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Women Architects: The Latest Architecture and News

Louis Vuitton Builds Charlotte Perriand's 1934 Miami Beach House

La Maison au Bord de L'Eau, an unrealized beach house in Miami designed by architect, designer, planner and photographer Charlotte Perriand, has been built by Louis Vuitton for a Design Miami 2013 satellite exhibition. Designed in 1934, the house was first conceived for a design contest held by L’architecture d’aujourd’hui magazine with the aim of creating a simple, economical form of holiday lodging for the mass market. After winning second prize it was never built but, eight decades later, "Perriand’s studies prove quite contemporary in light of the advancements in wooden architecture."

AJ's Women in Architecture Survey Reveals Discrimination and a Pronounced Pay Gap

Following a year of high-profile debates surrounding women in architecture, the results from the Architects' Journal (AJ) third annual survey entitled Women in Architecture has been revealed. According to the AJ, "two thirds of women in architecture have suffered sexual discrimination at work, an eight point increase since the survey began in 2011", and "88% of women respondents believe that having children puts women at a disadvantage in architecture." Even though women in architecture believe that they are paid equally to men, they can in fact "earn as much as £10,000 ($16,500) less than their male counterparts." More, after the break.

AJ Releases Shortlist for 2014 Woman Architect of the Year

Architects’ Journal has just released the shortlist for theirWomen in Architecture Awards, which aim to "raise the profile of women architects in a sector where women still face an alarming degree of discrimination."

Christine Murray, Editor of Architects’ Journal, commented:“I’m delighted to announce this year's shortlist, which includes the women behind the celebrated Library of Birmingham, the new Stonehenge development and the Giant's Causeway visitor centre. The awards celebrate design excellence and leadership — qualities needed to succeed as an architect — and especially among women, who are under-represented in the construction industry.”See the list, after the break.

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The Indicator: Why 2013 was Denise Scott Brown’s Year

A lot of things happened in 2013. Zaha was in the news about every other week. She was copied in China and then accused of designing a giant vagina in Qatar. Rem’s son is producing a documentary about his dad. We lost Prentice Women’s Hospital. We almost lost the American Folk Art Museum. There were a lot of stellar exhibitions and one that took things On the Road. It was the year of high-rise after high-rise, with Rem changing the game yet again by lifting the podium off the ground and sticking to his formal guns, refusing to indulge in curvy shapes.

Things at Architecture for Humanity were shaken up with the departure of co-founders Cameron Sinclair and Kate Stohr. Resiliency became the new sustainability. China suddenly became defined less for its adventurous architecture and urbanism and more for its darker, smoggier flipside. My hometown, Los Angeles got a few more bike lanes, some big plans for its concrete river, plus a new Bloomberg-esque mayor with attendant sustainability tsar. There were people complaining about architecture and telling us why they left the profession. Kanye got attacked for daring to tell us why he likes architecture, and then architecture loved talking about Kanye for weeks on end until we just wanted architecture to shut up about Kanye. Poor Kanye. There are so many things we could say were key in 2013. It’s been a great year. And there were also a lot of fantastic buildings.

The Indicator: What the Julia Morgan AIA Gold Medal Says about Equality in Architecture

The recent announcement that Julia Morgan has posthumously received the 2014 AIA Gold Medal, the AIA’s top honor, while positive and inspirational, raises some important questions concerning the recognition and advancement of women in the profession. She is the first woman, living or dead, to receive the honor in the award’s 106-year history. From 1907 to 2012, all recipients have been men.

It seems Morgan was destined to be first. She was the first female graduate of the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris (1902) and the first woman to obtain an architecture license in California. She is known principally as architect of the extravagant and stunning Hearst Castle in San Simeon, California and the designer of over 700 buildings.

The Best (and Worst) Countries to Be a Female Architect

As part of their annual survey of the world's largest architecture practices, this year BD has also included a survey to help them quantify which countries are best suited for women with careers in architecture - particularly those who wish to work for large companies. In order to create these rankings, they found the ratio of male to female architects in various countries, and also sought out publicly available data on maternity and paternity leave requirements, and the average cost of childcare as a percentage of average wage. You can read more about their sometimes surprising results after the break.

Julia Morgan Awarded 2014 AIA Gold Medal

The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has announced today their decision to posthumously award the 2014 AIA Gold Medal to Julia Morgan, FAIA (1872-1957), “whose extensive body of work has served as an inspiration to a generation of female architects.”

“Julia Morgan is unquestionably among the greatest American architects of all time and a true California gem,” said Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) in her recommendation letter. “Morgan’s legacy has only grown over the years. She was an architect of remarkable breadth, depth, and consistency of exceptional work, and she is widely known by the quality of her work by those who practice, teach, and appreciate architecture.”

5 Women Changing the Face of Architecture

In a profession all-too-often associated with and dominated by men, women have begun to carve a space for themselves in the architecture world - but still few are recognized as they deserve. 

So Alice Shure and Janice Stanton, the founders of Amici Productions LLC, began work on a new documentary, Making Space: a visual register for future generations of architects that will document what is changing in architecture today and how these changes are affecting women. 

After interviewing over 30 architects, Shure and Stanton selected five women, five "rising stars" to hi-light. The documentary will show their day-to-day lives as well as tell the stories of how they achieved success. 

Thanks to a recent Kickstarter campaign, this project will soon be a reality. But to get your sneak peek into these five female pioneers, read on after the break.

On Gender, Genius, and Denise Scott Brown

"In the 10 years I’ve been running my architectural practice, I [...] have gotten accustomed to people assuming that my male employees — whether younger or older — are the lead architects who will be making final decisions. Yet this time a lingering frustration colored the rest of my day, a sense that while feminism has made significant progress on a conscious level, little change has trickled down into the unconscious of our culture." Check out the rest of Esther Sperber's column for Lilith, in which she details the past travails of female architects (particularly Denise Scott Brown's), and their future mission, here.

Women Architects: Learn Your Value, Learn to Negotiate / ArchiteXX & The Wage Project

All too often when it comes to the issue of women disappearing from the architecture profession, the question is: why? But perhaps we really should be asking: how?  How can we keep women in the profession? How can more women advance to positions of power? And how can women start earning the money they deserve? 

Why Are So Many Women Leaving Architecture?

Despite a rise in female architecture students, the amount of women in architecture continues drop in the UK. Though this is not the case in many parts of the world - as female architects reportedly outnumber the men in South America - the UK has yet to find a solution to equalize the numbers for professional women in architecture. Jane Duncan, founder of Jane Duncan Architects and RIBA equality and diversity champion, weighs in the issue by asking “Why are so many women leaving architecture, and how can we buck the trend?” here The Guardian.

An Eloquent Eulogy to Natalie de Blois

"In architecture’s 'Mad Men' era, there was a woman." So begins David W. Dunlap's eloquent eulogy, published yesterday in The New York Times, to Natalie de Blois. Dunlap explores de Blois' significant contributions to Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill's iconic buildings, including the Lever House, as well as the significant hurdles she had to overcome. As SOM partner Nathaniel Owings wrote of de Blois in his autobiography: “Her mind and hands worked marvels in design — and only she and God would ever know just how many great solutions, with the imprimatur of one of the male heroes of S.O.M., owed much more to her than was attributed by either S.O.M. or the client.” Read the entire article at The New York Times.

Necessary Hauntings: Why Architecture Must Listen to its Forgotten Women

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Courtesy of Women in Architecture, via Metropolis Mag

This article, by Alexandra Lange, originally appeared on Metropolis Magazine as "Architecture's Lean In Moment."

“Women are the ghosts of modern architecture, everywhere present, crucial, but strangely invisible,” writes historian Beatriz Colomina in “With, Or Without You,” an essay in the Museum of Modern Art’s 2010 catalog, Modern WomenArchitecture is deeply collaborative, more like moviemaking than visual art, for example. But unlike movies, this is hardly ever acknowledged.” 

Colomina goes on to chronicle the history of modernism’s missing women, acknowledged, if at all, as working “with” Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier, Alvar Aalto, or Charles Eames. To put yourself in the shoes of Lilly Reich, Charlotte Perriand, and Aino Aalto, simply watch the cringe-worthy video of the Eameses on the Home show in 1956; Ray['s] introduced as the “very capable woman behind him” who enters after Charles has bantered with host Arlene Francis.

This spring, these ghosts came back to haunt us: Arielle Assouline-Lichten, a student at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard, read excerpts from an interview with Denise Scott Brown in which she mentioned her own absence from partner Robert Venturi’s 1991 Pritzker Prize. “They owe me not a Pritzker Prize but a Pritzker inclusion ceremony,” Scott Brown said. “Let’s salute the notion of joint creativity.”

Read all of Alexandra Lange's essay, after the break...

Study Reveals US States with Highest Pay, Most Equality

Figures released last month by the National Endowment for the Arts offer telling insight into the architecture profession across the US, with a helpful breakdown of the representation of various demographic groups.

The data, collected between 2006-2010, reports the number of architects in each state and their race, gender, age and income. The data reveals which states have the highest/lowest income, the best/worst gender discrepancies, and also offer insights into the average age and races of architects, per state. 

Read more about what the NEA statistics reveal after the break.

"Women In Architecture" Dollars, Hours Away From Reaching Campaign Goal

UPDATE: "WIA" has now reached its goal. A group of women fed up with the state of architecture today have started a campaign to transform the profession, to "redefine the ideas of success and compensation within our discipline [..., to create] healthful trends both within the academy and profession with real life/work balance [..., and] create more women leaders within the discipline." As they put it: "We want an approach appropriate to this century." The campaign, run by Nina Freedman, the Director of Projects for Shigeru Ban Architects, and Lori Brown, an architect, author and associate professor at Syracuse University, needs to earn only a few hundred dollars more to reach their $7,000 dollar goal. However, only 35 hours remain - if you're interested in learning more, check out their video here.

Could Goldiblox Get Girls Into Architecture?

TechCrunch reported today that GoldieBlox, the startup that created “GoldieBlox and the Spinning Machine," a girl-oriented alternative to LEGO, has struck its first nationwide distribution deal with Toys ‘R’ Us. Responding on twitter, the Harvard GSD (@HarvardGSDExecED) asked its followers: could GoldieBlox be one of the answers to encouraging women to enter the architecture and engineering professions? The response from Tabitha Ponte (@tcpg) became an interesting exchange - check it out, after the break...

When Will Architects Speak Up for Women's Rights?

On April 12, 2013, the Board of Health of the Commonwealth of Virginia approved new laws deploying building codes and architectural regulations sanctioning that clinics offering first trimester abortions meet the same building specifications as newly-constructed, full-service surgical hospitals. Mandating compliance within about 18 months, these standards will entail significant and costly alterations to existing facilities that may bankrupt many clinics in the state.

The political maneuvering which occurred to achieve these architectural arrangements, and the responses of concerned professionals in Virginia, were well documented in the press. The Health Commissioner resigned in protest. The chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Virginia’s School of Medicine called these building codes “arbitrary and capricious.” A director of the University of Richmond School of Law wrote an editorial challenging the legislation on legal grounds. Almost 200 physicians took a public stand, denouncing the politicians and urging the state to reject the architectural alterations.

Health policy analysts, social workers and advocates for low income women - who will be greatly impacted when these local clinics close - continue to speak up and organize. We have heard from just about everyone with a stake in the impending architectural arrangements. 

Except architects. 

AIA Elects Elizabeth Richter Chu, FAIA, for 2015 President

The American Institute of Architects (AIA) reports that it has elected Elizabeth Richter Chu, the CEO of Richter Architects in Corpus Christi, Texas, to serve as the 2014 AIA first vice president/president-elect and 2015 AIA president. James Easton Rains, Jr., FAIA, and Thomas V. Vonier, FAIA, will each serve as vice president from 2014 through 2015; James P. Grounds, AIA, will be the Institute’s Treasurer.