Norma Merrick Sklarek was the first African American woman architect to be registered in New York and California. She was also the first black woman to be elected to the prestigious Fellow of the American Institute of Architects and the first female director of Gruen and Associates, where she worked behind the scenes on some their largest architectural projects such as the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood, CA. However, despite her immense responsibilities and vital contributions, she was rarely acknowledged on the finished project and you likely weren't taught about her in architecture school.

Seeking to change that, the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation has recently launched a new website that highlights the far too often overlooked history of women in architecture by featuring the stories of 50 trailblazing women, Sklarek included. The website, Pioneering Women in American Architecture, is the culmination of a five-year research effort by the foundation made possible by seed funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, and is one of the largest of its kind to focus specifically on women architects who made an impact on the built environment of the United States.

Currently, the site shares the profiles of 24 female architects, educators, designers, critics, curators, and policymakers all born before 1940 who worked in the built environment with additional names being added to roster throughout 2018. Those featured have been selected by a jury of prominent architectural historians as well as the site’s co-directors, Mary McLeod and Victoria Rosner. Some are familiar names like Ada Louise Huxtable and Ray Kaiser Eames, but many of the profiles share the duly needed details about the lives of and projects built by women we rarely hear of.