1
Women Architects at Work
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Female architects long lived in the shadows of their male counterparts — even many of the icons of the Modernist movement only came into the spotlight relatively recently. It certainly wasn’t without struggle: These women broke through barriers, facing sexism, racism and classism in their pursuit of design careers. And even still, many of this era’s key figures are largely absent from histories of Modernism. In this book, authors Mary Anne Hunting and Kevin D. Murphy offer new perspectives on recognized designers while also shining a light on lesser-known practitioners, whose contributions to the field are equally deserving of recognition.
The Cambridge School of Architecture serves as the starting point for these stories. Between 1916 and 1942, countless women were educated at the single-sex school, where they forged lasting relationships that changed the trajectory of their careers. Enabled by a pedagogy that emphasized collaboration over competition, these networks proved especially vital given women’s exclusion from other male-dominated clubs, societies and leisure activities. Illustrated in diagrams by Scott Weingart, central players like Eleanor Raymond and Ethel Power emerge in these circles (the former was one of the first women ever to be honoured with an AIA fellowship, while the latter went on to become the editor of House Beautiful).
At the Cambridge School, students challenged preconceptions, including the idea that women were only suited to domestic design. Here, the authors explain, “Modernism could be enthusiastically proposed and rigorously interrogated, but it also fostered the resilience and perseverance that its students — along with their female peers in coeducational schools — would need to call on as they confronted the sexist barriers in the profession.”
2
Rietveld Schröder
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A paragon of the De Stijl movement (and a UNESCO World Heritage Site that now operates as a museum), the eccentric Rietveld Schröder House in Utrecht is one of the most celebrated examples of Dutch architecture. But while architect Gerrit Rietveld is credited for its design, his lover and muse, socialite and pharmacist Truus Schröder, was in many ways the driving force. Her influence on the home, as both client and collaborator, has only recently been discovered in rarely consulted archives. In this book, these revelations are brought to light: Her letters revealed that she had much more involvement in Rietveld’s client commissions than was ever acknowledged — and her name even appears alongside his on architectural drawings.
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A designer in her own right, Schröder had an affinity for interiors and furniture — and strong opinions. “Truus Schröder ‘barely’ looked at Gerrit Rietveld’s first sketch model of the house. It was ‘not at all’ the way she wanted to live, and it was only when they took the interior as their starting point – rather than the exterior – that the design of the house worked out,” the authors explain. In this way, Schröder shaped the home from the inside out. Archival photographs, displayed alongside commentary from both Schröder and Rietveld, form a guided tour that takes readers back in time. Uncovering a small but important chapter in history, the book represents the immense impact women have had on architecture — not just as architects but as patrons, too.
3
Chasing the Sky
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On the global stage, Australian architecture often doesn’t get the recognition it deserves. In this book, 20 female architects get a chance to tell their stories, illustrating how they got into the field and the challenges they encountered on the road to success. These insights are highlighted alongside their projects, which span scales and sectors, from single-family homes to institutional buildings. Throughout, these practitioners both embrace and challenge traditional notions of femininity. Take Kerstin Thompson, one of Australia’s most renowned architects: “I hope that the buildings we design are judged by the criteria we may expect to apply to any architecture, not a special one reserved for women architects. I certainly do not ascribe a gender to our buildings and am always somewhat perplexed when people remark that they find them ‘masculine’. How did they determine this? Something to do with straight lines and at times direct use of materials, which can apparently be attributed to the masculine rather than feminine,” she writes.
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From Woods Bagot’s Sarah Bell, who leads the firm’s Global Education sector, to Ingrid Richards, whose studio Richards & Spence focuses on creating vibrant public spaces, the book showcases the immense range of Australia’s architectural landscape. “One of the most engaging aspects of the book is the rich sense of the architectural community. As acclaimed individuals and as a diverse collective, they offer an incisive glimpse into the richness of contemporary Australian architecture, of the spirit that galvanizes the profession and cultivates its future buoyancy,” writes Maryam Gusheh in her foreword.
4
Women in Scandinavian Landscape Architecture
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“We Don’t Need Another Hero.” The introduction of this book makes an important statement: Gone are the days of holding up men as examples of the lone architectural genius. But that doesn’t mean we should do the same with female practitioners. “We did not wish to replace the male hero figure with a female heroine,” they explain. “To do so would merely continue the patriarchal historical tradition that misleadingly individualizes architectural work, obscuring some of the most important contributions to the built environment by focusing on formal innovation and “greatness.” Instead, this book seeks to highlight the collaborative nature of design, while also taking an intersectional approach, ensuring not to perpetuate other exclusions in its effort to address the omission of women in architectural history.
Though the book focuses primarily on Scandinavian women working in the realm of landscape architecture, such as Anne Marie Rubin, a Danish architect and urban planner who challenged the rapid growth of the Modernist building boom, it also includes practitioners like Marjory Allen, a British landscape architect whose play-centred work focused on spaces for children. Chapters by architectural and landscape architectural histories are balanced with those written by academic scholars, bringing new knowledge about the contributions of female landscape architects to the forefront.
The post 4 Architecture Books to Round Out Your International Women’s Day Reading List appeared first on Azure Magazine.