Women in architecture

Two women stand out as early examples of women playing an important part in architecture. At the end of the 19th century, starting in Finland, certain schools of architecture in Europe began to admit women to their programmes of study.

In France, Katherine Briçonnet (ca. 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.

‍

‍

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. She has been promoted as an architect of Wotton House in Buckinghamshire and many other buildings. It has also been suggested that she taught Sir Christopher Wren. Wilbraham had to use male architects to supervise construction work. There is now much research including that by John Millar to show she may have designed up to 400 buildings including 18 London churches previously attributed to her pupil Sir Christopher Wren.

‍

‍

‍

Towards the end of the 18th century, another Englishwoman, Mary Townley (1753-1839), tutored by the artist Sir Joshua Reynolds, designed several buildings in Ramsgate in south-eastern England including the Townley House which is considered an architectural gem. Sarah Losh (1785-1853) was an English woman and landowner of Wreay. She has been described as a lost romantic genius, antiquarian, architect and visionary.

‍

‍Louise Blanchard Bethune (1856–1913) from Waterloo, New York, was the first American woman known to have worked as a professional architect. In 1876, she took a job working as a draftsman in the office of Richard A. Waite and F.W. Caulkings in Buffalo, New York where she worked for five years, demonstrating she could hold her own in what was a masculine profession. In 1881, she opened an independent office partnered with her husband Robert Bethune in Buffalo, earning herself the title as the nation's first professional woman architect. She was named the first female associate of the American Institute of Architects (A.I.A.) in 1888 and in 1889, she became its first female fellow.

Marion Mahony Griffin (1871–1961) from Chicago, was the first employee hired by Frank Lloyd Wright. Although Wright did not give her much recognition for her Prairie School designs, it now appears she not only contributed substantially to his studio's residential work but also did much to promote his ideas. In 1911, Marion married Walter Burley Griffin, with whom she had worked in Wright's studio. Together they set up a highly successful partnership working first in the Chicago area on a variety of projects, then in Australia on the urban planning of Canberra, and finally in India until Griffin's death in 1937. In her memoir, Mahony describes how she was indissolubly fused with her husband, emphasizing how together they championed various causes such as a library for the Indian city of Lucknow or Castlecrag, a community near Sydney that they designed.

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. Women have also played a key role in historic preservation through organizations such as the Daughters of the American Revolution (1890).

In 1985, Bulgarian architect Milka Bliznakov founded the International Archive of Women in Architecture to expand the availability of research materials concerning women in architecture. 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.

A study on experience in Canada highlights the widespread contributions women have made in recent years, developing innovative approaches to practice and design. Women's significant and growing presence in the profession has attracted more attention than issues of marginalization.

‍