to the more experienced--the necessary skills to be a sharper salary negotiator.

To buy tickets for the event and additional details, click here. Space is limited!

Women in American Architecture: 1977 and Today

2013-09-04T10:04:00-04:00

I think the development of design and planning ideas over the past three decades is where feminism has actually been most effective but least acknowledged...Architecture and planning have been reshaped by these feminist agendas in many areas...but I don’t believe academic culture acknowledges explicitly the influence of feminist ideas on the architectural and urban design practices and projects of the past three decades. - Torre

The Architectural League has published some of the content (the introductory essay) of Susan Torres's 1977 exhibition/book Women in American Architecture. They also released an interview with Susana Torre conducted earlier this year, by Rosalie Genevro and Anne Rieselbach.

h/t @amlblog here

Editor's Picks #328

2013-08-14T13:58:00-04:00

In the latest edition of the Working out of the Box series Archinect interviewed Brooklyn-based designer & artist Doug Johnston. His current profession is creating "objects by stitching rope together" and he explains "I guess sometime early on, I realized that my design work wouldn't be limited to buildings or objects, but would extend to the ‘design’ or planning of a functioning business and studio practice. This guided my choice to work in smaller offices so that I could have more exposure to the nuts and bolts of generating income managing workflow and cashflow, etc...Being able to apply design thinking to the business structure itself has been really exciting and helpful".

Thayer-D liked what he saw "Really beautiful stuff. It makes me think it would be incredibly useful to have architecture students actually build things besides models during school. If only to get a tactile understanding of what their drawings might be and what goes into realizing them".

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Over ...

Why are so many women leaving architecture?

2013-08-08T13:37:00-04:00

It is a sad fact that the number of women in architecture is dropping, whilst in many other professions women have long had parity in numbers as well as pay and status. Of the Royal Institute of British Architects' (RIBA) 27,000 chartered architects, just 4,000 are women. Whilst the number of female architecture students has grown – now 44%, we can't seem to retain them in the profession. Just 34% officially qualified chartered architects are women.

Editor's Picks #327

2013-08-07T11:36:00-04:00

Amelia Taylor-Hochberg Editorial Manager for Archinect, reviewed the exhibit Never Built: Los Angeles, currently on display at the Architecture and Design Museum in L.A. She concluded "When Los Angeles appears so often but rarely as itself, Andersen’s piece honors the city’s ability to be a kind of transforming icon -- each destination in conversation with its inhabitants. It's impossible to know exactly what Los Angeles would be like today were these projects successful, but that isn't the point of "Never Built" -- it captures the collective consciousness of a city in the unrealized language of iconic architecture".

News

Justine Testado Archinect’s Editorial Intern highlighted the work of CARDBORIGAMI™, an effort started by Tina Hovsepian to "provide temporary, transitional shelter and connections to social services to help get people off the streets". Her Cardborigami shelter is currently on display at the Berkshire Museum's latest exhibit, "PaperWorks: The Art and Sc...

Beyond the Pritzker: What's Next for Women in Architecture?

2013-07-30T20:07:00-04:00

My own conviction is that the most meaningful prolonged response to the Pritzker — but much more, to the entrenched discrimination it both reflects and reinforces — will involve political action directed toward measureable change. It will involve ramping up the current professional and cultural conversation — now focused on sharing experiences, promoting awareness, influencing leaders in the field — and articulating specific goals, definable outcomes.

Lately the subject of women's status in architecture — long dismissed as essentialist and unnecessary — has bounded back onto the agenda. As recent articles, books, exhibitions, online discussions and petition campaigns all attest, the full integration of the profession remains a fraught and unfinished business. Nancy Levinson, editor of Places Journal, argues that it's time to engage the larger sphere of political activism — to translate the widespread awareness of tenacious inequality into an ongoing campaign with concrete goals.

Kazy Varnelis says, "Good riddance, Pritzker"

2013-06-15T14:12:00-04:00

The sort of patronizing language used in the letter by Lord Palumbo is all too familiar. It is the voice of money and authority, the same sort of voice that spoke out against the rights of the women, the poor, and minorities. It is, alas, the voice of what Brown describes as the "sad white men's award."

Pritzker jury will not revisit decision to exclude Denise Scott Brown

2013-06-14T19:28:00-04:00

“Insofar as you have in mind a retroactive award of the prize to Ms. Scott Brown, the present jury cannot do so” -Peter Palumbo, the Pritzker chairman

No Pritzker Prize for Denise Scott Brown and no more pretzels for you guys! Boooooooo!

Unforgetting Women Architects

2013-06-03T17:15:00-04:00

A historian might spend decades undertaking research in archives and writing up discoveries in scholarly journals, but if the work does not have a presence online — and, specifically, a presence that is not behind a paywall — it is all but invisible outside academia. As Ridge states, “If it’s not Googleable, it doesn’t exist.”

Over the decades women architects have received scant attention from historians and prize juries. On Places, Despina Stratigakos writes, "The painful cancellation of Denise Scott Brown in the awarding of the Pritzker Prize solely to her husband and collaborator, Robert Venturi, is an important but hardly exceptional example of how female partners are written out of history by a profession suffering from Star Architect Disorder, or SAD." Stratigakos argues that it's time to write women back into history — and that the place to start is Wikipedia.