i know that there are many many many successful and talented women out there who practice architecture.
however, it seems to me that very few independent woman architects get "press." zaha is almost like the exception that proves the rule. most of the women in architecture who i've seen profiled are (coincidentally?) married to their business partners. tod williams & billie tsien are the main example that comes to mind.
almost seems like the vestigial conservatism of a profession that has long been more parochial than progressive. if i were a woman (i guess it's apparent that i'm not) i might get the sense that the preferable way to advance / excel in architecture is to team up with a man. preferably one's husband.
i mean, i have no problem with men and women partnering -- absolutely not -- and if your best friend and spouse is also your business partner -- fine. my problem is with the coverage, with the press. you don't have to dig much to find out about rem koolhaas, but julie snow and anne fourgeron are much better architects (in my humble opinion). just to name two women who practice independent of their spouses.
what a convenient way to reinforce wrong old notions of male superiority (especially in the field of abstract thinking and grand visionmaking) while putting forth an image of equality and gender tolerance.
and like most things, i don't think it's an overt conspiracy. like most prejudices this one is subconscious, probably, like the way some people unconsciously get tense around people of different races without being conscious racists.
but it's still wrong -- it's our job as humans to know and fix ourselves.
i think julie snow has got a bunch of press...but i also think
her projects haven't reached the same scale as rem. it
could also be that she's located in minnesota...same problem
for vincent james i believe...
as far as partnering and that being the main way to get press..
i dunno...the partners at shop have a husband and wife team
or two...thompson and rose used to be married...diller and
scofidio...i believe thom mayne's wife works at morphosis.
miralles also partnered with benedetta...scogin and elam.
but it seems to me that the work is good enough to stand on
it's own..i don't think there's enough of a sample size to say
that they're gettin published because they're married. i think
it could be just as easily said that the women in most of those
relationships are at least as strong as the men...the argument
is sort of weird in that regard.
i just think it's a case where there aren't that many women-led
firms...a profession that is still dominated (numbers-wise) by
men. i'd say that if you did the same study with interior design
firms or landscape firms that you'd find a different story...
thanks for that ochona. it's a valuable discussion.
i'm wondering, too, if the media focuses on the accomplishments of men because the heroic male artist-star is more palatable to its audiences than a leading woman.
there's no doubt that having media support is important to grow an architect's career, gaining prominent commissions and professional development. the question is if the media plays a critical part in 'selecting' the stars -- who gets the nurturing, and who has to try extra hard to get attention. and no, it's by no means objective.
(we can argue a long time if rem's work actually deserves his media clout, if he cuts a handsome profile and fits what we imagine to be a brilliant architect, etc ...)
i think it's very complicated, but part of the underrepresentation of prominent women architects does have to do as wll with the vestiges of the boys' club elitism (same as that you see in law and politics). it's harder for women to 'ease their way in' without the 'support' of a male figure. (yeah, i think it's difficult to understand or believe if you've never experienced it)
it'd be nice to imagine those days are over, but you're right, ochona, it's now.
Not to offend anyone or to pretend that this problem doesn't exist, but I'm personnally more and more interested in collective practices, and especially in architect couples. My favorite firm when I was a kid was Diller and Scofidio, but I've recently discovered the work of allison and peter smithon and I think the underestimated work they have produced could differs from the previous CIAM philosophy because of the balance they 've found in their couple. I don't think it's wrong to stay on your own, but to work with a woman precisely pushes you to adress the gender problem in your own architectural practice. Too bad my girlfriend doesn' t want to work with me anymore (I'm too lazy, talk about a living male stereotype). We would have been the Lacaton and Vassal of the future.
thanks for the thought, ochona. you hit it right on the mark.
the media privileges the male artist (in this case, the architect) figure because it satiates the appetite for the construction of myths. and like politics, education, and the like, architecture is just another form of an institution that holds the production of men in high regard. men are seen as activators, women are seen as mere passive contributors.
and the fact that women (according to your proposition) are introduced into the text in tandem with their partners is a testament to the fact that our society gives presence to women only in the context of and relationship to men. that's probably why the possibility of fertility without men is so threatening to men. but that's another unending discussion...
i don't think it's "unconscious," but rather, i think it's very much built into our patriarchal culture and society.
on the other hand, fashion privileges women over men. but this could very well be because fashion is very much dependent on presentation and "seeing." and women are, according to ms. mulvey, "to be looked at."
I think a really great example is the " The Patkaus" they are referred to as one in the same more often than they are as individuals ( John and Pat ) Although they do have a different role as far as the daily routine. The fact is its a team and not just one.
I also happen to think they produce work at the absolute highest level project after project.
in addition to all of the great architects mentioned previously, here are a few more to add to your memory banks...i'm not sure how many of these are husband/wife teams though...
lindy roy
winka dubbeldam (archi-tectonics)
nathalie de vries (MVRDV)
nanako umemoto (reiser + umemoto)
jennifer siegal (office of mobile design)
lise ann couture (asymptote)
laurinda spear (arquitectonica)
louisa hutton (sauerbruch + hutton)
andrea leers & jane weinzapfel (leers + weinzapfel)
laurie hawkinson (smith-miller + hawkinson)
toshiko mori
monica ponce de leon (office da)
caroline bos (un studio)
sulatan kolatan (kolatan + macdonald)
karen fairbanks (marble + fairbanks)
also, don't forget about the ultimate husband + wife team:
charles + ray eames
and the collaborations between le corbusier and eileen gray
are the gender-equal/gender-neutral collaborations the future of architectural practice? are we just a generation away from the death of male-dominated starchitecture as we know it?
ochona, your arguement is interesting. Would Liz Diller be where she is today without her husband? I don't know. She's very talented, but would the press ignore her? Why is it that Sarah Susanka, a good architect but nothing mind blowing, has gotten a lot of press? Is it all based on her book?
What's also interesting is that a lot of women work in the architectural press field...
rationalist:
SANAA = Sejima + Nishizawa
Anette Gigon = Gigon & Guyer
Farshid Moussavi = Foreign Office
muf and van der Pol might be more nationally known in Britain and the Netherlands, respectively
and Francine Houben = mecanoo
Julie Snow?!? Very overrated. I attended a speech she made where she said her concept for a big glass cube office park in North Dakota was a Snickers bar. Since then the joke has been that it was actually a Baby Ruth bar because it looks like crap! She's even more abrasive personally. Contractors and consultants speak very negatively about working with her. She's very feminist, to the point where she hates men - and believes men opress women in architecture. She thinks she's a top 10 designer in the world, and is extremely egotistical about herself. Personally I believe the press she has received has much to do with her gender, but that's just my opinion.
As for women in the profession, I'd say there are many reasons why you don't hear women names very often, not excluding the fact that in some ways it's still a man's business. (As I look around my office I can't see how anyone could say that anymore, but that's neither here nor there.)
I do think there are many excellent female designers out there. People like Julie Snow get their name out there because she owns her own firm, but most of us work for someone else and when we design something the firm name goes in the publications first. I personally know many female designers with published work - only the firm name gets more credit than the individual. Right or wrong that's how it works. The women are out there.
i find this topic really interesting... i guess partially because i can't stop trying to break into the boy's clubs (eng to arch to god knows what else...).
i can't speak that accurately for architecture, but i do believe that the vestiges of a male dominated profession are there no matter what the numbers tell you. the idea of the boys club is that the top of the top keep to themselves... so as much as it might be a 50/50 split... who actually becomes famous?
not to say that men are all egotistical, but maybe they're more willing to self-promote than attribute their work to a team effort? this can even be applied in a broader sense that some people will attempt to put their names out there more than others. as it was mentioned before here, regardless of sex, some people are really just better architects than others but it doesn't guarantee them fame.
someone brought up how fashion is more friendly to women... now i must argue that. as much as i'd like to believe that there are some professions dominated by women, that's untrue from what i've seen. at best there are 60-40 splits... at best. and that's likely because a greater number of women are interested in wearing fashion. what woman solely designs clothes for men? and who would go to a male lingerie boutique?
think of the brandnames you know... how many famous women do you come up with?
male designers:
dolce & gabbana
giorgio armani
alexander mcqueen
roberto cavalli
calvin klein
ralph lauren
valentino
versace -> only recently solely female
lastly... the male-female teams will eventually rule.... the likelihood of having your design appeal and cater to everyone increases with the more perspectives you have. it's just natural.
oh, and i'm not a bitter female... i just think this is reality. maybe when men start carrying babies around for 9 months things will change ;)
oh, sorry, i should have been more specific. i was thinking more about modeling.
and you are right about designers being males. but they are mostly gay males and they distort the ideal of beauty. females are discouraged from their natural curves and encouraged to look more like spindly little boys --perhaps to satiate the desires of these gay men?
This arguement is starting to become quite contradictory: we've established that male architects get more press than women, that is true. I think we also established that more men are currently practicing now. That might change soon, since if my school is any indication, the future graduating classes will be dominantly female (about 60 percent). But it would be easy to make the arguement that there is more male press because there are more men in the profession.
Now, I definately don't want to sound sexist, I know that a women can design just as good or better than any man, but I think the LAST thing we should do is start telling architectural journals to go looking for female architects to publish. If a good building designed by a man doesn't get the proper attention it deserves because periodicals opt to publish a marginal building designed by a women in order to appease a politcally correct notion, then our profession suffers. The same is true in the other direction (although I personally find it preposterous that editors sit in their meetings and go "we can't publish that! it was designed by a girl! Just seeing this building will give fine upstanding male architects COOTIES!").
I think good architecture deserves to be published, and the gender of the architect is irrelavent.
I'm with SeanNOLA. I do not want to see the press give more attention to a woman architect because she's a woman, I want to see good buildings regardless of the gender(s) that produced the work.
Isn't it true that Bob Venturi first refused the Pritzker because they would not consent to awarding it to "the team of Venturi+Scott Brown", but only wanted to give it to him as a stand-alone practitioner? If you check the Pritzker website, however, you see that only his name is listed. I believe he relented and accepted it alone.
One basic aspect of press, though, is to draw attention in order to sell ads. The media will focus on the architect who gives good press rather than the staid but quietly brilliant designer. Look at the vanity articles rcently on Zaha, she's such an interesting figure, regardless of gender, that media want to showcase her personality first, buildings second.
there are more women in law school now than there are men, but why do males outnumber partners in major law firms? there is more press or recognition for males in general because um, yes, our society is one functions on patriarchy and is defined by a patriarchal history (adopted from western europe, perhaps).
i think it can be problematic to fulfill quotas in terms of doing explicit searches just to underscore the contributions of women. it should be a more organic effort that is based on merit rather than gender or sex. but, like affirmative action, specific measures must be taken (even though they come off as a bit dubious) to make it a more level playing field.
in general the gender of the architect (or artist, in my experience) should not have anything to do with their practice or production. but this obviously is not the case. the choices people make in terms of design, whatever, is heavily influenced (deliberately or subconsciously) but their experiences and even their physical relationship with objects. to that end, do the designs of female architects align with their physical relationship to buildings? (women, on the most part, tend to be proportionally smaller in size than men.)
people always fret about how fields like the sciences are male dominated, but if you think about it, women haven't been even voting (at least in this country) for more than a century, while enfranchised men have been voting since....yup, since they invented it.
the architectural approach tends to favor a slow process so it's not surprising that it's also culture that always seems more late than early to catch onto some trend/ or movement ( and here i'm thinking about eveyrthing from technology to continental philosophy.) Didn't neil spiller once say something about 'architecture/ architectural education is still being stuck in the 19th century'? that might explain why women tend to be gain more 'success' when they partner up with husbands. because it's easy to get light headed from these corsets!
but then again, what with the gender politics of our hyper consumer society, who knows? maybe we can finally look forward to seeing some more single parent architecture firms.
ok, i can totally attest to the boy's club stuff. i've been in rooms of men (groups of three, rooms of dozens) where so much of that heterosexual american "buddy buddy" stuff is batted about. talking about which woman in the office's hot. goddam those fuckin GC's. oh, this one time i was at bat ready to swing. buddies bringing on other buddies into the business ... on and on.
i'm not saying this is 100% sexist or malicious. beyond politics, there are some friendships there. but it's definitely an unfair advantage and it's insular. it really does feel like a special club sometimes. (of course, my work has a combination of contractors, architects, and developers).
why don't women have that kind of clientelist stuff going on? it's like the women don't have enough power in the company or critical mass to have a kind of girl's club, if you will ...
despite there being a number of innovative young firms with leadership of women and men, i feel that the american architecture industry at large is much more backwards when it comes to openness towards women, etc, than in other western countries. and that's a fault.
don't get me wrong... i do agree that either gender should not get press simply for being of that gender. it will do no good to our development in the fields.
geezopeez... i see what you mean about models, but is that possibly because a female models popularity is mostly driven by males and their sex appeal? just a thought.
also, while i understand that the ratio of women to men in architecture school/firms is steadily increasing... architects generally don't get the recognition until about 50's right? we've still got easily 20 years to see a change in the media and upper management of firms.
can a woman be an architect as a woman or must she become a cartoon of manliness?
hadid and sejima are both very agressive people. sounds like some of the others mentioned above are as well. the women i enjoy working witha re also very strong personality wise. could be coincedence...
a few additions to the last of succesful practioners; petra blaisse, who is brilliant; astrid klein of klein dytham, also quite talented; Itsuko Hasegawa, a pioneer female architect in japan; Alison Brooks, who worked for Ron Arad way back, (and helping him to move from furniture to architecture by the way). am sure there are many more.
sejima is one of my favorite architects ... perhaps by 'aggressive' you mean her relentless vision when designing, jump? (i know she worked for toyo ito, who ive heard tears up his employees' unsatisfactory ideas!)
i hope aggressive does not = manliness. i think to be of that rank, you have to be aggressive no matter which gender.
(but i suppose it doesn't fit the notion of gentle and passive femininity, especially in japan).
i spoke to astrid klein very briefly at superdeluxe last year ... very cool group at their office.
pinstripe --yes, it's totally driven by the fact that female models are meant to be looked at. they are mute and their bodies function as objects on which clothes hang (literally!). and women aren't innocent of doing the same thing, either. this type of patented and expected behavior is so pervasive that women begin adopting the very same practices that subordinate them.
jump --interesting analysis re: "cartoon of manliness." hadid, for instance, is often spoken of with adjectives like "austere" and "cold" and even "asexual." she never really talks about her status as a woman architect, does she? and i know folks who have referred to her as a flagrant "bitch." it's funny, because the macho architects (i won't mention names, but a local one whose first name begins with an "e" comes to mind) are celebrated caricatures. it is expected and even "normal" for a male architect to be an asshole. whereas for women, their aggression or aggressive style of design becomes a negative attribute in writing and criticism.
a cartoon of manliness can only exist if you allow that gender-specific personality to continue.
granted it's always a theory of mine that you just have to act like them to be one of them, but to say that's a male archetype is just perpetuating the idea. aggressive women are everywhere, and have been everywhere... but before they were either burned at the stake, considered insane, or only allowed the domain of the home. aggressive people just get more press period. they want it more and far more willing to push themselves on anyone.
i could imagine though that an architect like hadid may not mention her status as a woman architect because she doesn't want to seem like she's exploiting an under-represented category. maybe she just wants respect and to be treated like an equal and sees that it's unnecessary to bring up that she is female.
i would want to be famous and respected because of my work, regardless of gender. but if my gender were to help someone else understand that they can do it too, that this door isn't closed to them, to give them hope and inspiration... then power to me.
' Look at the vanity articles rcently on Zaha, she's such an interesting figure, regardless of gender, that media want to showcase her personality first, buildings second.'
it is not a surprise that the same country that helped form her, the uk, is the same that predominantly formed the backlash against her. this is not just a case of too much avant garde, but a very british case of
!camp!. the british sense of camp is very well refined, as is its trivialization of it. zaha, without question, is majestically camp. wart and all.
my perception after working at SOM for a while before/after i graduated was that at the entry level, the split was about 50/50. by the time one got just to associate, the lowest ownership level in the firm, it looked like 75/25 in favor of men. and we did not have a single female partner in the chicago office when i was there from 2000 - 2003. that much i can prove. maybe it's changed, i don't know. of course, SOM is probably the extreme in the field when it comes to the boy's clubs.
but then again, i had an ex-employer (who was a gay man and an avowed liberal) who asked the female employees point-blank if they were contemplating having kids. when the answer was no from everyone, he said "good! i won't have to pay for maternity insurance and your nine months of leave."
also, i remember reading an article in texas architect about husband and wife teams. one architect in houston, gerald moorhead, "did all the designing" while his poor wife was relegated to specs and running the business. that's what got me started thinking about this.
architects aren't the only folks who would prefer not to be cited alongside gender. i think this applies to everyone. of course, many women [insert profession here] prefer the recognition as i believe it gives them visibility, especially within a field that's dominated by men.
i know i'd like to be recognized more for my contributions to a particular field than as a woman who made contributions to a particular field. the latter sounds like a parting gift.
well yes... everyone wants to be recognized for their abilities rather than be given something on a platter just because you match a certain stereotype. i'm sure everyone can agree with that. well.. unless you're lazy as hell.
re: ochona's post.
i said this earlier.... i think when men can become pregnant we will see a huge switch in gender ratios in the workplace. there might be paternity leave, but it's less of a threat than watching a woman swell up over 9 months and having the employer concerned that she may leave for months at a time or all together to raise the kids.
so here's my next question... how many of the successful women out there are very involved in their kid's lives? or even have kids?
a couple of thoughts on this topic, one, we have to remember that the old boys club in architecture is really old...don't forget that philip johnson finally passed just a couple of months ago. and many of the most notable architects are in their seventies before they start to really get any attention from the press or public at large. women will get there, but it does take some time.
secondly, although i don't spend much time contemplating it, i have always been slightly troubled by the insidiousness of things like sexism in our culture. for example, i know that many of you have seen the kahn movie "my architect" but was anybody else a little taken aback by how male-centric it was? admittedly, it was fundamentally about a relationship between a boy and his father...and given that the father was missing i suppose its natural that the son would be especially fascinated by him. still, it seemed to be that even the title of "my architect" immediately reinforced the gender types with the father recieving credit as architect even though he was relatively absent.
i don't claim to fully understand what i'm talking about here, but the movie tapped into something (probably too subtle & complex for my mind) that left me feeling uneasy. any other thoughts on this movie and its undertone of gender & architecture would be appreciated...of course, if i can't make sense of it, i'll just subscribe to the new theory of "intelligent design" and vote republican in the next election.
my husband and I got into a good argument the other day and I was for once thumped.
Heres how it went: on TV was a feminist asking a politician about gender equality and women still making less than men and recieving less recognition. I said something like, "yeh, that's bullshit." my husband, who is usually very in tune with issues of equality, smirked. I said if you don't think it happens, think again buster. So his argument was simply that women leave the workplace for maternity leave and usually are less able to travel and therefore don't get paid as well and cannot receive promotions like men. To him, the woman on the TV coudn't make an argument b/c she was talking in generalities and IN GENERAL women will receive less pay than men, it is a fact of life.
However, I can't wait until the whole world realizes that women are far superior to men.
agreed strawbeary. to support that, i have a friend that is a stay at home dad. he struggles to find work that is flexible to his needs of caring for his two boys, and when he does that pay is not as great.
i can't wait until ppl realize that superior ppl come from all sexes, races, religions, etc. and that one is not better than the other. just different.
my own feeling is that fathers are much more involved in the raising of their children than used to be the norm. it is in my case, though i freely admit that if my wife didn't stay home things would be more difficult to manage. that she is willing to do this is both a source of some guilt as well as relief, but we can't afford a nanny to watch the kids while we both work,and neither of us like the idea anyway.
more interesting i read an article in the ny times a little way back that claimed women actually make more money than men in many cases, just not in general. things are changing apparently, and the author ( a woman) seemed to feel sorry for the men who had a tougher time of it...
but getting back to the main topic i agree to make it to the top, man or woman, you need to be driven and slightly insane.
cellardoor whore- i like your comments. i'd like to hear more about your take on the british sense of 'camp', and how it creates cultural situation that is different from the one in the US when it comes to the visibility of female professionals in male dominated fields.
the success of an architect is decided predominently by his/her ability to get buildings built. And who is holding the pursestrings? Mostly men. Men hire the architects, and it is my experience that men trust men more with huge sums of money.
If women controlled the majority of the money worldwide, we'd still have this problem, because women also subconsciously trust men more with huge sums of money. This is why bankers, accountants, financial advisers, stock brokers, architects, etc. are mostly men.
first off... accountants, 50/50 for sure.... secondly the finance world is just as much of a boy's club as engineering, architecture, etc. my friend worked in investment banking and she was the only female in the whole firm. why? because the culture is pro-male and almost completely derogatory to females. they would would use the words bitch and slut, create acronyms for things like gigantic breasts to talk about the secretaries. they were perpetuating it all themselves because how many females would feel comfortable working in that kind of environment? the most ridiculous part of it all was that they never thought they were doing anything wrong.
i don't agree with men trusting other men more with money... i think that it's easier for guys to be 'buddy buddy' and that eventually provides them with a network of people that they can 'trust'. and now wouldn't you rather invest in someone you know than someone you don't know who has the same ideas?
hey Beary, you should then remind your husband that the reason that women take maternity leave, take more time off and are less able to travel is because of the expectation of women - by men - to be caregivers, homemakers, mothers and that men are less able to handle than everyday tasks of homemaking as well as the inability to handle most responsibilties when it comes to fulltime childcare.
as a guy i suck at home responsibilities, ask my wife.
beta, i have a couple of friends who are stay at home dads, and they are doing just fine at it. i would not confuse men's reluctance to do these things with their ability to actually do them. i believe men can do them just fine, most of them just don't want to try to do them.
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husbands and wives
i know that there are many many many successful and talented women out there who practice architecture.
however, it seems to me that very few independent woman architects get "press." zaha is almost like the exception that proves the rule. most of the women in architecture who i've seen profiled are (coincidentally?) married to their business partners. tod williams & billie tsien are the main example that comes to mind.
almost seems like the vestigial conservatism of a profession that has long been more parochial than progressive. if i were a woman (i guess it's apparent that i'm not) i might get the sense that the preferable way to advance / excel in architecture is to team up with a man. preferably one's husband.
i mean, i have no problem with men and women partnering -- absolutely not -- and if your best friend and spouse is also your business partner -- fine. my problem is with the coverage, with the press. you don't have to dig much to find out about rem koolhaas, but julie snow and anne fourgeron are much better architects (in my humble opinion). just to name two women who practice independent of their spouses.
what a convenient way to reinforce wrong old notions of male superiority (especially in the field of abstract thinking and grand visionmaking) while putting forth an image of equality and gender tolerance.
and like most things, i don't think it's an overt conspiracy. like most prejudices this one is subconscious, probably, like the way some people unconsciously get tense around people of different races without being conscious racists.
but it's still wrong -- it's our job as humans to know and fix ourselves.
anyhoo, am i off base?
Off/on topic: Anybody see Carme Pinos at Columbia last night? She began as wife to Enric Miralles, got divorced, and is still practicing.
i think julie snow has got a bunch of press...but i also think
her projects haven't reached the same scale as rem. it
could also be that she's located in minnesota...same problem
for vincent james i believe...
as far as partnering and that being the main way to get press..
i dunno...the partners at shop have a husband and wife team
or two...thompson and rose used to be married...diller and
scofidio...i believe thom mayne's wife works at morphosis.
miralles also partnered with benedetta...scogin and elam.
but it seems to me that the work is good enough to stand on
it's own..i don't think there's enough of a sample size to say
that they're gettin published because they're married. i think
it could be just as easily said that the women in most of those
relationships are at least as strong as the men...the argument
is sort of weird in that regard.
i just think it's a case where there aren't that many women-led
firms...a profession that is still dominated (numbers-wise) by
men. i'd say that if you did the same study with interior design
firms or landscape firms that you'd find a different story...
SANAA
muf
Annette Gigon
Farshed Moussavi
Lisbeth van der Pol
to name a few...
Who?
I guess that's what I can contribute to ochana's point- I haven't heard of ANY of these women.
thanks for that ochona. it's a valuable discussion.
i'm wondering, too, if the media focuses on the accomplishments of men because the heroic male artist-star is more palatable to its audiences than a leading woman.
there's no doubt that having media support is important to grow an architect's career, gaining prominent commissions and professional development. the question is if the media plays a critical part in 'selecting' the stars -- who gets the nurturing, and who has to try extra hard to get attention. and no, it's by no means objective.
(we can argue a long time if rem's work actually deserves his media clout, if he cuts a handsome profile and fits what we imagine to be a brilliant architect, etc ...)
i think it's very complicated, but part of the underrepresentation of prominent women architects does have to do as wll with the vestiges of the boys' club elitism (same as that you see in law and politics). it's harder for women to 'ease their way in' without the 'support' of a male figure. (yeah, i think it's difficult to understand or believe if you've never experienced it)
it'd be nice to imagine those days are over, but you're right, ochona, it's now.
Not to offend anyone or to pretend that this problem doesn't exist, but I'm personnally more and more interested in collective practices, and especially in architect couples. My favorite firm when I was a kid was Diller and Scofidio, but I've recently discovered the work of allison and peter smithon and I think the underestimated work they have produced could differs from the previous CIAM philosophy because of the balance they 've found in their couple. I don't think it's wrong to stay on your own, but to work with a woman precisely pushes you to adress the gender problem in your own architectural practice. Too bad my girlfriend doesn' t want to work with me anymore (I'm too lazy, talk about a living male stereotype). We would have been the Lacaton and Vassal of the future.
thanks for the thought, ochona. you hit it right on the mark.
the media privileges the male artist (in this case, the architect) figure because it satiates the appetite for the construction of myths. and like politics, education, and the like, architecture is just another form of an institution that holds the production of men in high regard. men are seen as activators, women are seen as mere passive contributors.
and the fact that women (according to your proposition) are introduced into the text in tandem with their partners is a testament to the fact that our society gives presence to women only in the context of and relationship to men. that's probably why the possibility of fertility without men is so threatening to men. but that's another unending discussion...
i don't think it's "unconscious," but rather, i think it's very much built into our patriarchal culture and society.
on the other hand, fashion privileges women over men. but this could very well be because fashion is very much dependent on presentation and "seeing." and women are, according to ms. mulvey, "to be looked at."
I think a really great example is the " The Patkaus" they are referred to as one in the same more often than they are as individuals ( John and Pat ) Although they do have a different role as far as the daily routine. The fact is its a team and not just one.
I also happen to think they produce work at the absolute highest level project after project.
williams and tsien
are shim sutcliffe married?..
in addition to all of the great architects mentioned previously, here are a few more to add to your memory banks...i'm not sure how many of these are husband/wife teams though...
lindy roy
winka dubbeldam (archi-tectonics)
nathalie de vries (MVRDV)
nanako umemoto (reiser + umemoto)
jennifer siegal (office of mobile design)
lise ann couture (asymptote)
laurinda spear (arquitectonica)
louisa hutton (sauerbruch + hutton)
andrea leers & jane weinzapfel (leers + weinzapfel)
laurie hawkinson (smith-miller + hawkinson)
toshiko mori
monica ponce de leon (office da)
caroline bos (un studio)
sulatan kolatan (kolatan + macdonald)
karen fairbanks (marble + fairbanks)
also, don't forget about the ultimate husband + wife team:
charles + ray eames
and the collaborations between le corbusier and eileen gray
are the gender-equal/gender-neutral collaborations the future of architectural practice? are we just a generation away from the death of male-dominated starchitecture as we know it?
ochona, your arguement is interesting. Would Liz Diller be where she is today without her husband? I don't know. She's very talented, but would the press ignore her? Why is it that Sarah Susanka, a good architect but nothing mind blowing, has gotten a lot of press? Is it all based on her book?
What's also interesting is that a lot of women work in the architectural press field...
rationalist:
SANAA = Sejima + Nishizawa
Anette Gigon = Gigon & Guyer
Farshid Moussavi = Foreign Office
muf and van der Pol might be more nationally known in Britain and the Netherlands, respectively
and Francine Houben = mecanoo
Julie Snow?!? Very overrated. I attended a speech she made where she said her concept for a big glass cube office park in North Dakota was a Snickers bar. Since then the joke has been that it was actually a Baby Ruth bar because it looks like crap! She's even more abrasive personally. Contractors and consultants speak very negatively about working with her. She's very feminist, to the point where she hates men - and believes men opress women in architecture. She thinks she's a top 10 designer in the world, and is extremely egotistical about herself. Personally I believe the press she has received has much to do with her gender, but that's just my opinion.
As for women in the profession, I'd say there are many reasons why you don't hear women names very often, not excluding the fact that in some ways it's still a man's business. (As I look around my office I can't see how anyone could say that anymore, but that's neither here nor there.)
I do think there are many excellent female designers out there. People like Julie Snow get their name out there because she owns her own firm, but most of us work for someone else and when we design something the firm name goes in the publications first. I personally know many female designers with published work - only the firm name gets more credit than the individual. Right or wrong that's how it works. The women are out there.
i find this topic really interesting... i guess partially because i can't stop trying to break into the boy's clubs (eng to arch to god knows what else...).
i can't speak that accurately for architecture, but i do believe that the vestiges of a male dominated profession are there no matter what the numbers tell you. the idea of the boys club is that the top of the top keep to themselves... so as much as it might be a 50/50 split... who actually becomes famous?
not to say that men are all egotistical, but maybe they're more willing to self-promote than attribute their work to a team effort? this can even be applied in a broader sense that some people will attempt to put their names out there more than others. as it was mentioned before here, regardless of sex, some people are really just better architects than others but it doesn't guarantee them fame.
someone brought up how fashion is more friendly to women... now i must argue that. as much as i'd like to believe that there are some professions dominated by women, that's untrue from what i've seen. at best there are 60-40 splits... at best. and that's likely because a greater number of women are interested in wearing fashion. what woman solely designs clothes for men? and who would go to a male lingerie boutique?
think of the brandnames you know... how many famous women do you come up with?
male designers:
dolce & gabbana
giorgio armani
alexander mcqueen
roberto cavalli
calvin klein
ralph lauren
valentino
versace -> only recently solely female
lastly... the male-female teams will eventually rule.... the likelihood of having your design appeal and cater to everyone increases with the more perspectives you have. it's just natural.
oh, and i'm not a bitter female... i just think this is reality. maybe when men start carrying babies around for 9 months things will change ;)
oh, sorry, i should have been more specific. i was thinking more about modeling.
and you are right about designers being males. but they are mostly gay males and they distort the ideal of beauty. females are discouraged from their natural curves and encouraged to look more like spindly little boys --perhaps to satiate the desires of these gay men?
This arguement is starting to become quite contradictory: we've established that male architects get more press than women, that is true. I think we also established that more men are currently practicing now. That might change soon, since if my school is any indication, the future graduating classes will be dominantly female (about 60 percent). But it would be easy to make the arguement that there is more male press because there are more men in the profession.
Now, I definately don't want to sound sexist, I know that a women can design just as good or better than any man, but I think the LAST thing we should do is start telling architectural journals to go looking for female architects to publish. If a good building designed by a man doesn't get the proper attention it deserves because periodicals opt to publish a marginal building designed by a women in order to appease a politcally correct notion, then our profession suffers. The same is true in the other direction (although I personally find it preposterous that editors sit in their meetings and go "we can't publish that! it was designed by a girl! Just seeing this building will give fine upstanding male architects COOTIES!").
I think good architecture deserves to be published, and the gender of the architect is irrelavent.
I'm with SeanNOLA. I do not want to see the press give more attention to a woman architect because she's a woman, I want to see good buildings regardless of the gender(s) that produced the work.
Isn't it true that Bob Venturi first refused the Pritzker because they would not consent to awarding it to "the team of Venturi+Scott Brown", but only wanted to give it to him as a stand-alone practitioner? If you check the Pritzker website, however, you see that only his name is listed. I believe he relented and accepted it alone.
One basic aspect of press, though, is to draw attention in order to sell ads. The media will focus on the architect who gives good press rather than the staid but quietly brilliant designer. Look at the vanity articles rcently on Zaha, she's such an interesting figure, regardless of gender, that media want to showcase her personality first, buildings second.
there are more women in law school now than there are men, but why do males outnumber partners in major law firms? there is more press or recognition for males in general because um, yes, our society is one functions on patriarchy and is defined by a patriarchal history (adopted from western europe, perhaps).
i think it can be problematic to fulfill quotas in terms of doing explicit searches just to underscore the contributions of women. it should be a more organic effort that is based on merit rather than gender or sex. but, like affirmative action, specific measures must be taken (even though they come off as a bit dubious) to make it a more level playing field.
in general the gender of the architect (or artist, in my experience) should not have anything to do with their practice or production. but this obviously is not the case. the choices people make in terms of design, whatever, is heavily influenced (deliberately or subconsciously) but their experiences and even their physical relationship with objects. to that end, do the designs of female architects align with their physical relationship to buildings? (women, on the most part, tend to be proportionally smaller in size than men.)
sorry, diatribe.
and then there is that woman married to Robert Venturi. Whats her name? He is always trying to give her credit and the press just wont listen.
Imagine whats it must be like being a black female architect!!!!!
(pssst: its Denise Scott Brown)
beat me to it liberty bell
how about a transexual black female architect with only one arm? that's pretty damn marginal...
people always fret about how fields like the sciences are male dominated, but if you think about it, women haven't been even voting (at least in this country) for more than a century, while enfranchised men have been voting since....yup, since they invented it.
the architectural approach tends to favor a slow process so it's not surprising that it's also culture that always seems more late than early to catch onto some trend/ or movement ( and here i'm thinking about eveyrthing from technology to continental philosophy.) Didn't neil spiller once say something about 'architecture/ architectural education is still being stuck in the 19th century'? that might explain why women tend to be gain more 'success' when they partner up with husbands. because it's easy to get light headed from these corsets!
but then again, what with the gender politics of our hyper consumer society, who knows? maybe we can finally look forward to seeing some more single parent architecture firms.
ok, i can totally attest to the boy's club stuff. i've been in rooms of men (groups of three, rooms of dozens) where so much of that heterosexual american "buddy buddy" stuff is batted about. talking about which woman in the office's hot. goddam those fuckin GC's. oh, this one time i was at bat ready to swing. buddies bringing on other buddies into the business ... on and on.
i'm not saying this is 100% sexist or malicious. beyond politics, there are some friendships there. but it's definitely an unfair advantage and it's insular. it really does feel like a special club sometimes. (of course, my work has a combination of contractors, architects, and developers).
why don't women have that kind of clientelist stuff going on? it's like the women don't have enough power in the company or critical mass to have a kind of girl's club, if you will ...
despite there being a number of innovative young firms with leadership of women and men, i feel that the american architecture industry at large is much more backwards when it comes to openness towards women, etc, than in other western countries. and that's a fault.
don't get me wrong... i do agree that either gender should not get press simply for being of that gender. it will do no good to our development in the fields.
geezopeez... i see what you mean about models, but is that possibly because a female models popularity is mostly driven by males and their sex appeal? just a thought.
also, while i understand that the ratio of women to men in architecture school/firms is steadily increasing... architects generally don't get the recognition until about 50's right? we've still got easily 20 years to see a change in the media and upper management of firms.
can a woman be an architect as a woman or must she become a cartoon of manliness?
hadid and sejima are both very agressive people. sounds like some of the others mentioned above are as well. the women i enjoy working witha re also very strong personality wise. could be coincedence...
a few additions to the last of succesful practioners; petra blaisse, who is brilliant; astrid klein of klein dytham, also quite talented; Itsuko Hasegawa, a pioneer female architect in japan; Alison Brooks, who worked for Ron Arad way back, (and helping him to move from furniture to architecture by the way). am sure there are many more.
sejima is one of my favorite architects ... perhaps by 'aggressive' you mean her relentless vision when designing, jump? (i know she worked for toyo ito, who ive heard tears up his employees' unsatisfactory ideas!)
i hope aggressive does not = manliness. i think to be of that rank, you have to be aggressive no matter which gender.
(but i suppose it doesn't fit the notion of gentle and passive femininity, especially in japan).
i spoke to astrid klein very briefly at superdeluxe last year ... very cool group at their office.
pinstripe --yes, it's totally driven by the fact that female models are meant to be looked at. they are mute and their bodies function as objects on which clothes hang (literally!). and women aren't innocent of doing the same thing, either. this type of patented and expected behavior is so pervasive that women begin adopting the very same practices that subordinate them.
jump --interesting analysis re: "cartoon of manliness." hadid, for instance, is often spoken of with adjectives like "austere" and "cold" and even "asexual." she never really talks about her status as a woman architect, does she? and i know folks who have referred to her as a flagrant "bitch." it's funny, because the macho architects (i won't mention names, but a local one whose first name begins with an "e" comes to mind) are celebrated caricatures. it is expected and even "normal" for a male architect to be an asshole. whereas for women, their aggression or aggressive style of design becomes a negative attribute in writing and criticism.
What about the effete gay male architects who are aggresive?
Are they bitches or "normal assholes?"
a cartoon of manliness can only exist if you allow that gender-specific personality to continue.
granted it's always a theory of mine that you just have to act like them to be one of them, but to say that's a male archetype is just perpetuating the idea. aggressive women are everywhere, and have been everywhere... but before they were either burned at the stake, considered insane, or only allowed the domain of the home. aggressive people just get more press period. they want it more and far more willing to push themselves on anyone.
i could imagine though that an architect like hadid may not mention her status as a woman architect because she doesn't want to seem like she's exploiting an under-represented category. maybe she just wants respect and to be treated like an equal and sees that it's unnecessary to bring up that she is female.
i would want to be famous and respected because of my work, regardless of gender. but if my gender were to help someone else understand that they can do it too, that this door isn't closed to them, to give them hope and inspiration... then power to me.
' Look at the vanity articles rcently on Zaha, she's such an interesting figure, regardless of gender, that media want to showcase her personality first, buildings second.'
it is not a surprise that the same country that helped form her, the uk, is the same that predominantly formed the backlash against her. this is not just a case of too much avant garde, but a very british case of
!camp!. the british sense of camp is very well refined, as is its trivialization of it. zaha, without question, is majestically camp. wart and all.
my perception after working at SOM for a while before/after i graduated was that at the entry level, the split was about 50/50. by the time one got just to associate, the lowest ownership level in the firm, it looked like 75/25 in favor of men. and we did not have a single female partner in the chicago office when i was there from 2000 - 2003. that much i can prove. maybe it's changed, i don't know. of course, SOM is probably the extreme in the field when it comes to the boy's clubs.
but then again, i had an ex-employer (who was a gay man and an avowed liberal) who asked the female employees point-blank if they were contemplating having kids. when the answer was no from everyone, he said "good! i won't have to pay for maternity insurance and your nine months of leave."
also, i remember reading an article in texas architect about husband and wife teams. one architect in houston, gerald moorhead, "did all the designing" while his poor wife was relegated to specs and running the business. that's what got me started thinking about this.
architects aren't the only folks who would prefer not to be cited alongside gender. i think this applies to everyone. of course, many women [insert profession here] prefer the recognition as i believe it gives them visibility, especially within a field that's dominated by men.
i know i'd like to be recognized more for my contributions to a particular field than as a woman who made contributions to a particular field. the latter sounds like a parting gift.
well yes... everyone wants to be recognized for their abilities rather than be given something on a platter just because you match a certain stereotype. i'm sure everyone can agree with that. well.. unless you're lazy as hell.
re: ochona's post.
i said this earlier.... i think when men can become pregnant we will see a huge switch in gender ratios in the workplace. there might be paternity leave, but it's less of a threat than watching a woman swell up over 9 months and having the employer concerned that she may leave for months at a time or all together to raise the kids.
so here's my next question... how many of the successful women out there are very involved in their kid's lives? or even have kids?
a couple of thoughts on this topic, one, we have to remember that the old boys club in architecture is really old...don't forget that philip johnson finally passed just a couple of months ago. and many of the most notable architects are in their seventies before they start to really get any attention from the press or public at large. women will get there, but it does take some time.
secondly, although i don't spend much time contemplating it, i have always been slightly troubled by the insidiousness of things like sexism in our culture. for example, i know that many of you have seen the kahn movie "my architect" but was anybody else a little taken aback by how male-centric it was? admittedly, it was fundamentally about a relationship between a boy and his father...and given that the father was missing i suppose its natural that the son would be especially fascinated by him. still, it seemed to be that even the title of "my architect" immediately reinforced the gender types with the father recieving credit as architect even though he was relatively absent.
i don't claim to fully understand what i'm talking about here, but the movie tapped into something (probably too subtle & complex for my mind) that left me feeling uneasy. any other thoughts on this movie and its undertone of gender & architecture would be appreciated...of course, if i can't make sense of it, i'll just subscribe to the new theory of "intelligent design" and vote republican in the next election.
my husband and I got into a good argument the other day and I was for once thumped.
Heres how it went: on TV was a feminist asking a politician about gender equality and women still making less than men and recieving less recognition. I said something like, "yeh, that's bullshit." my husband, who is usually very in tune with issues of equality, smirked. I said if you don't think it happens, think again buster. So his argument was simply that women leave the workplace for maternity leave and usually are less able to travel and therefore don't get paid as well and cannot receive promotions like men. To him, the woman on the TV coudn't make an argument b/c she was talking in generalities and IN GENERAL women will receive less pay than men, it is a fact of life.
However, I can't wait until the whole world realizes that women are far superior to men.
agreed strawbeary. to support that, i have a friend that is a stay at home dad. he struggles to find work that is flexible to his needs of caring for his two boys, and when he does that pay is not as great.
i can't wait until ppl realize that superior ppl come from all sexes, races, religions, etc. and that one is not better than the other. just different.
e - you are more correct than I was with your last paragraph.
hear hear.
my own feeling is that fathers are much more involved in the raising of their children than used to be the norm. it is in my case, though i freely admit that if my wife didn't stay home things would be more difficult to manage. that she is willing to do this is both a source of some guilt as well as relief, but we can't afford a nanny to watch the kids while we both work,and neither of us like the idea anyway.
more interesting i read an article in the ny times a little way back that claimed women actually make more money than men in many cases, just not in general. things are changing apparently, and the author ( a woman) seemed to feel sorry for the men who had a tougher time of it...
but getting back to the main topic i agree to make it to the top, man or woman, you need to be driven and slightly insane.
cellardoor whore- i like your comments. i'd like to hear more about your take on the british sense of 'camp', and how it creates cultural situation that is different from the one in the US when it comes to the visibility of female professionals in male dominated fields.
What about:
the success of an architect is decided predominently by his/her ability to get buildings built. And who is holding the pursestrings? Mostly men. Men hire the architects, and it is my experience that men trust men more with huge sums of money.
If women controlled the majority of the money worldwide, we'd still have this problem, because women also subconsciously trust men more with huge sums of money. This is why bankers, accountants, financial advisers, stock brokers, architects, etc. are mostly men.
are you serious??
first off... accountants, 50/50 for sure.... secondly the finance world is just as much of a boy's club as engineering, architecture, etc. my friend worked in investment banking and she was the only female in the whole firm. why? because the culture is pro-male and almost completely derogatory to females. they would would use the words bitch and slut, create acronyms for things like gigantic breasts to talk about the secretaries. they were perpetuating it all themselves because how many females would feel comfortable working in that kind of environment? the most ridiculous part of it all was that they never thought they were doing anything wrong.
i don't agree with men trusting other men more with money... i think that it's easier for guys to be 'buddy buddy' and that eventually provides them with a network of people that they can 'trust'. and now wouldn't you rather invest in someone you know than someone you don't know who has the same ideas?
lateral, its all about being absolutely fabulous darling
now wheres that bubbly
'they would would use the words bitch and slut'
on each other?
no wonder they were getting very 'buddy buddy'
yes, they would call each other bitches and sluts and whores.
tsk tsk, trailertrash language
i never...
hey Beary, you should then remind your husband that the reason that women take maternity leave, take more time off and are less able to travel is because of the expectation of women - by men - to be caregivers, homemakers, mothers and that men are less able to handle than everyday tasks of homemaking as well as the inability to handle most responsibilties when it comes to fulltime childcare.
as a guy i suck at home responsibilities, ask my wife.
beta, i have a couple of friends who are stay at home dads, and they are doing just fine at it. i would not confuse men's reluctance to do these things with their ability to actually do them. i believe men can do them just fine, most of them just don't want to try to do them.
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