Women in architecture
[1] In recent years, women have begun to achieve wider recognition within the profession,[2] however, the percentage receiving awards for their work remains low.
In France, Katherine Briçonnet (c. 1494–1526) was influential in designing the Château de Chenonceau in the Loire Valley, supervising the construction work between 1513 and 1521 and taking important architectural decisions while her husband was away fighting in the Italian wars.
[5] In Britain, there is evidence that Lady Elizabeth Wilbraham (1632–1705) studied the work of the Dutch architect Pieter Post as well as that of Palladio in Veneto, Italy, and the Stadtresidenz at Landshut, Germany.
[12] The daughter of a French-Canadian carriage maker, Mother Joseph Pariseau (1823–1902) was not just one of the very earliest female architects in North America but a pioneer in the architecture of the north-western United States.
Following graduation, she joined the architectural firm of Edwin W. Thorne, taking over his office when he departed in 1889, making Parker Nichols the first independently practicing female architect in the United States.
Morgan was the first woman to be admitted to the architecture program at l'École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris and the first female architect licensed in California.
Ruth Crawford Mitchell (1890–1984) an advocate for student immigrants at the University of Pittsburgh, conceived, designed and supervised the Nationality Rooms in the Cathedral of Learning.
The earliest record belongs to Signe Hornborg (1862–1916) who attended the Helsinki Polytechnic Institute from the spring of 1888, graduating as an architect in 1890 "by special permission".
[33] Other graduates in architecture at the Polytechnic Institute in the 1880s include Inez Holming, Signe Lagerborg, Bertha Enwald, Stina Östman and Wivi Lönn.
[36] Fay Kellogg (1871–1918) learnt her architectural skills with a German tutor who taught her drafting, at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, and by working with Marcel de Monclos in his Paris atelier.
After graduating in 1901, she returned to California where she had a prolific and innovative career, blazing new paths professionally, stylistically, structurally, and aesthetically, setting high standards of excellence in the profession.
Completing over 700 projects, she is especially known for her work for women's organizations and key clients, including Hearst Castle in San Simeon, considered to be one of her masterpieces.
Mary Rockwell Hook (1877–1978) from Kansas also traveled to study architecture at the École des Beaux-Arts where she suffered from discrimination against women after sitting for examinations.
[43] Isabel Roberts (1871–1955), born in Missouri, studied architecture in New York City at the Masqueray-Chambers Atelier, established by Emmanuel Louis Masqueray along the lines of the French École des Beaux-Arts.
Malhiot achieved this accreditation from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1910, returning to her hometown of Calgary, Alberta shortly afterwards to pursue a career in architecture.
Nonetheless, Hill found employment with an Edmonton architectural firm prior to enrolling at the University of Toronto for postgraduate work in urban planning.
Primarily specializing in residential architecture, her designs were recognized for their large windows, open spaces, and kitchens with generous cupboards and high countertops.
[61] Gertrude Leverkus, though not the first to be admitted to the RIBA in 1922, claimed to have been the first woman to have made a lifelong career as a practicing architect having initially been a pupil, and later a partner, of Horace Field.
Since the 1960s, which saw increased enrollment by women into schools of Architecture, male and female students have often met and later married; long hours working together and a shared passion have been described as "the perfect prescription for romance".
When awarding the prize, the chairman of the jury, spoke of her "unswerving commitment to modernism" explaining how she had moved away from existing typology, from high-tech, shifting the geometry of buildings.
Lord Palumbo, the jury chairman, spoke of their architecture "that is simultaneously delicate and powerful, precise and fluid, ingenious but not overly or overtly clever; for the creation of buildings that successfully interact with their contexts and the activities they contain, creating a sense of fullness and experiential richness."
[90] In 2007 Anna Heringer (born 1977, Germany) won the Aga Khan Award for Architecture for her METI Handmade School built with bamboo and other local materials in Rudrapur, Bangladesh.
An example of sustainable architecture, the project was praised not only for its simple, humane approach and beauty but also for the level of cooperation achieved between architects, craftsmen, clients and users.
[99][100] Although until recently their contributions have been largely unnoticed, women have in fact exerted a fair amount of influence on architecture over the past century.
It was Susan Lawrence Dana, heiress to a mining fortune, who in 1902 chose to have her house in Springfield, Illinois, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, so ensuring his breakthrough.
[102] Recent studies also show that from the 1980s, women, as housewives and consumers, were instrumental in bringing new approaches to design, especially interiors, achieving a shift from architecture to space.
[103] A study on experience in Canada highlights the widespread contributions women have made in recent years, developing innovative approaches to practice and design.
Inspired by these successes, in 1928 Lux Guyer from Switzerland designed pavilions for SAFFA (Schweizerische Ausstellung für Frauenarbeit) a fair exhibiting the accomplishments of women first held in Bern.
[105] In 2021, the Barbican, a cultural institution in London, presented a project including a physical exhibition, events programme and publication entitled "How We Live Now: Reimagining Spaces with Matrix Feminist Design Co-operative."
The countries with the highest proportion of female architects were Greece (57%), Croatia (56%), Bulgaria (50%), Slovenia (50%) and Sweden (49%) while those with the lowest were Slovakia (15%), Austria (16%), the Netherlands (19%), Germany (21%) and Belgium (24%).
