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The Women Who Changed Architecture

The Women Who Changed Architecture
Edited by Jan Cigliano Hartman
Princeton Architectural Press, March 2022

Hardcover | 7-1/2 x 10 inches | 336 pages | English | ISBN: 9781616898717 | $50.00

PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION:

A visual and global chronicle of the triumphs, challenges, and impact of over 100 women in architecture, from early practitioners to contemporary leaders.

Marion Mahony Griffin passed the architectural licensure exam in 1898 and created exquisite drawings that buoyed the reputation of Frank Lloyd Wright. Her story is one of the many told in The Women Who Changed Architecture, which sets the record straight on the transformative impact women have made on architecture. With in-depth profiles and stunning images, this is the most comprehensive look at women in architecture around the world, from the nineteenth century to today. Discover contemporary leaders, like MacArthur Fellow Jeanne Gang, spearheading sustainable design initiatives, reimagining cities as equitable spaces, and directing architecture schools. An essential read for architecture students, architects, and anyone interested in how buildings are created and the history behind them.

Jan Cigliano Hartman is principal of Jan Hartman Books and a former senior editor at Princeton Architectural Press.

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REVIEW:

I've written a few books that fall into the "architectural survey" category, so I know how the inclusion of this building or that architect, or the omission of the same, happens — and that it is unavoidable. Nevertheless, I have a hard time not scrutinizing surveys for what they choose to omit and include. Part of me feels that doing so in reviews is unfair, because it focuses more on what is not on the page than what is; no wonder some authors have taken issue with my comments to that effect. With that in mind, I was pleased to come across the following statements when reading the introduction to Juan Pablo Bonta's American Architects and Texts: A Computer-Aided Analysis of the Literature: "[...] quarreling with inclusions and omissions in such books [guidebooks, in this case] may be pointless, because they are highly selective by nature." But then: "Indeed, listing the omissions or inclusions that depart from standard expectations is an effective means to capture the particular slant or flavor of a text."
Before getting to the omissions of The Women Who Changed Architecture, it's obvious to point out that it is part of a recent crop of surveys (a few others are collected at bottom) that draw attention to women architects who have long been overshadowed by men in architectural histories and other books on architecture. Bonta's book mentioned above clearly shows that traditional preference, though it does it in a scientific, systematic way to, in part, draw attention to long-held biases. Most bibliographic accounts of architects (a book type no longer in vogue, for obvious reasons) focus on men to such a large degree they're embarrassing to reference at times. Dennis Sharp's Sources of Modern Architecture: A Critical Biography, for example, not only has a grid of nine white male architects on its cover, it includes just two women in its main entries: Denise Scott Brown and Alison Smithson, both with their more famous (at the time) male partners. (Jane Drew, wife and partner of E. Maxwell Fry, is not present in "his" listing.)
Although Bonta's book and Sharp's book draw attention to a male-centric history of architectural production, they make clear the dearth of scholarship — books — on female architects. The omission of Eileen Gray and Lina Bo Bardi in Sharp's book, in turn, says more about the books that were written about architecture rather than his own book. This century, books on Bo Bardi, Gray, Julia Morgan, and a select few other famous female names from last century are making up for this deficiency, but there is a lot to be done to give attention to overlooked women in architecture; after all, most architects — man or woman — won't have their own monographs. Surveys are great places to start, and The Women Who Changed Architecture is even better because it takes a relatively expansive view, including contemporary architects but also late-19th-century and early-20th-century trailblazers among its 122 names. As such, it reminds me of Charles Birnbaum's "Pioneers of American Landscape Design" series of books, which has featured more and more women as new titles have been released. Although Jan Cigliano Hartman's book of women architects is not as thorough or academic as the biographical portraits in Birnbaum's books, the centuries-spanning selection in her book is sure to draw the reader's attention to architects not already famous.
The book starts with a preface by Beverly Willis, namesake of the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation, which advocates for the recognition of women in architecture and related fields, and is followed by a preface by Hartman and then an introduction by Amale Andraos, principal at WORKac and former dean of Columbia GSAPP. The 122 women are presented across two or four pages each, in six thematic chapters: "I. Groundbreakers," "II. Paving New Paths," "III. Advancing the Agenda," "IV. Rocking the World," "V. Raising the Roof," and "VI. Innovating for a Better World." (Even with its architectural metaphor, I'm glad "Breaking the Glass Ceiling" wasn't used.) These chapters give a roughly but not strictly chronological order to the book, with the second half focusing almost exclusively on architects currently practicing. Each chapter features a two-page introduction (by Sarah Allaback, Mary McLeod and Victoria Rosner, Doris Cole, Margaret Birney Vickery, Julia Gamolina, and Lori Brown, respectively), with the bulk of the entries written by Julie Sinclair Eakin (40), Katherine Flynn (37), Laurel Frances Rogers (23), and Sarah Allaback (9).
The appeal of surveys like The Women Who Changed Architecture is that they can be dipped into at leisure and in no particular order, and they often yield surprises from the sheer volume of entries and the subject matter they focus on. Given my own exposure to far too many men in architecture, the surprises in this book are many, especially in the early chapters, when for every Lilly Reich, Natalie Griffin de Blois, and other familiar name there are as many new to me: Louise Blanchard Bethune (the first woman admitted to the AIA), Eleanor Raymond (designer of "some of the most original houses of her generation," and Ethel Bailey Furman (the first Black woman architect in the US), to name just a few. The importance of certain architects comes across in the number of pages they are given, with most given one two-page spread, but with such names as Denise Scott Brown, Zaha Hadid, Elizabeth Diller, and Jeanne Gang given twice as many pages. 
Some of the women in the book may be unfamiliar to readers because they don't have their name on the door, such as with Susan T. Rodriguez at Ennead Architects and Georgeen Theodore at Interboro Partners, or because their practices are unconventional (i.e., not strictly buildings), as in researcher Upali Nanda or educator Harriet Harriss. This last aspect brings me back to the statement that started this review: what omissions are apparent and what do they say about this book? The most glaring omission for me is architectural critic Ada Louise Huxtable, whom one could argue changed architecture to a greater degree than most of the women in this book. Although a few women in the book fall outside of traditional practice, namely Phyllis Lambert of the CCA, the majority are architects working within the profession. While I would have liked to have seen Huxtable and other female voices that have impacted architecture but didn't/don't practice it — Sibyl Moholy-Nagy, for instance, and Elizabeth Bauer — by focusing on architects the selection says to me that women architects are on equal footing with men and deserve to be recognized as such. Hartman admits that her book, "no doubt, has inadvertently overlooked worthy individuals," but have no fear, "the record will continue to grow and develop."

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