The Routledge Companion to Women in Architecture 2020054094, 2020054095, 9780367232344, 9780429278891, 9781032014104

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THE ROUTLEDGE COMPANION TO WOMEN IN ARCHITECTURE

The Routledge Companion to Women in Architecture illuminates the names of pioneering women who over time continue to foster, shape, and build cultural, spiritual, and physical environments in diverse regions around the globe. It uncovers the remarkable evolution of women’s leadership, professional perspectives, craftsmanship, and scholarship in architecture from the preindustrial age to the present. The book is organized chronologically in five parts, outlining the stages of women’s expanding engagement, leadership, and contributions to architecture through the centuries. It contains twentynine chapters written by thirty-three recognized scholars committed to probing broader topographies across time and place and presenting portraits of practicing architects, leaders, teachers, writers, critics, and other kinds of professionals in the built environment. The intertwined research sets out debates, questions, and projects around women in architecture, stimulates broader studies and discussions in emerging areas, and becomes a catalyst for academic programs and future publications on the subject. The novelty of this volume is in presenting not only a collection of case studies but in broadening the discipline by advancing an incisive overview of the topic as a whole. It is an invaluable resource for architectural historians, academics, students, and professionals. Anna Sokolina is an architect, historian, curator, and founding Chair of SAH Women in Architecture AG, who also contributes to the Advisory Boards of the International Archive of Women in Architecture and The Bloomsbury Global Encyclopedia of Women in Architecture (ed. Lori Brown and Karen Burns, forthcoming). She holds a PhD in Theory and History of Architecture and Landmarks Preservation from the VNIITAG branch of the Russian Academy of Architecture and Construction Sciences (1992). She graduated from the Moscow Institute of Architecture (1980) and New York University SPS (2001) and interned at the Guggenheim Museum New York, Cooper-Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, and the Public Design Commission at the NYC Mayor’s Office, and has contributed to the Metropolitan Museum of Art (1999–2007), the Morgan Library and Museum, and ARTMargins. She worked as an architect and a Research Associate at CNIITIA/VNIITAG, as Curator of Exhibitions at the Tabakman Museum, and was a member of the architecture faculty at Miami University, where she also curated the Cage Gallery. She was the first independent woman curator of the itinerant Paper Architecture exhibitions in Germany and France (1992–1993) and the first lecturer from Russia invited after the collapse of the USSR by the European Academy of the Urban Environment (EA.UE Berlin) in the UNESCO program “Sustainable Settlements.” She has received seventeen grants and awards; her 104 artworks are housed in twenty-three collections; and her over ninety publications include the monographs Architecture and Anthroposophy (ed., 2001, 2010, e-access 2019), and Building Utopia: Architecture of the GDR (in progress).

“The publication of this anthology is cause for celebration. Bringing together a wide variety of scholars concerned with the diverse contributions of women in architecture from the preindustrial age to the present, the book brings to light the work of both little-known figures of the past and established leaders working today. This anthology will quickly be recognized as essential reading for students and for anyone with an interest in the field.” —Alice T. Friedman, PhD, Grace Slack McNeil Professor of American Art, Wellesley College, MA “I strongly support the publication of editor Anna Sokolina’s The Routledge Companion to Women in Architecture as a significant contribution to the literature in architectural history as well as intersecting fields of design, planning, and preservation. The collected chapters reveal the broad scholarship that has turned from a long-held, narrow cannon to engagement with alternative narratives of individuals, places, and projects. The inclusion of research on women from less studied geographies such as Mongolia, Russia, and Turkey, and projects in places from Palestine to Rwanda, contributes to filling the significant gap in studies on both the diversity and the networks women have created and stewarded. This edited volume will be a resource for teaching architectural history as well as for professional practice courses.” —Thaïsa Way, PhD, FASLA, FAAR, Professor, College of Built Environments, University of Washington, Seattle “This fascinating volume offers an invaluable transnational perspective on the significant and wideranging nature of women’s agency in the making of the built environment. From the early modern period to the present day, the case studies it presents interrogate and challenge our understandings of the interaction between gender and architecture.” —Elizabeth Darling, PhD, Reader in Architectural History, School of History, Philosophy and Culture, Oxford Brookes University, UK “This book will be a valuable resource for scholars and students alike. In its historical and geographical breadth, it underscores the diversity of women’s contributions to architecture and proposes many new avenues of research. By illuminating little-known protagonists, the volume advances a more complete and inclusive architectural history.” —Kathryn E. O’Rourke, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Art and Art History, Trinity University, San Antonio, TX “This anthology brings together high-quality scholarship that emphasizes the resourcefulness and talent of women who made their mark on the built environment. From institutions to archives to homes, spaces by women come alive in these inclusive, well-researched writings. Attuned to the needs of students, scholars, professionals, and the broader audience, this accessible volume is a longawaited contribution to the literature on women in architecture.” —Carla Yanni, PhD, Professor, Department of Art History, School of Arts and Sciences, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey “The Routledge Companion to Women in Architecture provides an excellent and wide-ranging compilation of women’s contributions to the field of architecture. Making inroads into a vast realm of underdeveloped history, this book challenges our thinking about women’s roles throughout centuries of architectural production.” —Alexandra Staub, PhD, Professor, Stuckeman School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, Penn State University

THE ROUTLEDGE COMPANION TO WOMEN IN ARCHITECTURE

Edited by Anna Sokolina

First published 2021 by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 and by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2021 Taylor & Francis The right of Anna Sokolina to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Sokolina, Anna, editor. Title: The Routledge companion to women in architecture / edited by Anna Sokolina. Description: New York : Routledge, 2021. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2020054094 (print) | LCCN 2020054095 (ebook) | ISBN 9780367232344 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780429278891 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Women architects. Classification: LCC NA1997 .R68 2021 (print) | LCC NA1997 (ebook) | DDC 720.82—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020054094 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020054095 ISBN: 978-0-367-23234-4 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-01410-4 (pbk) ISBN: 978-0-429-27889-1 (ebk) Typeset in Bembo by Apex CoVantage, LLC

This book is dedicated to professional women everywhere and is an homage to all of the strong women in my family: my mother, Maria Efimovna Guz (née Sokolina), a talented civil engineer and creative designer who keenly supported my passion for architecture; my grandmother, Galina Sokolina, a professional photographer and single mother of three who lost her husband during World War II; my other grandmother, Anna Guz, and my aunt, a professional teacher, gunned by the nazis during their blitzkrieg in Kiev; and my caring mother-in-law, Ludmila Vasilievna Gmirya, a skilled manager overseeing the laboratory protocols well into her seventies. It is also crafted to honor the inspiring men: my father, aviation engineer Colonel Peter Evseevich Guz, a war veteran and educator who believed in the merit and equality of all people, and my husband, Yuriy Gmirya, an accomplished engineer and inventor who has dedicated his life to saving the lives of our women and men in service and has always buttressed my professional endeavors.

FRONT COVER ILLUSTRATIONS

(1: top left; 2: bottom left; 3: top center; 4: top right; 5: center; 6: bottom right) 1 2

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“Women in Architecture: International Women’s Day and the Importance of Recognizing Female Designers.” moss studio, graphic design, published March 5, 2015 San Bernardino City Hall, San Bernardino, CA, architect Norma Merrick Sklarek, Gruen Associates, 1971–1973. Sklarek was the first African American woman in the US to become licensed AIA member, 1959 “Aerial View: New York City,” Anna Sokolina, 2005. Fragment of artwork. Series: Aerial Views, informed by urban masterplans, 30 × 40 inches, mixed media on canvas, exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY in 2007 Addition to Student Services at the University of California, Irvine Campus, architect Katherine Diamond, an American-Israeli architect, Siegel Diamond Architects. Photograph published in Architecture, 1987 Reconstruction project of the historic Buddhist Gandantegchinlen Monastery (1809) in the downtown of Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, surrounded by the Gandan ger suburb, architect Sarantsatsral Ochirpurev, Urkh Architectural and Design company, 1984–1989. Urban model Urban development in Nagatino, Moscow, Russia, residential and mixed-use high-rise condominiums, lead architect Rimma P. Aldonina, 1970–1982

Front Cover Collage: concept and design by Anna Sokolina, 2021

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CONTENTS

List of Illustrations xi List of Contributors xvii Prefacexxv Acknowledgmentsxxviii Introduction Anna Sokolina

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PART I

Women in the Early Profession and Leadership: Preindustrial Age to Early Twentieth Century From Domestic Realms into Public Life and Culture   1 Did Women Design or Build Before the Industrial Age? Shelley E. Roff   2 For Homeowners and Housekeepers: The Architecture of Minerva Parker Nichols in Late Nineteenth-Century America Margaret (Molly) Lester   3 Nell Brooker Mayhew and the Arts and Crafts Movement in America Brian Adams   4 “Designing Houses Is Like Having Babies”: Verna Cook and the Practice of Architecture in the 1920s and 1930s Catherine R. Ettinger

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  5 The Forgotten Art of Florence Hope Luscomb Mary Anne Hunting and Kevin D. Murphy   6 “This Is Not a Success Story”: Florence Fulton Hobson, Architect in Northern Ireland Tanja Poppelreuter

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PART II

Women in the Modern Movement: The First Half of the Twentieth Century The Limits of Engagement in the Architectural Profession and the Agenda of “Modern” Work95   7 Eileen Gray: Invitation to an Intellectual Journey Carmen Espegel   8 Blocks Versus Knots: Bauhaus Women Weavers’ Contribution to Architecture’s Canon Harriet Harriss   9 Lutah Maria Riggs: A Portrait of a Modern Revival-Style Architect Volker M. Welter 10 Regarding De Stijl through a Gender Perspective: The Life and Work of Han Schröder Rixt Hoekstra 11 Reclaiming the Work of Women Architects in Mandatory Palestine Sigal Davidi 12 More Than Shelter: Olive Tjaden’s Suburban Projects in New York and Florida Millicent Danziger Vollono and Lauren Vollono Drapala

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142 154

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PART III

Women in the Context of Mid-Century Modernism Mainstream Practice Formations, Public Engagement, and Women’s Wider Agency in the Field 13 Lois Davidson Gottlieb: A Woman Fellow Katherine Kaford Papineau and Rylee Soquella Woodcock 14 Consulting and Curating the Modern Interior: The Work of Hilde Reiss, 1943–1946 Erin McKellar viii

175 179

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15 Architect, Partner, Wife: Mid-Century Husband-and-Wife Partnerships Kate Reggev

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16 “Mrs. Meric Callery” Jan Frohburg

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17 Katherine Morrow Ford: Designs for Living Katherine Kaford Papineau

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18 Architect, Builder, Client, Secretary: The Women of the Sarasota School Christopher S. Wilson

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PART IV

Women in Architecture of the Late Twentieth Century Architectural Work and Urban Planning: Drawing, Building, Educating, Archiving249 19 Together Not Apart: Creating Constellations in Learning from an Archive Donna W. Dunay 20 Women’s Contributions to Manitoba’s Built Environment: The Case of Green Blankstein Russell Marieke Gruwel

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21 Uncovering Her Archive: Ayla Karacabey in Postwar Architecture Meral Ekincioglu

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22 Restless: Drawn by Zaha Hadid Nerma Cridge

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23 “Something More Solid and Massive”: The Architecture of Lauretta Vinciarelli301 Rebecca Siefert 24 Flora Ruchat-Roncati and the “Will to Keep Working” Irina Davidovici and Katia Frey

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PART V

Women in Architecture: From the 1960s to the Present Breaking the Glass Ceiling327 25 Expanding the Legacy: The International Archive of Women in Architecture Paola Zellner ix

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26 Breaking the Silence: Women in Russian Architecture Anna Sokolina 27 Leaving a Lasting Legacy. Beverly Willis: Groundbreaking Architect, Artist, Designer, Filmmaker, and Philanthropist Kathryn H. Anthony and Shailee Dave

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28 Reflections: Creating an Architectural Practice Diane Elliott Gayer

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29 Collaborations: The Architecture and Art of Sigrid Miller Pollin Margaret Birney Vickery

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Index394

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ILLUSTRATIONS

1.1 Casino e Villa Corsini fuori di Porta S. Pancrazio, Plate 199, engraving by Giuseppe Vasi, 1761. The Villa Benedetta, designed by Plautilla Bricci, is the large residence to the right of the street. Known as “Il Vascello,” the Baroque design was characterized in its time as a great warship moored outside the city of Rome  1.2 An embroidery of Elizabethan Chatsworth, textile, 1590–1600, English School. Chatsworth Hall, sixteenth century, designed and built by Lady Elizabeth Talbot, known as Bess of Hardwick 1.3 The Country House at Weston Park, Staffordshire, England, designed and built by Lady Elizabeth Wilbraham in the Neo-Palladian style. Garden façade 1.4 The marble altarpiece of the Chapel at Holkham Hall, Norfolk, designed by Lady Elizabeth Coke, Countess of Leicester, tasked with finishing Holkham Hall after her husband’s death in 1759. She financed and directed the construction of the stables, coach houses, counting house, and stranger’s wing 1.5 The Château de Bourdeilles, designed and built by Jacquette de Montbron, features Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian ornamental details at each level 2.1 Minerva Parker Nichols. Photograph, no date 2.2 Campbell Sisters Residence, School House Lane, Germantown, Philadelphia, PA, architect Minerva Parker Nichols. Photograph, no date 2.3 Mill-Rae, Rachel Foster Avery House, Somerton, PA, architect Minerva Parker Nichols, constructed 1890–1891 2.4 New Century Club of Philadelphia, 12th Street, Philadelphia, PA, architect Minerva Parker Nichols, constructed 1891. Photograph, no date 3.1 Nell Brooker Mayhew. Photograph, c. 1925 3.2 Torrey Pine print by Nell Brooker Mayhew, no date 3.3 Royer Residence, Urbana, IL, dining room murals by Nell Brooker Mayhew, c. 1905. View to west 3.4 Royer Residence, Urbana, IL, detail of north dining room mural by Nell Brooker Mayhew, c. 1905 3.5 Royer Residence, Urbana, IL, detail of south mural by Nell Brooker Mayhew, c. 1905

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28 28 34 36 38 39 45 47 48 49 49

Illustrations

3.6 Mission Santa Inez. Color etching by Nell Brooker Mayhew, c. 1917 4.1 a, b, c: House of Alexander Crane, Scarsdale, architects Edgar and Verna Cook Salomonsky, c. 1932. Frontal view and floorplans redrawn by Catherine R. Ettinger from the drawings published in Architectural Forum, March 1933 4.2 “Gardened Home.” Front cover design by Verna Cook Salomonsky, published on the cover of Better Homes & Gardens magazine, April 1936 4.3 Original drawing of House 13 for the 1939 New York World’s Fair Town of Tomorrow, architect Verna Cook Salomonsky 5.1 Florence Hope Luscomb standing in front of her cabin, named the Elk Horn Ranch House, in Tamworth, New Hampshire. Photograph, 1972 5.2 F.H. Luscomb, conception sketch of her cabin, c. 1939. Series I 5.3 One of two sets of bunkbeds on the southwest end of the Luscomb cabin, c. 1940 5.4 Northeast end of the Luscomb cabin showing a corner of the kitchen and the cook stove standing on a plinth, c. 1940. Series I 5.5 Eleanor Agnes Raymond (left) and Ethel Brown Power (right), in the garden of their Mussel Point complex in Gloucester, MA, on the cover of The American Home, June 1942 6.1 Florence Fulton Hobson, approximately twenty-one years old. Photograph, c. 1902 6.2 Florence Fulton Hobson, announcement of the lecture “Town Planning and Its Relation to Public Health.” Newspaper clipping 6.3 Florence Fulton Hobson, House in Carnalea, 1914. Plans and elevations 6.4 Florence Fulton Hobson, House in Carnalea, 1920–1921. In Maire Garvey, “Ireland’s First Woman Architect: Miss Florence F. Hobson,” The Crystal, September 1927, 263 6.5 Florence Fulton Hobson, Cottage for Helen Chenevix, Killiney, near Dublin, c. 1925 7.1 Eileen Gray. Portrait by Berenice Abbot, Paris, c. 1926 7.2 Chambre à coucher-boudoir Monte-Carlo, design by Eileen Gray, exhibited in the XIV Salon des Artistes Décorateurs, 1923 7.3 Living room of E.1027, design by Eileen Gray and Jean Badovici, 1929 7.4 Apartment for Jean Badovici on the Rue de Chateaubriand, design by Eileen Gray, 1929. Detail of the entry-storage and shower with metallic curtain 7.5 Fresco by Le Corbusier on the wall of E.1027 between the living room and the shower area, 1937–1938 7.6 Terrace of E.1027 by Eileen Gray and Jean Badovici, furnished with a rug and the Transat chair, both design by Eileen Gray 8.1 Top: Carpet for a children’s room by Benite Koch-Otte, with Marcel Breuer’s children’s chair and table, 1923. Bottom: Tactile Board, design Otti Berger, 1928 8.2 Top: Bauhaus Bauspiel (construction set), design Alma Siedhoff-Buscher, 1923. Bottom: Cabinet by Lilly Reich, shown in situ by onyx wall and drawn curtain, with material thought to be chosen by Reich, in the main living area of Tugendhat Villa Buffet, Mies van der Rohe, 1931. All elements contribute to the architectural form 8.3 Top: Tubular steel furniture designs by Mies van der Rohe and Lilly Reich as shown in the price list for Bamberg Metallwerkstätten, 1931. Bottom: The Barcelona Couch, Lilly Reich and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, 1930. Commissioned by Philip Johnson. Manufactured by Knoll, the design remains solely attributed to Mies van der Rohe xii

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88 89 100 102 103

104 107 108

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Illustrations

8.4 Left: Page from Otti Berger, “Stoffe im Raum,” ReD (Prague) 3, no. 5, 1930. 123 Right: Cover of Anni Albers’s book On Weaving, c. 1965 9.1 Lutah Maria Riggs at her drafting table. Photograph, no date (c. 1939) 130 9.2 Clavelitos—Lutah Maria Riggs Residence, Montecito, CA, 1926–1927, architect Lutah Maria Riggs. Partial view of the living room, spiral stairs lead to upper-level guest room. Photograph, no date 133 9.3 Fischel House, Montecito, CA, c. 1931, architect Lutah Maria Riggs, not built. Photomechanical reproduction of a perspective drawing by Konrad W. Konrad (1910–2000)135 9.4 Alice Erving House, Montecito, CA, 1950–1951, architects Lutah Maria Riggs and Arvin B. Shaw III. Partial view of north façade with one of the two symmetrically placed pavilions and paved walkway toward the main entrance. Photograph, c. 1952 137 9.5 October Hill—Wright S. Ludington House no. 3, Montecito, CA, 1973– 1975, architect Lutah Maria Riggs. View from the garden toward the three interlocking cubes. Photograph, no date 138 10.1 Han Schröder and her mother. Photograph, c. 1950 143 10.2 Han Schröder with her colleagues at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, 1947. Han is standing in the second row, second from the left 146 10.3 House for Binnert Schröder in Hattem, 1954, architect Han Schröder. East view 148 10.4 House for Binnert Schröder in Hattem, architect Han Schröder. Interior view, to the right: kitchen with housewife 149 11.1 The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, architects Dora Gad and Al Mansfeld, 1966 155 11.2 Apartment building, Tel Aviv, architect Lotte Cohn, 1936 156 11.3 Zina Dizengoff Square, Tel Aviv, architect Genia Averbuch, 1938 159 11.4 The Central Synagogue in Hadera, architect Judith Stolzer Segall, 1935. Frontal view, 2014 159 11.5 Apartment building, Tel Aviv, architect Elsa Gidoni Mandelstamm, 1935. Drawing published in Palestine Building Annual 1934–1935160 12.1 Olive Tjaden with two workmen at a construction site of her home at 104 Eleventh Street in Garden City, NY, c. 1928 167 12.2 Sanford Jacobi Residence, Hewlett, NY, architect Olive Frances Tjaden. Aerial view, c. 1935 (demolished) 169 12.3 Mack Markowitz Oldsmobile Showroom, Main Street at Bedell Avenue, Hempstead, NY, architect Olive Frances Tjaden, c. 1935 (demolished) 170 12.4 Hovey-Mercury Apartments at 208 Hendricks Isle, Fort Lauderdale, FL, architect Olive Frances Tjaden, completed between 1953 and 1954. Postcard image 171 13.1 Lois Davidson Gottlieb, c. 1950 180 13.2 Robert, Lois, Karen, and Mark Gottlieb in the Gottlieb House, Riverside, CA, architect Lois Davidson Gottlieb, 1970. Photograph: Julius Shulman 184 13.3 The Mackey House, Riverside, CA, architect Lois Davidson Gottlieb, 1975. Photograph: Julius Shulman 185 13.4 Mark and Sharon Gottlieb House, Fairfax Station, VA, architect Lois Davidson Gottlieb, 1991. Living room 186 14.1 Hilde Reiss, architect, New York City, c. 1940–1955 190 14.2 Dining room in New York City apartment, 1935, architects Hilde Reiss and Lila Ulrich. Arts and Decoration, February 1935 192 14.3 Pages offering guidelines for readers from Your Home 2, January 1944. Housing Authority of the City of Vallejo 194 xiii

Illustrations

14.4 Pages showing model interiors at Solano Apartments from Your Home 2, January 1944. Housing Authority of the City of Vallejo 14.5 Installation view of Ideas for Better Living, curated by Hilde Reiss, 1946 15.1 The firm of Bethune, Bethune & Fuchs. Photograph, c. 1881 15.2 Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. A drawing from the office of Morrow & Morrow names Irving F. Morrow as the consulting architect. His wife and partner, Gertrude Morrow, was likely not included because the contract was in her husband’s name 15.3 Fred and Maria Bentel in front of Midge Carr Art Center at New York Institute of Technology in Old Westbury, NY. Photograph, c. 1979 15.4 Family residence of architect Rebecca Wood Esherick Watkin, Kentfield, CA. Her upstairs office, with drafting table and desk. Photograph, c. 1955 16.1 Mary Callery, with one of her sculptures. Photograph: Tet Arnold von Borsig, c. 1945 16.2 Living barn near Huntington, Long Island, with sculptures by Mary Callery, Seated Figure, 1947–1952, and Standing Woman, 1949 16.3 Mary Callery, Conversation, 1949. Bronze, 71/2 x 133/4 x 10 inches 16.4 Mary Callery, Song of the Desert, 1945. Bronze, 283/4 x 261/2 x 10 inches 16.5 Mary Callery, The Fables of La Fontaine, 1954. Painted steel, 114 x 20 x 2 inches. Photograph: Caroline Coudert Boosey 17.1 James Ford and Katherine Morrow Ford Residence, Lincoln, MA, architects Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer, 1938–1939 17.2 James Ford and Katherine Morrow Ford Residence, Lincoln, MA, 1938–1939. North-facing elevation 17.3 James Ford and Katherine Morrow Ford Residence, Lincoln, MA, 1938–1939. Wall dividing living and dining rooms 17.4 Jury members for House & Garden magazine’s Awards in Architecture, April 1948. From left: Marcel Breuer, unidentified, Eero Saarinen, Harwell Hamilton Harris, Katherine Morrow Ford, and Joseph Hudnut 18.1 Elizabeth Boylston Waters, the first female architect registered with the Central Florida chapter of the American Institute of Architects in 1956. Photograph, 1952 18.2 Joan and Ken Warriner, as published in Sarasota Herald-Tribune, March 19, 1961, 26 18.3 Ruth Richmond, builder, the first woman in Florida to obtain the Class A contractor’s license in 1954. Photograph, 1950s 18.4 Mary Rockwell Hook, architect, after a successful career in Kansas City, retired to Sarasota and subsequently developed the Sandy Hook neighborhood, the location of many Sarasota School residences. Photograph, 1965 19.1 Anne Tyng, Identity Threshold of the Large Meeting Place. Design sketch in ink on paper 19.2 Alison Smithson, Landscape Architecture Design Drawing, Parc de la Villette Competition, Paris, France, 1982 19.3 Lilia Sofer Skala, architectural drawing. Student Portfolio, University of Dresden, Germany 19.4 Eleanor Kendall Pettersen, initial barn drawing of record for what would become her residence and studio, Saddle River Road, NJ 19.5 Han ( Johanna Erna Else) Schröder, Gaastra houseplan drawing, Zeist, Netherlands 19.6 Hilde Weström, apartment house, Röntgenstrasse 13, Berlin, Germany. Floor plan 19.7 Kimiko Suzuki, Susume Abe Residence, 1967. Architectural drawing 19.8 Anne Tyng, “Identity Threshold of the Large Meeting Place.” Design sketch in ink on paper xiv

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Illustrations

20.1 Elizabeth Pilcher greeted by Cecil Blankstein at the Winnipeg Airport, Canada. Photograph, December 1958 266 20.2 Alderman’s Lounge, Winnipeg Civic Centre, Canada, 1964, architecture firm Green Blankstein Russell and Associates 268 20.3 Elizabeth Pilcher working at the GBR offices. Photograph, c. 1960 270 20.4 Interior, Winnipeg International Airport, Canada, architecture firm Green Blankstein Russell and Associates, 1964 (demolished) 271 21.1 Ayla Karacabey. Graduation photograph, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY, 1956 277 21.2 Flaine, ski resort town, Chamonix, France, architect Marcel Breuer and Associates, 1962. Site plan 279 21.3 The Student Union for the University of Florida, architect Ayla Karacabey, 1968. Floor plan 280 21.4 Competition entry: new masterplan, side, Hellenistic town, Turkey, 1969, design team: Nuri Akioglu, Fahrettin Ayanlar, Ayla Karacabey, Bulent Kastarlak, and Doruk Pamir 281 21.5 Esmeralda Resort Condominiums, Marbella, Spain, chief designer and planner Ayla Karacabey, associate architect Eugenio Vargas, 1973. Site plan 282 22.1 Sketch for Al-Wakrah Stadium, Qatar, architect Zaha Hadid, 2013 288 22.2 Housing Scheme in Swiss Cottage, third-year student project, Zaha Hadid, 1974–1975290 22.3 The World (89 Degrees), Zaha Hadid, 1983. Acrylic on canvas, 837/8 x 293 72¹/16 inches 22.4 a, b: Portrait of Zaha Hadid by Madelon Vriesendorp, 1978. Sketch and painting295 22.5 The Peak Swimming Pool Divers. Competition entry for the Peak Leisure Club, Hong Kong, architect Zaha Hadid, 1982–1983. Painting 296 23.1 Lauretta Vinciarelli. Photograph, May 1980 302 23.2 Drawing from the Non-Homogeneous Grid series (detail), Lauretta Vinciarelli, c. 1973–1975. Tempera on board, 16 x 20 inches 303 23.3 Lauretta Vinciarelli and Leonardo Foderà, drawing for Puglia Project, 1975–1977. Ink and colored pencil on Mylar, 171/4 x 223/4 inches 304 23.4 Drawing for The Seven Courtyards series, Lauretta Vinciarelli, 1981. Pastel, graphite, and ink on vellum, 20 x 32 inches 307 23.5 Atrium in Red, Lauretta Vinciarelli, 1990. Watercolor on paper, 293/4 x 221/2 inches 309 24.1 Flora Ruchat-Roncati with the model of the Bellinzona Municipal Baths, 1968 315 24.2 School complex, Riva San Vitale, architects Aurelio Galfetti, Flora Ruchat-Roncati, and Ivo Trümpy, 1962–1969 317 24.3 Flora Ruchat-Roncati. Photograph, c. 1985 318 24.4 Notes at Ruchat-Roncati lectures by assistant Fredi Ehrat, spring semester 1987 319 24.5 Exhibition SAFFA 1928, 1958, … 1988? Und Heute, Swiss Architecture Museum, Basel. Photograph, 1989 321 25.1 Lithodipyra or Artificial Manufactory Trade Card of Eleanor Coade (1733–1821), who started a business manufacturing artificial stone in London in 1769 332 25.2 Elevated In-Town Heliport, architect Melita Rodeck, 1960. Architectural drawing: platform plan, plan at ground level, elevation 334 25.3 Mounted photograph of a rendering by Lilia (Sofer) Skala, no date 335 25.4 Digital immersive exhibit 30 x 30. Viewing during the 2016 IAWA Symposium, March 2016337 xv

Illustrations

25.5 30 x 30 showcasing the work of architects Jean and Clayton Young. Viewing during the 2016 IAWA Symposium, March 2016 338 26.1 a, b: The Comintern Palace, graduate design project by Lydia Komarova, 1929. Frontal view of the spiral skyscraper, and perspective drawing of the site 343 26.2 N. Bauman Moscow State Technical University, Moscow, Russia, lead architect Lydia Komarova, 1956–1960. Frontal view from the Yauza River. Photograph, c. 2010 345 26.3 The Palace of Youth and Creativity, Petrozavodsk, Russia, lead architect Tamara Kovalevskaya, 1985. Photograph, 1987. Frontal view 346 26.4 Moscow Metro station Chertanovskaya, architect Nina Aleshina, 1983. Photograph: Alexey Narodizkiy, 2016. Perspective of central aisle 348 26.5 Mir Space Station, architect Galina Balashova, design 1976–1986. Section 350 27.1 Beverly Willis. Photograph at a construction site, 1982 358 27.2 Aliamanu Valley Community for military family housing, Honolulu, HI, architect Beverly Willis, 1974–1978. Drawing with view of buildings nestled on the crater floor 361 27.3 Vine Terrace Apartments (now Nob Hill Court Condominiums), San Francisco, CA, architect Beverly Willis, 1973. Two-story entry lobby with circular stair from the parking garage to the first floor with private courtyard. Photograph, 1974 363 27.4 San Francisco Ballet Building, Civic Center, San Francisco, CA, architect Beverly Willis, 1978–1983. The glass and polish-chrome entry at the corner of the building facing the design axis of the Civic Center. Photograph, 1984 364 27.5 San Francisco Ballet Building, architect Beverly Willis. The lobby as seen from the entry doors and glass wall of the drive-through entry. Photograph, 1984 365 28.1 Hidden Hollow, Jess Gardner, 2017. The poster is based on paired interviews between architects and homeless persons about their ideal habitations. The group exhibit was shown at the Fletcher Free Library, Burlington, VT 371 28.2 The Left Bank Townhouses, Lakewood, CO, architect Diane Gayer, 1980–1983 373 28.3 The Old Mill and Lafayette, Burlington, VT, architect Diane Elliott Gayer. Site plan drawing, 1985 375 28.4 Masozera House, Lake Kivu, Rwanda, architect Diane Gayer, 2007. North elevation377 28.5 Diane Elliott Gayer. Photograph, 2009 378 29.1 1290 Residence and Studio, Amherst, MA, architect Sigrid Miller Pollin, 2007. Exterior view 383 29.2 Sigrid Miller Pollin in her studio, with the model of 1290 Residence and Studio, 2019 384 29.3 1290 Residence and Studio. Interior 385 29.4 Interior with kitchen and breakfast alcove 386 29.5 1290 Residence and Studio. East elevation 388

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CONTRIBUTORS

Brian Adams, Associate Scientist / Senior Research Archaeologist, Illinois State Archaeological Survey, received a PhD from the Anthropology Department at the University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign. Previously Assistant Director of the Public Service Archaeology and Architecture Program, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, he also supervised excavations in the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt and assisted with the analysis of lithic artifacts from these sites, and he gained practical experience in cultural resource management in the Midwest. He is interested in historic preservation, has participated in several efforts to landmark historic structures, and has published extensively on related topics. Kathryn H. Anthony is ACSA Distinguished Professor and the longest-serving female faculty member at the School of Architecture, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She holds a PhD in Architecture and Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from the University of California at Berkeley. She received numerous national awards, the most recent: 2020 Lifetime Achievement Award from Chicago Women in Architecture and 2021 American Institute of Architects/Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (AIA/ACSA) Topaz Medallion for Excellence in Architectural Education. The first woman to chair the Design Program and the Building Research Council, she has served as a national spokesperson about gender issues in design on ABC World News, CNN.com, National Public Radio (NPR), and Time.com, as well as in The Boston Globe, The Chicago Tribune, The Economist, The Guardian, The Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post. She has lectured on designing for diversity at numerous venues worldwide and is the author of over one hundred publications. Her newest books are Defined by Design: The Surprising Power of Hidden Gender, Age and Body. Bias in Everyday Products and Places (2017) and Shedding New Light on Art. Museum Additions: Front Stage and Back Stage Experiences (coauthor Altaf Engineer, Routledge, 2018). Nerma Cridge, PhD, was educated in architecture at the universities of Sarajevo and Birmingham, the Bartlett, and the Architectural Association in London, UK. She participated in an Antarctic expedition, and in 1997 she was Special Envoy to UNESCO. She has practiced at Thomas Heatherwick and art2architecture, currently teaches at the Architectural Association and Regents University in London, and works on art and design projects as Director at Drawing Agency. Based on her PhD thesis on the drawings by the Soviet avant-garde, in 2015 Nerma published her first book, Drawing the Unbuildable. Her forthcoming publications include “Intrinsically Interior” in Interior Design

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Contributors

Theory, edited by Carola Ebert, and her second monograph, Politics of Abstraction, on the monuments and secret structures in ex-Yugoslavia. Shailee Dave is an architect at a healthcare and senior living architecture firm in San Francisco. She holds Master’s degree in Architecture from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) with an interest in the field of environment behavior, gender and race, and cinema in architecture. She received Bachelor’s degree in Architecture from Institute of Architecture HNGU, India, in 2015, and while working and assisting Professor Kathryn H. Anthony in her academic groundwork, she represented the cause at a national-level conference in 2017. Sigal Davidi, architect and architectural historian at Tel Aviv University, holds BA and MSc in Architecture from the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology (1993, 2001, both cum laude) and a PhD from Tel Aviv University (2015). She received the Leo Baeck Institute Jerusalem PhD Dissertation Prize (2017) and the Goldberg Prize for an outstanding manuscript by the Open University of Israel (2018). Formerly Postdoctoral Fellow at Technical University Berlin, Institute of Architecture (2018) and a Visiting Scholar at the Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania (2019–2020), she writes and lectures on the history of architecture in Israel, with a special interest in modern architecture and women architects in Palestine under the British Mandate (1920–1948). Among her publications is “German and Austrian Women Architects in Mandatory Palestine” in the Frau Architekt exhibition catalogue, ed. Mary Pepchinski, Deutsches Architekturmuseum, Frankfurt/Main (2017). Her book Building a New Land: Women Architects and Women’s Organizations in Mandatory Palestine is in print. Irina Davidovici is Senior Researcher, Chair for the History and Theory of Urban Design, and coordinator of Doctoral Program in history and theory of architecture at ETH Zurich, Switzerland. She completed her doctorate at the University of Cambridge, UK, and her dissertation on contemporary German-Swiss architecture received the RIBA President’s Award for Outstanding Doctoral Thesis (2009). She was Harvard GSD Richard Rogers Fellow (2018), gta Postdoctoral Fellow (2016–2017), SNF Marie Heim-Vögtlin Fellow (2014–2016), and Senior Lecturer at Kingston University (2008–2013). A scholar of the early history of urban housing and the history of late twentieth-century Swiss architecture, she is the author of Forms of Practice. German-Swiss Architecture 1980–2000 (2012 and 2018) and editor of Colquhounery. Alan Colquhoun from Bricolage to Myth (2015). Lauren Vollono Drapala is an architectural conservator and design historian who has worked on preservation projects throughout the United States. She is pursuing her PhD in History of Decorative Arts, Design History, Material Culture at the Bard Graduate Center and holds a BA in Art History from Smith College (2008) and an MS in Historic Preservation from the University of Pennsylvania (2010). She has published research on twentieth-century design, including contributions to the books Robert Winthrop Chanler: Discovering the Fantastic (2016) and Macro to Micro: Examining Architectural Finishes (2018) and an article with her mother, Millicent Vollono, entitled “Designing Suburbia: Olive Tjaden on Long Island” in Nassau County Historical Society Journal (2016). Donna W. Dunay, FAIA, is Chair of the International Archive of Women in Architecture Center (IAWA) and ACSA Distinguished Professor. She holds a BArch and a MArch from Virginia Tech and brings to the profession an outstanding body of work that explores cultural and civic understanding in architecture through design research. Her work has gained a wide audience through her leadership of the IAWA; through her research into town urbanism around the world; and through her book, Town Architecture, as well as articles and presentations at numerous national and international xviii

Contributors

events. She has contributed greatly to architecture in education and practice and the communities the profession serves. Meral Ekincioglu obtained her PhD in Architecture from Istanbul Technical University (2011), based on her academic research at Harvard University in the Aga Khan History of Art and Architecture PhD Program (Special Turkish Fellow, 2006–2007), and Columbia University GSAPP PhD Program (Research Scholar, 2008–2009). In the HTC program at MIT, she conducted a research project entitled “Women in Modern and Contemporary Territories of Turkish Architecture” and created short documentary projects on immigrant and underrepresented communities in US architecture for the MIT-Archnet (2014–2016). She holds a Certificate from MIT-GCWS and has presented her work at the MIT-HTC Program, the MIT WGS Intellectual Forum Series, the CUNY WGS Program, Harvard University, the IAWA Symposium, and the SAH 71st Annual International Conference. Carmen Espegel is an architect with her own office, espegel-fisac arquitectos, and Professor of Architecture at the School of Architecture of Madrid, Spain (Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura ETSAM at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid UPM). Her PhD thesis (1997), with research focus on women in architecture, resulted in several book publications: Women Architects in the Modern Movement (Routledge, 2018), Eileen Gray: Objects and Furniture Design (2013), and Aires Modernos: E.1027 by Eileen Gray and Jean Badovici (2010). She leads the research group Collective Housing (Grupo de Investigación en Vivienda Colectiva GIVCO), lectures worldwide, and teaches international master’s and doctorate courses. Her practice, founded in 2003 with Concha Fisac, received numerous awards highlighted in books and professional journals. Among her seminal books are Collective Housing in Spain 1992–2015 (2016) and Collective Housing in Spain XX Century (1929–1992) (2013). Catherine R. Ettinger, PhD, is Professor of Architecture at the Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo, Mexico. She has published widely on early twentieth-century architecture with particular interest in the circulation of ideas between the United States and Mexico. Her recent publications include La arquitectura mexicana desde afuera, published by Porrúa (2017), and Richard Neutra y América Latina, published by Arquitónica (2018). Katia Frey, PhD, is an art historian with research interests in the field of history and theory of urban design, in particular in sociocultural aspects, circulation of ideas, and urban green. Her current projects with a focus on gender topics in architecture and planning include the research initiative “Women Writing on City and Urban Design,” as well as “Flora Ruchat-Roncati at ETH 1985–2002. Professor, Planner, Theoretician,” hosted by ETH Zurich, and the collaborative research work on SAFFA 1958. A national platform for Swiss women architects and designers, hosted by Zurich University of Applied Sciences Winterthur. Jan Frohburg teaches design studio and lectures on the history and theory of twentieth-century modern architecture at the University of Limerick School of Architecture. A graduate from the Bauhaus University, Weimar, Germany, he studied, practiced, and taught architecture in Germany, Great Britain, Ireland, and the United States. His research interests include design education and the spatial expression of modernity focusing on concepts characteristic to the work of Mies van der Rohe; his doctoral thesis interrogates Mies’s Concert Hall collage of 1942 and the conditions that enabled its production at a turning point in the architect’s career. Published nationally and internationally, he remains in creative practice and contributes regularly to the All-Ireland Architecture Research Group, continuing to explore the past and present of modern architecture in Ireland. xix

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Diane Elliott Gayer, AIA, is an architect, urban and environmental designer, writer, artist, and UIFA member. She is the Curator and Director of the GreenTara Space Gallery in North Hero, Vermont. Her publications include the book Of Earth and Being, published by the Vermont Design Institute (2017), a reflection on a personal journey by the author through time and place; a limitededition photography volume containing a collection of photos and essays; and a monograph entitled Groundswell (2003), a handbook on sustainable design practices and community design charrettes. Marieke Gruwel is an architectural historian based in Winnipeg, Manitoba. She holds Master’s degree in Art History from Concordia University, Montreal, Canada, supported by a SSHRC Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship, and an Honorary BA from the University of Winnipeg. Gruwel works at the Winnipeg Architecture Foundation (WAF), with whom she has produced publications and curated a series of exhibitions, including Cover Girls: Women, Advertising, and Architecture. Gruwel is a recipient of the Mayor’s Medal, presented by the University of Winnipeg and the City of Winnipeg. Harriet Harriss, RIBA, PFHEA, PhD, is a qualified architect and Dean of the School of Architecture at Pratt Institute in NYC. Prior to this, she led the Architecture Research Programs at the Royal College of Art in London, UK. Her teaching, research, and writing focus upon pioneering new pedagogic models for design education as captured in Radical Pedagogies: Architectural Education  & the British Tradition (2015). Her book, A Gendered Profession (2016), asserts the need for widening participation as a means to ensure the profession remains as diverse as the society it seeks to serve. Dean Harriss has won various awards including a Brookes Teaching Fellowship, a Higher Education Academy Internationalisation Award, a Churchill Fellowship, two Santander awards, two Diawa awards, a NESTA (National Endowment for Science Technology and Art) Pioneer Award, and a Clore Fellowship. She was elected to the European Association of Architectural Education Council (2017) and awarded a Principal Fellowship of the UK’s Higher Education Academy (2018). Her public consultancy roles include writing national construction curriculum for the UK government’s Department for Education and international program validations and pedagogy design and development internationally. Dean Harriss has spoken across a range of media channels (from the BBC to TEDx) on the wider issues facing the built environment. She is a recognized advocate for design education and was nominated by Dezeen as Champion for Women in Architecture and Design in 2019. Rixt Hoekstra is an architectural historian. She holds a PhD in Architectural History (2006) from the University of Groningen, the Netherlands, with a dissertation thesis investigating the work of architect and historian Manfredo Tafuri, and is a Senior Lecturer in Creative Technology at the University of Twente, the Netherlands. Her academic interests are focused on the nexus of modern architectural theory, historiography, and gender studies. Study presented in her chapter contributes to ongoing research for a monograph about the Dutch architect Han Schröder. Mary Anne Hunting is an architectural historian in New York City. She holds a PhD from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and Master’s degree in the History of Decorative Arts from Parsons School of Design, NYC. She is recognized for her book, Edward Durell Stone: Modernism’s Populist Architect (W.W. Norton, 2013), and is coauthor, with Dr. Kevin D. Murphy, of the book Women Architects in Practice: Pathways in American Modernism (Princeton University Press, in progress). Margaret (Molly) Lester is Research Associate for PennPraxis (an extension of the Stuart Weitzman School of Design at the University of Pennsylvania); a 2019 Fellow for the James Marston Fitch xx

Contributors

Foundation, leading an independent research and media project exploring the career of architect Minerva Parker Nichols; and a 2020 grantee of the Sachs Program for Arts Innovation. Her portfolio includes architectural history research, documentation, and preservation planning projects related to eighteenth- to twentieth-century historic buildings and cultural landscapes. She holds Master of Science in Historic Preservation from the University of Pennsylvania (2012) and Bachelor of Architectural History from the University of Virginia (2008). She is a contributor to Hidden City Daily in Philadelphia, a former Co-Chair of the Young Friends of the Preservation Alliance, and the founder of the InKind Baking Project. Erin McKellar, PhD, is Assistant Curator of Exhibitions at Sir John Soane’s Museum in London. She is broadly interested in the role of women and children in architecture and the intersection of architecture and politics, particularly in the design cultures of the 1930s and 1940s. Recent publications include essays in the Journal of Design History and in the collections Suffragette City: Women, Politics and the Built Environment (Routledge, 2020) and The Housing Project: Discourses, Ideals, Models and Politics in 20th Century Exhibitions (2020). She has previously been Fellow of the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art in London and the Clarence S. Stein Institute for Urban and Landscape Studies at Cornell University in New York. Kevin D. Murphy, PhD, is the Andrew W. Mellon Chair in the Humanities and Professor and Chair in the Department of History of Art and Architecture at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. He is the author of books, articles, and edited volumes in European and American architecture of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and the coauthor, with Dr. Mary Anne Hunting, of Women Architects in Practice: Pathways in American Modernism (Princeton University Press, in progress). Katherine Kaford Papineau, PhD, is Associate Professor of Art and Architectural History and Assistant Dean at California Baptist University College of Architecture, Visual Arts + Design (BA, Wellesley College, 2004; MA, PhD, University of California, Santa Barbara, 2013). Her research interests include the development of the modern home in postwar America, domesticity, the interior, collecting, consumption, and display, and her publications include contributions to Carefree California: Cliff May and the Romance of the Ranch House (2012), Walter S. White: Inventions in Mid-Century Architecture (2016), and “Eames House” and “Stahl House” essays in the SAH Archipedia project. Tanja Poppelreuter is a Lecturer in the History and Theory of Architecture at the University of Salford, Manchester. Her research interests lie in the field of twentieth-century art and architectural history and theory with the focus on the perceptions and development of architectural space, German-speaking architects who fled the nazi regime, and women in architecture. She graduated with a PhD in Art History from the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, Frankfurt/Main, Germany, and is the editor of the book Glamour and Gloom that discusses the modern architecture of the 1930s in Belfast. She has published journal articles and book chapters on refugee architects to New Zealand and to the United States, on ambitious projects to modernize Baghdad during the 1950s, and on projects by modernist architects such as Walter Gropius and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. She is a Member of the Board of Advisors of the International Archives of Women in Architecture (IAWA) in Blacksburg, Virginia, of the Historic Buildings Council in Belfast, and of the Equality, Inclusivity and Diversity-group of the RIBA North West. Kate Reggev, AIA, is an architect, architectural historian, design writer, and educator specializing in preservation and adaptive reuse. She is Associate at the New York firm of Beyer Blinder Belle, where she works on cultural, institutional, and civic projects that provide lasting and meaningful public benefit. An Adjunct Assistant Professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of xxi

Contributors

Architecture, Planning and Preservation, she teaches in the Preservation Program, has lectured about preservation and architectural history across the country, and also writes about design for Architectural Digest, Dwell, and other industry publications. She holds Master of Science in Historic Preservation and Master of Architecture from Columbia University, as well as Bachelor of Arts in Architecture, cum laude, from Barnard College, Columbia University, New York City. Shelley E. Roff, Associate Professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio, completed her PhD in History of Art and Architecture at Brown University in 2002 and currently engages research on the architecture of medieval and early modern Spain and premodern women working in the building-related crafts and construction in Europe. She has published in Women and Wealth in Medieval Europe, ed. Theresa Earenfight (2010); her forthcoming book, Treasure of the City: The Public Sphere and Civic Urbanism in Late Medieval Barcelona, was funded by a 2019 NEH Faculty Award for Hispanic-Serving Institutions. Rebecca Siefert is Assistant Professor of Art History at Governors State University in University Park, Illinois, and SAH Women in Architecture AG Administrator. She earned her PhD in Art History at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (2018), where she focused on the history of twentieth-century art, architecture, and film. Her primary area of research comprises women in architecture who have been overlooked by mainstream scholarship, especially those involved in the debates surrounding public housing. She has contributed to The Bloomsbury Global Encyclopedia of Women in Architecture, and her monograph on the contemporary architect and artist Lauretta Vinciarelli, Into the Light: The Art and Architecture of Lauretta Vinciarelli, was published by Lund Humphries in 2020. Anna Sokolina is an architect, historian, curator, and Founding Chair of SAH Women in Architecture AG, who also contributes to the Advisory Boards of the International Archive of Women in Architecture and The Bloomsbury Global Encyclopedia of Women in Architecture (ed. Lori Brown and Karen Burns, forthcoming). She holds a PhD (1992) in Theory and History of Architecture and Landmarks Preservation from the VNIITAG branch of the Russian Academy of Architecture and Construction Sciences. She graduated from the Moscow Institute of Architecture (1980) and New York University SPS (2001), interned at the Guggenheim Museum New York, CooperHewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, and Public Design Commission at the NYC Mayor’s Office, and has contributed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (1999–2007), the Morgan Library and Museum, and ARTMargins. She was the first independent woman curator of the itinerant Paper Architecture exhibitions in Germany and France (1992–1993) and worked as an Architect/Research Associate at CNIITIA/VNIITAG, as Curator of Exhibitions at Tabakman Museum, and was a member of the architecture faculty at Miami University, where she also curated the Cage Gallery. She received seventeen grants and awards, her 104 artworks are housed in twenty-three collections, and her over ninety publications include Architecture and Anthroposophy (ed., 2001, 2010, e-access 2019), and Building Utopia: Architecture of the GDR (in progress). Margaret Birney Vickery, an architectural historian, educator, and curator, is a Lecturer in the History of Art and Architecture Department at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She earned her BA from Oberlin College (1985) and a PhD from Stanford University (1993). Her research is focused on the architecture of women’s colleges in nineteenth-century England, campus architecture, women’s education, Victorian architecture, and contemporary and sustainable architecture. Her publications include Buildings for Bluestockings: The Architecture and Social History of Women’s Colleges in Late Victorian England (2000) and Campus Guide: Smith College (2007). From 2008 to 2010, she developed an exhibition, Greening the Valley: Sustainable Architecture in the Pioneer Valley, at the xxii

Contributors

University Museum of Contemporary Art at UMass Amherst. Her most recent books include Landscape and Infrastructure: Re-Imagining the Pastoral Paradigm for the 21st Century (2019) and Translations: Architecture/Art by Sigrid Miller Pollin (2020). Millicent Danziger Vollono, a researcher and author whose passions include local history, early music, and genealogy, holds degrees from Hofstra University (BA Music, 1973; MA Humanities, 1976) and Long Island University (MS Library Science, 1981) and is enthusiastic about uncovering the lost world of Long Island’s history. Her publications include The Five Towns (2010), a commemorative edition of A Brief History of the Village of Woodsburgh (2012), “Robert Burton’s Woodmere” in Gardens of Eden: Long Island’s Early Twentieth-Century Planned Communities (2015), “Designing Suburbia: Olive Tjaden on Long Island” (2016), and “Zonta Club on Long Island” (2019) in Nassau County Historical Society Journal. Volker M. Welter is Professor at the Department of the History of Art and Architecture, University of California at Santa Barbara. His research interests focus on domestic architecture, patronage, histories of modernism, revivalism, sustainability, and historiography of modern architecture. He studied architecture at Technische Universität Berlin and holds a PhD in History of Architecture from the University of Edinburgh (1997). He has received grants and fellowships from the Getty Grant Program, the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, and the Centre Canadien d’Architecture, Montreal. Among his book publications are Biopolis: Patrick Geddes and the City of Life (2002), Ernst L. Freud, Architect: The Case of the Modern Bourgeois Home (2012), Walter S. White: Inventions in Mid-Century Modernism (2015), and Tremaine Houses: One Family’s Patronage of Domestic Architecture in Midcentury America (2019). His current book in progress delves into a longitudinal study of a three-generation Santa Barbara architecture office that between 1916 and 1984 was run by George Washington Smith, Lutah Maria Riggs, and Riggs and Arvin B. Shaw. Christopher S. Wilson is an Architecture and Design Historian at Ringling College of Art + Design, Sarasota, FL, USA. He holds a BArch from Temple University, Philadelphia, PA (1992); an MA in Histories and Theories of Architecture from the Architectural Association, London, UK (1997); and PhD in Architecture from Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey (2007). Wilson worked as an architect in Philadelphia, Berlin, and London and is registered with the RIBA. Among his publications is Beyond Anıtkabir: The Funerary Architecture of Atatürk. The Construction and Maintenance of National Memory (2013). An expert on “The Sarasota School,” Dr. Wilson has been a Board Member of the Sarasota Architectural Foundation since 2012, serving as Board Chair from 2017 to 2020, and has written the Sarasota chapter in a monograph on the life and work of Sarasota School architect Victor Lundy, Victor Lundy: Artist Architect (2018). Rylee Soquella Woodcock is a California Baptist University College of Architecture, Visual Arts + Design graduate student in architecture assisting Professor Katherine Kaford Papineau in research of the life and work of Lois Davidson Gottlieb. Her academic interests focus on mid-century residential design, specifically analyzing place-making using empathetic research methods. Paola Zellner is an Argentine architect and Associate Professor of Architecture at the School of Architecture + Design at Virginia Tech, as well as a Member of the Executive Committee and Board of Advisors of the International Archive of Women in Architecture (IAWA). 30 x 30, one of several initiatives she leads in the IAWA Center, has been displayed nationally and internationally with accompanying presentations at the 18th L’Union Internationale des Femmes Architectes (UIFA) Congress, the XV Bienal Internacional de Arquitectura in Buenos Aires, the All-Ireland Architecture Research Group (AIARG) 2016 conference, and the 2016 IAWA Symposium, as well as in xxiii

Contributors

the Kibel Gallery at the University of Maryland and at the American Institute of Architects (AIA) National Headquarters in Washington, DC, where it launched during the AIA Women’s Leadership Summit.

Board of Chapter Editors Christina E. Crawford, Editor Catherine R. Ettinger, Editor and Contributor Rebecca Siefert, Editor and Contributor Anna Sokolina, Chair of the Board and Contributor Margaret Birney Vickery, Editor and Contributor Danielle S. Willkens, Editor

Chapter Editors (Who are not Contributors) Christina E. Crawford is an architectural and urban historian, a licensed architect, Assistant Professor of Architectural History at Emory University, and President of the Society of Historians of East European, Eurasian and Russian Art and Architecture. She received her PhD and MArch from Harvard University and her BA from Yale University. Her monograph Spatial Revolution (2021) explores the foundations of early Soviet urban theory and practice, and new research investigates interwar exchanges of housing expertise between the US and Europe, using Atlanta as a primary node. Her scholarly writing can be found in Future Anterior, Harvard Design Magazine, the Journal of Architectural Education, the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, and the Journal of Urban History. Her research has been supported by a Getty/ACLS Postdoctoral Fellowship in the History of Art; the College Art Association’s Millard Meiss Grant; the Fulbright Program; the International Planning History Society; the Weatherhead Institute; and the Davis Center at Harvard. Danielle S. Willkens, Assoc. AIA, LEED AP BD+C, is Assistant Professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology’s School of Architecture where she teaches architectural history and design studios. She holds a PhD in Architectural History and Theory from the Bartlett School of Architecture, as well as an MArch and BS from the University of Virginia and an MPhil in Architectural History from Cambridge University. As a practicing designer, researcher, and FAA Certified Remote Pilot, she is particularly interested in bringing architectural engagement to diverse audiences through interactive digital visualization. She was the 2015 recipient of the Society of Architectural Historians’ H. Allen Brooks Travelling Fellowship, and her research into transatlantic design exchange has been supported by the Sir John Soane’s Museum Foundation, the International Center for Jefferson Studies, and an American Philosophical Society Franklin Research Grant.

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PREFACE

My life as an architect has been determined by the frozen music of capital cities and by the luminous terrains of the unbuilt social utopias. Now I revisit and reevaluate anew my path through the prism of global calamities and transitions, and I reassess the prospects of my generation, the glorious tree of modern knowledge, the declarations of gender equality, and in this volume place my emphasis on integrity, enlightenment, and justice, by revealing the immense yet overwhelmingly concealed contribution of the female half of the Earth’s population to shaping our built environments.

Our Time The world is changing. Having been born in the Eastern Hemisphere, with my early professional beginnings in the capital of the communal utopia at dusk, I was surrounded by remarkable women, role models across industries and academia. As the male population of Europe and Russia was greatly wiped out during brutal twentieth-century wars, women there constituted the majority of the workforce; today, women make primary decisions, shape living environments, and take over responsibilities. When I turned four years old, my mother showed me to her civil engineering office at a major state design institution in Moscow and introduced me to her colleagues, mostly women, as a future architect. Being trained to regard both the Western and the Eastern perspectives, I also had the privilege of learning by example while simultaneously working full-time, starting my family, studying in the PhD program (both in Germany and in Russia), and later curating professional exhibitions and lecturing in Western Europe. In the early 1990s we immigrated to the US, where I have since studied and worked. I have been designing, writing, curating, painting, crafting models and installations, drawing, laboring on a construction plant, working with contractors, running an office, and teaching studio courses in architecture and environmental design, theory-history, and independent study. My teaching philosophy grew out of those personal and social ties to bridge craters by fostering fundamental values of collaboration and collegial support. Our industry is ruled by men. American urban landscape historian Thaïsa Way, in our correspondence concerning my efforts as the Founding Chair of the Women in Architecture Affiliate Group of the Society of Architectural Historians, referenced Professor Mabel Wilson on the meaning of the term “architecture” in traditional chronologies as “exclusionary” and “embedded with white male supremacy” and thus exempt from future histories.1 Respectfully, I believe that the massive presence

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of women in architecture over the recent century—and, in particular, the female prevalence by numbers in certain regions across continents, that is, in Eastern European countries, Russia, the Baltic republics, the republics of Caucasus (Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan), arguably in Mongolia, Kazakhstan, etc.—proves that architecture has a great future, going far beyond what has been profiled in the Western contexts as a historically exclusive “boys’ club.”2 A holistic take on architecture—rooted in the knowledge of coexistence, in harmony with the natural world, a vision of societal perfection and the equality of color, gender, nationality, culture, and faith—speaks volumes and manifests the “Alliance of the Arts under the Wing of Architecture,” defeating dogmatic constraints.3 I perceive architecture as teamwork and as the whole greater than the sum of its parts. I see the tragedy of our discipline as adhering to marginalized chronologies and languages and I recognize our mission to expand the map and reconstruct the truth about women’s equal contribution by uncovering veiled evidence of significant female presence, accomplishments, and leadership in the profession.

The Spark This volume was launched as an initiative branching out of my research project, “Life to Architecture: Milka Bliznakov Academic Papers at the IAWA,” which in 2016 was awarded the new Bliznakov Scholar designation, established by the M. Bliznakov Research Prize Jury of the International Archive of Women in Architecture Center at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.4 A passionate advocate for the equal standing of professional women, Professor Milka T. Bliznakov (1927–2010) remains a powerful inspiration: in 1985, she founded the International Archive of Women in Architecture (IAWA), now the world’s largest thematic archive, facilitated in the Special Collections division of the University Libraries at a major American university, with over 2,400 holdings from forty-seven countries, housing the legacies of more than 440 individuals, practices, organizations, and exhibits, in seventeen languages, dating from the 1890s to the present. Through the structured study of the files of Professor Bliznakov, an architect, teacher, and scholar with research interests focused on Russian constructivism, I emphasized her legacy in the IAWA records of Russian women architects, which I have solicited annually for the archive since 2002 and which now contain some thirty collections documenting women’s contributions to the built environment across borders.5 She was involved in academic projects rooted in her life experiences, carried out in her doctoral thesis at Columbia University in NYC and her engagement with the Institute of Modern Russian Culture, now active in Los Angeles, CA.6 The report on the idea of launching a new collective publication as a general resource for a Women in Architecture survey course was delivered to the IAWA Board at Virginia Tech and at the IAWA Symposium in March of 2017 in celebration of Women’s History Month in the talk “We Can Do It: The Mission of Milka Bliznakov” and has been encouraged as a vital contribution to the IAWA mission. This spark grew into a powerful fire of evocations prompting new collaborations and broadening professional networks. A variety of chapters in the current book have effectively resourced the IAWA holdings: “Regarding De Stijl Through a Gender Perspective: The Life and Work of Han Schröder” by Rixt Hoekstra, “Architect, Partner, Wife: Mid-Century Husband-and-Wife Partnerships” by Kate Reggev, “Together Not Apart: Creating Constellations in Learning from an Archive” by Donna W. Dunay, “Uncovering Her Archive: Ayla Karacabey in Postwar Architecture” by Meral Ekincioglu, “Expanding the Legacy: The International Archive of Women in Architecture” by Paola Zellner, “Breaking the Silence: Women in Russian Architecture” by Anna Sokolina, and “Reflections: Creating an

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Architectural Practice” by Diane Elliott Gayer. These and many other chapters carry on the spark of my original research project on Professor Bliznakov’s legacy.

The New Normal The year 2020 became a testament to the heroism of women, from the battlefields of the pandemic, to our homelands shut down, to the historic New Normal in our profession: from innovating and creating virtual spaces, testing our ability to stay connected, to sustaining the environment and adapting to the rapid change. Influenced by the work on this not yet published book, a series of initiatives emerged, ranging from teaching to practical engagements. When, in December of 2019, the Society of Architectural Historians—founded in 1940 at the Harvard Club by twenty-five American academics and now the world’s largest international association of scholars writing architectural histories with over 3,500 members—announced the creation of affiliate groups, the Women in Architecture Group was conceived. I founded the group with the mission to equally support the breadth of interests of architectural historians across continents and develop a platform for wide-ranging inquiry into the projects around women in architecture and design. Recognizing the broad scope of professional engagements and diversity of women’s contributions to the built environment worldwide, the purpose of the group is now to provide a forum for collaborative scholarship and discussion and to document, advocate, and advance research, publication, education, and exhibition initiatives on the subject integrating the professional standing of women in architecture and design with broader studies on leadership, identities, philosophies, and structures of power across borders and cultures. I drafted the bylaws and designed the logo sign; the SAH Women in Architecture Center was established to foster programs and broaden networks with women’s organizations, such as AIA Women’s Centers, AWSS, BWAF, EAHN, IAWA, SAHGB, SHERA, and UIFA. The SAH WiA AG Registers Committee that I initiated and am co-chairing with Barbara Ann Opar, as a global initiative was also supported by the Society of Architectural Historians. The purpose of the Committee is to create, maintain, and advance the registers of archives, libraries, museums, other learned centers, of all scale, across continents, that collect, preserve, and promote women’s contributions to the built environment; bibliographies—a catalogue of bibliographic resources: written about women’s contribution to the built environment integrating works in broader diversity, border- and cross-disciplinary studies, covering various geographies, and areas relevant to understanding and teaching the subject; and written by women who are architectural and art historians, educators, curators, critics, other protagonists in our profession; and networks—a database of likeminded organizations, institutions, and other alliances across borders and disciplines. All these initiatives would not have been possible without the work on this volume and the team efforts of many colleagues noted in this book with respect and gratitude.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This volume would not have been possible without the memorable collaboration from my gracious friend and colleague, the founder of the International Archive of Women in Architecture, Milka T. Bliznakov, PhD, Professor Emerita at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, a vanguard figure who remains an inspiration for women in architecture across the globe. With a remarkable sense of humor and a talent for overcoming hardships, she was the soul of sisterhood and recognition. Now, forty-three envelopes containing numerous folders of our handwritten correspondence and her hand-marked research materials, letters, and cards are preserved in the Milka T. Bliznakov Papers and Architectural Drawings collection and in my architectural collection at Virginia Tech University Libraries and Archives. A large amount of work on this book has been accomplished during the critical time of a global pandemic, witnessing personal heroism, political unrest, and the immense struggle for social justice. Sincere thanks are due to our team of contributors who revised the traditional approach to research, teaching, and practicing architecture and provided essential drafts over the timespan from early 2018 to late 2020. Two rounds of double-blind peer review as well as another review by the Routledge Board of Editors backed the massive scope and the creative vision of this project; the contents and structure have been revised several times responding to the requirements of our changing era. I am indebted to Routledge Editors Krystal LaDuc Racaniello and Christine Bondira for their support and guidance. During my initial study generous assistance was provided by the staff of Virginia Tech Libraries Special Collections: Dr. Aaron Purcell, Director of Special Collections; Samantha Winn, Collections Archivist; and Kira A. Ditz, Acquisitions and Processing Archivist. I also owe a credit to the archivist Jade Snelling, who supported us with publication permissions of rare images digitized and preserved in Special Collections. With sincere thanks I  recognize the architecture and urban design studio moss::: in Chicago for providing permission to publish their creative graphics. My collegial gratitude for encouraging my academic pursuits goes to the International Archive of Women in Architecture Advisory Board Members, current and former, at Virginia Tech: Donna W. Dunay, FAIA, G.T. Ward Professor of Architecture and IAWA Chair; Helene Renard, Professor Emerita; Humberto Rodriguez-Camilloni, PhD, Professor and Director of the Henry H. Wiss Center for Theory and History of Art and Architecture; Paola Zellner Bassett, Associate Professor and IAWA Executive Committee Member; Marcia Feuerstein, PhD, AIA, Associate Professor, formerly IAWA Chair; Shelley F. Martin, Associate Professor; Kay F. Edge, Associate Professor; Kristine K. Fallon, FAIA; Ellen Fisher, PhD, Dean, New York School of Interior Design; Sarantsatsral xxviii

Acknowledgments

Ochirpurevlin, Architect and Director, Urkh; and Alice Finnerup Møller, FAIA, Arkitektfirmaet MAA. I wish to express my gratitude to Professor Paola Zellner for her practical support during the process of selecting images from the IAWA. I am thankful to Peter J. Potter, Director of Publishing Strategy at Virginia Tech University Libraries, for his advice and the time he has selflessly spent discussing my publication project. I owe special words of appreciation to the respected, like-minded scholars who took the time to provide feedback and become the first reviewers of this extensive publication proposal: Despina Stratigakos, PhD, Professor of Architecture, University of Buffalo School of Architecture and Planning and author of Where Are the Women Architects? (2016); Lori A. Brown, AIA, Professor of Architecture, Syracuse University School of Architecture, Cofounder of ArchiteXX; Meredith Clausen, PhD, Professor of Art History, University of Washington, Seattle; Gabrielle Esperdy, PhD, Professor of Architecture, New Jersey Institute of Technology in Newark, Editor, SAH Archipedia; and Mary McLeod, PhD, Professor of Architecture, Columbia University in the City of New York. The urgency of this publication initiative became clear through the success of the Women in Architecture Wikipedia Edit-a-Thon project at the Guggenheim Museum in New York in 2017 as well as during conferences of the Society of Architectural Historians over the last twenty years as interest in the topic increased. It came to the forefront for me in correspondence with Wanda Bubriski, Founding Director of the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation, who at the BWAF meeting during the 68th SAH Conference in Chicago in April of 2015 awarded me with the original DVD of the acclaimed documentary written and directed by Beverly Willis and produced by BWAF, “A Girl Is A Fellow Here”: Women Architects in the Studio of Frank Lloyd Wright, a film that illuminates the life and work of Marion Mahony, Isabel Roberts, Lois Gottlieb, Jane Duncombe, Eleanore Pettersen, and Read Weber.7 The collaboration with Beverly Willis, FAIA, added special merit to this volume, and I am thankful to her for modeling great independence and furthering creativity and professional craft. My deep respect goes as well to the architect Lois Davidson Gottlieb (1926–2018) for her presence in my life and research and for our informal conversations about her professional and personal encounters in Milka Bliznakov’s hospitable home during our stay for the IAWA Board Meetings, and to her daughter Karen and son Mark Gottlieb, who introduced her legacy to audiences of all ages at Virginia Tech symposia. I owe a debt of gratitude to the members of our Board of Chapter Editors who volunteered their skill and talent to enhance the quality of our writings: Professors Christina Elizabeth Crawford, PhD, Emory University; Rebecca Siefert, PhD, Governors State University; and Danielle S. Willkens, PhD, Georgia Institute of Technology. Special appreciation goes to Professors Catherine R. Ettinger, PhD, Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo, and Margaret Birney Vickery, PhD, University of Massachusetts Amherst, for their valuable feedback and gracious commitment to editing multiple scripts. At the later stage of writing, important feedback has been provided by Professors Annmarie Adams, PhD, Stevenson Chair in the History and Philosophy of Science, McGill University, Montreal, Canada, and Alexandra Staub, PhD, Stuckeman School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, College of Arts & Architecture, Penn State University. My gratitude is extended to numerous talented colleagues who, during the work on this volume, helped build bridges of understanding across continents—the remarkable women and men of architecture in Argentina, Canada, France, Germany, Israel, Mongolia, Russia, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, and the United States, and also to women innovators working in Africa, Latin America, and in multiple other regions not previously mentioned, including the Balkans, Eastern Europe, and Southeast Asia. Being born, educated, and professionally active in the largest cities of both the Eastern and Western Hemispheres and witnessing firsthand social and political upheavals and morphing pyramids of dictatorships and ladders of democracies, I have had the privilege of collaboration with magnificent role models who changed the culture of architecture xxix

Acknowledgments

beyond borders—architects, scholars, educators, city planners, landscape architects, interior designers, writers, activists, and authorities within and above the margins of the discipline of the built environment who extended their support by fostering further developments stemming from this publication project. My sincere appreciation goes to Barbara Ann Opar, Architecture Librarian, Syracuse University Library, with whom I have the privilege of co-chairing the SAH WiA AG Registers Committee. A considerable part of the bibliography that accompanies the introduction to this volume is a product of her contribution of time and talent to creating and maintaining, with her student assistant Hannah Joelle Deichler, an inclusive list of publications on women in our profession. Thanks to the remarkable generosity of many renowned and lesser-known museums, archives, and individual collectors around the globe who preserved pivotal yet largely unexplored materials on the subject, we have the rare opportunity to document this publication with images highlighting historical evidence of women’s powerful contribution to shaping the built environment; all of them are recognized and referenced by authors in every chapter, in notes and captions accompanying illustrations, and in the illustrations list of this volume. I would like to give my special thanks, limitless love, and appreciation to my family. From my early years, I have been surrounded by a cohort of strong women, true role models: my mother, Maria Efimovna Guz (née Mera Sokolina), a hardworking civil engineer and a kind, caring soul, and my grandmother, Galina M. Sokolina, a photographer in her own right and a single mother who lost her family property to Bolsheviks and her husband to war under the nazis’ siege of Leningrad and yet brought up three children by strengthening family values and managing her photo studio. And to the remarkable men who inspired me in more ways than one: my father, the aviation engineer Colonel Peter Evseevich Guz, a war veteran and a devoted educator who dedicated his life to public service, and my husband Yuriy Gmirya, a talented engineer with numerous patents, recognized executive and lecturer, who at all times helped sustain my career and wholeheartedly aided with a variety of technical inquiries on this scholarship.

Notes 1. Thaïsa Way is an urban landscape historian and professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture at the College of Built Environments, University of Washington, Seattle; site accessed November 1, 2020, www. thaisaway.com/. Mabel O. Wilson is the N. and G. Rupp Professor of Architecture, Planning and Preservation; a professor in African American and African Diasporic Studies; and the director of the Institute for Research in African American Studies (IRAAS) at Columbia University; site accessed November 1, 2020, http://iraas.columbia.edu/Faculty/mabel-wilson. 2. This assessment would benefit from detailed statistical research. 3. Wolfgang Pehnt, Expressionist Architecture (London: Thames and Hudson, 1973), 20. 4. Anna P. Sokolina, Milka Bliznakov Scholar Report. Life to Architecture: Milka Bliznakov Academic Papers and Records of Women in Russian Architecture at the IAWA (Alternative Spaces, 2019), accessed November 1, 2020, www.academia.edu/39140431/Milka_Bliznakov_Scholar_Report. 5. Prof. Robert Schubert, Virginia Tech Dean for Research, CAUS Research + Discovery 2017 Annual Report, section “Milka Bliznakov Research Prize 2016,” accessed May  1, 2020, www.caus.vt.edu/news-events/ annual-report/2017-annual-report/research-discovery-2017. 6. Anna Sokolina, “Milka Bliznakov, 1927–2010,” Slavic Review. Interdisciplinary Quarterly of Russian, Eurasian, and East European Studies 70, no. 2 (2011): 498–99; also, Anna Sokolina, “Milka Bliznakov,” in The Bloomsbury Global Encyclopedia of Women in Architecture, 1960–2015, ed. Lori A. Brown and Karen Burns (London: Bloomsbury, forthcoming). 7. Reference to the film on the BWAF website, assessed May 1, 2020, www.bwaf.org/film-a-girl-is-a-fellow-here/.

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INTRODUCTION Anna Sokolina

The Place and Time At the beginning of the next decade of the twenty-first century, the global pandemic, social unrests, economic crises, and natural disasters eclipse the world map, and we turn to architecture and history to understand the reality of the present moment in order to navigate and persevere through the challenges that we face. Architecture has often played a pivotal role in helping us process moments of crisis. The chronologies capture the critical extent to which life has been sustained under extreme circumstances, yet they consistently lack structured representations of women’s leadership. Geopolitical landscapes continue to lead us to fragmented conclusions and hinge on established patriarchal cultures, while the milestones of women’s contributions to shaping the environment we live in remain only partially revealed in written chronicles. However, over the recent decades the effectiveness of prevailing maledominated constructs has been increasingly challenged. History matters—there are no short-lived priorities in the value of impact; everything is of great importance. The urgency of this publication is apparent; we are filling the void of fundamental knowledge. In this volume, we follow our vision of preparing for the future by reconstructing the past through insightful research. We aim not only to present a collection of case studies, but to advance a more incisive overview of the topic as a whole and to analyze women’s accomplishments across borders, terrains, and strategies of power with more attention paid to related fields. The chapters uncover significant yet largely unexplored instances of women’s agency in architecture and survey an extensive legacy. The critical arguments reference institutions and archives that collect and promote women’s work and hold an extraordinary wealth of historical records in urgent need of further excavation.1 We hope that through the intertwined examination of architectural theory, history, education, criticism, curatorship, landscape architecture, urban design, and city planning, as well as the practices of interior and graphic design, craftsmanship, and artistry, our book will inspire broader studies and debates, engender discussions in emerging areas, and become a catalyst for new research, courses and modules, and future publications on the subject.

Filling the Gap in History This book challenges traditional histories: we are now buttressed by the commitment of professional and academic communities and empowered by numerous discoveries of the resilience of individual

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characters. In our volume, theoretically, historically, and ethnographically grounded contributions explore the role of women in architecture in its complexity across social and cultural divides.2 The difference of our volume is also meant to be the depth and scope of each chapter. The critical approach to this project is trifold, presenting women’s achievements in the fields of history, practice, and education.3 History. These chapters uncover evidence and offer visibility to women’s networks and initiatives worldwide and delve into women’s professional strategies and visual narratives that revise historical readings and impact new generations. Examples include: “Did Women Design or Build Before the Industrial Age?” by Shelley E. Roff, “For Homeowners and Housekeepers: The Architecture of Minerva Parker Nichols in Late Nineteenth-Century America” by Margaret (Molly) Lester, and “Expanding the Legacy: The International Archive of Women in Architecture” by Paola Zellner. Practice. These studies examine the evolution of design-build practices and expand beyond descriptive representations of women’s professional agency. Through the lens of gender studies, internal cultural mechanisms are considered that have affected the complex architecture field in diverse regions around the globe. Of particular interest is research that probes the processes of architectural production, both individually and collaboratively. The implied grouping of original chapters presents recent discoveries: “ ‘Designing Houses Is Like Having Babies’: Verna Cook and the Practice of Architecture in the 1920s and 1930s” by Catherine R. Ettinger, “Reclaiming the Work of Women Architects in Mandatory Palestine” by Sigal Davidi, “Lois Davidson Gottlieb: A Woman Fellow” by Katherine Kaford Papineau and Rylee Soquella Woodcock, “Uncovering Her Archive: Ayla Karacabey in Postwar Architecture” by Meral Ekincioglu, “Women’s Contributions to Manitoba’s Built Environment: The Case of Green Blankstein Russell” by Marieke Gruwel, and “Reflections: Creating an Architectural Practice” by Diane Elliott Gayer. Education. The internal logistics of these studies reflect on how architectural education and professional practice impact each other, with emphasis on different tactics and methodologies implemented by architecture schools to address gender inequality in the Western templates when developing their curricula. Select chapters adhering to these guidelines: “Blocks Versus Knots: Bauhaus Women Weavers’ Contribution to Architecture’s Canon” by Harriet Harriss, “Together Not Apart: Creating Constellations in Learning from an Archive” by Donna W. Dunay, “Flora Ruchat-Roncati and the ‘Will to Keep Working’ ” by Irina Davidovici and Katia Frey, and “Collaborations: The Architecture and Art of Sigrid Miller Pollin” by Margaret Birney Vickery. A variety of other approaches have strong potential to provide with stimulating opportunities for research and debates, for instance, a collection of writings that uses the prism of gender studies to examine different aspects related to the profession, including social and personal status and wealth, ideologies and activism, individualist and collectivist philosophies, and networking strategies and tactics of professional involvement. Among chapters informed by these guidelines are “The Forgotten Art of Florence Hope Luscomb” by Mary Anne Hunting and Kevin D. Murphy, “Architect, Partner, Wife: Mid-Century Husband-and-Wife Partnerships” by Kate Reggev, and “Architect, Builder, Client, Secretary: The Women of the Sarasota School” by Christopher S. Wilson. A reflective thread of contributions that would ignite a cross-disciplinary discourse reveals women’s remarkable scale of engagement, mapping local vs. global contexts. Of significant weight here are the case studies presented in the following chapters: “Lutah Maria Riggs: Portrait of a Modern Revival-Style Architect” by Volker M. Welter, “Regarding De Stijl Through a Gender Perspective: The Life and Work of Han Schröder” by Rixt Hoekstra, “Restless: Drawn by Zaha Hadid” by Nerma Cridge, “Breaking the Silence: Women in Russian Architecture” by Anna Sokolina, and “Leaving a Lasting Legacy. Beverly Willis: Groundbreaking Architect, Artist, Designer, Filmmaker, and Philanthropist” by Kathryn H. Anthony and Shailee Dave. Another collection profiles professional women with strong writing skills: authors, critics, editors, educators, publishers, architecture commissioners, and collectors who consulted, inspired, and 2

Introduction

shaped built environments and architectural thought. Among the chapters presenting important discoveries by authors preoccupied with relevant excavations of historical materials are “Consulting and Curating the Modern Interior: The Work of Hilde Reiss, 1943–1946” by Erin McKellar, and “Katherine Morrow Ford: Designs for Living” by Katherine Kaford Papineau. Studies on the interconnections between architecture and art, landscape, and interior design as a complex approach to the built environment are highlighted in the chapters “Nell Brooker Mayhew and the Arts and Crafts Movement in America” by Brian Adams, “Eileen Gray: Invitation to an Intellectual Journey” by Carmen Espegel, “Blocks Versus Knots: Bauhaus Women Weavers’ Contribution to Architecture’s Canon” by Harriet Harriss, “ ‘Mrs. Meric Callery’ ” by Jan Frohburg, and “ ‘Something More Solid and Massive’: The Architecture of Lauretta Vinciarelli” by Rebecca Siefert. Established patriarchal settings are still with us, challenging the 2020 National Council of Architectural Registration Boards Report that affirms that in the US, improvements in licensure candidates and new architects with greater diversity are more visible than ever.4 Interactive connections based on national and international networks help to disseminate global data on women’s professional achievements.5 The aspiration of our publication is to contribute to a dialogue that calls for transparency and explores networks of women that play a role in the process of change. In this volume the networking is addressed and expanded through the analysis of women’s narratives in the discipline. We uncover the life and work of women from Austria, England, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and other European countries. The specific networks and practices that provide women with opportunities to prosper, create, and compete with others are illuminated in several chapters, among them: “ ‘This is Not a Success Story’: Florence Fulton Hobson, Architect in Northern Ireland” by Tanja Poppelreuter, “Regarding De Stijl Through a Gender Perspective: The Life and Work of Han Schröder” by Rixt Hoekstra, “More Than Shelter: Olive Tjaden’s Suburban Projects in New York and Florida” by Millicent Danziger Vollono and Lauren Vollono Drapala, and “Flora Ruchat-Roncati and the ‘Will to Keep Working’ ” by Irina Davidovici and Katia Frey. We aim at an inclusive, interdisciplinary approach to the subject by introducing studies in a broader variety of areas of the built environment. The following chapters bring to light the work of women in landscape architecture, urban design, and city planning: “Reclaiming the Work of Women Architects in Mandatory Palestine” by Sigal Davidi, “Together Not Apart: Creating Constellations in Learning from an Archive” by Donna W. Dunay, “Uncovering Her Archive: Ayla Karacabey in Postwar Architecture” by Meral Ekincioglu, and “Reflections: Creating an Architectural Practice” by Diane Elliott Gayer. Our discipline is in urgent need of examination in light of global transitions. A transnational inquiry can help avoid negative confrontations. For instance, the debates on architecture of select non-Western regions—that is, of African, South American, Central and Eastern European, or Central and Eastern Asian topographies—still remain scarce. Also, arguably for reasons other than scholarship, we lack studies on architecture in Russia, a country which covers the Eurasian terrain two-and-a-half times the size of the US, where, since the second half of the twentieth century, the workforce in many fields of the built environment has been largely female. In particular, women dominate older demographics due to the considerable extinction of men to warfare— over 25 million dead during World War II, most of them male. Yet the profession there is ruled primarily by men. While the world is divided, polarizations lead to the lack of visibility, transparency, and mutual understanding across cultures, societies, and geographies. By simultaneously illuminating overlooked networks and reviewing the fabric of world histories, the contribution of women to architecture can be revealed and integrated into the primary stream. We have sourced a wide range of studies and have unearthed some real gems. The chapters in our volume have brought about new questions, such as what was happening in other localities and cultures, and what was the nature of sociopolitical transformations that might have involved change? 3

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We leave out the narratives focused in particular on the feminist movement, or those preoccupied with compare-contrast investigations of male vs. female proficiencies. Topics of that nature may be the subject matter of another discipline. Our book has been envisioned as an architecture history resource, integrating discoveries that mine substantial layers of data still hidden in the archives and broaden the geographic horizons of learning.

Subject Areas and Audience We hope to energize the growing interest in broadening architectural history with a volume that provides fascinating new role models. In 2017 in the UK, Dr. Harriet Harriss identified the problem, noting that: [the] lack of gender parity in architecture and interior design reading lists highlight the extent to which inequalities in the profession are being sustained and maintained by schools of architecture—both in terms of their staffing profiles and their curricula content [,] and that academic reading lists “are largely dominated by male writers, leading them to assume that the key voices of authority within the discipline of architecture are male.”6 She emphasized that “although one in three architectural educators in the UK are women, only 2.5 percent of UK architecture faculty is female at Dean level.” While teaching at the Royal College of Art in London, she composed a list seeking to “address the problem by featuring women writers in architecture” across architecture-related subject areas to “not only encourage more female students to feel equally represented within the profession,” but also to “encourage more of them to enter academia.”7 This declaration of equal standing responds to the inquiry recognized in the UK by The Bartlett School of Architecture at University College London, The Royal College of Art, The Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland, The Society of Architectural Historian of Great Britain, et al.; in the United States by the majority of architecture schools; and by the growing number of educational and academic centers worldwide with an English-speaking student pool. Our volume is envisioned as a catalyst for new programs; a general resource; and a foundation for new cross-disciplinary surveys, courses, and modules on the subject. Our aspiration is to offer arguments and full discursive chapters, not just brief profiles of women who have made contributions, and to empower new generations. We advocate change by featuring diverse role models whose contributions to the built environment would encourage and inspire students, academia, and a broader audience.

Structural Core The contents of the book are organized in chronological order and are logistically structured to guide the reader and outline the stages of the evolution and the expanding scale of women’s engagement in the field. The framework of thematic threads ties the parts of the volume into a consistent whole. The book begins with the dedication, precis, list of illustrations, contributors’ biographies, preface, and acknowledgments and concludes with an index. All chapters display a clearly defined narrative and a sound potential for inspiration. Chapters are intertwined through their objectives and the novelty of research and are structured based on a threefold grid, which implies an introduction, main part, and conclusion, accompanied with a bibliography, detailed notes, and original illustrations with captions referring to the authenticity and provenance of images. Archival research provides rare information on the context of reading. Collected data is correlated to shape a significant cohort of women, their aspirations, and their impact on the culture and the future of the built environment. 4

Introduction

The core of the volume comprises five parts: I. Women in the Early Profession and Leadership: Preindustrial Age to Early Twentieth Century. From Domestic Realms Into Public Life and Culture; II. Women in the Modern Movement: The First Half of the Twentieth Century. The Limits of Engagement in the Architectural Profession and the Agenda of “Modern” Work; III. Women in the Context of Mid-Century Modernism. Mainstream Practice Formations, Public Engagement, and Women’s Wider Agency in the Field; IV. Women in Architecture of the Late Twentieth Century. Architectural Work and Urban Planning: Drawing, Building, Educating, Archiving; V. Women in Architecture: From the 1960s to the Present. Breaking the Glass Ceiling. Each chapter can stand on its own and presents authoritative overviews of significant topics: the stories and images in these pages reflect the vibrancy and resiliency of talented women. The chapters reveal the commitment of the authors to illuminating broader topographies that advocate a forthright take on portraits of practicing architects, outstanding leaders, teachers, writers, critics, and other kinds of protagonists in the built environment. The proposed margins, as in any theoretical assumption, are schematic and engage overlaps of timeframes and territories. Historical topographies studied by the authors are informed by the earliest available references, from the preindustrial age to the present. Commissioned internationally, the carefully selected collection of chapters creates a cohesive read and presents our constantly expanding field. The gap is bridged between the impressive yet largely incomplete mosaic readings, the important yet split insights into individual powerful narratives, and the in-depth yet divided studies of regional vistas.

The Context: Positioning Guidelines A range of essential features distinguishes our book among academic publications on the subject. An interlinked collection of studies of broad geographic range, detailed and chronologically structured, is vital since a noticeable absence of the inclusive records available from accessible resources both in a digital and a hard-copy format is apparent. We offer a more in-depth look at the remarkable women included in this collection, which is more up-to-date and more global than the other currently available publications. The majority of online platforms, though reflecting on a significant presence of professional women and containing names and references to the built objects and milestones of life and career, are of descriptive nature, skimming the subject, for example, “30 Must-Know Women Architects” by Azure magazine, or “Women in Architecture: 10 Successful Female Architects You Should Know,” or “5 Female Architects Who Shaped the History of Architecture” by ARCH20, or Architizer’s “From A to Zaha: 26 Women Who Changed Architecture.”8 During recent years, a range of academic gatherings have been followed by new publications. Many of those are focused on the feminist agenda and are rather concerned with political and societal standing of women in profession. For instance, at the Becoming ‘We’ forum at the Bartlett School of Architecture of University College London in 2018, six new titles were launched.9 Earlier books of a similar nature from the 1980s and 1990s would include the groundbreaking Grand Domestic Revolution by Dolores Hayden, Alice T. Friedman’s seminal Women and the Making of the Modern House, and The Architect: Reconstructing Her Practice, edited by Francesca Hughes. Scholarly reviews of these resources recognized them as important readings that alter traditional Western histories. Current sociopolitical trends have made gender and architecture an increasingly compelling topic. The building of resources is being informed to some extent by feminist projects such as MoMoWo, which exposes the diversity of contributions of women in the fields of architecture and design in Europe, and the forthcoming Bloomsbury Global Encyclopedia of Women in Architecture, 1960–2015, edited by Lori Brown and Karen Burns, with the contents tied to the feminist agenda.10 5

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We aim at a different approach: this anthology is instrumental firsthand for the discipline of architecture. Our objectives reflect on the practical need for a new architectural history book as a resource for more inclusive readings justified through the lens of equity and historical fairness. From the preindustrial age to the present, a wider and deeper coverage is provided of women’s diverse contributions to the built environment of a range of European countries, as well as the United States, Hawaii, Japan, Mongolia, and Rwanda in Africa. Regional voices broaden the international panorama—from Israel, studying the architecture of Palestine under the British Mandate; to Russia, featuring women’s work starting from the 1920s to the present; to Turkey, comparing and contrasting professional settings for women in the Republic of Turkey and the United States in the period of the 1950s–1970s; to Ireland, investigating the life and career of a woman architect seeking her independent identity within national contexts during a time of change; and many others.

Geographic Appeal Geographic appeal to North American, European, and, inclusively, Australian readership reflects on women’s struggle to rise to leadership positions.11 Due to the fact that professional achievements of women are underrepresented in architecture textbooks, the historical role models for women are largely missing in the curricula of architecture schools offering a limited number of courses on the subject in the US and Western Europe. These classes are being taught, for instance, at ETH in Zürich, Switzerland; at the Architectural Association School of Architecture; and at the School of Architecture of Royal College of Art in London, UK. In the US, courses are increasingly offered at UMass Amherst, the Pratt Institute in NYC, Virginia Tech, and Amherst College, among others. The growing number of modules and classes are in urgent need of an architectural history book such as ours. With this publication, we also hope to open up teaching opportunities on the subject in schools and universities in emerging regions of the Middle East, Central and East Asia, the Pacific Islands, South Africa, and the countries of Latin America, while the enrollment of women in professional architecture and liberal arts schools in some of those areas is staggering, and the need for role models of all scales and ranges, as presented in our volume, is evident. We hope that this book will stimulate a greater and more consistent interest and secure a broader knowledge base. A revision of history has been endeavored in Canada, in part by Building Equality in Architecture (BEA Toronto), which hosted a series of virtual events including the program “For Her Record: Notes on the Work of Blanche Lemco van Ginkel” in collaboration with the Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at University of Toronto and the Peter Guo-hua Fu School of Architecture at McGill University.12 One of the arguments presented there by Annmarie Adams and Peta Tancred revealed that the scene in Eastern Europe opened the gates for Canadian women architects. This argument has never been made for the US. In fact, the concept of gender equality had been originally introduced to the Eastern Bloc by the Soviet Union. The 1917 socialist revolution in Russia emancipated women: they gained equal civil rights, including free education and medical care, and from the mid-1930s until the end of socialism in 1991, they were required to work full-time next to their male counterparts. Over the second half of the twentieth century, professional women in the USSR outnumbered men, also due to the loss of the male population to warfare. On the one hand, the postwar scene across Eastern Europe was the subject of the state’s interference. Architectural education, city planning, and all areas of design signaled an intimate collaboration between the Eastern European governments and Soviet authorities.13 On the other hand, women’s prevalence there turned into a lasting phenomenon. During the Cold War era, depending on the political momentum, the Iron Curtain would sometimes recourse to limited cooperation with the West. After the collapse of socialism in the Soviet Union, the Eastern Bloc fell apart, the window to the West reopened, and the waves of emigration from 6

Introduction

communal terrains brought many trained female professionals to North America. Simultaneously, a strong argument of reforming socialist economies geared a new East-West professional exchange. It also raised women’s awareness of professional equality and fostered women’s networks and leadership across borders.

Readings and Landmarks Two types of scholarship on the subject available today are informed by either qualitative investigations or quantitative inquiries, communicating an important difference in approaching the theme. They either present the more in-depth research and focused case studies, or the oversight data containing condensed narratives. That second subgroup has a broader representation and has been instrumental in responding to the need for basic knowledge on women’s creative contributions, even more so due to the mobility and accessibility crisis in the time of a global pandemic. The collections that secure online access to the digitized data present records with a regional focus, such as the BWAF website “50 Pioneering Women of American Architecture”; with a descriptive focus, that is, the International Archive of Women in Architecture housed at Virginia Tech; or in languages other than English, for instance, Un Día / Una Arquitecta.14 Currently available hard-copy publications can be systematized in four groups: 1. Traditional architectural history books with rare references to the presence of women in the field, 2. Border and cross-disciplinary studies, 3. Regional research, and 4. In-depth case studies. 1. The traditional approach to studies in architecture continues to dominate the field. New publications emerge annually and are supported by the majority of publishers. The references to women’s narratives there are rare and incomplete. 2. Border studies display cross-disciplinary properties by blurring the margins between traditional areas of research on the role and status of women in society. The investigations tend to approach our subject by generalizing the issues, the most relevant cluster of publications has been developed for high school programs. These books and essays are resourceful yet do not provide detailed references to architecture.15 3. Another reference pool is fueled by regional agendas and is composed of scholarship on architecture. These publications include mostly positivist accounts aimed at celebrating women’s contributions to the discipline. Those presented in shorter studies have been published online or in professional media.16 Rare in-depth studies in this group with regional p­ erspective—for example, the anthology Ideological Equals: Women Architects in Socialist Europe 1945–1989, edited by Mary Pepchinski and Mariann Simon; the volumes Women Architects in India: Histories of Practice in Mumbai and Delhi by Mary N. Woods, Women Designers in the USA, 1900–2000: Diversity and Difference by Pat Kirkham, and Women Architects in Australia 1900–1960 by Julie Willis and Bronwyn Hanna; other Australian publications over the last two decades; and novel approaches introduced by Canadian scholars during recent years—have more relevancy to our volume and, if combined with this book, would advocate an even more effective reading.17 4. In-depth case studies on women’s narratives in architecture.18 A  group of earlier studies published two to three decades ago explored opportunities for change and paved the way for us.19 The titles introducing a unique author’s perception of the subject are rather rare and are primarily focused on American architecture.20 The proposed bibliography has no ambition to cover all published work on this important subject and aims to support our Introduction by providing initial feedback and stimulating further research. My sincere gratitude goes to Barbara Ann Opar, Architecture Librarian, Syracuse University Library, with whom I have the privilege of co-chairing the SAH WiA AG Registers Committee. A considerable part of this list is a product of her contribution of time and talent to creating 7

Anna Sokolina

and maintaining, with her students, a catalogue of publications on women in our profession across time and place. I believe that an inclusive, integral approach to history that follows the evolutionary stages of women’s professional engagement is essential, as it has been presented in our book. Several forthcoming publications respond to the urgency of uncovering extensive vistas by numbers.21 That activity confirms the importance of the volume in our format, providing deeper interconnected insights into the contribution of women to the built environment across borders.

Notes 1. Among numerous remarkable archives, I reference here three gems: International Archive of Women in Architecture, https://spec.lib.vt.edu/iawa/; Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation, Dynamic National Archive, https://dna.bwaf.org/; Society of Architectural Historians Digital Resources, www.sah.org/pub lications-and-research/digital-resources. All sites accessed November 4, 2020. 2. Statistical data: Eleanor Marshall, “The Gender Pay Gap in Architecture,” Archinect, October  10, 2019, accessed November  6, 2020, https://archinect.com/features/article/150163865/the-gender-pay-gap-inarchitecture. 3. The trifold approach is informed by the session co-chaired by Anna Sokolina and Paola Zellner, PS05 “Life to Architecture: Uncovering Women’s Narratives,” SAH Saint Paul 71st Annual International Conference April 18–22, 2018, Conference Program (SAH, 2018), 16, 76. Also: Abstracts of Papers Presented at the 71st Annual International Conference of the Society of Architectural Historians, St. Paul, MN, April 18–22, 2018, 20–24. 4. 2020 NCARB by the Numbers, www.ncarb.org/nbtn2020/demographics; assessment of gender distributions in United Nations Population Division: World Population Prospects: 2019 Revision, “Population, Female (% of Total Population),” https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/sp.pop.totl.fe.zs. Also: NCARB Report 2019, www.ncarb.org/nbtn2017/demographics. AIA statistics retrieved from: Bruce Tether, “How Architecture Cheats Women: Results of the 2017 Women in Architecture Survey Revealed,” The Architectural Review (February  27, 2017), www.architectural-review.com/10017497. article, and Bruce Tether, “Results of the 2016 Women in Architecture Survey Revealed,” The Architectural Review (February 26, 2016), www.architectural-review.com/essays/results-of-the-2016-women-inarchitecture-survey-revealed/10003314: all listed sites accessed November 5, 2020. 5. A session co-chaired by Anna P. Sokolina and Marcia F. Feuerstein, “Women in Architecture: Global Networks,” has been proposed twice but was not accepted by the SAH Conference Committee of the 73rd SAH Annual International Conference in Seattle, WA, in 2020 or the 72nd SAH Annual International Conference in Providence, RI, in 2019. 6. Harriet Harriss, “Women Writing About Architecture Reading  List,” September  15, 2017, accessed November 9, 2020, https://womenwritearchitecture.wordpress.com/author/harrietharriss. 7. Ibid. 8. Azure, published March  7, 2017, www.azuremagazine.com/article/30-must-know-women-architects/; ARCH20, www.arch2o.com/women-in-architecture-10-successful-female-architects-you-should-know/ and www.arch2o.com/5-female-architects-who-shaped-the-history-of-architecture/; Architizer, https:// architizer.com/blog/inspiration/industry/from-a-to-zaha-26-women-who-changed-architecture/. All sites accessed November 5, 2020. 9. Published March 9, 2018, accessed November 5, 2020, www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/architecture/events/2018/ mar/becoming-we-forum-celebrating-feminist-spatial-practice. 10. MoMoWo Project, accessed November 5, 2020, www.momowo.eu/momowo-project. 11. Historical data in: Lian Chikako Chang, “Where Are the Women? Measuring Progress on Gender in Architecture,” ACSA Research + Information, published October  2014, www.acsa-arch.org/resources/ data-resources/where-are-the-women-measuring-progress-on-gender-in-architecture/; Steve Cimino, “Diversity: Not a ‘Women-Only Problem’, ” published May 27, 2016, http://new.aia.org/articles/13086diversity-not-a-women-only-problem. All sites accessed November  2, 2020. According to the research published by ACSA, in the US women constituted 42 percent of recent architecture graduates; according to the AIA report, we made up only 18 percent of registered architects in the AIA and 25.3 percent in the profession.

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Introduction 12. “For Her Record: Notes on the Work of Blanche Lemco van Ginkel,” Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design, University of Toronto, the  Peter Guo-hua Fu School of Architecture, McGill University, and  BEA Canada, Virtual Event, November  12, 2020, speakers:  Phyllis Lambert  (Canadian Centre for Architecture), Mary McLeod  (Columbia University), Ipek Mehmetoglu, moderators Laura Miller (Daniels Faculty) and Brigitte Shim (Daniels Faculty), accessed October 29, 2020, www.mcgill.ca/ architecture/news-events/announcements/forherrecord2020. 13. My PhD thesis covered that collaboration between the German Democratic Republic and the Soviet Union: Anna Petrovna Sokolina, “Interpreting Traditions in Architecture: East Germany 1945–1990” [Osvoienie traditsiy v arkhitekture GDR], PhD thesis, Moscow: VNIITAG, 1991. 18.00.01 Theory and History of Architecture, Restoration and Landmarks Preservation. State Architecture and City Planning Committee, VNIITAG All-Union Academic Research Institute of Theory of Architecture and City Planning. In two volumes, 226 pp. and 70 pp., 25 analytical presentation panels, 40 x 60 cm ea. Also: Anna Petrovna Sokolina, Authoreferat. Interpreting Traditions in Architecture: East Germany 1945–1990 [Osvoienie traditsiy v arkhitekture GDR] (M.: VNIITAG, 1991). 14. https://pioneeringwomen.bwaf.org—Professor Annmarie Adams in her letter to Anna Sokolina noted that the title of the collection is inaccurate because the Canadian architect Blanche Lemco van Ginkel is also included; http://iawa.lib.vt.edu/; and https://undiaunaarquitecta.wordpress.com. Edited by Inés Moisset, the Un Día / Una Arquitecta online project aims at circa five thousand narratives, presenting a reference resource for the Spanish-language audience. All sites accessed November 1, 2020. 15. Examples: Melissa J. Gillis and Andrew T. Jacobs, Introduction to Women’s and Gender Studies: An Interdisciplinary Approach (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016). This textbook is student centered, covering interdisciplinary women’s, gender, and sexuality concepts so that students are prepared for further courses in a variety of disciplines. Paula S. Rothenberg, Race, Class, and Gender in the United States: An Integrated Study, 10th edn (New York: Worth Publishers, 2016). This anthology addresses concepts of identity, diversity, and inequality as it introduces students to race, class, and gender in the US, featuring thirty-eight readings on citizenship and immigration, transgender identity, etc. Anna M. Lewis, Women of Steel and Stone: 22 Inspirational Architects, Engineers, and Landscape Designers (Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2014, reprint edn, 2017). This grade 7–9 textbook profiles twenty-two architects, engineers, and landscape designers to inspire new generations of girls increasingly engaged in STEM fields. Karen Bush Gibson, Women in Space: 23 Stories of First Flights, Scientific Missions, and Gravity-Breaking Adventures (Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2014). This grade 7–9 textbook illuminates twenty-three pioneers, including Eileen Collins, the first woman to command the space shuttle; Peggy Whitson, who logged more than a year in orbit aboard the International Space Station; and Mae Jemison, the first African American woman in space; as well as astronauts from Japan, Canada, Italy, and more. Though they sometimes surpassed their male counterparts in performance, they were denied the opportunity to head out to the launching pad. 16. Examples: Elizabeth Darling and Lynne Walker, Paving the Way: Celebrating a Centenary of Women at London’s Architectural Association, published November 14, 2017, accessed November 1, 2020, www.archdaily.com/883572/ paving-the-way-celebrating-a-centenary-of-women-at-londons-architectural-association. This essay, written by the curators of AA XX 100, a multimedia project celebrating the centenary of women in London’s AA (1917–2017), features Zaha Hadid, Amanda Levete, Denise Scott Brown, and others who studied at the AA School of Architecture. 17. Examples: Mary Pepchinski and Mariann Simon, eds, Ideological Equals: Women Architects in Socialist Europe 1945– 1989 (London: Routledge, 2016). This anthology chronicles the massive efforts of women of the postwar generation in Eastern Europe who received engineering and architecture degrees motivated by their primary role of rebuilding their homeland. Inge Schaefer Horton, Early Women Architects of the San Francisco Bay Area: The Lives and Work of Fifty Professionals, 1890–1951 ( Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2010). This book chronicles the lives and work of fifty largely unknown regional pioneers. Informed by photographs of buildings, portraits of the architects, and some architectural drawings, each biography offers a description of the career, a list of known buildings and work, and a bibliography, followed by listings of female architecture students at the University of California, Berkeley; women certified by California to practice architecture; members of women’s architectural societies; and female members of the AIA.

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Anna Sokolina Despina Stratigakos, A Women’s Berlin: Building the Modern City (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008). Susana Torre, ed., Women in American Architecture: A Historic and Contemporary Perspective. A Publication and Exhibition Organized by the Architectural League of New York (New York: Watson-Guptill Publications, 1977). This study of women’s achievements in American architecture descriptively reviews the careers of women practicing architecture and architectural critics. Mary N. Woods, Women Architects in India: Histories of Practice in Mumbai and Delhi (London: Routledge, 2016). 18. Example: Monica Penick, Tastemaker: Elizabeth Gordon, House Beautiful, and the Postwar American Home (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017). 19. Examples in chronological retrospective: Maggie Toy, ed., The Architect: Women in Contemporary Architecture (New York: Watson-Guptill, 2001). This volume introduces thirty-three contemporary women architects by presenting a photograph, a personal statement and professional history, a firm profile, and illustrated projects. A celebratory approach and significant temporal and regional constraints are apparent. Cheris Kramarae and Dale Spender, eds, Routledge International Encyclopedia of Women: Global Women’s Issues and Knowledge (New York: Routledge, 2000). This interdisciplinary publication identifies women’s issues on the global scale and catalogues data on pioneers in the field of women’s studies. Jane Rendell, Barbara Penner, and Iain Borden, eds, Gender Space Architecture: An Interdisciplinary Introduction (London: Routledge, 1999). This volume provides an overview of the relationships between gender, space, and architectural theory composed by interdisciplinary scholars. Informed by use of varied interdisciplinary methodologies, it can be assessed today as an introductory reading resource. Ellen Perry Berkeley and Matilda McQuaid, eds, Architecture: A  Place for Women (Washington, DC: Smithsonian, 1989). The volume examines the achievements of women in the field of architecture of the twentieth century yet is limited to presenting architects from the US and Western Europe only, lacking broader international reflections. 20. Rare examples: Tanja Kullack, ed., Architecture: A Woman’s Profession (Berlin: Jovis, 2011). In this edition, American and European architects Barbara Bestor, Caroline Bos, Alison Brooks, and Jeanne Gang discuss their experiences and their visions for the future of the profession. Despina Stratigakos, Where Are the Women Architects? (Places Books and Princeton University Press, 2016). This compact reading presents an insight into the status of women in architecture informed by the glass ceiling in the profession, stresses the rise of new advocacy, and explores opportunities for change. 21. Examples: Lori A. Brown and Karen Burns, eds, Bloomsbury Global Encyclopedia of Women in Architecture 1960–2015 (London: Bloomsbury, forthcoming). This publication comprises numerous introductory records and contains short (60–200 words: 40 percent of the volume), medium (200–500 words: 40 percent), and longer (1000–2000 words: 20 percent) entries. Marcia F. Feuerstein, Jodi La Coe, and Paola Zellner, Expanding Field: Women in Architecture, Forty Projects Across the Globe (London: Lund Humphries, forthcoming). The book provides information on select designs by women.

Bibliography “5 Female Architects Who Shaped the History of Architecture.” ARCH20. www.arch2o.com/5-female-architectswho-shaped-the-history-of-architecture. “30 Must-Know Women Architects.” Azure Magazine, March  7, 2017. www.azuremagazine.com/article/ 30-must-know-women-architects. “AA Dossier: The State of Gender Equity.” Architecture Australia 103, no. 5 (September/October 2014). https:// architectureau.com/articles/not-just-a-womens-problem/. Adams, Annmarie. Architecture in the Family Way: Doctors, Houses, and Women 1870–1900. Montreal: McGillQueens University Press, 1996. Adams, Annmarie. “Building Barriers: Images of Women in Canada’s Architectural Press, 1924–73 ( Journal of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada).” Resources for Feminist Research 23, no. 3 (1994): 11–23. Adams, Annmarie, and Peta Tancred. ‘Designing Women’: Gender and the Architectural Profession. Toronto, Buffalo and London: University of Toronto Press, 2000. Agrest, Diana. The Sex of Architecture. New York: Harry N Abrams Inc, 1996.

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Introduction Akcan, Esra. Architecture in Translation: Germany, Turkey, and the Modern House. Durham: Duke University Press, 2012. Allaback, Sarah. The First American Women Architects. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2008. Allen, Polly Wynn. Building Domestic Liberty: Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Architectural Feminism. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1998. American Consulting Engineers Council. “Directory of Minority and Women-Owned Engineering and Architectural Firms.” Washington, DC: ACEC, 1986. Bailey, Christopher. A View from the Interior: Feminism, Women and Design, vol. 7. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1990. Ballieu A. “ ‘Radical Goth’ Odile Decq Is Challenging Architectural Education in France.” Dezeen, published March 15, 2016. www.dezeen.com/2016/03/15/odile-decq-french-architect-profile-biography-key-buildings-confluence-architecture-school-jane-drew-prize. Beardsley, John, and Sonja Dümpelmann. Women, Modernity, and Landscape Architecture. New York: Routledge, 2015. “Becoming ‘We’: A  Forum Celebrating Feminist Spatial Practice.” Bartlett School of Architecture of University College London, published March 9, 2018. www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/architecture/events/2018/mar/ becoming-we-forum-celebrating-feminist-spatial-practice. Berkeley, Ellen Perry, and Matilda McQuaid, eds. Architecture: A Place for Women. Washington, DC: Smithsonian, 1989. Bertrand, Wendy. Enamored with Place: As Woman + as Architect. San Francisco: Eyeonplace Press, 2012. Betsky, Aaron. Building Sex: Men, Women, Architecture, and the Construction of Sexuality. New York: William Morrow, 1995. Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation, Dynamic National Archive (BWAF DNA). https://dna.bwaf.org. Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation. “50 Pioneering Women of American Architecture.” https://pioneer ingwomen.bwaf.org. Bilbao, Tatiana, Nicolai Ouroussoff, Hilary Sample, et al. Tatiana Bilbao Estudio: A Conversation Between Jacques Herzog and Tatiana Bilbao. Zürich, Switzerland, and Humlebæk, Denmark: Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 2019. Birmingham, Elizabeth Joy. Marion Mahony Griffin and the Magic of America: Recovery, Reaction and Re-entrenchment in the Discourse of Architectural Studies. Ann Arbor: ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 2000. Blank, Carla, and Tania Martin. Storming the Old Boys’ Citadel: Two Pioneer Women Architects of Nineteenth Century North America. Montréal: Baraka Books, 2014. Booth, Marilyn. Harem Histories: Envisioning Places and Living Spaces. London and Durham: Duke University Press, 2011. Boutelle, Sara Holmes. Julia Morgan, Architect. New York: Abbeville Press, 1998. Brainard, Jocelyn. Built by Women: A Guide to Architecture in the New York Area. New York: Alliance of Women in Architecture, 1981. Broadbent, Kaye, Glenda Strachan, and Geraldine Healy. Gender and the Professions: International and Contemporary Perspectives. New York: Routledge, 2018. Brown, Denise Scott. “Room at the Top, Sexism and the Star System in Architecture.” Architectural Design 60, no. 1–2 (1990): U1–U2. Brown, James Benedict. A Gendered Profession: The Question of Representation in Space Making. London: RIBA Enterprises, 2016. Brown, Lori A. Contested Spaces: Abortion Clinics, Women’s Shelters and Hospitals: Politicizing the Female Body. Farnham: Ashgate, 2013, 2016. Brown, Lori A., ed. Feminist Practices: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Women in Architecture. Farnham: Ashgate, 2011. Brown, Lori A., and Karen Burns, eds. Bloomsbury Global Encyclopedia of Women in Architecture 1960–2015. London: Bloomsbury, est. 2021–22. Bruce, Susan, and Katherine Smits, eds. Feminist Moments: Reading Feminist Texts. Bloomsbury Academic, 2016. www.bloomsburycollections.com/book/feminist-moments-reading-feminist-texts. Building Equality in Architecture (BEA) Toronto. www.beatoronto.com. Butler, Judith. Undoing Gender. London: Routledge, 2004. Carlà-Uhink, Filippo, and Anja Wieber, eds. Orientalism and the Reception of Powerful Women from the Ancient World. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2020. Chalmers, F. Graeme. Women in the Nineteenth-Century Art World: Schools of Art and Design for Women in London and Philadelphia. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1998. Chang, Lian Chikako. “Where Are the Women? Measuring Progress on Gender in Architecture.” ACSA Research + Information, published October  2014. www.acsa-arch.org/resources/data-resources/where-arethe-women-measuring-progress-on-gender-in-architecture.

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Anna Sokolina Cheng, Alethea. Design and Feminism: Re-visioning Spaces, Places, and Everyday Things. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1999. Cimino, Steve. “Diversity: Not a ‘Women-Only Problem’. ” AIA, May  27, 2016. http://new.aia.org/ articles/13086-diversity-not-a-women-only-problem. Cole, Doris. Candid Reflections: Letters from Women in Architecture 1972  & 2004. New York: Midmarch Arts Press, 2007. Cole, Doris. From Tipi to Skyscraper: A  History of Women in Architecture. New York: I  Press, distributed by G. Braziller, 1973. Colomina, Beatriz, and Jennifer Bloomer. Sexuality and Space. Princeton: Princeton Architectural Press, 1992. Darling, Elizabeth, and Lesley Whitworth. Women and the Making of Built Space in England, 1870–1950. Burlington: Ashgate, 2007. Darling, Elizabeth, and Lynne Walker. “Paving the Way: Celebrating a Centenary of Women at London’s Architectural Association.” ArchDaily, November  14, 2017. www.archdaily.com/883572/paving-theway-celebrating-a-centenary-of-women-at-londons-architectural-association. Darling, Elizabeth, and Lynne Walker, eds. AA Women in Architecture: 1917–2017. London: AA Publications, 2017. Darling, Elizabeth, and Nathaniel Robert Walker, eds. Suffragette City: Women, Politics, and the Built Environment. London: Routledge, 2019. Davies, Lillian Bridgman. Lilian Bridgman, Architect. Berkeley: Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association, 1983. Davison, Jane. To Make a House a Home: Four Generations of American Women and the Houses they Lived In. New York: Random House, 1994. De A. Lima, Z. R. M. “Lina Bo Bardi and the Architecture of Everyday Culture.” Places Journal, November 2013. https://placesjournal.org/article/lina-bo-bardi-and-the-architecture-of-everyday-culture. Dean, Dewhirst. Chasing the Sky: 20 Stories of Women in Architecture. Hong Kong: Oscar Riera Ojeda Publishers, 2017. Desai, Madhavi. Women Architects and Modernism in India: Narratives and Contemporary Practices. London: Routledge, 2017. Desai, Madhavi, and Women Architects Forum (India). Women and the Built Environment. New Delhi: Zubaan, 2007. Doumato, Lamia. Architecture and Women: A Bibliography. New York: Garland, 1988. Dubrow, Gail Lee, and Jennifer B. Goodman. Restoring Women’s History Through Historic Preservation. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003. Durning, M. L., and Richard Wrigley. Gender and Architecture. New York: Wiley, 2000. Eagly, Alice H., and Linda L. Carli. “The Female Leadership Advantage: An Evaluation of the Evidence.” The Leadership Quarterly 14, no. 6 (2003): 807–34. Espegel, Carmen, and Angela Giral. Women Architects in the Modern Movement. London: Routledge, 2018. Falola, Toyin, and Shadrack Wanjala Nasong’o. Gendering African Social Spaces: Women, Power, and Cultural Expressions. Durham: Carolina Academic Press, 2016. Farhadi, Mani Ardalan, and Boston Society of Architects. Women in Architecture: A Centennial Exhibit. Boston: Boston Society of Architects, 1988. Feuerstein, Marcia F., Jodi La Coe, and Paola Zellner. Expanding Field: Women in Architecture, Forty Projects Across the Globe. London: Lund Humphries, forthcoming. Feuerstein, Marcia F., and Anna P. Sokolina, co-chairs. “Women in Architecture: Global Networks.” Session Proposal for 73rd SAH Annual International Conference, Seattle, WA, 2020; and 72nd SAH Annual International Conference, Providence, RI, 2019. Finn, P. “From A to Zaha: 26 Women Who Changed Architecture.” Architizer, 2016. http://architizer.com/ blog/from-a-to-zaha-26-women-who-changed-architecture. Friedman, Alice T. Women and the Making of the Modern House. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1998; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007. Frost, Henry Atherton. Women in Architecture and Landscape Architecture. Northampton, MA: Smith College, 1928. Garfinkle, Charlene Gallo. Women at Work: The Design and Decoration of the Woman’s Building at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. Ann Arbor: ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 1996. Gibson, Karen Bush. Women in Space: 23 Stories of First Flights, Scientific Missions, and Gravity-Breaking Adventures. Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2014.

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Introduction Gillis, Melissa J., and Andrew T. Jacobs. Introduction to Women’s and Gender Studies: An Interdisciplinary Approach. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. Gould, Kira. Women in Green: Voice of Sustainable Design. Bainbridge Island, WA: Ecotone, 2007. Grierson, Joan. For the Record: The First Women in Canadian Architecture. Toronto: Dundurn, 2008. Gruskin, Nancy Beth. “Building Context: The Personal and Professional Life of Eleanor Raymond, Architect (1887–1989).” PhD diss., Boston University, 1998. Hadid, Zaha, and Aaron Betsky. Zaha Hadid: The Complete Buildings and Projects. London: Thames and Hudson, 1998. Hall, Jane. Breaking Ground: Architecture by Women. New York: Phaidon Press, 2019. Hammond, Cynthia. “Past the Parapets of Patriarchy? Women, the Star System, and the Built Environment.” Atlantis 34, no. 1 (2009: 5–15). Hansmann, Della. “Women in Architecture: International Women’s Day and the Importance of Recognizing Female Designers.” Moss Design, March 5, 2015. http://moss-design.com/women-in-architecture. Hardingham, Samantha, and Kester Rattenbury. Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown: Learning from Las Vegas: Supercrit 2. London: Routledge, 2007. Harriss, Harriet. “Women Writing About Architecture Reading List.” September 15, 2017. https://women writearchitecture.wordpress.com/author/harrietharriss. Harriss, Harriet, James Brown, Ruth Morrow, and James Soane. A Gendered Profession, the Question of Representation in Space Making. London: RIBA Publishing, 2016. Harrod, Nancy, Susan Naimark, and Boston Architectural Center. “Proceedings of the Conference for Women in Design and Planning.” Boston Architectural Center, November 7–9, 1975. Hayden, Dolores. Grand Domestic Revolution Handbook. Utrecht and Amsterdam: Casco, Office for Art, Design and Theory, 2014. Hayden, Dolores. The Grand Domestic Revolution, revised edn. Boston: The MIT Press, 1982. Hays, Johanna. Louise Blanchard Bethune: America’s First Female Professional Architect. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2014. Hecker, Stefan. Eileen Gray. Barcelona: Gustavo Gili, 1993. Heinz Architectural Center. A Century of Women Landscape Architects and Gardeners in Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh, PA: The Heinz Architectural Center, The Carnegie Museum of Art, 1996. Hellman, Caroline Chamberlin. Domesticity and Design in American Women’s Lives and Literature: Stowe, Alcott, Cather, and Wharton Writing Home. New York: Routledge, 2011. Herrington, Susan R. Cornelia Hahn Oberlander: Making the Modern Landscape. London and Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2014. Heynen, Hilde, and Gülsüm Baydar, eds. Negotiating Domesticity: Spatial Productions of Gender in Modern Architecture. London: Routledge, 2005. Hills, Helen. Architecture and the Politics of Gender in Early Modern Europe. Aldershot, England, and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2003. Hodges, Margaret E. “Blanche Lemco van Ginkel and H. P. Daniel van Ginkel: Urban Planning Montreal.” PhD diss. McGill University, Montréal, Canada, 2004. Horton, Inge Schaefer. Early Women Architects of the San Francisco Bay Area: The Lives and Work of Fifty Professionals, 1890–1951. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2010. Hughes, Francesca, ed. The Architect: Reconstructing Her Practice. Boston: The MIT Press, 1998. International Archive of Women in Architecture (IAWA). https://spec.lib.vt.edu/iawa. James, Cary. Julia Morgan. New York: Chelsea House, 1990. Johnson, Christa C. Engendering Space: Architectures of Sexual Difference in Early Twentieth-Century Germany. Ann Arbor: ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 1998. Kanes Weisman, Leslie. Discrimination by Design: A  Feminist Critique of the Man-Made Environment. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1992. Kennedy, Roger G. Architecture, Men, Women and Money in America, 1600-1860. New York: Random House, 1985. Kirkham, Pat. Women Designers in the USA, 1900–2000: Diversity and Difference. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002. Kramarae, Cheris, and Dale Spender, eds. Routledge International Encyclopedia of Women: Global Women’s Issues and Knowledge. London: Routledge, 2000. Krikos, Linda A. Women’s Studies: A Recommended Bibliography. Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited, 2004. Kullack, Tanja, ed. Architecture: A Woman’s Profession. Berlin, Germany: Jovis, 2011. Layne, Margaret. Women in Engineering: Pioneers and Trailblazers. Reston, VA: ASCE Press, 2009.

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Anna Sokolina Lewis, Anna M. Women of Steel and Stone: 22 Inspirational Architects, Engineers, and Landscape Designers. Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2014, 2017. Lima, Zeuler Rocha Mello de Almeida, and Barry Bergdoll. Lina Bo Bardi. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013. Longstreth, Richard W. Julia Morgan, Architect. Berkeley, CA: Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association, 1977. Lorenz, Clare. Women in Architecture: A Contemporary Perspective. New York: Rizzoli International Publications, 1990. Markelin, Ulla. Profiles: Pioneering Women Architects from Finland. Helsinki: Museum of Finnish Architecture, 1983. Marshall, Eleanor. “The Gender Pay Gap in Architecture.” Archinect, October 10, 2019. https://archinect.com/ features/article/150163865/the-gender-pay-gap-in-architecture. Martin, Rochelle. The Difficult Path: Women in the Architecture Profession. Ann Arbor: ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 1986. Martin, Therese. Reassessing the Roles of Women as “Makers” of Medieval Art and Architecture. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2012, 2013. McIver, Kathrine A. Women, Art, and Architecture in Northern Italy, 1520-1580: Negotiating Power. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2006. McLeod, Mary. “Everyday and ‘Other’ Spaces.” Architecture and Feminism (1996): 1–37. Melhuish, Clare. Odile Decq & Benoit Cornette. New York: Phaidon Press, 1998. Meuser, Philipp. Galina Balashova: Architect of the Soviet Space Programme. Berlin: DOM Publishers, 2015. Mezei, Kathy, Chiara Briganti, and Canadian Electronic Library. The Domestic Space Reader. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012. Miller, Page Putnam. Reclaiming the Past: Landmarks of Women’s History. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992. Moisset, Inés, ed. Un Día/Una Arquitecta. undiaunaarquitecta.wordpress.com. Molony, Barbara, and Jennifer Nelson, eds. Women’s Activism and “Second Wave” Feminism. Bloomsbury Academic 2017. www.bloomsburycollections.com/book/womens-activism-and-second-wave-feminism/. MoMoWo Project. www.momowo.eu/momowo-project. Morton, Patricia. “The Social and the Poetic: Feminist Practices in Architecture, 1970–2000.” The Feminism and Visual Culture Reader (2003): 277. National Council of Architectural Registration Boards. NCARB Report 2019. www.ncarb.org/nbtn2017/ demographics. Nieves, Angel David. An Architecture of Education: African American Women Design the New South, vol. 7. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2018. O’Rourke, Kathryn E. Modern Architecture in Mexico City: History, Representation, and the Shaping of a Capital. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2017. Otto, Elizabeth, and Patrick Rössler. Bauhaus Bodies: Gender, Sexuality, and Body Culture in Modernism’s Legendary Art School. London: Bloomsbury, 2019. Ozgules, Muzaffer. The Women Who Built the Ottoman World. Female Patronage and the Architectural Legacy of Gülnuş Sultan. London: I.B. Tauris, 2017. Penick, Monica. Tastemaker: Elizabeth Gordon, House Beautiful, and the Postwar American Home. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017. Pepchinski, Mary, and Mariann Simon, eds. Ideological Equals: Women Architects in Socialist Europe 1945–1989. London: Routledge, 2016. Petrescu, Doina, ed. Altering Practices: Feminist Politics and Poetics of Space. London: Routledge, 2007. Pilkey, Brent, Rachael M. Scicluna, Ben Campkin, and Barbara Penner. Sexuality and Gender at Home: Experience, Politics, Transgression. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2017. Pinet, Celine, and Kimberly Devlin. Threads: Insights by Women Architects. Center for Architecture and Urban Planning Research, University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1991. Pohl, Nicole. Women, Space and Utopia, 1600–1800. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006. Ponte, Tabitha. To Become an Architect: A Guide, Mostly for Women. Morrisville: Lulu Enterprises, 2002. Rault, Jasmine. Eileen Gray and the Design of Sapphic Modernity: Staying In. London: Routledge, 2017. Rendell, Jane, Barbara Penner, and Iain Borden, eds. Gender Space Architecture: An Interdisciplinary Introduction. London: Routledge, 1999. Rendell, Jane. The Pursuit of Pleasure: Gender, Space & Architecture in Regency London. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2002.

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Introduction Rhode, Deborah L. The Difference “Difference” Makes: Women and Leadership. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003. Roberts, Marion. Living in a Man-Made World: Gender Assumptions in Modern Housing Design. London and New York: Routledge, 1991. Roberts, Marion, and Inés Sánchez de Madariaga. Fair Shared Cities: The Impact of Gender Planning in Europe. London: Routledge, 2013. Rüedi, Katerina, Sarah Wigglesworth, and Duncan McCorquodale, eds. Desiring Practices: Architecture, Gender and the Interdisciplinary. London: Black Dog Publishing, 1996. Ruggles, D. Fairchild. Woman’s Eye, Woman’s Hand: Making Art and Architecture in Modern India: A Collection of Essays. New Delhi: Zubaan, 2014. Samuel, Flora. Le Corbusier: Architect and Feminist. Chichester, England, and Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2004. Sejima, Kazuyo, Ryūe Nishizawa, and Hans Ulrich Obrist. SANAA: Kazuyo Sejima  & Ryue Nishizawa. Cologne, Germany: Walther Konig, 2012. Sewell, Jessica Ellen. Women and the Everyday City: Public Space in San Francisco, 1890–1915. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2011. Siefert, Rebecca. Into the Light: The Art and Architecture of Lauretta Vinciarelli. London: Lund Humphries, 2020. Singha, Sumita. Women in Architecture. London: Routledge, 2019. Skewes-Cox, Pamela, Robert Sweeney, Matt Walla, et al. Spanish Colonial Style: Santa Barbara and the Architecture of James Osborne Craig and Mary McLaughlin Craig. New York: Rizzoli, and Santa Barbara Historical Museum, 2015. Smithson, Alison. The Space Between. Cologne: Verlag Walther König, 2017. Society of Architectural Historians (SAH) Digital Resources. www.sah.org/publications-and-research/ digital-resources. Sokolina, Anna. Architecture and Anthroposophy. M.: KMK, 2001, 2010; M.: BDN, 2019. Sokolina, Anna P. Milka Bliznakov Scholar Report. “Life to Architecture: Milka Bliznakov Academic Papers and Records of Women in Russian Architecture at the IAWA.” Alternative Spaces, 2019. www.academia.edu/39140431/ Milka_Bliznakov_Scholar_Report. Sokolina, Anna P., and Paola Zellner, co-chairs. PS05. “Life to Architecture: Uncovering Women’s Narratives.” In SAH Saint Paul 71st Annual International Conference April  18–22, 2018, Conference Program (SAH, 2018), 16, 76. Also in: Abstracts of Papers Presented at the 71st Annual International Conference of the Society of Architectural Historians, St. Paul, MN, April 18–22, 2018, 20–24. Spain, Daphne. Gendered Spaces. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992. Spain, Daphne. Constructive Feminism: Women’s Spaces and Women’s Right in the American City. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2016. Staub, Alexandra, ed. The Routledge Companion to Modernity, Space and Gender. New York: Routledge, 2018. Stead, Naomi, ed. Women, Practice, Architecture. New York: Routledge, 2014. Stoddard, Eve Walsh. Positioning Gender and Race in (Post)Colonial Plantation Space: Connecting Ireland and the Caribbean. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. Stratigakos, Despina. A Women’s Berlin: Building the Modern City. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008. Stratigakos, Despina. “Unforgetting Women Architects: From the Pritzker to Wikipedia.” Places, 2013. https:// placesjournal.org/article/unforgetting-women-architects-from-the-pritzker-to-wikipedia/?cn-reloaded=1. Stratigakos, Despina. Where Are the Women Architects? Princeton: Places Books with Princeton University Press, 2016. https://placesjournal.org/book/where-are-the-women-architects/. Taylor, Kristina. Women Garden Designers: 1900 to the Present. Woodbridge, England: Garden Art Press, 2015. Tether, Bruce. “Results of the 2016 Women in Architecture Survey Revealed.” The Architectural Review, February  26, 2016. www.architectural-review.com/essays/results-of-the-2016-women-in-architecturesurvey-revealed/10003314. Tether, Bruce. “How Architecture Cheats Women: Results of the 2017 Women in Architecture Survey Revealed.” The Architectural Review, February 27, 2017. www.architectural-review.com/10017497.article. Thorpe, Ruth. Women, Architecture and Building in the East of Ireland, c. 1790–1840. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2013. Thys-Senocak, Lucienne. Ottoman Women Builders: The Architectural Patronage of Hadice Turhan Sultan. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006. “Top 300: The Latest Architecture and News.” ArchDaily, July 4, 2019. www.archdaily.com/tag/top-300. Torre, Susana, ed. Women in American Architecture: A  Historic and Contemporary Perspective. A  Publication and Exhibition Organized by the Architectural League of New York. New York: Watson-Guptill, 1977.

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Anna Sokolina Toy, Maggie, and Peter C. Pran, eds. The Architect: Women in Contemporary Architecture. New York: WatsonGuptill, 2001. Trubiano, Franca, Ramona Adlakha, and Ramune Bartuskaite, eds. Women [RE]Build: Stories, Polemics, Futures. New York and San Francisco: ORO editions, 2019. Vakili-Zad, Cyrus. Space, Gender and Urban Architecture. New York: Nova Publishers, 2016. Van Slyck, Abigail A. A Manufactured Wilderness: Summer Camps and the Shaping of American Youth, 1890–1960. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2006. Van Zanten, David, ed. Marion Mahony Reconsidered. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2011. Vickery, Margaret Birney. Buildings for Bluestockings: The Architecture and Social History of Women’s Colleges in Late Victorian England. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1999. Vickery, Margaret Birney. Translations: Architecture/Art by Sigrid Miller Pollin. New York and San Francisco: ORO Editions, 2020. Vogel, Stephen, and Libby Balter Blume. Teaching and Designing in Detroit: Ten Women on Pedagogy and Practice. New York: Routledge, 2020. Walker, Lynne, ed. Women Architects: Their Work. Monterey: Sorella Press, 1984. Way, Thaïsa. Unbounded Practices: Women, Landscape Architecture, and Early Twentieth Century Design. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2009, 2013. Weisman, Leslie. Discrimination by Design; A Feminist Critique of the Man-Made Environment. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1992. Weiss, Klaus-Dieter. Junge Deutsche Architekten und Architektinnen. Basel: Birkhäuser, 1998. Wekerle, Gerda R., Rebecca Peterson, and David Morley. New Space for Women. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1980. Welch, Diane. Lilian J. Rice: Architect of Rancho Santa Fe, California. Atglen, PA: Schiffer, 2010. White, Kate. “Women and Leadership in Higher Education in Australia.” Tertiary Education & Management 9, no. 1 (2003): 45–60. Williams, Austin, and Zhang Xin. New Chinese Architecture: Twenty Women Building the Future. London: Thames & Hudson, 2019. Willis, Julie, and Bronwyn Hanna. Women Architects in Australia 1900–1960. Melbourne: Royal Australian Institute of Architects, 2002. Willis, Julie. “Not Just a Women’s Problem.” Parlour: Women, Equality, Architecture. Surveys/Workplace, November 17, 2014. https://archiparlour.org/not-just-a-womens-problem/. Wilson, Mark A. Julia Morgan: Architect of Beauty. Salt Lake City: Gibbs Smith, 2007. “Women in Architecture: 10 Successful Female Architects You Should Know.” ARCH20. www.arch2o.com/ women-in-architecture-10-successful-female-architects-you-should-know/ “Women Making an Impact 4.” BUILD LLC, November  18, 2009. https://blog.buildllc.com/2009/11/ women-making-an-impact-4. Woods, Mary N. Women Architects in India: Histories of Practice in Mumbai and Delhi. London: Routledge, 2016. The World Bank Group. “Population, Female.” Revision 2019. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/sp.pop. totl.fe.zs. Yanni, Carla. Living on Campus: An Architectural History of the American Dormitory. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2019. Zibell, Barbara, Doris Damyanovic, and Eva Álvarez. On Stage: Women in Landscape Architecture and Planning. Berlin: Jovis, 2016.

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PART I

Women in the Early Profession and Leadership: Preindustrial Age to Early Twentieth Century From Domestic Realms into Public Life and Culture Part I presents research on early professionals in the field and provides an overview of women’s leadership with an emphasis on the challenges they had to overcome and their remarkable accomplishments within the rigid cultural confines of the domestic sphere, public life, service, and culture. The chapters cover the timespan from the preindustrial age to the ingrained conservative settings of the first half of the twentieth century. The inquiry begins with an essential probe into the meaning of professional equity while constructing new territories of influence. In Chapter  1, “Did Women Design or Build Before the Industrial Age?” Shelley E. Roff traces archival data of early modern Europe in England, France, and Italy from the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries. Her discoveries vector and redefine the common approach to women’s agency in the field. Roff’s studies confirm that women did play active roles in the built environment in Western Europe, in particular elite and bourgeois women, who influenced architectural design as patrons and advisors, and women of lesser means who were on occasion employed in building-related crafts and construction labor. While their earliest activities as true designers and builders can be linked to the cultural phenomenon of the Renaissance, the rediscovery of antiquity was a catalyst that transformed the identity of the architect and opened the traditional building industry to those who were not master builders. Roff proves that both men and women began to design and build as artist-architects and as amateurs, yet women engaged with architecture mostly from the margins of the profession. Only nineteenth-century industrialization brought a dynamic change in the nature of work and lifestyles, opening the door for greater numbers of women to work outside the home. The mechanization of the building industry and changing attitudes toward gendered education and work paved the path for women to move toward specialized knowledge in the craft and profession of architecture in the twentieth century. In Chapter 2, “For Homeowners and Housekeepers: The Architecture of Minerva Parker Nichols in Late Nineteenth-Century America” by Margaret (Molly) Lester, societal contexts are documented through the lens of gender in the architectural profession. This chapter examines how Parker Nichols established and sustained her career by specializing in projects for women. Though her formal independent practice lasted eight years and was concentrated in the Philadelphia area, she fostered a clientele of architectural and social significance and designed over sixty commissions, which were extensively covered in the press, and yet she is rarely recognized for her contribution to the field. Lester documents the scope of work of Minerva Parker Nichols with a particular focus on

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her female clients and the design of women’s clubs in an era of growing economic independence for women. This chapter presents a case study revealing one of the earliest careers of a successful woman and the spaces she designed and built while creating a novel business model as an architect. Brian Adams uncovers the life and work of a prolific artist, Nell Brooker Mayhew, and her extraordinary contribution to architecture and interior design in Chapter 3, “Nell Brooker Mayhew and the Arts and Crafts Movement in America.” While profiling her from her early childhood in Illinois, the author follows her career as a faculty member at the College of Fine Arts at the University of Southern California, Pasadena; as the owner of an art gallery; and as a talented painter who pioneered a color etching process that allowed her to create unique artwork from a repetitive process of reproduction. At the height of the Arts and Crafts movement, these ideals were manifested in her work exhibited throughout the United States and Europe. Adams emphasizes the significance of her collaborative projects with her sister, Adelaide Danely Royer, an interior designer, and her brotherin-law, Urbana, IL, architect Joseph William Royer—collaborations that presented her with the opportunity to succeed as a design professional. The author proves that Brooker Mayhew’s studies and etchings of the Spanish missions of Southern California, highly regarded by proponents of the Arts and Crafts movement, documented and helped to preserve these vanishing monuments, and he highlights the pivotal role of her etchings in popularizing the Spanish Mission style. Catherine R. Ettinger in Chapter 4, “ ‘Designing Houses Is Like Having Babies’: Verna Cook and the Practice of Architecture in the 1920s and 1930s,” analyzes women’s presence in the field of practical architecture as it expanded in the United States in the early twentieth century. Among women practitioners, Ettinger portrays Verna Cook as one of the most successful. Cook designed over sixty suburban homes, had her designs published as an “Ideal House” on the cover of the popular magazine Better Homes & Gardens, and was the only woman to participate as a professional architect in the 1939 New York World’s Fair’s legendary exposition, the Town of Tomorrow. This chapter reviews Cook’s work and the strategies she employed to gain access to the male-dominated field. Based on archival documents, published interviews, and articles from the 1920s and 1930s, the author argues that Cook used the discourse of domesticity to her advantage and, due to her skills as a housewife writing for home magazines, presented herself as a most capable architect with broader expertise in the design of houses. In contrast to Cook’s professional success, Chapter 5 documents “The Forgotten Art of Florence Hope Luscomb.” The authors, Mary Anne Hunting and Kevin D. Murphy, focus on Florence Luscomb, who was among the earliest female graduates in Architecture of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and of the women’s Cambridge School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture in Massachusetts, where she was a student shortly after its founding in 1916, and later worked with the women’s architecture firm run by Idah Anna Ryan, where she was eventually made a partner. Her work as an architect, however, was greatly overshadowed by her contributions to the women’s suffrage movement. Luscomb’s political activism continued into her late eighties; she opposed McCarthyism and supported the women’s movement. Among her little-studied architectural works the authors discovered a modest cabin she designed and built for her own use in Tamworth, New Hampshire, in 1940, which brings to light her reliance on vernacular New England dwellings and was typical of the work of Cambridge School graduates who were concerned with simplicity and functionality. Luscomb’s colleagues, including architect Eleanor Raymond, also built themselves rural retreats which functioned as autonomous spaces and continued nineteenth-century experiments in “scientific” home management by reformers such as Catherine Beecher. The authors provide rich architectural context for interpreting Luscomb’s “room of her own.” In Chapter 6, “ ‘This Is Not A Success Story’: Florence Fulton Hobson, Architect in Northern Ireland,” Tanja Poppelreuter highlights the career of an early Irish architect and her ability to find ways to practice that did not result in a success according to traditional parameters but speaks of resilience and a will to adapt to the sociopolitical vagaries and the challenges that professional women 18

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encountered in the early twentieth century. World War I, the Easter Rising, and the Irish Civil War had profound impacts on the building industry, and still Fulton Hobson became the third woman architect to be licensed by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) and the first professional woman architect in Ireland. She designed and built commissions not only for her family and friends but also for the Irish White Cross and for the Belfast Corporation. The author follows Fulton Hobson from her studies at the School of Art in Belfast, to her apprenticeship in the Belfast practice of James John Phillips and James St. John Phillips and her work for Edward Guy Dawber and James Glen Sivewright Gibson in London, to her work for the Belfast Corporation as an Assistant to the Royal Commission on Health and Housing. In her 1911 article “Architecture as a Profession” Fulton Hobson reflected on the ways in which she negotiated her role as the only woman in an all-male profession. Poppelreuter concludes by revising Fulton Hobson’s statement, “This is not a success story,” from her autobiography written in the early 1970s, which indicated that she had higher hopes for the development of her career.

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1 DID WOMEN DESIGN OR BUILD BEFORE THE INDUSTRIAL AGE? Shelley E. Roff

Introduction When does the history of women in architecture begin? Women architects do not even appear as a subject of research before the 1970s. Except for an occasional brief mention of women builders in indigenous cultures, Western scholarship has focused primarily on twentieth-century women who, as their male counterparts, were recognized as professionals by modern standards of accreditation.1 The commonly shared belief within the literature is that women first began to study and practice architecture in the late nineteenth century, shortly after the founding of the first architecture schools and professional associations in Europe and the United States. The claim for the earliest known woman architect varies on the region of the publication and how the term “architect” is interpreted. Yet to write a history of women in architecture, we must ask: Could there have been women architects before the late nineteenth century? This question is inherently problematic. Until very recently, no one has questioned the late nineteenth-century advent of the female architect. Those interested in the intersection of women and architecture before the modern period will find a rich Western historiography on women architectural patrons, also beginning from the 1970s.2 But, the premodern woman architect? The historiography has yet to be created. Commencing this investigation will require suspending assumptions regarding women’s lives before the Industrial Age. It requires overcoming a certain resistance of public opinion, scholarly and otherwise. Why do we believe that female architects first appear at the end of the late nineteenth century? One reason may be that the universities and licensing organizations that first appear in the mid-­nineteenth century were new institutions that kept written records which included women. A  greater factor may be social attitudes toward women’s work in the historical period right beforehand. The development of modern industrialization (1750–1850) brought dynamic changes to women’s lives; the shift of the workplace from the home to factories and office buildings usually meant the marginalization of women.3 In England and the United States, working women were seen by Victorian society with great disdain. This attitude toward women’s work only began to shift in the twentieth century.4 The previous Industrial Age period of resistance to women entering male-dominated fields may have blinded us today to the fact that women were designing and building beforehand. But, were there women architects before the late nineteenth century? The answer is: Yes. There are many cases in the historical record across Western Europe of women studying architecture, creating designs, and supervising construction or building with their own hands. Some of these women

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were even acclaimed by their contemporaries as the architects of their own projects. Aside from the case of Plautilla Bricci, which will be discussed later, there are no published works with a focus on these women. The records of their work are sparse and can be difficult to identify and interpret. Even then, why have we not heard of these women before? We will have to leave this complex and tantalizing question as a subject for future research. This chapter explores the historical catalyst that opened architecture to women in the early modern period, from the start of the fifteenth century, and observes the available published activities of women involved in architectural projects at that time. History teaches us that the definition of the architect has always been in flux; in fact, the term ‘architect’ has not always been used. The education and social status of the person who conceived of or engaged in producing an architectural work has changed over the centuries. What is consistent through the ages is the idea that someone was the author of the work, and often this person engaged in designing and building the work. In order to analyze the plausibility of early modern women architects, we must define in greater detail what was meant in different historical periods and regions by the two main activities of an architect, designing and building. And were both “designing” and “building” required activities for a person to be considered to be the architect-author of the work in their time? Identifying these cultural predilections prepares us to evaluate premodern women’s architectural activities. Thus, let us now explore a more nuanced question: Exactly how did women design or build before the Industrial Age?

The Context: The Ancient and Medieval Architect In Western Europe the earliest known description of the profession dates back to the Greek term arkhitekton, which translates as chief builder or carpenter.5 The Greek architect was often the mediator between a building commission of citizens or a private client and the workmen, who had specialized knowledge of standard methods of design and construction. Much of what we know about the Greek and Roman architect comes from the writings of the ancient Roman engineer and architect Vitruvius. Most Roman architects, including Vitruvius, came from the lower social classes but attained a high degree of education, such as that described by Vitruvius in his treatise De architectura.6 According to Vitruvius, the Roman architectus was a man who could read and write and was educated in the liberal arts as well as the sciences, geometry, and mathematics. Painting and drawing were part of the established curriculum of free-born boys in ancient Greece, but the practice later lost favor with the Roman elite, who saw these activities as manual labor and beneath them. The liberal arts education noted by Vitruvius was most likely acquired through personal study of these subjects as well as of architectural treatises, rather than in a school.7 The attainment of a position as architect occurred through an apprenticeship with an established master, training in engineering and construction in the army, or a post in civil service to the state.8 It is not surprising that there are no known women architects in the ancient period. Although women of the lower classes could belong to guilds, women in ancient Greece did not have professions outside the home. This changed with the proliferation of trades in the ancient Roman world. Roman girls received basic instruction in reading, writing, and mathematics, especially young women in the elite class.9 Mostly confined to the domestic sphere, an apprenticeship with a master architect or other routes to public education and office were not within the normal social bounds of women. In the Middle Ages, the Latin term architectus was little used and often replaced with other terms that more precisely described the work of a master craftsman or of a clerical administrator of the works, who each played distinct roles.10 Vitruvius’s treatise was known in the Middle Ages, especially to Christian Neoplatonists, yet his description of the architect and his rules for design had little impact on the development of the master builder.11 Master builders attained their expertise 22

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in methods of design and construction through their family or the master to whom they were apprenticed. Knowledge was passed on to apprentices orally through ritual recitations of geometric formulas and direct demonstration and observation.12 The master belonged to the guild of his original craft, and this guild controlled who could become a member and a master within that craft. These builders used complex geometric schemes to determine the plan and the structural design in three dimensions, as well as the architectural details.13 Few of their personal lodge books, which recorded design and technical concepts, have survived. In certain cases, guild statutes ruled that no written documents should be kept that demonstrated technical knowledge, in order to protect the “secrets” of the trade. Some women did craft-related work within family-run workshops in the building trades, but they were generally banned from guild membership, although there were exceptions.14 With most instruction being given orally, it is difficult to assess women’s role in the workshop or their knowledge. While young women’s education placed an emphasis on religious and moral training, the ability to read, write, and do basic accounting were essential skills for most girls of bourgeois and elite families.15 At times, the widow of a master of a craft was permitted to continue running the workshop after her husband’s death, which in some circumstances indicated their direct involvement in the craft. Yet we have no evidence to date of a widow continuing the workshop of a master builder.

The Catalyst: The Rediscovery of Antiquity and the Early Modern Architect The Latin term architectus began to appear again in the writings of the fifteenth-century Italian humanists, this time with a clearly defined classical interpretation, one that is actually closer to the modern definition of an architect. Inspired by the rediscovery of Vitruvius’s treatise, the writer and papal diplomat Leon Battista Alberti redefined the scope of activity and responsibilities of the architect in his treatise on architecture, De re aedificatore (c. 1450).16 In particular, Alberti must have been inspired by a passage Vitruvius wrote in the preface of his treatise: An architect is not a carpenter or a joiner … the manual worker being no more than an instrument to the architect, who by sure and wonderful skill and method is able to complete his work. … To be able to do this, he must have a thorough insight into the noblest and most curious sciences.17 Alberti capitalized on the Vitruvian definition of the architect to advance a new kind of professional whose role was distinctly different from that of the medieval master builder. The humanist architect, in his opinion, would necessarily be a member of elite society, never a craftsman who worked with his hands. Alberti placed a primacy on a new humanist method of design that used simple, whole-number proportions and drew inspiration from the visible remains of ancient Roman architecture. He advised the architect to have little involvement in a design’s actual execution, distancing the architect from his artisanal counterpart.18 This shift in the education and purpose of the architect, and in how one designed a building, had important historical ramifications for both men and women’s engagement with architecture. The design phase of the building process became increasingly emphasized during the Renaissance as the new classically inspired architecture gained favor in early modern Europe.19 Humanist patrons sought individuals who had studied the style and proportions of antique remains in situ or in drawings published in treatises and who could create an interpretation of this style in a new commission. Classical design required a genre of knowledge and skills the master builder did not have, and he was, at least initially, not prepared to retool an entire industry that had been evolving for the past millennium.20 New design ideas no longer came from complex geometrical schemes, which were 23

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intimately tied to the process of construction. The new design compositions were formulated from a study of classical rules and proportions and could be drawn or painted. In the early modern period, the humanist architect would consult with a master builder to determine how to construct his designs, but the builder became a separate person in a subordinate position. This division between those who design and those who build, which came to full fruition in the sixteenth century, set forth a dynamic change in the building industry. Alberti’s writings set in motion a renewed, classical definition of the architect: a scholar educated in the sciences and humanities who used his intellect and imagination to design architecture. Architectural treatises published with the new printing presses from the mid-fifteenth century forward made public a great amount of architectural knowledge about the classical style, design methods, and technical aspects of construction.21 No longer was knowledge guarded within the master builder’s workshop; architectural design became accessible to those outside the building crafts. In the early modern period, one can find men and women designing and building architecture in the classical fashion as artists and amateurs.

The Artist-Architect In Renaissance Italy, the architect was frequently an artist who came from a craft outside of the traditional building trades who could present a vision of classical design that stimulated the patron’s imagination. According to Georgio Vasari, the art of disegno was the common training for the three branches of the arts: painting, sculpture, and architecture.22 In Italy, disegno meant drawing, especially in perspective, and was perhaps the one skill that tied these artists of diverse backgrounds together. However, disegno was more than the recording of architecture or their ruins on paper; it also meant to use drawing as a tool to design, to invent new compositions of architectural form and ornament in the classical style. With no guild to supervise their training, the newly conceived artist-architect could train in any craft that taught them the skill of disegno. The majority of Italian Renaissance architects were initially trained as artists in different fields: Brunelleschi as a goldsmith, Bramante and Raphael as painters, Michelozzo as a sculptor, and Francesco di Giorgio and Michelangelo as sculptors and painters. The Italian artist-architect was a phenomenon that continued into the seventeenth century with the extraordinary Baroque creations of the sculptor-architect Gianlorenzo Bernini. Thus, by the sixteenth century, it was no longer necessary to be born into or apprentice to a family of master builders or to work within the guild structure to gain the knowledge of how to design a building. Yet some form of training was needed for the classical artist and architect. The first school founded for the training of artists in the classical arts was the Accademia delle Arti del Disegno of Florence, established in 1563 by Cosimo de’ Medici on the advice of Vasari.23 Other academies were soon formed in late sixteenth-century Italian cities by princes and communal governments, and this phenomenon continued in diverse European centers.24 These academies were societies of painters, sculptors, and architects, and included in their membership were patrons, scholars, and art lovers. They coexisted with the building craft guilds, but their purpose was to promote training in the classical arts, apart from the control of the guilds. Women began to attend art academies in the early seventeenth century. The first recorded female student was the painter Artemesia Gentilleschi, who was accepted into the Accademia in Florence in 1616.25 Following the spread of classicism to centers outside of Italy, the first academy in France, the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, was founded in Paris in 1648; the first woman member was accepted in 1663. A first state-sponsored academy of art was established in England in 1768. It is in this context where we find the earliest woman artist-architect recorded thus far, Plautilla Bricci (1616–1705). In the mid-seventeenth century, Bricci was a celebrated painter of the papal court in Rome and a member of the Accademia di San Luca, an artist’s academy patronized by the Barberini family.26 Bricci’s father, an established painter in Rome, was active in the artistic and 24

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scientific academies in Rome, and he encouraged his daughter to follow an artistic career. He was in a position to provide her with a humanistic education and to teach her the theoretical precepts of disegno, having himself written a treatise on painting and another on architecture. A courtier of the Barberini court, Elpidio Benedetti commissioned Bricci to design several architectural projects in Rome in the 1660s, including his own residence, the Villa Benedetta (Fig. 1.1), and the chapel of San Luigi in the church of San Luigi dei Francesi. These commissions led to others for church dignitaries and eventually to a royal public monument for the king of France. For the purposes of this study, we should note that Bricci was in every sense of the word an architect of her time. She was educated, had access to architectural treatises, and was trained in disegno, the chosen design method of Renaissance architects. She completed drawings of her designs and supervised the construction of her works. It may seem astonishing to us that a woman could work as a paid professional architect in this era. But you must consider that the most well-known seventeenth-century woman painter, Artemisia Gentileschi, was assumed to be Rome’s only woman artist until the feminist scholarship of the 1970s began uncovering women artists from all periods of history. Who is to say that Bricci was the sole exemplar of her kind in the early modern period? The advent of the woman artist-architect in the early modern period was just one symptom of a shift in the definition of the architect and in the perception of women’s abilities in early modern Europe.

The Amateur Architect The study of classical architecture and disegno was not only the purview of an artistic career or of a ruler but was also pursued by men and women of the European nobility with a passion for antiquities.

Figure 1.1 Casino e Villa Corsini fuori di Porta S. Pancrazio, Plate 199, engraving by Giuseppe Vasi, 1761. The Villa Benedetta, designed by Plautilla Bricci, is the large residence to the right of the street. Known as “Il Vascello,” the Baroque design was characterized in its time as a great warship moored outside the city of Rome.

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In the eighteenth century, they were known generally as amateurs, lovers of the arts, in contrast to others who engaged in an art or craft as a full-time, remunerated occupation.27 The nobility lived from the proceeds of their wealth and land, which left them free to pursue their personal interests and take on positions of leadership, which precluded the need for a paying commission. They were the members of architectural academies and invested heavily in architectural projects. These amateurs collected architectural treatises for the pleasure of learning about the antique world. Most of the scholarship on amateur architects is on the English “gentleman amateur,” yet this noble preoccupation can be found in all regions of Western Europe. A review of the literature reveals a very loose definition of the amateur. In fact, it is sometimes difficult to distinguish whether an individual is simply a patron who is deeply engaged in the project or if they merit the designation of amateur architect. The distinction between the two appears to be the greater degree to which the amateur has assumed the design process.28 Most frequently the amateurs designed projects for themselves, usually their own residences. Some amateurs created their own design drawings or paid a draftsman or builder to do so from their instructions. Many supervised construction even daily but just as often placed a builder in charge of this task since such work was beneath their social status. Amateurs did on occasion design for someone else, although never for pay. There is no publication specifically on the woman amateur architect. Most women who have been recognized as amateurs appear as a brief interlude in publications on male amateur architects.29 In England, Lady Elizabeth Talbot, Lady Elizabeth Wilbraham, and Lady Margaret Coke are just a few of the examples of early modern women who designed and built their own residences and other architectural works and who were recognized by their contemporaries as amateur architects. These women have a few points in common: They were educated in the sciences and humanities. The inventories of their families’ estates contained architectural treatises written in Latin and vernacular languages to which they would have had access. They would thus have had knowledge of architectural drawings and pattern books. Some even traveled to architectural sites to further their education. These women’s backgrounds and study prepared them to create classical designs and choose materials for their projects. Most closely controlled the finances of their projects, often by almost daily supervision of construction. What they held in common is that they were actively making design decisions for their projects and supervising construction (Figs. 1.2, 1.3, and 1.4). Other European regions have cases of women amateurs. Just as one example in France, Jacquette de Montbron (1542–1598) was an early pioneer in the French Renaissance style.30 As a widow of the viscount of Bourdeilles, de Montbron designed three chateaux on land she owned. The breadth of her education and intellect are known from a eulogy written by her brother-in-law, where he applauded her literary, linguistic, and architectural abilities. He also confirmed her as the designer and builder of her architectural projects. She organized and personally directed the construction, including the acquisition and cutting of stone. Michelle Lebeaux has argued that her final project in Bourdeilles was a sophisticated and well-composed interpretation of Sebastiano Serlio’s treatise, also illustrating de Montbron’s knowledge of the royal Chateau at Chenonceau and her connection to the court of Catherine de Medici (Fig. 1.5). Women such as de Montbron and the women in England have been seen as anomalies; no one has attempted to study them as a group of peers, nor to analyze their impact on architectural design in their respective regions.

Conclusions The revival of antiquity in fifteenth-century Italy was the catalyst that transformed the notion on who could design and build. The separation of design from the control of the guilds and their masters was a key factor. Design knowledge became accessible to the literate public. This phenomenon opened the building industry to craftsmen and artists who were not master builders and to the elite classes who had the money and time for a humanistic education. 26

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Figure 1.2 An embroidery of Elizabethan Chatsworth, textile, 1590–1600, English School. Chatsworth Hall, sixteenth century, designed and built by Lady Elizabeth Talbot, known as Bess of Hardwick, was unusual for a Tudor country house, having a double-height set of staterooms in the upper floors. Source: © The Devonshire Collections, Chatsworth / Collection of the Duke of Devonshire, Chatsworth. Reproduced by permission of Chatsworth Settlement Trustees / Bridgeman Images.

Figure 1.3 The Country House at Weston Park, Staffordshire, England, designed and built by Lady Elizabeth Wilbraham in the Neo-Palladian style. Garden façade. Source: Bs0u10e01, 2018.

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Figure 1.4 The marble altarpiece of the Chapel at Holkham Hall, Norfolk, designed by Lady Elizabeth Coke, ­Countess of Leicester, tasked with finishing Holkham Hall after her husband’s death in 1759. She financed and directed the construction of the stables, coach houses, counting house, and stranger’s wing. Source: Hans A. Rosbach, 2008.

Figure 1.5 The Château de Bourdeilles, designed and built by Jacquette de Montbron, features Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian ornamental details at each level. Source: Alban Schoffit, 2007.

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What did this mean for early modern women? Despite existing social constraints, women could and did enter the world of designing and building. Architecture for a woman was not a simple diversion. To design a building required specialized knowledge in mathematics, drawing, and theoretical and practical concepts concerning the arrangement of space and form. It required at least a rudimentary understanding of materials and construction methods. The painter-architect Plautilla Bricci acquired and successfully applied her knowledge as a livelihood. The female amateur architects presented in this chapter were empowered women who controlled the finances, program, design, and making of the work and were seen by their contemporaries as the authors of their projects. Their desire for a liberal education and to design and build was part of a premodern awakening of women’s intellectual abilities, self-reliance, and independence.31 They set the stage for women to enroll in school and practice architecture as an occupation following the Industrial Revolution. What does this mean for women today? Its significance is that women have a history in architecture before the Industrial Age, a story that has yet to be told fully. Research into the archival documentation—the private letters, papers, journals, and building accounts—of early modern women artists and amateur architects is only just beginning. The recent discovery of Plautilla Bricci and other women architects presented in this chapter signal the possibility that future research may uncover others. The case of women’s architectural patronage should be analyzed more deeply with an eye for women who were both designing and building. The history of early modern women architects is part of a greater story. These women were a manifestation of the vital chronicle of the American and European women’s emancipation movement coming to fruition at the turn of the twentieth century. The early history of women in architecture can empower women today who aspire to design and build in what still appears to be predominantly a man’s profession. Perhaps the question should not really be: When does the history of women in architecture begin? It is possible that they were there all along—in one way or another.

Notes 1. Despina Stratigakos, Where Are the Women Architects? (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016), 18–20; Annmarie Adams and Peta Tancred,  ‘Designing Women’: Gender and the Architectural Profession (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000), 3–6. 2. See the bibliography in Sabine Frommel and Juliette Dumas, “Introduction,” in Bâtir Au féminin? Traditions et stratégies en Europe et dans l’Empire Ottoman, ed. Sabine Frommel, Juliette Dumas, and Tassin Raphaël (Paris: Picard, 2013), 12–15. 3. Deborah Valenze, The First Industrial Woman (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 3–9. 4. Nancy Weiss Malkiel, “Keep the Damned Women Out”: The Struggle for Coeducation (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016), 4–7. 5. Spiro Kostof, “The Practice of Architecture in the Ancient World: Egypt and Greece,” in The Architect: Chapters in the History of the Profession (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), 12–24. 6. William L. MacDonald, “Roman Architects,” in The Architect: Chapters in the History of the Profession, ed. Spiro Kostof (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1977), 33–37. 7. Jerome J. Pollitt, “Education in the Visual Arts,” in A Companion to Ancient Education, ed. W. Martin Bloomer (Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, 2015), 373–86. 8. MacDonald, “Roman Architects,” 37. 9. Aleksander Wolicki, “The Education of Women in Ancient Greece,” in A Companion to Ancient Education, ed. W. Martin Bloomer (Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, 2015), 310–11; Emily A. Hemelrijk, “The Education of Women in Ancient Rome,” in A Companion to Ancient Education, ed. W. Martin Bloomer (Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, 2015), 292–96. 10. Nikolaus Pevsner, “The Term ‘Architect’ in the Middle Ages,” Speculum 17 (1942): 549–62. 11. Spiro Kostof, “The Architect in the Middle Ages, East and West,” in The Architect: Chapters in the History of the Profession, ed. Spiro Kostof (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), 69–71. 12. Mario Carpo, “The Making of the Typographical Architect,” in Paper Palaces: The Rise of the Renaissance Architectural Treatise, ed. Vaughan Hart and Peter Hicks (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), 159–60. 13. John Harvey, The Medieval Architect (London: Wayland Publishers, 1972), 103–36.

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Shelley E. Roff 14. Shelley E. Roff, “Appropriate to Her Sex? Women’s Participation on the Construction Site in Medieval and Early Modern Europe,” in Women and Wealth in Late Medieval Europe, ed. Theresa Earenfight (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 116–20. 15. Jennifer Ward, Women in Medieval Europe 1200–1500 (London: Routledge, 2016), 15–28. 16. Pevsner, “The Term,” 558. 17. Leopold D. Ettlinger, “The Emergence of the Italian Architect in the Fifteenth Century,” in The Architect: Chapters in the History of the Profession, ed. Spiro Kostof (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), 98. 18. Ibid., 121. 19. Catherine Wilkinson, “The New Professionalism in the Renaissance,” in The Architect: Chapters in the History of the Profession, ed. Spiro Kostof (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), 158. 20. Ibid., 137. 21. Ibid., 151–56. 22. Nikolaus Pevsner, Academies of Art, Past and Present (New York: Da Capo Press, 1973), 60. 23. Karen Edis-Barzman, The Florentine Academy and the Early Modern State: The Discipline of Disegno (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 143–80. 24. Anton W. A. Boschloo, Academies of Art: Between Renaissance and Romanticism (Leiden: SDU Uitgeverij, 1989). 25. Delia Gaze, ed. Dictionary of Women Artists, vol. 1 (London: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1997), 43–50. 26. Consuelo Lollobrigida, Plautilla Bricci. Pictura et Architectura Celebris. L’architectricce del Barocco Romano (Rome: Gangemi Editore International, 2017), 39–52, 61, 67. 27. Howard Colvin, “What We Mean by Amateur,” in The Role of the Amateur Architect: Papers Given at the Georgian Group Symposium, ed. Giles Worsley (London: The Georgian Group, 1994), 4–6. 28. Maurice Howard, “ ‘His Lordship Was the Chiefest Architect’: Patrons as Builders in 16th-Century England,” in The Role of the Amateur Architect: Papers Given at the Georgian Group Symposium, 1993 (London: The Georgian Group, 1994), 7. 29. Ibid., 11; John Harris, A Passion for Building: The Amateur Architect in England 1650–1850 (London: Sir John Soane’s Museum, 2007), 7–8, 45–46. 30. Michelle Lebeaux, “Jacquette de Montbron (1542–1598), Femme ‘Architect’ de la Renaissance entre Angoumois et Perigord,” Le Moyen Age 177 (2011): 546–61. 31. Joan Kelly, “Early Feminist Theory and the ‘Querelle des Femmes’ 1400–1789,” Signs 8 (1982): 4–28.

Bibliography Adams, Annmarie, and Peta Tancred. ‘Designing Women’: Gender and the Architectural Profession. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000. Bloomer, W. Martin. A Companion to Ancient Education. Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, 2015. Boschloo, Anton W. A. Academies of Art: Between Renaissance and Romanticism. Leiden: SDU Uitgeverij, 1989. Carpo, Mario. “The Making of the Typographical Architect.” In Paper Palaces: The Rise of the Renaissance Architectural Treatise, edited by Vaughan Hart and Peter Hicks. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998. Edis-Barzman, Karen. The Florentine Academy and the Early Modern State: The Discipline of Disegno. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Frommel, Sabine, Juliette Dumas, and Tassin Raphaël, eds. Bâtir Au féminin? Traditions et stratégies en Europe et dans l’Empire Ottoman. Paris: Picard, 2013. Gaze, Delia, ed. Dictionary of Women Artists. 2 vols. London: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1997. Harris, John. A Passion for Building: The Amateur Architect in England 1650–1850. London: Sir John Soane’s Museum, 2007. Harvey, John. The Medieval Architect. London: Wayland Publishers, 1972. Kelly, Joan. “Early Feminist Theory and the ‘Querelle des Femmes’ 1400–1789.” Signs 8 (1982): 4–28. Kostof, Spiro, ed. The Architect: Chapters in the History of the Profession. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977. Lebeaux, Michelle. “Jacquette de Montbron (1542–1598), femme ‘architect’ de la Renaissance entre Angoumois et Perigord.” Le Moyen Age 177 (2011): 546–61. Lollobrigida, Consuelo. Plautilla Bricci. Pictura et Architectura Celebris. L’architectricce del Barocco Romano. Rome: Gangemi Editore International, 2017. Malkiel, Nancy Weiss. “Keep the Damned Women Out”: The Struggle for Coeducation. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016. Pevsner, Nikolaus. “The Term ‘Architect’ in the Middle Ages.” Speculum 17 (1942): 549–62. Pevsner, Nikolaus. Academies of Art, Past and Present. New York: Da Capo Press, 1973.

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Did Women Build Before the Industrial Age? Pollitt, Jerome J. “Education in the Visual Arts.” In A Companion to Ancient Education, edited by W. Martin Bloomer, 373–86. Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, 2015. Roff, Shelley E. “ ‘Appropriate to Her Sex?’ Women’s Participation on the Construction Site in Medieval and Early Modern Europe.” In Women and Wealth in Late Medieval Europe, edited by Theresa Earenfight, 109–34. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. Stratigakos, Despina. Where Are the Women Architects? Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016. Valenze, Deborah. The First Industrial Woman. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995. Ward, Jennifer. Women in Medieval Europe 1200–1500. London: Routledge, 2016. Worsley, Giles, ed. The Role of the Amateur Architect: Papers Given at the Georgian Group Symposium. London: The Georgian Group, 1994.

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2 FOR HOMEOWNERS AND HOUSEKEEPERS The Architecture of Minerva Parker Nichols in Late Nineteenth-Century America Margaret (Molly) Lester Introduction On August 14, 1889, the Philadelphia Real Estate Record and Builders’ Guide noted “with pleasure” the arrival of a new architect in the city: Minerva Parker, the first woman in the country to practice architecture independently.1 A  mere seven months later, the Builders’ Guide published a full front-page profile of Minerva—she was just the fifth person, the sole architect, and the first woman accorded such prominent coverage in the trade publication.2 Trained as a draftswoman, Minerva had earned her place on the front page not only because she was a novelty within the profession but also for her productivity: by 1890, she had already designed at least thirty-five commissions, including fourteen projects specifically for female clients. In the ensuing years of her formal practice, Minerva established, propelled, and sustained her design career by specializing in projects for elite women and developing a unique public voice in published commentaries directed toward a female audience. Minerva ultimately designed over sixty commissions nationwide, earning professional acclaim and extensive press from her colleagues in the architecture profession and building trades. Yet she is rarely recognized today for her contributions to the field of architecture—in particular, on behalf of female clients and women’s clubs in an era of growing economic and social independence for women. When our architectural histories overlook her, they neglect one of the earliest case studies of a woman successfully contributing dozens of structures to the American built environment and designing with particular consideration for the women responsible for the care, cleaning, and character of their homes.

The Formative Years Minerva Parker (1862–1949) was born in Peoria County, Illinois, as the younger daughter of Amanda and John Parker, a schoolteacher. When she was just fourteen months old, John Parker died in the Civil War, and Minerva’s twenty-seven-year-old mother Amanda (alongside Amanda’s sister, Sadie) joined the growing ranks of war widows confronting the prospect of supporting their families as single women.3 Although this matriarchal family structure emerged in growing numbers after the Civil War, it was still unusual and it shaped Minerva’s upbringing, as her later reminiscences made clear.

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Looking back on her childhood near the end of her life, Minerva recalled: “The marvel was that [my mother and Aunt Sadie], overworked, unhappy, without modern methods to chart their way in child care, succeeded in providing long happy days for their fatherless children.”4 Minerva’s upbringing left a deep impression, informing her subsequent commissions for other unmarried women and single mothers. Over the course of her architectural career, she designed dozens of homes with the most modern conveniences to make her clients’ lives easier and their children’s lives better. The loss of her father also thrust Minerva into close contact with her maternal grandfather, the architect Seth A. Doane, who lived on a neighboring farm in Peoria County. Minerva frequently played in her grandfather’s workshop, where he crafted prairie schooners and designed houses for new settlers in the Midwest. Over the years that Minerva’s family lived in Peoria County, Doane would channel his granddaughter’s mischief by giving her drawing lessons and teaching her how to build corncob houses.5 Amanda eventually moved her daughters to Chicago, where she married Dr. Samuel Maxwell in 1875, when Minerva was thirteen years old.6 A  year later, the family moved to Philadelphia, enticed by the prospect of the Centennial Exhibition. In 1877, Dr. Maxwell died suddenly while Amanda was pregnant. Left widowed for a second time, Minerva’s mother opened a boarding house in Philadelphia in order to provide once again for her children (this time, without the proximity and assistance of her sister and father). Meanwhile, a teenage Minerva worked as both a servant and a governess and began to enroll in architectural drafting programs.7 By this time in the late nineteenth century, there were several options for women with an interest in architecture—and Minerva took advantage of them. Formal college-based programs were not yet the norm for architectural education; the few existing programs at public or private universities were still relatively new. Notably, the first university programs open to women were based at public land-grant institutions: Cornell University’s program was established in 1871, and the University of Illinois awarded its first architecture degree in 1873. Both Cornell and the University of Illinois admitted women from the start, although it was not until 1879 that Mary L. Page became the first woman to graduate from an American architecture program, when she received her degree from the University of Illinois.8 By 1891, an estimated twelve women had earned degrees from American architectural schools, but few of these early graduates went on to practice architecture in any professional capacity.9 As a counterpart to the university architectural programs, schools of design catered to a more female student base and signaled the rise of new possibilities for women in the visual, industrial, and architectural arts. These programs emerged in the mid-nineteenth century to train men and a growing number of women in technical skills such as lithography and engraving. Although they paralleled contemporary curricula for women in the domestic arts, the schools of design differed from those proto–home economics courses by offering women a socially sanctioned education that could actually prepare them for employment outside the home as textile designers, engravers, and other professionals in the applied arts.10 Philadelphia was particularly rife with these growing programs, including the Philadelphia Normal Art School, the Franklin Institute, and the Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Arts—all of which Minerva attended.11 She earned a teaching certificate from the Philadelphia Normal Art School in 1882, an honorable mention from the Franklin Institute in 1885, and a special distinction for her “commendable Zeal and ability” when she graduated from the Franklin Institute in 1886.12 Soon after graduating, she secured a position in the office of Philadelphia architect Edwin W. Thorne on 14 South Broad Street, bringing her technical skills to bear as a draftswoman for Thorne’s practice, which focused on residential commissions.13 In 1888, Thorne decided to move his office a few blocks away. Rather than follow him to the new location, Minerva took over his existing office, becoming the first woman in the country to

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Figure 2.1 Minerva Parker Nichols. Photograph, no date. Source: Carrie Baker, Northampton, MA.

practice architecture independently.14 She was not the first woman to open an architectural practice in the country; historians generally agree that Louise Blanchard holds that position, as she opened her firm in Buffalo in 1881 in partnership with Robert Bethune.15 During this same period, at least five women graduated from university architecture programs between 1878 and 1888.16 Of those five, only three started professional practice, and all three worked for or alongside male partners.17 These women were Minerva’s peers in the field, but they offered no useful models for a woman who needed to secure clients and commissions on her own in an era and occupation that made very few accommodations for that. Beyond her status as a “first,” Minerva Parker’s independent practice signifies the creation of a portfolio with no precedent in terms of business model, clientele, and architectural authorship. Architectural histories should not look to her “firstness” as an incidental piece of trivia that bears no importance on her significance. After all, she could have continued to practice as part of Thorne’s firm, designing for his clients and benefiting from the imprimatur of an unquestioned member of the profession. Instead, she set out on her own, and her singularity as a female professional is of vital relevance to—and a critical factor in—any consideration of women in architecture. Minerva made a place for herself in a field and era that typically only offered men the education, training, professional networks, and promotion to achieve independent success. By age twenty-six, she hung her own shingle, choosing to build her own practice bolstered by women and the places that they created for—and cared for—themselves.

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Over the course of her career, Minerva designed over sixty projects around the country, at least half of them private homes. This preponderance of residential commissions did not happen by accident; from her earliest years as an architect, Minerva claimed domestic architecture as her specialty.18 Symbolically, residential architecture was a logical choice for a woman breaking into architectural practice: nineteenth-century America devoted considerable attention to the importance of women as the arbiters of taste in the home, beginning in popular culture with the writings of Catharine Beecher (1800–1878) and the rise of interest in domesticity. One could read Minerva’s career, then, as a small professional leap from organizing the home to designing it. But that interpretation would underestimate Minerva’s imprint on the houses that she designed and saw to completion. Residential design represented a scale of architecture for which Minerva could single-handedly supervise construction from start to finish—and she did, scaling scaffolding throughout her career to superintend contractors.19 She accomplished this despite the fact that women’s contemporary corsets restricted one’s lung capacity by half and would have made it doubly difficult to navigate the construction site.20 Throughout her career, this blend of talent and competence was a hallmark of Minerva’s practice and a much-touted aspect of her professional reputation. In adopting domestic architecture as her professional specialty, Minerva was also distinguishing herself from the facelessness of pattern book homes, all while issuing an implicit—and at times, forcefully explicit—critique of the homes designed by men. Her editorials, published in women’s magazines with names like The Home-Maker and Housekeeper’s Weekly, dispensed with the male authors and architects who traditionally dictated the form of the home. Instead, Minerva wrote directly to, and often worked directly with, a female audience, lifting up their authority as managers of the house and helping her readers and clients to cultivate their own particular, personal design sensibilities for their homes. This approach also translated to her designs for women’s clubs, whose headquarters were called “club houses” and represented a scaled-up version of her residential specialization. Minerva’s female readership and clientele formed the foundation of her career, forging a professional network out of social relationships among the middle- and upper-class women of late nineteenth-century America.21 These themes and the design considerations that permeated her full portfolio can be seen in the three commissions that this chapter will explore: the residences designed for the Campbell sisters, the house built for Rachel Foster Avery, and the clubhouse created for the New Century Club of Philadelphia.

The Campbell Sisters Residences In May of 1891, the Philadelphia Real Estate Record and Builders’ Guide placed an announcement: Minerva Parker architect, 14 S. Broad street, [Phila.], is engaged on plans for a pair of brick houses, colonial in style, three-stories high, to be built of brick and stone, fitted on interior with electric bells and all modern conveniences. They are to be built for Miss Mary Campbell, on School Lane, Germantown.22 Minerva’s posting for the Campbell commission offers the first hint of how her designs catered to the unique situations of her female clients: what was advertised as a project for Miss Mary Campbell was in fact a discreet duplex for both Mary and her sister Jane.23 Minerva’s blueprints for the project do name both sisters, but the public notice in the Builders’ Guide and the public-facing exterior of the building de-emphasize the reality that the building did not house a traditional family structure. Instead, Minerva’s exterior design employed an asymmetrical arrangement and conservative

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Colonial Revival detailing to veil the fact that this seemingly traditional single-family home was in fact two separate, side-by-side residences for the Campbell sisters. Mary Campbell was an art teacher for fifty-five years, ending her career at the Philadelphia Normal Art School—one of Minerva’s alma maters.24 Her sister Jane was a writer, publisher, and speaker for woman’s suffrage. The two women were leaders within the Catholic community and the women’s suffrage movement.25 In commissioning their own houses, both Campbell sisters were creating independent, professional space for their work and lives as unmarried women. Yet Philadelphia was commonly understood to be a socially conservative city, and the exterior design of the Campbell houses relied on the restrained Colonial Revival style, from stone quoins at the corners to the decorative plaster swags at the second story, to counterbalance their owners’ lifelong statuses as mistresses of their own households. Minerva’s blueprints and specifications for their homes also took into account the relationship between the women running the house and those serving it. Minerva’s design bolstered this distinction in subtle and perceptive ways, arranging the interior so that the servant spaces could not intrude upon the living spaces. The kitchen and dining room in each side of the duplex, for example, were separated by a passageway, and the pantry doors employed double-acting hinges—a choice she wrote about in The Home-Maker: “The pantry-doors have double-acting hinges. … One door always being closed, the odor of the cooking does not reach the living rooms.”26 These nuances in the layout of her homes acknowledge the hard work of running a home, drawing on her lived experience as both a servant and an unmarried mistress of her own household.

Figure 2.2 Campbell Sisters Residence, School House Lane, Germantown, Philadelphia, PA, architect Minerva Parker Nichols. Photograph, no date. Source: Carrie Baker, Northampton, MA.

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With these dual roles in mind, Minerva’s architecture found ways to make other women’s lives easier. She pared down the profiles of millwork to ease the chore of cleaning: “I think it is advisable … that the [stair] newels and balusters shall be plain and graceful in shape,” she wrote in The Home-Maker in December 1891, and demonstrated in her drawings for the ornamentation of the Campbell residences. “There may be some beauty in minute mouldings [sic] that have to be cleaned with an especial care for each turn, but it is a great waste of labor.”27 In plan and detail, Minerva’s designs consistently gave special attention to women’s work—at all levels of the household. Minerva completed her plans for the Campbell houses in 1891. Within a year, Jane Campbell founded the Philadelphia Woman Suffrage Association, and two years after building their houses, the Campbell sisters established a monthly journal called Woman’s Progress, which featured essays in support of women’s equality.28 These accomplishments took root in their houses in Germantown, where each sister enjoyed her own dedicated workspace. In turn, the Campbell sisters used their professional voices to amplify Minerva: in the second issue of Woman’s Progress, the magazine featured an extended profile of Minerva and set aside three pages of the issue for one of her essays, titled “Architecture, Architect and Client.” The feature is a tribute to the working relationship between the Campbell sisters and their architect, and it typifies the ways in which Minerva built her clientele in relationship with—and with a readership of—other professional women.

Rachel Foster Avery House In the issue from November 5, 1890, the Philadelphia Real Estate Record and Builders’ Guide published a new announcement: Minerva Parker architect, 14 S. Broad street, Phila., has on boards plans for a large stone house, for Mrs. Rachel Foster Avery, at Somerton, PA, slate roof, three-stories high, hot air, hard wood finish, electric work, light and bells … also a stable attached, of stone and frame, to have all the conveniences.29 Whereas the Campbell commission represents many of the characteristic features of Minerva’s designs for unmarried professional women, the project for Rachel Foster Avery epitomizes her design principles with respect to the needs of women as caregivers and civic organizers.30 Commissioned in 1890 and completed in 1891, the house known as Mill-Rae was designed on behalf of Rachel Foster Avery, a nationally known suffragist and the protégée of Susan B. Anthony. It was to serve not only a private function as Rachel’s family home, but also a public function as a meeting space and overnight accommodations for suffragists.31 Charged with these conflicting building programs, Minerva’s design reconciled Rachel’s overlapping identities and spatial needs as a head of household, a mother, and an activist and organizer. Rachel Foster was born in Pittsburgh in 1858 to a family of staunch abolitionists. At the age of twenty, Rachel attended a suffrage convention where she met and befriended Susan B. Anthony, the founder of the National Woman Suffrage Association, and in the ensuing decades, she organized several NWSA conventions.32 In 1888, Rachel met and married Cyrus Miller Avery, and two years later, she hired Minerva to design a home to accommodate both her growing family and her expanding network. Rachel was the wealthy heir to her family’s fortune, and her new house in Somerton represented a new measure of commitment to the cause of woman’s suffrage.33 At the time she designed Rachel Foster Avery’s house, Minerva Parker was not yet married. This did not stop her from designing for a life she did not yet have, anticipating the ideal arrangement of a home with growing children. In her articles for The Home-Maker, she spelled out detailed

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Figure 2.3 Mill-Rae, Rachel Foster Avery House, Somerton, PA, architect Minerva Parker Nichols, constructed 1890–1891. Source: Margaret (Molly) Lester, 2016.

specifications about the acceptable height of steps for young legs (65/8 inches), the necessity of accessible bookshelves for young readers, and the importance of playrooms that were neither “so dainty, or so fine, that there is no place for the children.”34 Her design for Mill-Rae, completed the same year that those articles were published, bore out these principles in practice. A key feature of the house (and many of Minerva’s residential designs) was the layout of communicating bedrooms, which accommodated Rachel’s growing family of young children. To quote Minerva’s description of a similar project, “If a look is taken at the location of the beds and doors, you will see what a small amount of space is travelled from the mother’s room … to each child.”35 Her understanding of these caregiving scenarios was perceptive, and her calculations of these distances were precise. In the other spaces of the house, Rachel Foster Avery stipulated that there should be enough room to host her fellow activists for both lodging and meeting. Indeed, when it was completed, Mill-Rae regularly hosted national figures such as Susan B. Anthony, Anna Howard Shaw, and Lucy E. Anthony, among others.36 These women convened in the first floor’s living spaces, which were flexibly interconnected with pocket doors to allow for small or large meetings, and lodged upstairs in the house’s many bedrooms. In 1895, after Rachel collected an $800 annuity on Susan B. Anthony’s behalf, Anthony personally wrote to each of the 202 contributors from her room at Mill-Rae, thanking them for their support.37 During her years in ownership of Mill-Rae, Rachel maintained several positions with national organizations, including the NWSA, the International Council of Women, and the Committee of the World’s Congress of Representative Women.38 She organized national conferences from her home in Somerton, all while raising three children alongside her husband. She also spoke several times on the relationship between her life in Somerton and her activism: her speech entitled “The Relationship of the Home to Woman’s Work in Organization” was presented in Atlanta and Philadelphia.39 The Avery commission as well proved pivotal for Minerva. Its use as a gathering space for women—and potential future clients—was critical 38

For Homeowners and Housekeepers

as she built her business. Both women could count Mill-Rae as a foundational space for their social connections, professional activities, and cause.

New Century Club of Philadelphia In April of 1891, the Philadelphia Real Estate Record and Builders’ Guide announced: Minerva Parker architect, 14 S. Broad street, [Phila.], having completed plans for the New Century Club building, to be erected on Twelfth street, below Sansom, has placed them on boards of contractors for estimates. They contemplate a four-story structure, of Indiana limestone and Pompeiian brick, Spanish tile roof, with galvanized iron cornice and bays.40 The club “house” for the New Century Club of Philadelphia was one of Minerva’s highest-profile projects, and it was one of three women’s club headquarter buildings that she designed (The New Century Club of Wilmington was constructed in 1893; a clubhouse she designed for the Queen Isabella Association at the World’s Columbian Exposition was never built). Women’s clubs and benevolent associations were a growing movement in the late nineteenth century, multiplying in cities and towns around the country as women gained new measures of social independence and increasingly organized around civic causes.

Figure 2.4 New Century Club of Philadelphia, 12th Street, Philadelphia, PA, architect Minerva Parker Nichols, constructed 1891. Photograph, no date. Source: Carrie Baker, Northampton, MA.

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Adopting many of Minerva’s standards of residential design, the commission for the New Century Club could be considered simply a larger example of these same principles: a downtown home away from home for the club’s many members. The original meetings for the New Century Club of Philadelphia were held in members’ private homes, much like Mill-Rae; as they outgrew those places, they turned to Minerva to design a new space in the city that could be explicitly intended for women. The Philadelphia chapter’s bylaws articulated the clubhouse’s raison d’être: “To create an organized center of thought and action among women … and to furnish a quiet and safe place in Philadelphia for the comfort and convenience of its members.”41 Replete with parlors to host discussions, a drawing-room for social gatherings, kitchens, and bedrooms, Minerva’s plans for the New Century Club had much in common with the Campbell residences and Mill-Rae. For the sake of other club functions, Minerva added a two-story performance hall that could be rented out or could host private club events.42 The interior adhered to the club’s interest in the “comfort and convenience of its members”—an organizing principle that was entirely consistent with the domestic rationality and intended audience of Minerva’s overall portfolio. Once again, her design took into account the welfare of female clients and male visitors. The interconnecting themes of light, air, and health emerge many times in her writings about architecture and in her actual buildings. “Don’t be afraid of light and air,” she wrote in The Home-Maker in 1891, as she was leading the New Century Club commission, “they are the things that do most to beautify our homes.”43 True to her word, the clubhouse design mitigated its hemmed-in urban site by incorporating a lightwell that began in the basement and extended the full height of the building, supplying sunlight and circulating air to every floor and function in the building. Minerva’s headquarter building was erected in downtown Philadelphia; she was so involved in its construction that she postponed her honeymoon in order to supervise its completion in 1891.44 On the exterior, her building earned plaudits for its Pompeiian brick and terra-cotta façade. On the interior, the clubhouse won praise for its “striking, yet delicate, homelike, and very harmonious design.”45 The even greater wins for Minerva, though, were the subsequent commissions that stemmed directly from this project, including a commission for the New Century Club of Wilmington, and a teaching position at the Philadelphia School of Design for Women.

Conclusion After nearly a decade of practice in Philadelphia, including eight years as a solo architect, in 1896 Minerva Parker Nichols moved with her family to Brooklyn, NY, and typical narratives of her biography consider this to be the end of her architectural career. This framing is shortsighted, as it overlooks the commissions she completed in subsequent decades for family and friends—of which there are thought to be at least ten—and the influence she continued to wield on a national scale, speaking on topics related to women and architecture. She earned retrospective interviews and profiles for decades, remaining a nationally recognized figure long after her retirement from formal practice. When she died at the age of eighty-seven in 1949, the New York Times in a headlined obituary praised her career and noted her lifelong involvement in architectural work and women’s causes.46 At the peak of her career in Philadelphia, Minerva published a notice in the magazine Daughters of America: Mrs. Minerva Parker Nichols, so well known as architect of … the beautiful home of Mrs. Rachel Foster Avery in the suburbs of Philadelphia, and the women’s club-houses of Philadelphia and Wilmington, has recently removed her office to her residence, 1616 Mount Vernon Street. Mrs. Nichols will now be able to devote more time to her practice.47

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With four projects on the boards at this time and a husband and children in the house, Minerva moved her office to her home in order to create more, not less, time for work; she was making space to make work. Forged by the example of her own hardworking single mother, Minerva spent her career reforming the built environment on behalf of women who were doing reformative work of their own. With special care for the women working in her spaces, Minerva grounded her designs in the reality of their responsibilities and a hopeful vision of their capabilities.

Notes 1. Born Minerva Parker, she practiced for several years under her maiden name before marrying Rev. William I. Nichols in 1891, at which point she began to practice as Minerva Parker Nichols; at no point did she employ a pseudonym or conceal her gender by using her initials. Her career thus bridged this name change, and the surnames cited in historical documents vary accordingly. Most of this chapter will refer to her by her given name of Minerva to avoid confusion. This is an imperfect solution with the unintended consequence of implicitly belittling her. It is worth noting that such nomenclature challenges are culturally unique to historiographies of women. 2. I wish to express my gratitude to Carrie Baker and the Baker/Nichols family for the use of Minerva Parker Nichols’s private family papers. 3. Minerva Parker Nichols, Frances D. Nichols, and Doane Fischer, “The Baddest Day” and Other Favorite Stories(Westport, CT: D. Fisher, 1997), addendum 1. 4. Ibid., 15. 5. Ibid., 27. 6. Ibid., addendum 1. 7. US Bureau of the Census, Tenth Census of the United States (Washington, DC, 1880), 363C. 8. Sarah Allaback, The First American Women Architects (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2008), 24, 97. 9. American Architectural Foundation, “That Exceptional One”: Women in American Architecture, 1888–1988 (Washington, DC: American Architectural Foundation, 1988), 13; Allaback, The First American Women Architects, 24; Mary N. Woods, From Craft to Profession: The Practice of Architecture in Nineteenth-Century America (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1999), 76. 10. Mary F. Seymour, “Occupations of Women to Date,” in Transactions of the National Council of Women of the United States, Assembled in Washington, DC, February 22 to 25, 1891, ed. Rachel Foster Avery (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1891), 252; Graeme F. Chalmers, Women in the Nineteenth-Century Art World: Schools of Art and Design for Women in London and Philadelphia (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1998), 75. 11. Sandra L. Tatman and Roger W. Moss, Biographical Dictionary of Philadelphia Architects: 1700–1903 (Boston: G.K. Hall, 1985), 573. 12. Jeffrey A. Cohen, “Building a Discipline: Early Institutional Settings for Architectural Education in Philadelphia, 1804–1890,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 53, no. 2 ( June 1994): 157. 13. Kathleen Sinclair Wood, “Minerva Parker Nichols: Pioneer American Woman Architect” (Grad. paper, University of Delaware, 1993), 8. 14. Nichols et al., “The Baddest Day”, addendum 1. 15. Louise Blanchard and Robert Bethune married later that year, and Louise Blanchard Bethune practiced for nearly all of her career under her full married name. 16. Allaback, The First American Women Architects, 233. 17. Ibid., 97, 206, 233. 18. Ida Husted Harper, “A  Woman Who Is the Architect of Her Own Fortunes,” San Francisco Chronicle, April 14, 1901, 80. 19. “A Lady Architect,” The Sunday Journal, February 23, 1890, 1. 20. Cynthia Zaitzevsky, Long Island Landscapes and the Women Who Designed Them (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2009), 258. 21. Minerva’s network remained almost, if not entirely, white; there is no evidence so far that she worked with any clients of color. 22. Philadelphia Real Estate Record and Builders’ Guide, May 6, 1891. 23. Hence, the reference to “a pair of brick houses.” The blueprints refer to the project as a pair of houses for both sisters. The houses survive today.

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Margaret (Molly) Lester 24. Faith Charlton, Martin-Campbell-Furlong Family Papers, 1795–1963, MC90 (Philadelphia Archdiocesan Historical Research Center, 2010): 6–7. 25. Susanna Kelly Engbers, “A Woman Both ‘New’ and ‘True’: Jane Campbell as Catholic Suffragist,” American Catholic Studies 126, no. 2 (Summer 2015): 28–29. 26. Minerva Parker, “Practical Homes,” The Home-Maker, January 1891, 65. 27. Minerva Parker, “Practical Dwellings,” The Home-Maker, December 1891, 445. 28. Engbers, “A Woman Both ‘New’ and ‘True’,” 29. 29. Philadelphia Real Estate Record and Builders’ Guide, November 5, 1890. 30. This chapter primarily will use the given name of Rachel, to avoid confusion between the years before and after she married Cyrus Avery. 31. The house is still standing. 32. Megan Mack, “University acquires newly discovered collection of Susan B. Anthony letters,” University of Rochester Newscenter, August  26, 2014, accessed November  1, 2015, www.rochester.edu/newscenter/ university-acquires-newly-discovered-collection-of-susan-b-anthony-letters/. 33. Trisha Franzen, Anna Howard Shaw: The Work of Woman Suffrage (Urbana, Chicago, and Springfield, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2014), 76. 34. Minerva Parker, “Practical Homes,” The Home-Maker, April 1891, 757. 35. “Illustrations,” American Architect and Building News, February 11, 1893, 95. 36. “Of Interest to Women,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, February 12, 1893, 3; “Real Estate: Active Building Operations Reported Yesterday—Transfers and Permits,” The Times, October 30, 1891, 3. 37. Ida Husted Harper, The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony, vol. 2 (Indianapolis: The Hollenbeck Press, 1898), 814. 38. “Congress of Women,” Daily Inter Ocean, May 15, 1893, 1. 39. “News of the Schools,” Philadelphia Times, January 4, 1896, 2. 40. Philadelphia Real Estate Record and Builders’ Guide, April 8, 1891. 41. Mrs. J. C. Croly, The History of the Women’s Club Movement in America (New York: Henry G. Allen & Co., 1898), 1025. 42. Ibid. 43. Parker, “Practical Homes,” April 1891, 757. 44. It is no longer extant. 45. Croly, The History of the Women’s, 1027. 46. “Mrs. Nichols Dead; Retired Architect,” New York Times, November 20, 1949, 94. 47. “What Women Are Doing,” Daughters of America 7, no. 10 (1893): 16.

Bibliography Allaback, Sarah. The First American Women Architects. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2008. American Architectural Foundation. “That Exceptional One”: Women in American Architecture, 1888–1988. Washington, DC: American Architectural Foundation, 1988. Chalmers, Graeme F. Women in the Nineteenth-Century Art World: Schools of Art and Design for Women in London and Philadelphia. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1998. Charlton, Faith. Martin-Campbell-Furlong Family Papers, 1795–1963, MC90. Philadelphia, PA: Philadelphia Archdiocesan Historical Research Center, 2010. Cohen, Jeffrey A. “Building a Discipline: Early Institutional Settings for Architectural Education in Philadelphia, 1804–1890.” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 53, no. 2 ( June 1994): 139–83. “Congress of Women.” Daily Inter Ocean, May 15, 1893. Croly, Mrs. J. C. The History of the Women’s Club Movement in America. New York: Henry G. Allen & Co., 1898. Engbers, Susanna Kelly. “A Woman Both ‘New’ and ‘True’: Jane Campbell as Catholic Suffragist.” American Catholic Studies 126, no. 2 (Summer 2015): 23–45. Franzen, Trisha. Anna Howard Shaw: The Work of Woman Suffrage. Urbana, Chicago, and Springfield, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2014. Harper, Ida Husted. The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony, Volume 2. Indianapolis: The Hollenbeck Press, 1898. Harper, Ida Husted. “A Woman Who is the Architect of Her Own Fortunes.” San Francisco Chronicle, April 14, 1901. “Illustrations.” American Architect and Building News, February 11, 1893. “A Lady Architect.” The Sunday Journal, February 23, 1890. Mack, Megan. “University Acquires Newly Discovered Collection of Susan B. Anthony Letters.” University of Rochester Newscenter, August  26, 2014. www.rochester.edu/newscenter/university-acquires-newlydiscovered-collection-of-susan-b-anthony-letters/.

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For Homeowners and Housekeepers “Mrs. Nichols Dead; Retired Architect.” Special to The New York Times, November 20, 1949. ProQuest Historical Newspapers, 94. “News of the Schools.” Philadelphia Times, January 4, 1896. Nichols, Minerva Parker, Frances D. Nichols, and Doane Fischer. “The Baddest Day” and Other Favorite Stories. Westport, CT: D. Fisher, 1997. “Of Interest to Women.” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, February 12, 1893. Parker, Minerva. “Practical Dwellings.” The Home-Maker, December 1891. Parker, Minerva. “Practical Homes.” The Home-Maker, January 1891. “Real Estate: Active Building Operations Reported Yesterday—Transfers and Permits.” The Times, October 30, 1891. Seymour, Mary F. “Occupations of Women to Date.” In Transactions of the National Council of Women of the United States, Assembled in Washington, DC, February 22 to 25, 1891, edited by Rachel Foster Avery, 250–52. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1891. Tatman, Sandra L., and Roger W. Moss. Biographical Dictionary of Philadelphia Architects: 1700–1903. Boston: G.K. Hall, 1985. U.S. Bureau of the Census. Tenth Census of the United States. Washington, DC, 1880. “What Women are Doing.” Daughters of America 7, no. 10 (1893): 16. Wood, Kathleen Sinclair. “Minerva Parker Nichols: Pioneer American Woman Architect,” (graduate paper, University of Delaware, 1993), 8. Woods, Mary N. From Craft to Profession: The Practice of Architecture in Nineteenth-Century America. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1999. Zaitzevsky, Cynthia. Long Island Landscapes and the Women Who Designed Them. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2009.

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3 NELL BROOKER MAYHEW AND THE ARTS AND CRAFTS MOVEMENT IN AMERICA Brian Adams

Introduction: Influences and Style Nell Brooker Mayhew (1876–1940), a pioneering American artist born and educated in Illinois and known primarily as a printmaker and painter, contributed remarkably to the realm of architecture and interior design during the first half of the twentieth century. She was active at the height of the Arts and Crafts movement, and its ideals were vividly manifested in her work. Collaboration with her sister Adelaide, an interior designer, presented Nell with the opportunity to effectively succeed as a design professional, and her studies and etchings of the surviving Spanish missions of Southern California, thoroughly regarded by proponents of the Arts and Crafts movement, graciously entwined the pursuit to document and preserve these vanishing monuments of America’s Spanish heritage. The etchings also undoubtedly helped popularize the Spanish Mission style, one of many unique architectural styles vibrantly promoted by the trend. The Arts and Crafts movement originated in England in the latter half of the nineteenth century with British reformer and designer William Morris (1834–1896), who was a disciple of art critic John Ruskin (1819–1900), renowned for his philanthropy and writings on social reform.1 The movement, which grew from the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, was a reaction against the perceived negative impacts of mechanization and mass production of the Industrial Revolution on society.2 Emphasizing nature and simplicity, medieval guilds were promoted as models for the artistic creation of affordable, everyday, handmade crafts. These ideals eventually spread from England to Europe and America during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In America, Gustav Stickley, founder of the Craftsman Workshops, closely followed Morris’s model. Stickley’s publication The Craftsman and other contemporary journals illustrated design principles of the middle-class home, emphasizing organic ideas and the importance of the natural, harmonizing approach to the building environment. The Arts and Crafts movement inevitably came to an end in the 1920s when modern tenets of the Machine Age and the pursuit of national identity following World War I brought to a close the desire for handcrafted goods in America, which ultimately became too expensive for all but the wealthy to afford. Art historian Alissa Anderson, author of Nell’s biography, argued that the influence of the Arts and Crafts movement, and the related Aesthetic movement, can be seen in the idea of nature in her work and the quality of craftsmanship in her paintings and etchings.3 Anderson also implied that Mayhew’s work was reminiscent of the Japonisme style, which was popular at the time (referring to a taste for Japanese culture), and emphasized nature, simplicity, and spirituality.4

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Nell Brooker Mayhew and Arts and Crafts

Early Life and Inspiration Nell Cole Danely was born in 1875 in Astoria, Illinois, the youngest of five children of the Reverend Alfred Marion and Ella Danely. The Danely family arrived in Urbana in 1900. Young Nell Danely exhibited artistic talents during her childhood: in 1892 at the age of sixteen, her watercolor Yacht was displayed at the Art Institute of Chicago. She attended the Illinois Woman’s College in Jacksonville and Northwestern University in Evanston, IL, where she received a bachelor of science degree in 1897.5 She was enrolled in postgraduate work at Chicago University (now The University of Chicago), and between 1901 and 1906, she attended the University of Illinois and studied under Newton Alonzo Wells, an American painter, sculptor, and architect educated in Paris.6 Under Wells’s guidance, Nell began pioneering her trademark color etching process. In 1904, she enrolled in a sketching course under the instruction of John Vanderpoel, conducted by the Art Institute of Chicago, which held classes in a popular artist’s colony in Delevan, Wisconsin.7 In 1905, she continued studies at the Art Institute under Danish impressionist John Johansen, and her etchings Autumn Gold and Sunset were exhibited there in 1906 and 1907, respectively.8 In 1905 and 1906, Nell accompanied her father to Saugatuck, Michigan, a popular recreational destination for artists during the early twentieth century.9 It is likely this location, with its numerous sand dunes, inspired Nell’s etchings Morning on the Kalamazoo River and Sand Dunes, awarded with medals at the Alaska-Yukon Exposition in 1909. When the family arrived in Champaign County in 1900, Nell’s Urbana experiences would have a great impact on her subsequent development as an artist as well as on her contributions to architecture of the early twentieth century. Indeed, three powerful inspirations can be traced to Urbana:

Figure 3.1 Nell Brooker Mayhew. Photograph, c. 1925. Source: Linda Slaughter.

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University of Illinois instructor Newton Alonzo Wells; her father, Reverend Alfred Danely; and her brother-in-law, Urbana’s prolific architect Joseph William Royer. Newton Alonzo Wells graduated from Syracuse University in 1877 with a degree in painting and studied at the Paris Académie Julian.10 In 1899, Wells joined the University of Illinois as professor of the history and practice of painting. During his time in Paris, he was exposed to the monotypes of Edgar Degas.11 Wells brought these practices back to the University of Illinois, undoubtedly influencing his students, including young Nell. It was there that she began to develop her unique singular color etching process for which she is best known and recognized as an artist. In addition, Wells was an accomplished muralist with works at the university and throughout Illinois.12 Anderson maintained that Nell learned mural painting from John Vanderpoel, yet I argue that she was also undoubtedly influenced by Wells.13 Wells published detailed articles on his pioneering mural painting techniques, and Nell likely learned more about the technical aspects of the art form from him, whereas otherwise both artists differed greatly, stylistically and thematically.14 Wells’s paintings and murals typically depicted realistic, almost photographic scenes, many with themes inspired by classical antiquity, history, or university events, while his paintings often presented detailed portraits and images of flowers and fruit. Nell, on the other hand, produced impressionistic works typically with imprecise lines and muted colors, incorporating aspects of styles such as Symbolism and Expressionism, more reminiscent of Vanderpoel’s works.15 Unlike Wells, Nell produced few portraits or images of people, preferring instead to depict nature in her works. Still, Wells’s influence undoubtedly contributed to Nell’s mastery of the complex art of mural painting, greatly empowering interior spaces of the built environment. The Reverend Alfred Danely was well known in Urbana; his love of nature, and trees in particular, was emphasized in the Urbana Daily Courier: a lover of nature, the trees, the birds, and all things great and small that God had made gave him sweet fellowship. … He planted trees to provide shade and fruit when he was gone, but more than that, he planted the seeds of kindness in human hearts.16 An unpublished manuscript of poems entitled Trees: What Spirits Brood in These, written by her sister Adelaide, illustrated by Nell, and dedicated to the Reverend Danely, vividly demonstrates the impact their father’s passion had on them. It consists of twenty-one poems, each accompanied by a tree illustration, in harmony and coherence with the contemporary Arts and Crafts movement. One poem, entitled “Unity,” features the endangered Torrey pine of Southern California depicted on a rocky promontory overlooking the sea. Adelaide’s poem and Nell’s illustration capture the tree’s harsh natural environment, isolated near the windswept Pacific coast. The poem relates how the “lonely tree” was born of the earth, air, and sea. Nell’s Torrey pine print is an exquisite example of the influence of traditional Japanese prints in the Arts and Crafts movement. According to Anderson, Nell often worked with sisters May (1872–1951) and Frances Gearhart (1869–1959) of Pasadena, two prominent printmakers.17 The sisters’ influence is seen in Nell’s prints, especially May’s depiction of a Torrey pine in the etching Point Lobos (c. 1923). Nell married Sidney Brooker, editor of the Quincy, Illinois, newspaper Optic, in a dual ceremony with her sister Adelaide and Urbana architect Joseph William Royer on October 14, 1902, and this wedding was among the great social events of the season in Urbana-Champaign.18 Tragically, in July 1903, Nell’s husband died suddenly of heart failure. According to Anderson, Nell “was forever saddened by the loss of her first husband and greatest love.”19 After his passing, “Mayhew continued to incorporate the name ‘Brooker’ into her signature in tribute to him.”20 Though she primarily worked as a painter and printmaker, Nell crossed over into the practice of architecture in various ways. Nell participated directly when assisting her sister Adelaide, a talented 46

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Figure 3.2 Torrey Pine print by Nell Brooker Mayhew, no date. Source: Nell Brooker Mayhew Sketches and Artworks, Rare Book & Manuscript Library, University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign. Courtesy: Frank Goss.

professional interior designer who collaborated with her husband, Joseph Royer, on many architectural projects. One of the earliest known projects credited to Nell was a series of murals she developed for the Royers’ new residence in Urbana between 1904 and 1905. The Spanish Mission–style house, designed by Royer, had an exterior surface of cement made to resemble stucco. Royer was distinctly inspired by Gustav Stickley, and the first house designed for Stickley’s Craftsman Workshops in 1904 was erected in the California Mission style with a similar concrete exterior surface and typical Craftsman elements in the interior. A photo taken in a second-floor room during the Royer occupation of the house exhibited a range of Craftsman traits including a “stucco” fireplace, a decorative frieze along the top of the walls below the ceiling, and wicker furniture. Arguably, this interior design project was produced by Adelaide Royer. The first-floor dining room also revealed several Craftsman features, including Nell’s murals.21 Although signatures could not be found on any of the murals, they are undoubtedly Nell’s work according to Frank Goss, former owner of the Sullivan Goss Gallery in Santa Barbara, California, home to an extensive collection of Mayhew’s works.22 Goss acknowledged the murals provide excellent examples of her early style, before she resettled west. The murals appear to have been part of the original design of the room, with panels above the wainscoting reserved for the artwork, which 47

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Figure 3.3 Royer Residence, Urbana, IL, dining room murals by Nell Brooker Mayhew, c. 1905. View to west. Source: Valerie Oliveiro.

Nell installed herself, as was typical of the Arts and Crafts period. The murals were painted on canvas attached to the walls, a technique impressively outlined by her former instructor Newton Wells.23 The west wall integrated three mural panels and two small square windows with lace-like metal work. The central panel featured a landscape with a stream near the bottom and a partial tree-lined ridge crest near the top. The smaller minor panels at the north and south ends of the wall connected to the primary arboreal theme of the central panel. The mural on the north wall is composed of four panels. The first panel, located east of an arched doorway, depicts a view from a birch forest toward an open valley with a winding stream. Immediately west of the arched door are three additional murals. Of these, the eastern panel depicts a curving road along a stream emerging from the woods, the central panel presents a view toward the stream and a village on the far shore, and the western panel reveals another view of a forest. The panels of the south wall mural feature a pastoral scene showing a grassy ridge and a forest in the distance, with a large tree near the ridge crest on the central panel, a vivid reminder of two other works by Nell, an etching and a painting both entitled By the Sea.24 Nell’s murals in the Royer Residence represent a prime example of collaboration between artist and architect during the Arts and Crafts period. The dining room with her pastoral images was a classic model of Stickley’s idealist decorative scheme and could very well have been inspired by prototypes featured in his publication The Craftsman: The frieze, which is an important feature in the decoration of this room, may either be stenciled on the plaster, or one of the English paper friezes, introducing some of the wood browns in the foreground, with foliage effects in soft greens and in the glow of the distance a rich yellow.25 48

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Figure 3.4 Royer Residence, Urbana, IL, detail of north dining room mural by Nell Brooker Mayhew, c. 1905. Source: Valerie Oliveiro.

Figure 3.5 Royer Residence, Urbana, IL, detail of south mural by Nell Brooker Mayhew, c. 1905. Source: Valerie Oliveiro.

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Nell also completed murals for the Mills Petrie Memorial Building in Ashton, Illinois, a building designed in 1936 by Joseph Royer’s architectural firm in the Art Deco style.26 Apparently, the foyer “originally displayed a large wall mural depicting a country scene.”27 Aside from this reference to Nell’s work, no other information about the original mural has yet been located. Based on Nell’s murals for the Royer Residence, a “country scene” theme would be in line with her known mural projects. In the 1970s it was replaced by other murals, and to date no details about that magnificent artwork have been discovered.28 Among Nell’s later collaborations with Adelaide was a residence designed by her husband Joseph in 1946 for Jay Helms in Rockingham, North Carolina.29 Interior photographs of the house from the 1980s depicted a large painting of sycamore trees, displayed over the fireplace. The painting, signed by Nell, was inspected by Frank Goss, who identified the trees as “her iconic symbol for California sycamores” and the hills of the valley as located “where the Pasadena Freeway is today.”30

Settling in California After completing her studies in 1908, Nell moved to Los Angeles, where she established an art studio in the Mt. Washington area of the Arroyo Seco. This was a fitting place for Nell, as the climate and natural beauty of the area has attracted and inspired artists to the present day.31 In 1910, she joined the faculty at the College of Fine Arts at the University of Southern California in Pasadena and by 1911 had married attorney/poet Leonard Mayhew; the couple would have two daughters, Mary Jane and Nell.32 Nell’s Mt. Washington residence included a spectacular hillside garden opened to the public every Thursday.33 In the second decade of the twentieth century, Nell began her most recognized works, the California mission color etchings, and Nell’s talent as an interior designer blossomed again in the early 1920s when she was commissioned to prepare about one hundred etchings each for the Ambassador Hotels in Los Angeles and New York. Around 1930, she established the Nell Brooker Mayhew Little Gallery in West Hollywood, became well known for her paintings of trees, and, in her later years until her passing in September of 1940, was active as a passionate advocate of wildlife preservation.

Documenting California’s Old Spanish Missions Just prior to 1920, during the Arts and Crafts period, Nell remarkably championed architecture in Southern California through her depictions and international exhibitions of the old Spanish missions established between 1769 and 1823 by Mexican Franciscan friars, who brought Christianity to the Indian tribes of California. Following secularization of the missions in 1834, the decline started, church land was divided into private ranchos, native populations scattered, and assets were looted.34 Mission structures quickly deteriorated until in most cases, only a church and nearby buildings remained. By the mid-nineteenth century, concern for the plight of the missions took over, and between 1855 and the 1870s mission property was deeded back to the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Francisco. However, the damage had been done and many missions continued to vanish due to neglect. Ultimately, the tide turned in the late nineteenth century when artists and photographers rediscovered the remains of the missions and depicted them as the romantic ruins of a lost past. At the same time, travel guides recorded the old missions as tourist destinations and contributed to the appeal for their preservation.35 By the 1880s, attempts at preservation of the missions, especially the churches, were underway. In 1884, Helen Hunt Jackson’s publication of the novel Ramona, which presented a romanticized vision of life at the California missions and was referred to as the “mission myth,” added to the fervor 50

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of preservation, which led to the founding of many organizations dedicated to sustaining historical sites, including the missions. Among these were the Historical Society of Southern California (1883), the Association for the Preservation of the Missions (1888), and the Landmarks Club of Southern California (1895). The rise of automobile tourism led to the creation of the “El Camino Real,” a network of roads connecting the missions. By 1902, the old missions were recognized as prime examples of the ideals and goals of the Arts and Crafts movement. Poet Edwin Markham recognized this, elaborating on the nature, simplicity, and handcraftsmanship represented by the missions in The Craftsman: Beautiful and harmonious is this architecture, built of humble materials, shaped with rude tools or patient handicraft, all planned in loving sincerity by unskilled builders who had joy and faith in their work. … These buildings have also the beauty that rises from adaptation to the environment. … Built of the earth, these old structures seem at times as if not made by man but by Nature.36 The drive to preserve the missions impacted the world of architecture, leading to the popularity of the Spanish Mission style in the early twentieth century. In 1904, Stickley published passionate articles on the missions in the Craftsman magazine, and the first design featured in his Craftsman Workshops rendered in the California Mission style appeared the same year as the personal residence was designed by Joseph Royer. Nell’s color etchings of the California missions brought her international acclaim and proved to become her best-known trailblazing artwork, which according to Anderson, was: Mayhew’s most highly regarded group of pieces. To create the works, she and her daughters drove almost the entire length of California so she could make sketches of all twentyone of the remaining Spanish missions.37 Nell later produced a powerful, impressive collection of etchings printed on handmade paper as her unique pioneering vision of time and place. She sensibly admitted that: when first I was intrigued into making a tour of the missions, I thought it might become a bit tiresome for I expected to find the same architectural plan executed for each mission. Imagine my delight at being entirely mistaken. No two missions are alike; each one was built by the plan needed for the particular location. It seems as if there had been the artist’s joy in creating each design a new idea.38 This passage reveals Nell’s recognition of the connection between the mission architecture and its natural setting. In November 1923, Nell returned to Urbana for an exhibit of these etchings at Adelaide and Joseph’s home.39 The local newspaper highlighted it as “a poem of artistry” by emphasizing “the exquisite colorings and restful peace that seem to permeate the mission atmosphere of these delightful sketches” and declared it a “unique and distinctive … work never before undertaken by an artist of note.”40 The trailblazing efforts of Nell Mayhew have been recognized as remarkable accomplishments of the time, with reference to the lasting impact of her initiative, talent, and strategy, as well as the process of production of the collections: Mrs. Mayhew spent two years going from mission to mission, striving to get in touch with the real spirit and glamour that makes these historic structures so interesting and enticing 51

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Figure 3.6  Mission Santa Inez. Color etching by Nell Brooker Mayhew, c. 1917. Source: Nathan Vonk, Sullivan Goss—An American Gallery.

to the people of modern times. … There are only seventeen of these famous old structures still in existence, and Mrs. Mayhew has immortalized each of them in dreamy sketch, some showing the building entire, other picturesque portions in the most charming effect imaginable.41 The display in Urbana was followed by the exhibition in Chicago at “one of the leading art galleries.”42 In 1933 Nell’s influence on architecture was efficiently validated when she was invited to exhibit her work in conjunction with a lecture on the Spanish missions by architectural historian Rexford Newcomb, Dean of the College of Applied and Fine Arts at the University of Illinois in Urbana, together with a display of two hundred mission photographs by a renowned photographer, Hugh Pascal Webb.43 Newcomb had devoted much of his career to documenting the Spanish missions and researching Spanish American architecture, and this exhibition was clearly aimed at preserving and increasing awareness of the Southern California missions.44 In the preface to his 1916 volume, he addressed his philosophy and thus his great approval of Nell’s accomplishment: The purpose of the writer in making the present series of studies was to assist in a practical way, the cause of architecture by recording by means of notes, drawings and photographs, the real spirit and detail of these buildings so well adapted and appropriate to the land of their inception, before the last vestige of the buildings themselves had disappeared from the earth.45 Hugh Pascal Webb was the husband of the American author Edith Buckland Webb, who, before Nell moved to Los Angeles in 1908, was inspired by the renewed interest in California’s Spanish heritage and began years of exhaustive research into Indian life at the missions.46 Hugh assisted her by taking over two thousand photographs of the missions. Eventually publishing the results of her research in book form, Edith had planned to use the information to paint accurate pictures of the missions in their prime, but she passed away before completing the project. 52

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Nell’s etchings and exhibitions in the Midwest fueled the nationwide spread of the Mission style. Noted architectural historian Professor Richard Guy Wilson emphasized the nationwide rebirth of interest in preserving the vanishing structures thanks to the empowering efforts of new masters such as Nell Brooker Mayhew; yet—characteristically—she was mentioned anonymously, with no reference to her name as one of major creative forces behind the process: In the 1870s and 1880s, some transplanted easterners recognized the romance of the missions built under Spanish rule. In the writings of Helen Hunt Jackson and others, the crumbling bell towers, ruined sun-struck adobe walls, shady arcades and red tile roofs struck a poignant note. Mission features began to appear in some architectural projects. … By the early 1900s, fascination with the Mission style had hit the east coast.47 He reevaluated the meaning of such work and dedication by summarizing the chronologies of the “new blood” and the evolutionary prospects of the trend. The result was a flood of Mission-styled buildings, not only in California and the Southwest but across the country, and also the application of the term “Mission style” to many of the other products of the Arts and Crafts movement.48

Conclusion Discovering Nell’s contribution to the world of architecture through the lens of her intense creativity and unveiling her pioneering work as interior designer and muralist provided us with a massive perspective for further research of the broad range of her records less known than her artwork. While currently revealed histories would be explained in part by the success of her California mission etchings, for which she received national and international recognition, those are evidently overshadowing her other magnificent achievements. As murals are intended to be permanent parts of a structure, Nell’s contribution to the built environment is evident. She also firmly believed that artwork should be accessible to all and “portable” enough to permit patrons to periodically change their pieces should they tire of them. To this end also, as a successful and liberal entrepreneur, she established an art rental business, the Lending Libraries of Pictures, allowing individuals unlimited access to her grounding artwork—exhibit pieces in their homes—with the option to purchase.49 Overcoming tragic losses in her personal life, Nell nevertheless retained the strength and courage to persevere and continue to contribute her unique vision of beauty to the world of art and architecture. Rooted in the rural Midwest, Nell’s talent would flourish following her move to the West Coast, far from her childhood friends and family. As a single mother, she would conquer the hardships of the Depression years by giving private painting lessons and trading her works.50 She fully acknowledged the stylistics and philosophy behind her etchings, conformed to the principles of the Arts and Crafts movement: “A print, too, is a hand-made thing, made by the artist with all the care and joy with which he makes a far more expensive oil painting.”51 Her depictions of the California Spanish missions, recognized in the early twentieth century for the successful combination of natural simplicity and the appeal to architecture, reached an international audience and demonstrated to the world the Arts and Crafts movement had found fertile ground from coast to coast in America. These etchings greatly contributed to the advancement of the renewed interest in Spanish Mission architecture and the dissemination of this information beyond Southern California. Preservation efforts intensified and continue to this day, following creative efforts of Nell Brooker Mayhew and other role models who visited and documented the original mission sites.52 Nell Brooker Mayhew was a remarkable, pioneering artist who translated ideals of the Arts and Crafts movement into the realm of architecture in the form of murals and interior design projects. 53

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This aspect of her life, still less known than her famous etchings and paintings, vividly demonstrates her expansive range of creative talents and opens vistas for new discoveries.

Notes 1. Rosalind Blakesley, The Arts and Crafts Movement (London: Phaideon Press Limited, 2006); Elizabeth Cumming and Wendy Kaplan, The Arts and Crafts Movement (London: Thames and Hudson, 1991); Wendy Kaplan, The Art That Is Life: The Arts & Crafts Movement in America, 1875–1920 (Boston: Bulfinch Press, 1987). 2. The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was a fine art and literary society influenced by the simplicity, attention to detail, and brilliant color found in the early Italian painters before Raphael and by the writings of John Ruskin, who urged artists “to go to nature in all singleness of heart.” See: John Ruskin, Modern Painters, vol. I (Sunnyside, Orpington, Kent: George Allen, 1888), 417. Members of this society included Dante Gabriel Rosetti, William Holman Hunt, and William Morris. 3. The late nineteenth-century Aesthetic movement focused upon “art for art’s sake,” exploring color, form, and composition in the pursuit of beauty over practical, moral, or narrative considerations. Members of this movement included Dante Gabriel Rossetti and James Whistler. See: Alissa Anderson, Nell Brooker Mayhew: Paintings on Paper (Los Angeles: Balcony Press, 2005). 4. Ibid. 5. Anderson, Nell Brooker Mayhew; Maurine St. Gaudens, Emerging from the Shadows: A Survey of Women Artists Working in California, 1860–1960, vol. III: L–R (Atglen, PA: Schiffer Publishing, Ltd., 2015). 6. Rexford Newcomb, “An Appreciation of the Work of Professor Newton Alonzo Wells,” The Western Architect 28, no. 10 (1919): 92–93. 7. Urbana Daily Courier, July 22, 1904, 8. 8. Catalogue of the Eighteenth Annual Exhibition of Water-Colors, Pastels and Miniatures by American Artists (Chicago: Printed for the Art Institute of Chicago, May 3 to June 10, 1906), 15; Catalogue of the Nineteenth Annual Exhibition of Water-Colors, Pastels and Miniatures by American Artists (Chicago: Printed for the Art Institute of Chicago, May 7 to June 16, 1907), 15; Urbana Courier-Herald, May 10, 1906, 1. 9. “A Colony of Urbanaites,” Urbana Courier, August 9, 1905, 1; Urbana Courier-Herald, July 30, 1906, 5. 10. Muriel Scheinman, A Guide to Art at the University of Illinois (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1995); Winton U. Solberg, The University of Illinois 1894–1904 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2000). 11. Monotype: a freeing process of drawing or painting on a smooth surface and then transferring it onto paper, creating a one-of-a-kind image. Also: Anderson, Nell Brooker Mayhew, 7. 12. Newcomb, “An Appreciation.” 13. Anderson, Nell Brooker Mayhew, 8. 14. Newton Alonzo Wells, “The Technical Requirements and Difficulties of Mural Painting,” The Technograph 14 (1900): 64–68; and Newton Alonzo Wells, “Some of the Esthetic Requirements and the Technical Difficulties Peculiar to Mural Painting,” Brush and Pencil 6, no. 5 (1900): 228–36. 15. Anderson, Nell Brooker Mayhew, 12. 16. “Rev. A.M. Danely Goes to Reward,” Urbana Daily Courier, December 16, 1918. 17. Alissa Anderson, “Nell Brooker Mayhew,” CaliforniaArt.com, published 2004. 18. Brian Adams, Joseph William Royer, Urbana’s Architect (Champaign, IL: The News-Gazette, Inc., 2011). 19. Anderson, Nell Brooker Mayhew, 7. 20. Urbana Daily Courier, July 7, 1903, 1. 21. Brian Adams, “The Joseph and Adelaide Royer Residence: Treasures of Art and Architecture in Urbana,” Historic Illinois 34, no. 1 (2011): 7–11. 22. Personal communication of author with Frank Goss, February 25, 2011. 23. Wells, “Technical Requirements,” 67. 24. Anderson, 32, 41. 25. Gustav Stickley, ed., “Craftsman House: Series of 1905, Number VII,” The Craftsman 8, no. 4 ( July 1905): 535–43; Gustav Stickley, ed., “Craftsman House: Series of 1905, Number VIII,” The Craftsman 8, no. 5 (August 1905): 672–83; Gustav Stickley, ed., “The Decoration of Wall Spaces: Suggestions for the Remodeling of Commonplace Interiors,” The Craftsman 13, no. 1 (October 1907): 108–11. 26. John P. Ledlie, The Mills Petrie Memorial Building Story (Ashton, IL: Ashton, 1986); C.W. Short and R. Stanley-Brown, Public Buildings: A Survey of Architecture of Projects Constructed by Federal Bodies Between the Years 1933 and 1939 With the Assistance of the Public Works Administration (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1939). 27. Robert Dean, The Ashton Story (Ashton, IL: Ashton, 1987), 68.

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Nell Brooker Mayhew and Arts and Crafts 28. Personal communication of author with Linda Dallam, Director, Mills & Petrie Memorial Library, December 12, 2016. 29. Adams, Joseph William Royer, 113; Champaign-Urbana Courier, May 6, 1947. 30. Frank Goss, personal communication with author, March 28, 2012. 31. Rick Thomas, The Arroyo Seco (Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2008). 32. Nell divorced Leonard Mayhew in 1926. 33. Anderson; Steve Turner and Victoria Dailey, Nell Brooker Mayhew: Color Etchings and Paintings. Turner Dailey Fine & Applied Arts 1900–1940 (Los Angeles: Turner Dailey Gallery, 1989). 34. Edna E. Kimbro, Julia G. Costello, and Tevvy Ball, The California Missions: History, Art, and Preservation (Los Angeles: The Getty Conservation Institute, 2009). 35. Ibid. 36. Edwin Markham, “Traces of the Franciscans in California,” The Craftsman I, no. 5 (February 1902): 37. 37. Anderson, Nell Brooker Mayhew, 10. 38. Turner and Dailey, Nell Brooker Mayhew, 4. 39. Mildred Wahlberg, “Mrs. Mayhew’s Art,” Daily Illini, November 29, 1923, 4. 40. Urbana Daily Courier, November 26, 1923, 5. 41. Ibid. 42. Ibid. 43. “Three Exhibits Go on Display in Art Gallery,” Daily Illini, October 7, 1933, 1; “Galleries in Fine Arts Show Group of Color Works,” Daily Illini, October 15, 1933, 4; “Dean Newcomb Speaks on Old Missions,” Urbana Daily Courier, October 7, 1933, 3. 44. Rexford Newcomb, The Franciscan Mission Architecture of Alta California (New York: Architectural Book Publishing Company, 1916); Rexford Newcomb, The Old Mission Churches and Historic Houses of California: Their History, Architecture, Art, and Lore (Philadelphia and London: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1925); Rexford Newcomb, Spanish-Colonial Architecture in the United States ([1937] reprint edn. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, Inc., 1990). 45. Newcomb, Franciscan Mission Architecture. 46. Edith Buckland Webb, Indian Life at the Old Missions (Los Angeles: W.F. Lewis, 1952). 47. Richard Guy Wilson, “American Arts and Crafts Architecture: Radical though Dedicated to the Cause Conservative,” in The Art That Is Life: The Arts  & Crafts Movement in America, 1875–1920, ed. Wendy Kaplan (Boston: Bulfinch Press, 1987), 123. 48. Ibid. 49. Ibid.; Los Angeles Times, March 14, 1937, Part IV, 10. 50. Anderson, Nell Brooker Mayhew, 11. 51. Nell Brooker Mayhew, “Prints for the Small House,” California Southland VII, no. 62 (February 1925): 22. 52. Currently only ten original church buildings survived. Kimbro et al., The California Missions.

Bibliography Adams, Brian. “The Joseph and Adelaide Royer Residence: Treasures of Art and Architecture in Urbana.” Historic Illinois 34, no. 1 (2011): 7–11. Anderson, Alissa. Nell Brooker Mayhew: Paintings on Paper. Los Angeles: Balcony Press, Los Angeles, 2005. Blakesley, Rosalind. The Arts and Crafts Movement. London: Phaideon Press Limited, 2006. Cumming, Elizabeth, and Wendy Kaplan. The Arts and Crafts Movement. London: Thames and Hudson, 1991. Dean, Robert. The Ashton Story. Ashton, IL: Ashton, 1987. Kaplan, Wendy. The Art that is Life: The Arts & Crafts Movement in America, 1875–1920. Boston: Bulfinch Press, 1987. Kimbro, Edna E., Julia G. Costello, and Tevvy Ball. The California Missions: History, Art, and Preservation. Los Angeles: The Getty Conservation Institute, 2009. Ledlie, John P. The Mills Petrie Memorial Building Story. Ashton, IL: Ashton, 1986. Markham, Edwin. “Traces of the Franciscans in California.” The Craftsman I, no. 5 (February 1902): 29–37. Mayhew, Nell Brooker. “Prints for the Small House.” California Southland VII, no. 62 (February 1925): 22. Newcomb, Rexford. Spanish-Colonial Architecture in the United States [1937]. Reprint ed. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, Inc., 1990. Ruskin, John. Modern Painters, vol. I. Sunnyside, Orpington, Kent: George Allen, 1888. Scheinman, Muriel. A Guide to Art at the University of Illinois. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1995. Solberg, Winton U. The University of Illinois 1894–1904. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2000.

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Brian Adams St. Gaudens, Maurine. Emerging from the Shadows: A Survey of Women Artists Working in California, 1860–1960, vol. III: L—R. Atglen, PA: Schiffer Publishing, Ltd., 2015. Stickley, Gustav, ed. “The Decoration of Wall Spaces: Suggestions for the Remodeling of Commonplace Interiors.” The Craftsman 13, no. 1 (October 1907): 108–11. Thomas, Rick. The Arroyo Seco. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2008. Turner, Steve, and Victoria Dailey. Nell Brooker Mayhew: Color Etchings and Paintings. Los Angeles: Turner Dailey Gallery, 1989. Webb, Edith Buckland. Indian Life at the Old Missions. Los Angeles: W.F. Lewis, 1952. Wilson, Richard Guy. “American Arts and Crafts Architecture: Radical though Dedicated to the Cause Conservative.” In The Art That Is Life: The Arts & Crafts Movement in America, 1875–1920, edited by Wendy Kaplan, 101–31. Boston: Bulfinch Press, 1987.

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4 “DESIGNING HOUSES IS LIKE HAVING BABIES” Verna Cook and the Practice of Architecture in the 1920s and 1930s Catherine R. Ettinger

Introduction In 1946, during a trip to Europe, the retired American architect Verna Cook (1890–1978) wrote in her diary: When applying for a new passport last fall, I  wrote through habit ‘architect’ after the inquiry, Profession? Our State Dept. looked at my answer, raised its eyebrows and crossed it out to write “Housewife.” I should like to measure up to this title but am far from a master of its technique.1 From the perspective of the twenty-first century, Cook’s reaction is surprising. Where is the anger, we wonder, or at least the sense of injustice? Verna Cook, a mature woman who had successfully practiced architecture for almost twenty years, laughed off the bureaucratic erasure of her professional status and her relegation to the traditional role of homemaker. This short quote from Cook’s diary reveals an outlook that had served her well in promoting her architectural firm and entering a male-dominated field in the 1920s: a willingness to strategically embrace the notion of “a woman’s place.”2 A revision of the story of Verna Cook, who ran a successful architecture firm from 1920 to 1940, illustrates the ways in which the use of traditional female roles and familiar designs paved the way for a prosperous practice.3 Although they did incorporate novelties in their interior space, her houses, in Colonial, Georgian, and English Cottage styles, were not avant-garde, nor was she a feminist heroine subverting the male order in architecture. Rather, she was a practical woman who used the discourse of female domesticity to her advantage. And, although the historiography of the Modern movement would lead us to believe otherwise, the houses she designed were representative of what most American architects were building and publishing at the time. The story of Cook is situated in the broader history of women practitioners of architecture, a topic that has come to the forefront in the historiography of architecture in the last fifty years. Women who transgressed traditional feminine roles play an important part in this literature. Yet practically absent from this discourse is a serious consideration of the architecture of women

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designers who framed themselves within the realms of the traditional, emphasizing feminine interests in the home. Another reason for the invisibility of architects like Cook was her use of period styles, which, in spite of being repudiated by the modernists, populated the new suburbs and, according to Gwendolyn Wright, “provided acceptable cultural references as well as aesthetic charm” for their inhabitants.4 This architecture occupies a mid-space between modernity and tradition, with innovations in interior space, furnishings, and equipment, while maintaining a familiar container. In this chapter I explore the work of Verna Cook, an architect typical of her times except for her gender; she was neither the first nor the most outstanding woman architect, yet she is probably more representative of women practitioners than those who chose a more radical approach. Cook was extremely successful during the 1920s and 1930s, and I would venture to say that she was the most frequently published female architect in the United States during these two decades. She was remarkable in this sense, yet, in interviews and in her work, she relied on a traditional discourse in which modernity was eschewed as virile and knowledge of the running of a household was an advantage over men in the design of domestic spaces.5 A review of her career illustrates strategies that relied on this discourse and allowed her to move into architecture in spite of her gender.

Biographical Note Verna Cook was born in Spokane, Washington, in 1890 and studied at a prep school in Boston.6 In 1909 she traveled to Paris where she enrolled in the École Speciale d’Architecture, the only woman in a class of 125. She returned to the United States in 1911 and worked as a draftswoman in Oregon, saving money in order to return to Paris. The war intervened and she moved to New York City, where she was employed by Dwight James Baum from 1915 to 1918 while taking evening extension courses at Columbia University for a Certificate of Proficiency in Architecture.7 Her name appears in the university catalogues for three school years. In 1915–1916 she is listed as Cook, V.B. with a dagger next to her name to indicate that she was a woman. In the catalogue for 1917–1918 she is listed as Belle Verna Cook.8 There is no indication she received the certificate, and her name was not entered into the register of architects in New York County until April 1930. The certificate was later granted based on documents from the University of the State of New York.9 In 1919 she married Edgar Salomonsky (1890–1929).10 The couple established an architectural firm in 1920 and ran the business together until Edgar’s death in 1929.11 They worked on residential projects, many in the Crane-Berkley development in Scarsdale, New York, a suburb that was rapidly growing during the 1920s and 1930s.12 A house designed by the couple was published in 500 Small Houses of the Twenties, compiled by Henry Atterbury Smith, and another won second prize in The House Beautiful Small House Competition in February 1928.13 In spite of the Great Depression, the 1930s were fruitful years for the office: Cook continued in residential design, and her work was published in the major trade journals such as Architecture, The Architectural Forum, Pencil Points, and The Architectural Record; her house designs appeared regularly in The House Beautiful. She won the Better Homes & Gardens Ideal House Competition with her “Gardened Home,” which appeared on the cover of Better Homes & Gardens in 1936, and she was the only woman selected to design a house for the Town of Tomorrow at the 1939 World’s Fair. In 1940 Verna Cook retired from practice due to problems with her eyesight and shortly thereafter married Warren Butler Shipway, an engineer employed by the US government.14 The couple lived briefly in Washington, DC, and London until they retired in California. In the 1950s and 1960s they traveled extensively in Mexico, Spain, and Portugal. They published five books on Mexican architecture, illustrated with line drawings by Verna and photographs by Warren.15 58

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Writing for Women’s Magazines At the beginning of the twentieth century, the topic of women in the field of architecture made its appearance in architecture periodicals such as The Architectural Forum (1908), The Architectural Review (1917), and The Architect (1919).16 A  recurrent theme in the discussion was the advantage that a woman’s knowledge of running a household could give her in designing, decorating, and organizing domestic spaces. The suggestion, of course, was to confine women’s practices to the domestic sphere, and it was understood that certain activities were more socially acceptable than others, such as the work of writing. As Allaback points out, “taking up the pen” was one of few acceptable ways for a woman to be self-sufficient in the nineteenth century.17 As the Salomonskys established themselves in their practice, Verna exploited both her architectural preparation and her knowledge of the running of a household by writing for magazines such as The House Beautiful and House and Garden. She published regularly in the early 1920s on topics such as the service entry, storage areas, linen and china closets, furnishing, and decorating. Her early articles included practical suggestions and line drawings that illustrated her ideas. Efficiency, order, and systemization in the household were important themes. For example, in 1922 her article “Putting the Service Entry to Work” presented a detailed design that included a patented garbage receptacle (opened by stepping on it to drop garbage into an underground can), a package receiver with double doors (this way butchers, milkmen, and other purveyors had no need to enter the home and the milk or meat would be raised from the ground and kept safe from dogs or cats in a dark, cool space), and a refrigerator built into an exterior wall with the rear open to the outside for easy “icing.”18 In a similar vein, with concern for modernization of the house, she recommended moving kitchen stores from the cellar in the case of old houses or including them near the kitchen in the design of new homes.19 The article included a detailed design indicating the kinds of products to store in each place in the pantry. The need for efficiency and order reappeared in a discussion of closets when Cook noted that “a well-ordered linen closet with its geometrical rows of white linen instantly bespeaks good housewifery.”20 Another series, “Furnishing the Small House,” which she published with Antoinette Perrett in The House Beautiful between 1923 and 1924, gave practical suggestions for different rooms.21 She also published two books on furniture and a series of articles and line drawings for The House Beautiful related to decoration and historic styles.22 Cook’s interest in the renovation of the household to increase efficiency echoed concerns of the time—the Austrian architect Margarethe Schütte-Lihotzky (1897–2000) designed the Frankfurt Kitchen in 1926—as phrases such as “domestic science” came into use.23 Her interest in optimization in cooking, cleaning, and storage as well as in new appliances and devices that would lighten the workload in the home remained constant in her projects. Toward the end of the 1920s, as the Salomonskys’ architectural work in residential designs increased, Verna Cook’s writing for home magazines tapered off.24

The Practice of Tradition The design of picturesque country houses was the staple of Cook’s career from the outset and today these homes are an important part of the historic fabric of Westchester County. All of the houses built by the Salomonskys before Edgar’s death in 1929 were signed by both partners, and no indication is given if one of them was the principal designer or how they divided work in the functioning of their office. Early in their careers, Verna and Edgar began to work in Scarsdale, New York, for developers including the Crane-Berkley Corporation, the Berkley Taunton Corporation, and W.A. Kirk, designing houses to be built by contractors and later sold. Cook continued working for these companies after Edgar’s death, expanding the practice from her Manhattan office to include other private commissions.25 59

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The houses built for sale in Scarsdale were set on ample lots and individually designed for families with live-in domestic help and the need for three or four bedrooms. Using the styles typical of the period—Georgian, English Cottage, or Colonial—the architects paid careful attention to detail and the quality of materials. The Salomonsky firm used the same basic scheme for floor plans. The ground floor had a central entrance hallway with access to the stairway (often spiral), living room, dining room, and library or study and, at the back, to a lavatory and the service areas which included kitchen, pantry, service entrance, service stairway, and maid’s quarters. When the house included a garage, this was placed to one side near the service entry. In 1926 Verna Cook explained the versatility of a simple floor plan in an article titled “The Chameleon-Like House That Changes its Exterior According to the Locality in Which it Finds Itself,” published in The House Beautiful.26 She illustrated how one floor plan, with minor changes, could be adapted to build houses in the Greek Revival, Dutch Colonial, Pennsylvania, Spanish, or English Cottage styles. The problem of design in floor plan was solved simply and only once, while the greater concern with style and detail varied. A similar idea was put forth in “Is This House Worth Salvaging?” that showed three different ways to remodel the same structure in different styles.27 In the exterior volume of larger houses, the living areas were differentiated from the service areas: the entrance hallway, the living and dining rooms, and library were housed in one large, two-story volume with the bedrooms on the second floor; the service areas were in another lower volume, often with the maid’s rooms in the attic. Regardless of the style used, the façade of the main volume was usually symmetrical with a central doorway and regular fenestration. This main volume was offset by a recessed lower volume that housed the service areas, lending a desired picturesqueness to the composition by breaking the rigidity of the formal schemes that were used for the façade. Two of the larger houses that illustrate the work of Verna Cook are the Alexander Crane House and a residence built for Clifford Walsh. The Crane House, built in English Cottage style in Scarsdale, was signed by both of the Salomonskys. It is a five-bedroom house (plus two rooms for servants) featuring not only the typical living and dining rooms, but also a dining alcove, a room for the telephone at the entrance to the coat room, and a “living porch,” as well as ample service areas. The stone walls, gabled windows with leaded glass, and chimneys were “particularly suited to the Cotswold character of the house.”28 The Walsh house, although published as an example of a “small and medium cost house,” contained four bedrooms plus two maid’s rooms, as well as an ample porch. In 1936 Verna Cook’s “Gardened Home” plan was selected by House and Garden as its “Ideal House” and appeared on the April cover of the magazine. The four-bedroom house included living and dining rooms, library, kitchen, “breakfastry,” conservatory, game room, laundry room, and a garage for two cars. In this project, Cook included many of the ideas she had presented in the home magazine articles, and, in spite of its traditional appearance, the house included state-of-theart gadgets. One of the aspects emphasized in the article on the house, a feature that reappeared in a project Verna Cook published in 1938, was the attention given to the rear façade.29 The article stated that “houses as a rule … present their good looking faces to the front, leaving the design of the rear to chance, with the result that if the rear side is pleasing, it’s luck no less.”30 In the garden home, Cook located the kitchen, bathroom, stairs, and breakfast room to the front and left the living room, library, and dining room with a view to the garden. The concern with the rear façade was taken a step further in the project published two years later as “The Two-Faced Home,” which boasted elasticity “like the top of your pajama pants” since “it’s carried out so that either the porch or baywindow elevation can face the street.”31 A separate article describing the modern conveniences of the “gardened home” was published in the same issue as the house itself. In it, Verna Cook described in detail the functioning of the kitchen, which was “planned with the proper relationship between the three principal units” (refrigerator, sink, and range) and included a garbage receptacle that deposited rubbish to the basement, 60

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Figure 4.1 a, b, c House of Alexander Crane, Scarsdale, architects Edgar and Verna Cook Salomonsky, c. 1932. Frontal view and floorplans redrawn by Catherine R. Ettinger from the drawings published in Architectural Forum, March 1933.

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the double-door package receiver, the refrigerator that opened on the outside wall for easy icing, and a heating system. Other design illustrations included a closet with a pull-down ironing board, an open metal shelf to be placed over a sink for watering house plants, the use of mesh curtains in the fireplace, a cabinet for drying kitchen towels, and the built-in laundry hamper in the linen closet; the author also gave details on insulation and electrical wiring as well as specifications for the installation of the bathtub.32 In an interview given a year later she cited as further novelties the use of new materials such as vitralite and vinylite, “a composition floor covering impervious to burns, liquids and moisture.”33 In 1939 Verna Cook was selected to participate in the Town of Tomorrow, a section of the New York World’s Fair in which fifteen houses, sponsored by manufacturers and home builders, displayed new building materials and tendencies. Surprisingly, most of the architects had chosen to design in traditional styles, and only four of the houses could be considered good examples of the principles of the Modern movement. The house Cook designed for the Town of Tomorrow could be considered the culmination of her career. It was a project that gave her great visibility in the press, led to interviews on being a “woman architect,” and was the last big event before her retirement. Following the idea she had used for the Better Homes & Gardens Ideal House, she took up the theme of the garden and left behind her more traditional designs for Colonial-style homes. The house, which did not adhere to any particular style, had a façade covered with a trellis for vines and crowned with a faux mansard roof and dormer windows. It was a small two-bedroom, two-story house in which Cook had reverted to her typical floor plan: a central entrance hallway and circular stairway, living room to the left, kitchen to the right, and dining room at the rear. On the second floor the bedrooms were at the sides and the bath to the rear over the dining room. The floor plan was enhanced by the use of semicircular shapes in the porch, the conservatory, and the stairway. Special features were included that compensated for the small spaces; the circular stairway gave a grandiosity to the foyer not in accordance with the size of the house. A conservatory placed at the back, off the living room, enlarged the living and dining rooms and filled the house with light. The bathroom boasted a modern use of glass bricks for the rear wall and, instead of a shower curtain, plate glass to enclose the tub and shower. The Architectural Forum did a poll of public opinion on the houses of the Town of Tomorrow in two categories: traditional and modern. Verna Cook’s garden house took third place in the first category. The press had called attention to the fact that the house had been designed by a woman and so The Architectural Forum noted that it had “impressed a great number of women visitors” because they liked the room arrangement and upstairs bathroom and thought it would “look pretty when the vines begin to grow.”34 Evidently, the assumption was that a house designed by a woman would be more popular among women.

Conclusion Verna Cook framed her career within traditional gender roles, which worked to her advantage. Her early activities, writing on domestic topics, opened doors for her in the world of publishing. It is probably not a coincidence that the first publications of her designs were in the same magazines she wrote for. And the discourse of domesticity and housekeeping was a non-threatening way to break into the field, at the beginning of her career in partnership with her husband. As the end of her career neared and as the only woman in the Architectural League of New York, Verna Cook was interviewed in 1937 by the New York Times and the New York Sun. In these interviews she attributed her success to “women’s natural talents for fussing over details and for tireless shopping … all things that would bore a man to distraction.”35 In a New York Times article, published 62

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Figure 4.2 “Gardened Home.” Front cover design by Verna Cook Salomonsky, published on the cover of Better Homes & Gardens magazine, April 1936. Source: Meredith Corporation.

a month earlier, Cook had also mentioned her relationship to workers as an advantage, explaining, “They can’t argue as violently with a woman as with a man.”36 In 1938, she revealed that her choice to design in traditional styles was perhaps also colored by gender, as she expressed an admiration for the “logical and virile” aspects of modernisms yet doubted that people would be “weaned away from the finer heritages.”37 63

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Figure 4.3 Original drawing of House 13 for the 1939 New York World’s Fair Town of Tomorrow, architect Verna Cook Salomonsky. Source: Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego Library, MSS 105, Box 7, Folder 38.

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Design with attention to these “finer heritages” did not keep Cook from modernizing interiors; the introduction of novelties that would make maintenance and housecleaning easier was an important concern throughout her career. She lobbied for “a few large closets, rather than many small ones” and “no unnecessary halls to clean and no dark corners or stair balusters to dust.” She preferred the use of powder blue in kitchen paint “because flies disliked that color and stayed away” and is quoted as saying: “I’m entirely convinced that any house, properly planned and built, automatically performs a good share of its own housework.”38 Like other women who had practiced architecture before her, Verna Cook refused to allow concessions to be made for her gender.39 In 1936, when asked how it felt to be the only woman member of the Architectural League of New York, she answered: “I never think of it! The question is, can I build a house?”40 In another interview she stated: There aren’t any more obstacles in this than in any other business, [but a woman] has to have lots of energy and be prepared for plenty of hard physical work without asking for special favors or consideration because of her sex.41 In spite of her rhetoric, she was well aware of her status as different and chose to move into the world of architecture without transgressing the confines of femininity. The choice to open her career with the socially acceptable activity of writing for home magazines, followed by her choice to dedicate herself to traditional architecture and decoration within the limits of the domestic sphere, were undoubtedly keys to her success. Other women, some of whom preceded her (Eileen Gray, Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky, and Julia Morgan, to name a few), took a more radical stance, both in the activities they undertook and in architectural innovation, designing in vanguard styles.42 Cook’s strategies, which were perhaps more typical of women looking to enter architecture, should be understood as not only legitimate, but also creative. The gender question she shrugged off in interviews was present both in her thoughts and in her design work. As she neared her fifties and retirement, she chose pink for the color of House No. 13 in the Town of Tomorrow and softened the lines with curved shapes and a trellis that would be covered with vines. The pink house would stand out as the only one designed by a woman. In an article written a few years earlier to present a plan that could be adapted to any lot, she had employed language that arguably evoked the feminine: You feel at once when you see this house that it has caught and retained an element of charm. The structure is of an unpretentious type, one contented if placed almost anywhere on our countryside. Also, it exhales a welcoming “at-home.” Altho [sic] it’s so very difficult to spell charm in a home, we might guess that the entrance doorway, with its extended shutters, recalling embracing arms, might somehow be responsible.43 She emphasized practical values of a home built in good taste upon a sensible plan, naturally providing “modesty” and comfort. Cook’s choice of words conferred femininity on her architecture. As she broke radically with social norms for women, she consistently re-situated her work as feminine, in this case through the reference to the entrance as embracing arms, the soft textures, and the use of words such as “charm” and “modesty.” She did something similar when reflecting upon her career as a “woman architect,” considering her career as a substitute for maternity and her design labor as absorbing as motherhood; the houses she designed were thus, in a sense, her children: “Designing houses is like having babies, they need so much attention and bringing up.” That was the viewpoint of Mrs. Verna Cook Salomonsky, and it would explain perhaps 65

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why Mrs. Salomonsky was one of the most successful women architects in this region of the country. As with babies too, Verna Salomonsky found that her job was practically a twenty-four-hour, seven-day-a-week proposition. And when the house was finally finished, and the child went out to stand on its own feet, there were always new ones coming along to demand time and attention.44 It would be hard to ascertain if her strategies allowed her greater success as an architect than women who attempted a more forceful break with gender roles. In either case, her career was outstanding, her architecture marked the suburbs of New York City, and her public presence paved the way for female practitioners who would come after her. In spite of this, she has not appeared in architectural histories of the twentieth century in the United States. This is undoubtedly related to the preeminence given to the Modern movement and the lack of interest in (and often disdain for) traditional and period styles. This preference spread into studies of women in architecture that have largely focused on modern architecture and the roles of women not only as architects, but also as spouse-partners, female employees, or clients.45 Just as the Modern movement has dominated architectural histories of the twentieth century, stories of female architects who designed modern have been of greater interest to historians than those of women who chose a traditional practice. And, just as the study of traditional- and period-style houses is relevant to understanding the conformation of cities and towns in the United States in the early twentieth century, so is revising the history of women in architecture to include architects who made contributions to the traditional fabric of cities and towns and were instrumental in gaining acceptance for women in the field.

Notes 1. In this chapter I use Verna’s maiden name, Cook. She practiced as Verna Cook Salomonsky and later published as Verna Cook Shipway. Referenced: Trip Diary, January 8, 1946 (Box 1, Folder 11, Verna Cook Shipway Papers [VCSP], MSS 0105, Mandeville Special Collections Library, University of California at San Diego). 2. This research was supported by grants from the Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (CONACyT) in Mexico and the Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo; the library research was carried out thanks to the Edmundo O’Gorman fellowship of the Institute of Latin American Studies at Columbia University. 3. The first nine years in partnership with her husband, Edgar Salomonsky. 4. Gwendolyn Wright, Building the Dream. A Social History of Housing in America (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1983), 210. 5. “Views of a Woman Architect,” The New York Sun, May 15, 1937, 48 (VCSP, Box 1, Folder 6). 6. Anne Petersen, “Women Architects Few but Versatile,” New York Times, April 11, 1937 (VCSP, Box 1, Folder 6). Also: Diploma. Commonwealth Avenue School in Boston for the Preparatory Course of Study, May 8, 1908 (VCSP, Box 1, Folder 4). 7. “Views”; and Sarah Allaback, The First American Women Architects (Urbana, IL and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2008), 214. 8. Columbia University in the City of New York. Catalogues 1915–1916, 1917–1918, and 1918–1919 (New York: Columbia University, 1917, 1919, 1920). There is no mention of Cook in the 1916–1917 catalogue. 9. Certificate 3994 (VCSP, Box 2, Folder 8). She was admitted to the American Institute of Architects in 1937. Allaback, The First American Women Architects, 238. 10. Edgar was the son of Polish immigrants, born in Norfolk, Virginia. He had a bachelor’s degree in engineering and a degree in architecture from Columbia University. Columbia University in the City of New York. Catalogues 1916–1917. 11. There are several different addresses for the office. Verna Cook kept letterhead stationery with the address as 11 East 49th Street in New York City. In the newspaper article on Edgar’s death in 1929, their home address was listed as 58 Chedworth Road in Scarsdale, NY, and their office as 40 East 49th Street in New York City, and on a passenger manifest in September 1939, her address is listed as 424 Madison Avenue,

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“Designing Houses Is Like Having Babies” New York, NY. Edgar’s death was reported as a suicide: “Architect a Suicide. Edgar Salomonsky Found Dead in Gas Filled Kitchen of Home,” New York Times, December 26, 1929. 12. In an interview she claimed to have designed the first house in this development in 1928. “Views.” 13. It has been reedited several times. Henry Atterbury Smith, 500 Small Houses of the Twenties (New York: Dover Publications, 1990), 191. 14. VCSP, Box 2, Folder 8. 15. Under the names Verna Cook Shipway with Warren Butler Shipway, they published The Mexican House, Old and New (1960), Mexican Interiors (1962), Mexican Homes of Today (1964), Decorative Design in Mexican Homes (1966), and Houses of Mexico. Origins and Traditions (1970), all by the Architectural Book Publishing Co. in New York. 16. R. Weir Schultz, “Architecture for Women,” The Architectural Review 24, no. 9 (September 1908): 153–54; R. Weir Schultz, “The Advent of the Draughtswoman,” The Architectural Review 41, no. 4 (April 1917): 31. In 1918 Annabel Dott in “The Woman Architect and Her Work,” The Architectural Review 44, no. 8 (August 1918): 31–32, proposed the women were apt for practicing architecture, but only in the design of homes; Stan Willis, “Women Architects,” The Architect 102 ( July 18, 1919): 44–46. 17. Allaback, The First American Women Architects, 10. 18. Verna Cook Salomonsky, “Putting the Service Entry to Work,” House and Garden 51, no. 11 ( January 1922): 41. 19. Verna Cook Salomonsky, “A Room for Kitchen Stores,” House and Garden 40, no. 2 (August 1921): 54. 20. Verna Cook Salomonsky, “Linen Closets,” House and Garden 41, no. 1 ( January 1922): 23. 21. The series authored by Verna Cook Salomonsky included: “Practical Suggestions for the Hall,” The House Beautiful 53 no. 6 ( June 1923): 610–11; “Practical Suggestions for the Dining Room,” The House Beautiful 54, no. 7 ( July 1923): 22–24; “Practical Suggestions for the Living Room,” The House Beautiful 54, no. 9 (September 1923): 226–27; “Shopping for the Sun Porch,” The House Beautiful 54, no. 1 ( January 1924): 44; “Making the Service Porch Serviceable,” The House Beautiful 55, no. 2 (February 1924): 125; “The Boy’s Own Room,” The House Beautiful 55, no. 5 (May 1924): 531; “An Occasional Trellis,” The House Beautiful 55, no. 6 ( June 1924): 661. 22. Edgar and Verna Cook Salomonsky, An Exemplar of Antique Furniture Design. A Collection of Measured Drawings of Furniture in the Metropolitan Museum of Art Accompanied with Photographs and Text (Grand Rapids, MI: Periodical Publishing Company, 1923). Cook published Masterpieces of Furniture (Grand Rapids, MI: Periodical Publishing Company, 1931); this volume included 101 examples including the twenty-five previously published. Verna Cook Salomonsky, “An Exemplar of Old and New Colonial Details,” The House Beautiful 61, no. 1 ( January 1927): 46–49; no. 2 (February 1927): 181–83; no. 3 (March 1927): 328–30; no. 4 (April 1927): 485; no. 5 (May 1927): 669–71; no. 6 ( June 1927): 817–19. The House Beautiful 62, no. 1 ( July 1927): 57–59; no. 2 (August 1927): 153–55; no. 3 (September 1927): 265–67; no. 4 (October 1927): 401–3; no. 5 (November 1927): 545–47; no. 6 (December 1927): 673–75. 23. Susan R. Henderson, “A Revolution in the Women’s Sphere: Grete Lihotzky and the Frankfurt Kitchen,” in Architecture and Feminism, ed. Debra Coleman et al. (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1996), 221–53. 24. “House of Thomas J. Ackiss,” Architecture 54, no. 5 (November 1927): 331–32; “House of Raymond Faith,” Architecture 55, no. 1 ( July 1928): 49–50; “House of Edgar Salomonsky,” Architecture 55, no. 1 ( July 1928): 51–52; “House of C. G. Novotny,” Architecture 71, no. 3 (Mar. 1935): 145–48. The magazine would feature different portfolios (entrance driveways, entrance seats, garden shelters, hanging signs, dormer windows, etc.) and use photographs of a variety of architect’s designs to illustrate them. Architecture 61, no. 4 (April 1930): 251; Architecture 64, no. 6 (December 1931): 363–65; Architecture 66, no. 7 ( July 1932): 51, 55; Architecture 68, no. 2 (August 1933): 123; Architecture 71, no. 5 (May 1935): 303; and Architecture 71, no. 6 ( June 1935): 356. 25. Newspaper interviews mention over one hundred homes; in the archive of her private papers about fifty of them are registered; the identification of other works through publication in trade journals brings the list of identified works to about fifty-eight, without considering houses built using her plans as published in The House Beautiful, Better Homes & Gardens, and the Bildcost catalogues. 26. No author appears in the byline, but the drawings are Cook’s, so it is assumed the text was also written by her. In the same issue the magazine published articles on how to place the “Chameleon” house on the lot and how to furnish it. “The Chameleon-Like House that Changes its Exterior According to the Locality in Which it Finds Itself,” The House Beautiful 59, no. 6 ( June 1926): 633–35. 27. Edgar and Verna Cook Salomonsky, “Is This House Worth Salvaging?” The House Beautiful 64, no. 8 (August 1928): 156–57. 28. “House of Alexander Crane,” The Architectural Forum 58, no. 3 (March 1933): 212.

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Catherine R. Ettinger 2 9. Verna Cook Salomonsky, “The Two-Faced Home,” Better Homes & Gardens 16, no. 10 ( June 1938): 26, 77. 30. Verna Cook Salomonsky, “Walk into the Gardened Home on the Cover,” Better Homes & Gardens 14, no. 8 (April 1936): 13–15, 93. 31. Salomonsky, “The Two-Faced Home,” 26. 32. Verna Cook Salomonsky, “Giant Servants to the Home,” Better Homes & Gardens 14, no. 8 (April 1936): 18–19, 105. 33. “Views.” 34. “Modern Houses Top N.Y. Fair,” The Architectural Forum 72, no. 7 ( July 1939): 72. 35. “Views.” 36. Petersen, “Women Architects Few but Versatile.” 37. “Architects Favor Colonial Styles,” New York Times, January 16, 1938. 38. Anne Ehrenburg, “An Athena of Architecture Emerges from the Archives,” San Diego Evening Tribune, August 22, 1979. 39. Allaback, The First American Women Architects, 7. 40. “Woman Architect Gives Views,” Southwest Builder and Contractor 88 (August 14, 1936): 19. 41. In “Views.” 42. Allaback, The First American Women Architects, 7; and Carmen Espegel, Women Architects in the Modern Movement (London: Routledge, 2006). 43. Verna Cook Salomonsky, “At Home Anywhere,” Better Homes  & Gardens 15, no. 4 (December  1936): 24–25. 44. “Views.” 45. These topics have been explored in Charlotte Perriand, Charlotte Perriand. A Life of Creation (New York: Monacelli Press, 2003); Alice Friedman, Women and the Making of the Modern House. A Social and Architectural History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007); Renja Suominen-Kokkonen, Aino and Alvar Aalto: A Shared Journey. Interpretations of an Everyday Modernism (Helsinki: Alvar Aalto Foundation, 2007); Kathryn Anthony, Designing for Diversity. Gender, Race, and Ethnicity in the Architectural Profession (Urbana, IL and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2001); and Elizabeth Otto and Patrick Rössler, Bauhaus Women: A Global Perspective (London: Bloomsbury, 2019).

Bibliography Allaback, Sarah. The First American Women Architects. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2008. Anthony, Kathryn. Designing for Diversity. Gender, Race, and Ethnicity in the Architectural Profession. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2001. Espegel, Carmen. Women Architects in the Modern Movement. London: Routledge, 2006. Ettinger, Catherine. “Un discurso de modernidad y tradición. Verna Cook Shipway y la representación de la casa mexicana.” Academia XXII 5, no. 8 (2014): 75–94. Ettinger, Catherine. La arquitectura mexicana desde afuera. Episodios en la construcción de un imaginario. Mexico City: Miguel Ángel Porrúa, 2017. Friedman, Alice. Women and the Making of the Modern House. A Social and Architectural History. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007. Henderson, Susan R. “A  Revolution in the Woman’s Sphere, Grete Lihotzky and the Frankfurt Kitchen.” In Architecture and Feminism, edited by Coleman, Debra, Elizabeth Danze, and Carol Henderson, 221–47. Princeton: Princeton Architectural Press, 1996. Otto, Elizabeth, and Patrick Rössler. Bauhaus Women: A Global Perspective. London: Bloomsbury, 2019. Perriand, Charlotte. Charlotte Perriand. A Life of Creation. New York: Monacelli Press, 2003. Salomonsky, Edgar, and Verna Cook Salomonsky. An Exemplar of Antique Furniture Design. A  Collection of Measured Drawings of Furniture in the Metropolitan Museum of Art Accompanied with Photographs and Text. Grand Rapids, MI: Periodical Publishing Company, 1923. Salomonksy, Verna Cook. Masterpieces of Furniture. Grand Rapids, MI: Periodical Publishing Company, 1931. Shipway, Verna Cook, and Warren Butler Shipway. The Mexican House Old & New. New York: Architectural Book Publishing Company, 1960. Shipway, Verna Cook, and Warren Butler Shipway. Mexican Interiors. New York: Architectural Book Publishing Company, 1962. Shipway, Verna Cook, and Warren Butler Shipway. Mexican Homes of Today. New York: Architectural Book Publishing Company, 1964.

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“Designing Houses Is Like Having Babies” Shipway, Verna Cook, and Warren Butler Shipway. Decorative Design in Mexican Homes. New York: Architectural Book Publishing Company, 1966. Shipway, Verna Cook, and Warren Butler Shipway. Houses of Mexico. Origins and Traditions. New York: Architectural Book Publishing Company, 1970. Smith, Henry Atterbury. 500 Small Houses of the Twenties. New York: Dover Publications, 1990. Suominen-Kokkonen, Renja. Aino and Alvar Aalto: A Shared Journey. Interpretations of an Everyday Modernism. Helsinki: Alvar Aalto Foundation, 2007. Wright, Gwendolyn. Building the Dream. A Social History of Housing in America. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1983.

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5 THE FORGOTTEN ART OF FLORENCE HOPE LUSCOMB Mary Anne Hunting and Kevin D. Murphy

Introduction: A Room of One’s Own The British author Virginia Woolf famously argued that to write fiction a woman must have “money and a room of her own.”1 Although the creative pursuits of the small cadre of American women architects of the early twentieth century were different from those of Woolf, their need for a private and secure place where, as Woolf opined, they could have the opportunity to think for themselves, was just as important. Equal to their male colleagues, women architects used their own homes as opportunities for experimentation. Among them is Florence Hope Luscomb (1887–1985) who designed a one-room cabin for herself in the White Mountains resort town of Tamworth, NH. Its modest size—approximately 250 square feet—and now dilapidated condition belie the significance of the structure and its five-acre site where her architecture expertise, passion for the outdoors, and lifelong dedication to social activism, particularly women’s rights, all converged.2 While by 1971 Luscomb was recognized in Time as “the very model of a modern revolutionary,” her numerous biographies merely mention her nearly ten-year architecture career.3 Nor do they much consider her cabin, which was finished in June 1940, well after she gave up her professional practice. Fortunately, sketches of her original conception for what she called the Elk Horn Ranch House survive. Conceived in a Western style of architecture, it was to be composed of traditional materials with features often found in vacation cabins in the New England woods or rural areas elsewhere in the United States. Equally significant, the cabin was to manifest her unwavering commitment to the modern concept of functionalism and fulfill her desire to surround herself with a progressive community of friends.

Political and Architectural Formation The path to architecture pursued by Luscomb in some ways is atypical of the pioneering women architects of the early twentieth century. She did not come from a conventional bourgeois background as did many others; rather, her father, Otis Luscomb, was an unsuccessful artist who played little role in his daughter’s life. In contrast, her mother, Hannah Skinner Knox, influenced the political beliefs of her daughter, beginning at age five when she took her to hear Susan B. Anthony speak at the National Women’s Suffrage Association in Washington, DC. Numerous extant letters between Luscomb and her mother demonstrate that home life and activism were resolutely intertwined,

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Figure 5.1 Florence Hope Luscomb standing in front of her cabin, named the Elk Horn Ranch House, in Tamworth, New Hampshire. Photograph, 1972. Source: Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.

Figure 5.2 F.H. Luscomb, conception sketch of her cabin, c. 1939. Series I. Source: Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.

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and until her mother died in 1933, they could be seen teaming up at meetings, in parades, and on campaign trails.4 It is no wonder, then, that in spite of being an architect, Luscomb ultimately chose to carry on her mother’s commitment to activism, and particularly the cause of women’s suffrage.5 Luscomb’s formal education must have also played a critical role in her development. For two years she attended the private preparatory school Chauncy Hall in Waltham, MA. In 1858, the school had started admitting girls, thereby becoming one of a handful of private coeducational schools in the Boston area with a reputation for training “important figures in the first generation of female college graduates.”6 The school’s legacy of preparing women for a college education likely motivated Luscomb to apply to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, where male students from Chauncy Hall typically were funneled. Late in life, Luscomb recalled of her decision, “I can remember thinking, if MIT was good enough for my male classmates, I’d apply.”7 Likely endowed with the artistic aptitude of her father, in 1905 Luscomb enrolled in the architecture program at MIT, and although unable to concentrate in landscape architecture, as she had hoped, due to that option being eliminated in the architecture department, she remembered her first year as one of her happiest because she was so thrilled with what she was learning and experiencing.8 Under the revered department head, Francis W. Chandler, she was immersed in the Beaux-Arts curriculum in which lavishly illustrated theoretical projects were encouraged, as is demonstrated by her extant thesis, “Design for a Country Seat by the Sea.”9 Though her male peers were instructed to be polite but not associate with the co-eds, Luscomb witnessed the pervasive prejudice against women architects when she sought summer employment in a recommended architecture firm, the customary way for students to gain practical experience, when only one of twelve considered her.10 Such antagonism may have fueled Luscomb’s ongoing campaign for women’s rights. The Boston Globe noted that she placarded the MIT bulletin board with handbills pleading for “votes for women,” perturbing some of the more conservative students, and in 1909 she took to the street corner as a newsie selling copies of the Woman’s Journal.11 As an officer of the Cleofan, a new society for undergraduate women at MIT, she would have rubbed shoulders with its honorary member, Ellen Henrietta Swallows Richards, the first woman to graduate from MIT and the only female instructor. Richards informally acted as a dean of women, helping them problem solve and chaperoning their social affairs. As “truly one of the greatest of American women,” in Luscomb’s estimation, Richards was an inspiration. After graduating in 1909 with only eleven other women in a student body of twelve hundred, Luscomb found drafting work in landscape architecture in 1910 at the Harvard Square office of John Nolen; in 1912 she moved to the Waltham office of Ida Anna Ryan (1873–1950), a talented architect who would have met Luscomb at MIT while completing her master’s degree in 1906.12 In spite of what seems like an exceptional opportunity for a young architect, Luscomb apparently still wanted to pursue landscape architecture. In February 1916, she entered the nascent Cambridge School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, then situated in the office of Henry Atherton Frost, an instructor of architecture at Harvard since 1905, and the landscape architect Bremer Whidden Pond, also a Harvard faculty member. Along with a handful of other women—including Katherine “Kitty” Glover Brooks (1892–1989), a Radcliffe graduate who a year earlier had been denied entrance to Harvard’s landscape architecture program and been advised by its chairman, James Sturgis Pray to tutor with Frost—Luscomb studied advanced horticulture and design as well as elementary construction.13 She lasted only a semester, perhaps because aspects of the integrated program in architecture and landscape architecture were too basic or because it was difficult to balance its rigorous requirements with her suffrage activities or responsibilities in the office of Ryan, who had made Luscomb a professional partner in 1914. Luscomb later recounted that during the six-year collaboration, she worked on two schools, a motion picture theater, and numerous private residences, but today there is scant 72

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documentation for these commissions.14 All the while, she shared political beliefs with Ryan, who made it possible for her to leave the office for months to pursue suffrage campaigns. For instance, for nineteen weeks in 1915 Luscomb traveled with colleagues into rural areas to distribute leaflets and hold open-air meetings; the 222 talks she gave as a forceful and personable speaker boosted her reputation as a suffragist.15 When building construction dried up due to World War I, Luscomb was forced to find other paid employment and, logically, turned to activism, beginning with the Boston Equal Suffrage Association for Good Government (1902–1920). In addition to her involvement in other political and civic organizations, her last paying job, between 1928 and 1934, was for the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (founded 1919). Although she forsook her professional architectural practice, Luscomb used her artistic skills to serve her political causes: in 1940, for example, she produced political leaflets for the Labor’s Non-Partisan League, which amalgamated her text and the linoleum-cut illustrations.

Locating a Place for a Home In spite of her busy life in Boston, Luscomb loved the outdoors and in 1923 joined the Appalachian Mountain Club, founded in 1876 to promote and protect the natural landscape in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions. A year earlier, she had been invited by club members to join a week’s hike in Vermont’s Green Mountains, attended by Nolen as well as fellow MIT peers—architect Eleanor Manning and mechanical engineer Dean Peabody Jr.16 Her budding interest in “tramping” in the mountains was invigorated not just by the physical exertion but by the natural beauty, which for Luscomb was one of the five worthwhile conditions of living she recorded in her notebook. Consequently, she periodically lodged at the summer house of Grace and Helen Pennock, two of the “formidable array” of females with whom she climbed and came to know Tamworth.17 Following in the footsteps of her devoted friend Mary T. Duggan and her husband Norman Haight, who already had purchased land there and put up a “shed” of less than 150 square feet, in 1939 Luscomb bought a nearby property nestled alongside a pine and birch forest with views of the mountains.18 Insisting that her place be self-sufficient and flexible enough to accommodate numerous guests, Luscomb devised a three-part building program. She wanted to be able to “put up several friends over weekends,” to maximize “ease in household tasks,” and to engage in “spacious, gracious, uncluttered, simple living.” This final element required “everything needful, with elimination of all unneeded,” and attention to “utmost convenience.” In a word, it needed to be functional.

Cabin Architecture As construction neared completion in the winter of 1939–1940, she wrote a descriptive letter about her “sweetest little cabin in the world” to a friend and fellow suffragist, Margery “Gussie” Bedinger, then living in Denver. In response, Bedinger not only was “tickled to death” for Luscomb but sent her Charles D. White’s Camps and Cottages: How to Build Them (1939), assuming Luscomb’s project corresponded so completely with the book. Indeed, Luscomb may well have consulted similar publications for ideas.19 In May  1940, Luscomb informed the builder, Arthur C. King, “I  can’t tell you how pleased I am with the appearance and construction of the cabin.” The satisfying final product was the result of ongoing written communication carried on between King and Luscomb over the winter. On December 11, 1939, for example, Luscomb had confessed to King, “I don’t pretend to have the slightest idea how a log-framed cabin is actually built, so I am more than glad to have you do things the best way.” A vision of a sturdy Western log cabin with Navajo rugs and Peruvian textiles evidently drew her to that type of structure rather than any kind of attachment to a particular building 73

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method. Although attentive to even the smallest details, she reassured King, “It doesn’t have to be super-solid construction.” Nonetheless, her cabin is so substantial that it has survived years of neglect. The exterior of the cabin was faced with unpeeled logs, protected with an oil coating, enhanced by the green-papered roofing extending beyond the northern end to create an open space to shelter the chemical toilet from Sears, Roebuck and Company along with the water tank (there was no running water), as well as wood, ice, and food storage. The area could also function as a dressing room and a washing area. The roof continued across the front of the cabin to protect a covered stone terrace, where, sheltered from sun and rain, Luscomb could loll in a steamer chair and “watch the cloud shadows laying purple fingers upon the towering mountains.” Although Luscomb had Western architecture in mind, her design also recalls Adirondack rustic lodges and cottages of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The exposed rafter tails also bring to mind camp architecture of the Northeast, although its moniker invoked wildlife more common in the American West. Luscomb did not consider it as primitive as a log cabin, which more typically looked dark, rough, and untidy inside. And yet to her, it seemed to be a part of the surrounding forest. Because smooth, plain boards were installed inside the frame, the interior had a more finished look than was typical. Moreover, its mullioned casement windows provided ample natural light to make the interior seem “airy, spacious, and cheery.” Determined to have a large open space in the center of the room, Luscomb devoted the south end to two sets of bunk beds, with a trundle bed under one of them. The upper two bunks, accessed from built-in ladders, were hinged to the wall so that they could be raised by a pulley system to be out of sight in the day. Trunk straps fastened on the inside of the upper bunks and buckled at the ends held the mattresses and blankets in place. The bunks themselves were constructed as wooden boxes, four inches wider than the mattresses to make it easy to tuck in the bedding; the bottom bunks were slightly wider than those on the top so in a pinch they could accommodate two people, making it possible to sleep seven. The casement windows were horizontally divided, and whoever was in the upper bunk would have a window “under his own control.” Recognizing that the interior had the potential to be “untidy,” Luscomb paid meticulous attention to the smallest utilitarian concerns. The kitchen on the north side, with a linoleum floor she laid herself, had ample counter space with a chest of drawers underneath as well as neatly arranged built-in cupboards and open shelves for food, utensils, and books; bins for wood and food; and racks for paper bags and magazines. Pots and pans were thoughtfully arranged on the wall to either side of the cast-iron cook stove that she instructed King to raise on a plinth for better accessibility. She wrote to him on May 26, 1940, “Women don’t turn into pygmies just because they’re cooking on a small area stove top, any more than they grow into giants if they use a large stove! Do they [the manufacturers] think women are like Alice in Wonderland?”

Cultivating the Garden Luscomb’s first season at the cabin was “the very opposite of a lazy summer,” in part because she had “one or more guests most of the time for whom to cook.” Given her persistent interest in outdoor landscapes, it is not surprising that almost immediately she heaped attention and physical energy into creating a garden. She liked to tell the story about how her “marvelous” friend, Zara du Pont, contributed the original impulse, advising, “You ought to raise some tomatoes.” She proceeded to pay for a neighbor to turn over some land for a garden to host a dozen tomato plants, which that year yielded Luscomb about three hundred fruits.20 The garden actually was a part of the original concept for the property, and before planting Luscomb had corresponded with the University of New Hampshire’s Co-operative Extension Work in Agriculture and Home Economics for advice about hearty varieties of plants and trees. Then, as 74

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Figure 5.3 One of two sets of bunkbeds on the southwest end of the Luscomb cabin, c. 1940. Series I. Source: Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.

she recounted, “I built a sizable stone wall around it with the hundreds—or thousands—of stones, rocks, [and] boulders I dug out of it, and every one a backache.” Despite claiming to know “absolutely nothing about farming,” she apparently was a quick learner; her small parcel of land eventually bulged with crops ranging from beets, corn, and cucumbers to melons, peas, and turnips, not to mention thirty-six types of flowers that bordered the rectangular-shaped plot. With pride, Luscomb updated her friends on the condition of her garden: “I’m drowned in heavenly string beans,” she wrote to one, and to another, “Flowers, vegetables, weather, and birds constitute all the news at Tamworth.”21 The garden not only provided substantial food for Luscomb and her friends but also helped her accomplish her objective of making her country retreat self-sufficient. Since it was entirely off the 75

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Figure 5.4 Northeast end of the Luscomb cabin showing a corner of the kitchen and the cook stove standing on a plinth, c. 1940. Series I. Source: Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.

grid, drinking water had to be carried from the Swift River—until 1942 when she bought more property with springs that could accommodate a pump—and rainwater was collected in a barrel, presumably to use for other purposes, including the garden.22 On a modest scale and without entirely abandoning her urban life, Luscomb participated in the “back-to-the-land” movement of the Depression and World War II era. Luscomb boasted in late 1940 of her vegetable production, “If you had ever raised your own food you would understand the creative pride and free-of-all-theworld independence in my soul.”

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A Place for Community Engagement Although Luscomb was entirely devoted to cabin and garden maintenance, the concept for her retreat in fact emphasized community over individual enjoyment. The interior arrangement paid little heed to issues of privacy, which seems especially striking in her anticipation that pairs of guests might be asked to bunk together. Throughout her life Luscomb much preferred communal over independent living. Even when she was in her eighties, Luscomb lived in a communal home with a number of people wherein she had a private room and shared living spaces.23 In a talk at the Brookline High School in 1971, Luscomb emphasized the advantages of communal living in that it minimizes household expenses and work while offering intangible benefits like “friendly” and “interesting” living situations that stem from the different ages, occupations, and nationalities of the people with whom she lived. In a similar sense, she designed the cabin as a place to enjoy interactions with guests who would share the responsibility of household tasks. So sympathetic was her circle of friends with the cabin project that they threw her a “shower” on May 28, 1940. First on the list of hosts was Duggan, her Tamworth neighbor, followed by Ann Prosten, a union activist who has been described as “a young, militant, and modern woman.”24 Another host, Helen Landfield, was also politically active since during the 1960s she reported on the student-led protests in the newspaper at the University of California, Berkeley.25 For the occasion of the shower, a large group of friends jointly composed and signed a twelveverse poem poking gentle fun at Luscomb’s hospitality. Entitled “Florence Has A Little Hut,” it follows the familiar nursey rhyme, “Mary Had a Little Lamb” (1830) by Sarah Josepha Hale: Florence has a little hut, As you already know, And everywhere that Florence is Her friends are sure to go. The gist of the poem is that Luscomb wanted to “hibernate” in her mountain cabin away from her “hordes” of followers, but to no avail; her friends trailed behind her, only to be saddled with chores around the new house: There are weeds to be pulled from the garden, There is furniture to be built, Not to mention the dirty dishes And a mile to hike for some milk. In spite of the work, however, the narration finishes with all of them wanting an encore weekend at the cabin. The signatures of about twenty-five women and men, some of whom were prominent political activists, are as telling as the poem itself. Among them was du Pont who, though originally from Louisville, lived in Cambridge and in 1939 joined with Luscomb in donning gas masks and marching in a picket line to protest police use of tear gas against the National Maritime Union’s strikers in nearby Everett.26 The signatures also include Margaret “Betty” Sanger, a renowned ­twentieth-century advocate for birth control in the United States.27 Sanger worked closely on the cause with Chicago heiress Katharine McCormick, the second woman to graduate from MIT, in 1904.28 The Scottish immigrant Mary Gordon Thompson, a former textile worker and one-time president of the Women’s Trade Union League in Boston, also signed the poem.29 Of the few men to sign it, two were leaders in the struggle against racial discrimination: Herbert Hyson, who in the mid-1950s would write letters to the Boston Globe decrying the lack of African

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American representation on the Red Sox baseball team; and Matthew W. Bullock, the son of two former slaves who attended Everett High School and Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH, before graduating in 1907 from Harvard Law School.30 In addition to a distinguished career in the law and government, Bullock served as the first African American football coach of a majority white team in higher education, at the Massachusetts Agricultural College in Amherst.31 The interests of Bullock and Luscomb overlap in several areas, including the Urban League of Eastern Massachusetts.32 Given that most were activists on behalf of the working class, women, or both, and that all shared the leftist politics of Luscomb, it is easy to imagine that the cabin became the epicenter for a communal life on summer weekends and holidays. At a time of increasing nationalism at the onset of World War II, the cabin must also have served as a safe place to voice critical perspectives on the domestic and international situation. Since Luscomb frequently entertained Duggan’s guests in addition to her own, the group at the cabin would have swelled beyond the number it could comfortably accommodate overnight. As such, it became the hub of a substantial community of progressive thinking, and it embodied the benefits of cooperative living Luscomb described.

Similar Retreats From the late nineteenth century, rural or coastal vacation enclaves like Tamworth had been the preferred locations in New England for residents who felt uncomfortable at mainstream resorts. Gloucester, MA, on Cape Ann was one such locale. It had a large fishing fleet manned by both Anglo-Americans and Portuguese immigrants as well as a summer community of artists, writers, antiquarians, and other creative types. At Mussel Point in Gloucester, Cambridge School alumnae Eleanor Agnes Raymond (1887–1989), an established Boston architect, and Ethel Brown Power (1881–1969), a former editor of House Beautiful, together created a modest seasonal getaway in 1931. As Power recounted, they originally purchased the waterfront property with the idea of demolishing the existing “disreputable shack, outhouses and a flimsy garage” and replacing the gloomy, gray structures with a new summer home. “To a coolly appraising eye,” Power commented in her article about their so-called experimental house, there was no architectural merit other than its “unassuming simplicity.”33 Raymond, however, had shown an affinity for similar functional forms in her book commending vernacular outbuildings, Early Domestic Architecture of Pennsylvania (1931). In her own work, Raymond was also fond of drawing out details with color, and at Mussel Point clean, whitewashed building surfaces were offset by chromatic paint—a deep blue on the doors, for example, to exactly match the ocean on a sunny day and to perhaps evoke the Bermuda landscape.34 Despite the small strip of land on which their buildings stood, Raymond and Power maximized the impact of the landscape. A cover story on the Mussel Point complex in The American Home pictures an intimate outdoor space with raised boxes containing an array of plantings, framed by board fences that match the color and texture of the buildings themselves. The overall effect, the article concludes, “is one of privacy, restfulness and serenity with its wise combination of enchanting beauty and real usefulness.”35 Like the Luscomb cabin, their retreat, as relayed by Power, was “never without occupant or applicant” in its guestroom.36 According to the summer diaries Power kept, she and Raymond were in regular contact, both personally and professionally, with an immediate coterie of six Cambridge School alumnae: landscape architects Mary P. Cunningham and Rose Ishbel Greely as well as architects Laura Cox and Esther Kilton. They also maintained relations with about twenty others in the profession, including Walter Kilham, Henry Frost, and Marcel Breuer.37 Similar to the Luscomb cabin, the small in- and outdoor spaces at Mussel Point meant that there was little privacy. Instead, the simplicity of the structures, complemented by a lush garden and dramatic waterfront view, encouraged conviviality and relaxation. 78

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Figure 5.5 Eleanor Agnes Raymond (left) and Ethel Brown Power (right), in the garden of their Mussel Point complex in Gloucester, MA, on the cover of The American Home, June 1942.

One important distinction between the circumstances under which the Mussel Point and Tamworth properties were designed is that whereas Luscomb had long retired from architectural practice when she created her cabin specifications, Raymond was still in the midst of a productive architectural career. Thus, only Raymond was able to contribute her experience at reusing existing structures to her ongoing practice and attract clients who also aspired to own a summer house but 79

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whose reduced circumstances during the Depression limited their means. For example, Raymond designed several complexes of skillfully joined and expanded outbuildings south of Portland in Biddeford Pool, ME.38 Though Biddeford Pool is a relatively secluded enclave of mostly larger summer cottages, the projects by Raymond there capitalized on the simplicity of the outbuildings that she moved, combined, or improved to become functional, unpretentious seasonal residences. The potential synergy between the Mussel Point and Biddeford Pool projects was implied by Power in her diary, where she noted on August 20, 1934, that Raymond had gone to Maine “on [a] small job.” On the same day, as Power was working on an article about air conditioning, she was so moved by the setting that she recorded in her diary, “Our house seems more and more a terrace in the sky like the little shelter … on the edge of space.” Her poetic reflection testifies to the creative value they put on this amenable place.

Conclusion: A Broader View of Modern Architecture Neither the Tamworth cabin nor the Mussel Point complex was modern in the sense that the word had been codified by the Museum of Modern Art in its International Style exhibition in 1932. While Machine Age materials were not a requisite for modern architecture, they were a familiar component of early twentieth-century Art Deco and prominent in the contemporary buildings by Le Corbusier and other Europeans Raymond and Power admired. The exploration of new materials, or stark, spatial volumes, prized by critics in modern architecture, was out of reach in repurposed outbuildings or in a cabin on the scale of the one Luscomb built. Still, the designs by these women architects evidence a commitment to functionalism that was critical in the context of such small buildings. Luscomb in particular carefully deliberated how every object and each square foot of her cabin would be used. However much the two projects utilized traditional materials and methods, their simplicity and practicality nonetheless conformed to modern principles. Both retreats satisfied the owners’ desire for beauty, creativity, and, most of all, a community that enabled them to freely engage in informal exchanges. Despite their modest size or appearance, both fulfilled the need for a room—pointed out by Woolf—that modern women required for cultural production. Since Luscomb devoted most of her life to political activism, her early training and practice in architecture have been largely overlooked. However, as the only place she could ever call her own, Elk Horn Ranch House, in fact, connected the seemingly fragmented parts of her life: it was where Luscomb at once could fulfill her inherent need to create, nurture, and then enjoy; share opinions and grow deep-seated relations with like-minded friends; and, more, turn into a “mental loaf ” for a summer so that by fall she could be “like a fighting tiger, as usual,” as she described herself to Dorothy Colby. And so, the ashes of this pathbreaking leader were laid at her cabin, where there is little excitement other than a small rocky stream, a mountain view, and relics of a cherished summer garden.

Notes 1. Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own (London: Hogarth Press, 1929), 4, accessed February  21, 2020, http://seas3.elte.hu/coursematerial/PikliNatalia/Virginia_Woolf_-_A_Room_of_Ones_Own.pdf. 2. Unless otherwise noted, documentation for the cabin built by Florence Hope Luscomb is allocated in Series I of the Papers of Florence Luscomb, 1856–2001 and Series II of the Additional Papers of Luscomb, 1888–1988 (Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University). 3. “Miss Luscomb Takes a Stand,” Time, Personality, April 26, 1971, 20. 4. “Women’s Activities,” Boston Globe, March 22, 1912. 5. Ellen Cantarow, Moving the Mountain: Women Working for Social Change (New York: Feminist Press, 1980), 6.

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The Forgotten Art of Florence Hope Luscomb 6. Barbara Beatty, “ ‘The Kind of Knowledge of Most Worth to Young Women’: Post-Secondary Vocational Training for Teaching and Motherhood at the Wheelock School, 1888–1914,” History of Higher Education Annual 6 (1986): 32. 7. Florence Luscomb, “A  Woman at M.I.T.” Speech honoring Ellen Swallow Richards, January  16, 1976 (Massachusetts Institute of Technology: M.I.T. Women, Series I, Luscomb papers). 8. Eran Ben-Joseph, Holly D. Ben-Joseph, and Anne C. Dodge, “Against All Odds: MIT’s Pioneering Women of Landscape Architecture” (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Planning, City Design and Development Group, November  2006), accessed February  19, 2020, http://web.mit.edu/ebj/ www/LAatMIT/[email protected]; and Ellen Hoffman, “At 87, She’s Still Campaigner: Florence Luscomb, ’09, Battles for Communes” (Residences: Cooperative Housing, 1971, 1975, Series I, Luscomb papers). 9. The drawing is in Luscomb’s student file in the MIT Museum. 10. Transcript of interview with Luscomb by Steven Halpern and Sharon Strom, July  18–19, 1972, and August 27, 1973 (Series I, Additional Papers of Florence Luscomb). 11. “Tech Woman Sells Papers,” Boston Globe, January 23, 1910; “Miss Florence Luscomb Selling the Woman’s Journal,” Woman’s Journal XL, no. 46 (November 13, 1909): 183; and Luscomb, “A Woman at MIT.” 12. Laura White, “The Suffragist,” [Boston] Sunday Herald Advertiser, April 6, 1975. 13. Luscomb, Student file (Series II, Cambridge School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture Records, 1916–1998, Smith College Special Collections). 14. Transcript of interview with Luscomb by Brigid O’Farrell, 1976 (Trade Union Women Oral History Project, 1978–1979. Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan). 15. Luscomb, “A Woman at M.I.T.”; and “Suffragists Well Received,” Brookfield [MA] Times, August 13, 1915. 16. Fall Range Walk: Green Mountains, Vermont, September 1–9, 1922 (Luscomb papers). 17. Laura Waterman and Guy Waterman, Forest and Crag: A History of Hiking, Trail Blazing, and Adventure in the Northeast Mountains (Albany, NY: Excelsior Editions, 2019), 529. 18. Halpern and Strom, July 18–19, 1972. 19. For example, Chilson D. Aldrich, The Real Log Cabin (New York: Macmillan Company, 1928). 20. Luscomb interview by O’Farrell. 21. Luscomb to Mary L. Davis (Correspondence, Series II, Luscomb papers) and to Dorothy Colby, July 30, 1954 (Papers of Dorothy Colby, 1937–1976, Schlesinger Library). 22. Halpern and Strom, 1973. 23. Hoffman, “At 87.” 24. Sharon Hartmann Strom, Political Woman: Florence Luscomb and the Legacy of Radical Reform (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2001), 144; also Sharon Hartmann Strom, “Ann Prosten, Social Activist,” Washington Post, March  4, 2004, accessed February  23, 2020, www.washingtonpost.com/archive/ local/2004/03/14/ann-prosten-social-activist/4ed452ee-597b-4289-bfd7-e551d1e8ffc4/. 25. Helen Landfield, “Strong: More Disturbances,” Daily Californian, October 20, 1964. 26. Cantarow, Moving the Mountain, 34–35. 27. Ellen Chesler, Woman of Valor: Margaret Sanger and the Birth Control Movement in America (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992): 10–18. 28. Natalie Angier, “Why the Oral Contraceptive Is Just Known as ‘The Pill’,” Smithsonian Magazine, November 2013. 29. “W.T.U.L.,” Life and Labor Bulletin VII, no. 10 (November 1929): 3. 30. Herbert Hyson, “Many Resent Failure of Sox to Use Negroes,” Daily Boston Globe, September 15, 1955. 31. “Matthew Bullock ’04,” May 20, 2011 (Rauner Special Collections Library, Dartmouth College), accessed February 18, 2020, https://raunerlibrary.blogspot.com/2011/05/matthew-bullock-04.html. 32. “Obituary for Matthew Washington Bullock,” Dartmouth Alumni Magazine, March 1973, 86–87, accessed February 18, 2020, http://archive.dartmouthalumnimagazine.com/issue/19730301#!&pid=86. 33. Ethel B. Power, “The Experimental House,” House Beautiful, May 1933, 213. 34. Ibid. and “A Garden Suntrap Described by Ethel B. Power,” Woman’s Home Companion, June 1937, 68. 35. Christine Ferry, “Backyard Vacationing,” The American Home, June 1942, cover, 21 and 26. Also: figures 178 and 179 in Margaret Olthof Goldsmith, Designs for Outdoor Living (New York: George W. Stewart, 1941). 36. “A Garden Suntrap,” 69. 37. See especially the entries for April 23, May 27, and August 15, 1933, and July 31, 1950, in Ethel Power’s Gloucester Diary, 1944–1951 (Series D, Eleanor Raymond Collection, Special Collections, Francis Loeb Library, Harvard University). 38. Kevin D. Murphy, “The Vernacular Moment:  Eleanor Raymond, Walter Gropius, and New England Modernism between the Wars,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 70, no. 3 (September 2011): 310–11.

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Bibliography Aldrich, Chilson D. The Real Log Cabin. New York: Macmillan Company, 1928. Angier, Natalie. “Why the Oral Contraceptive Is Just Known as ‘The Pill’.” Smithsonian Magazine, November 2013. www.smithsonianmag.com/history/why-the-oral-contraceptive-is-just-known-as-the-pill-4337831. “Ann Prosten, Social Activist.” Washington Post, March  4, 2004. www.washingtonpost.com/archive/ local/2004/03/14/ann-prosten-social-activist/4ed452ee-597b-4289-bfd7-e551d1e8ffc4/. Beatty, Barbara. “ ‘The Kind of Knowledge of Most Worth to Young Women’: Post-Secondary Vocational Training for Teaching and Motherhood at the Wheelock School, 1888–1914.” History of Higher Education Annual 6 (1986). Ben-Joseph, Eran, Holly D. Ben-Joseph, and Anne C. Dodge. “Against All Odds: MIT’s Pioneering Women of Landscape Architecture.” Research Project. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Planning, City Design and Development Group, November 2006. http://web.mit.edu/ebj/www/ LAatMIT/[email protected]. Cantarow, Ellen. Moving the Mountain: Women Working for Social Change. New York: Feminist Press, 1980. Chesler, Ellen. Woman of Valor: Margaret Sanger and the Birth Control Movement in America. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992. Ferry, Christine. “Backyard Vacationing.” The American Home, June 1942, 21–26. Florence Luscomb student file. MIT Museum, Cambridge, MA. Florence Luscomb student file. Series II, Cambridge School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture Records, 1916–1998. Smith College Special Collections, Northampton, MA. “A Garden Sun Trap Described by Ethel B. Power.” Woman’s Home Companion, June 1937, 68–69. Goldsmith, Margaret Olthof. Designs for Outdoor Living. New York: George W. Stewart, 1941. Hyson, Herbert. “Many Resent Failure of Sox to Use Negroes.” Daily Boston Globe, September 15, 1955. Landfield, Helen. “Strong: More Disturbances.” Daily Californian, October 20, 1964. “Matthew Bullock’04.” May 24, 2011. https://raunerlibrary.blogspot.com/2011/05. “Miss Florence Luscomb Selling the Woman’s Journal.” Woman’s Journal XL, no. 46 (November 13, 1909): 183. “Miss Luscomb Takes a Stand.” Time, Personality, April 26, 1971, 20. Murphy, Kevin D. “The Vernacular Moment: Eleanor Raymond, Walter Gropius, and New England Modernism between the Wars.” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 70, no. 3 (September 2011): 308–29. Papers of Dorothy Colby, 1937–1976. Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. Papers of Florence Luscomb, 1856–2001. Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. Power, Ethel Brown. “Gloucester Diary, 1944–1951.” Series D, Eleanor Raymond Collection. Special Collections, Frances Loeb Library, Harvard University. Power, Ethel Brown. “The Experimental House.” House Beautiful, May 1933, 213–28. “Purposes of Cleofan by Mrs. [Ellen Henrietta Swallows] Richards.” Tech Daily XXIX, no. 12 (October 12, 1909). Strom, Sharon Hartmann. Political Woman: Florence Luscomb and the Legacy of Radical Reform. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2001. “Suffragists Well Received.” Brookfield [MA] Times, August 13, 1915. “Tech Woman Sells Papers.” Boston Globe, January 23, 1910. “W.T.U.L.” Life and Labor Bulletin VII, no. 10 (November 1929): 3. Waterman, Laura, and Guy Waterman. Forest and Crag: A History of Hiking, Trail Blazing, and Adventure in the Northeast Mountains. Albany, NY: Excelsior Editions, 2019. White, Laura. “The Suffragist.” [Boston] Sunday Herald Advertiser, April 6, 1975. “Women’s Activities.” Boston Globe, March 22, 1912. Woolf, Virginia. A Room of One’s Own. London: Hogarth Press, 1929. Zelnik, Reginald E. “On the Side of the Angels: The Berkeley Faculty and the FS.” In The Free Speech Movement: Reflections on Berkeley in the 1960s, edited by Robert Cohen and Reginald E. Zelnik. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2002.

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6 “THIS IS NOT A SUCCESS STORY” Florence Fulton Hobson, Architect in Northern Ireland Tanja Poppelreuter Introduction This Is Not A Success Story is the title of Florence Fulton Hobson’s (later Patterson, 1881–1978) autobiography.1 She was the first woman in Ireland to gain an accreditation from the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) and worked for the Belfast Corporation, the White Cross, and in private practice. She wrote her autobiography during the 1960s or 1970s and long after her career ended, and the title indicates that she fell short of her own aspirations and expectations. Hobson became an architect during a time of change when institutions were being opened up to women. She was nevertheless unable to develop a practice beyond building for family and acquaintances, so this chapter analyzes factors that supported as well as hindered Hobson in developing her architectural career.

Becoming an Architect Hobson came from a family of Quakers. Her father, Benjamin Hobson (1852–1927), was a grocer from Monasterevin, Co. Kildare, and her mother, Mary Ann Bulmer Hobson (1857–1947), was an active member of the Society of Friends and a supporter of women’s rights. It seems to have been her outlook that formed the basis for her daughter’s decision to take a profession. In her memoirs Bulmer Hobson explained: I have never forgiven the men of my generation for keeping the doors of the universities closed to women. … My interest in the movement for Women’s Rights is, therefore, intimately personal … but it is also traditional: for the Society of Friends … have, from their foundation, always treated women on an equal footing with men.2 This is not surprising as there were a number of Quaker women active in the suffragette movement in the United Kingdom. Bulmer Hobson also took on the task of finding an architectural practice that would train her daughter:3 My mother had great difficulties in finding an architect willing to take a girl pupil. She interviewed the Youngs (of Young & Mackenzie), and Mr. Young junior was willing to discuss the matter. Mr. Young senior kept calling out, “Now Robert—it would never do!”4 83

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Figure 6.1 Florence Fulton Hobson, approximately twenty-one years old. Photograph, c. 1902. Source: Roger Mitchell.

The disagreement between the two architects is reflective of conflicting opinions on women in architecture that, in 1898—and just before Hobson started her training—had been voiced on the occasion of Ethel Mary Charles’s (1871–1962) being admitted to the RIBA as their first woman member. Architect W. Hilton Nash (1850–1927) initiated a petition against her election, and after her membership was approved, efforts to overturn it led to a vote that only confirmed her by the slim margin of one vote.5 In 1902 Charles then gave the talk “A Plea for Women Practicing Architecture.”6 Here, she defended women’s capacity to act as architects and refuted objections that might be raised against women in architecture. In response, the article “May Women Practise [sic] Architecture?” appeared. Although accepting Charles’s argument that women may possess the intellectual, artistic, and physical capacities to practice architecture, the author rejected Charles’s reasoning as not touching “the vital issue of the whole discussion.”7 Women, the author contended, are by nature changeable, but to practice architecture restraint is needed so that “in the supreme and essential qualities of fine architecture a woman is by nature heavily handicapped.”8 Despite such disapproval Charles nevertheless was confirmed as a member of the RIBA, which indicated that change and progression for women in architecture was underway. Hobson might have been more enthused by Charles’s achievement than repelled by the opinions of her adversaries when seeking a practice to train with. The architectural firm that accepted Hobson—J.J. Phillips & Son—was a small one in Belfast run by James John Phillips (1841/2–1936) and his son James St. John Phillips (1870–1935).9 Between 1899 and 1903, when Hobson trained, the practice built, among other commissions, Methodist Churches on Oldpark Road (1899) and Newtownards Road (1900), buildings for the Methodist College (1902), and a Presbyterian Church in Whitehead (1904–1905).10 The reason why J.J. Phillips  & Son took her as pupil are not known, but Bulmer Hobson might have been acquainted with James St. John Phillips through the Belfast Naturalists’ Field Club, where they were members.11

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In 1903 Hobson passed the preliminary and intermediate exams of the RIBA, an event that was publicly lauded by architect William J. Fennell (d. 1923) who was “glad to see that there was at least one lady in Belfast who had the pluck to serve her time to architecture, and had passed the Royal Inst. Of British Architects—Miss Hobson.”12 He was also president of the Belfast Naturalists’ Field Club, and in its Annual Report & Proceedings that year Fennell commented on plans Hobson had drawn to illustrate her mother’s publication “Some Souterrains in Antrim and Down.”13 It was customary for young architects to further their training in architectural offices after passing RIBA exams, and in July 1903 Hobson moved to London. Before leaving, she wrote to Charles, who discouraged her from coming. After Hobson arrived anyway, she “found her words to be quite true. Architects did not even have a woman typist in their offices!”14 Still, she was able to work for two weeks as a substitute at Guy Dawber’s (1861–1938) office and had a position with James G. Sivewright Gibson (1861–1951) for fourteen months. Here, she was involved with works on the town hall in Walsall, near Birmingham. The emphasis of Gibson’s practice on commercial buildings was not what Hobson preferred, but he was pleased with her work and assessed her as: a capable draughtswoman, having had good architectural training, and was very painstaking with her work, and I can thoroughly recommend her for any position for which these qualifications are necessary.15 Despite his recommendation Hobson was unable to find further work in London and in 1905 returned to Belfast. During the next two years she worked again for J.J. Philips & Son, superintended the construction of ten terraced workmen’s dwellings in Portadown, Co. Armagh, gave a lecture on “Domestic Architecture of Today”—which might have been related to this project—and took temporary employment in the Surveyor’s Department of the Belfast Corporation.16 In 1907 James Munce (1852–1917), the assistant surveyor at Belfast Corporation, called on Hobson to work on a disinfecting station and to prepare maps of the city to mark outbreaks of scarlet fever, diphtheria, and typhoid.17 This work led to a permanent position in the Health Department, where she stayed until 1921. Because she described her work as “dull but not arduous,” she appears to have not been particularly enthused with work that consisted of keeping registers of baths, making charts for the annual reports for the medical officer Dr. Hugh William Bailie, working on the design of a new public abattoir, and designing “modern cow shed-extensions, … [an] electricity station …+ [and] measuring slum property.”18 Her work at the Belfast Corporation was reflective of the urban growth and challenges that the city experienced at that time. In 1911 Belfast had a population of 385,000 and was not only the largest city in Ireland but also the fastest-growing one in the United Kingdom. This development had been since the nineteenth century driven mostly by linen mills and shipbuilding industries—at the time, Belfast was the largest center of linen production and among the largest shipbuilding center worldwide.

“Architecture as a Profession” In 1911 Hobson’s application for a licentiate of the RIBA was granted; she now was an architect and permitted to add the suffix LRIBA to her name. She availed of the Licentiate Class that, between 1908 and 1913, allowed architects to be registered without exams if evidence of their competence as practitioners was provided.19 In the same year Hobson also published the article “Architecture as a Profession” in The Queen.20 To support aspiring architects it provided not only guidance on

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Figure 6.2 Florence Fulton Hobson, announcement of the lecture “Town Planning and Its Relation to Public Health.” Newspaper clipping. Source: Roger Mitchell.

studying architecture, such as prices for tutelage and information on RIBA requirements, but also with responses to a range of obstacles that a woman might encounter. It can be assumed that some of these were based on her own experience, but others were more general and had also appeared in the context of Charles’s 1898 membership. Among them were the beliefs that women should focus on domestic architecture and that it is difficult for women to superintend the construction of high buildings or to supervise workmen. Essential for an understanding of Hobson’s aspirations are the final paragraphs: One word of advice to the architectural aspirant, and that is, not to undertake this as a profession unless she feels strongly drawn towards it. … only those should adopt architecture as a profession who feel that through this medium they can express their artistic ideas; and to the true artist it thus becomes a method of self-realisation.21 This advice not only shows her incentives for choosing architecture; it can also be regarded as a response to discourses on the natural place of women in society that feminist movements in Britain had addressed in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Her explanation shows that she regarded architecture as a means to express herself and to realize her potential. This idea of selfrealization did not conform with essentialist arguments according to which a woman’s natural place is within the family and the home and her self-realization was to be found in motherhood.22 The counter-argument vouched for the right of women to seek an identity outside of socially determined boundaries.23 Hobson’s wish is a strong indicator that she wanted to pursue a distinct and autonomous professional identity that was not subordinate to and determined by tradition, whereby spheres of man and woman were divided into binary fields of opposites. Her mother’s background and resolve; the architects who trained, employed, and supported her goal; and forerunners such as Charles provided Hobson with the conditions needed to become an architect. Her transgressing of boundaries and her aim to pursue self-realization as one of the first women in architecture meant that Hobson placed herself outside societal norms and expectations.

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Her aspiration for self-realization indicates also that it was her goal to practice architecture independently, which is why her membership in the RIBA was essential. Between 1912 and 1914 she received small commissions and undertook alterations for the Music Store McCullough on Howard Street—the owner was a friend and colleague of her brother John Bulmer Hobson (1883–1969)— and for Glendun Lodge in Cushendun for Ada McNeill (1860–1959), a member of the Gaelic League and a family friend.24 On behalf of the Belfast Corporation and in context with the National Insurance Act, she gave a public talk on “Town Planning and Its Relation to Public Health” in 1913. The act stipulated the building of sanatoria, schools, hospitals, and open-air schools to prevent tuberculosis. To prepare, Hobson traveled around England and on the continent.25 Her talk sought to do more than to simply synthesize considerations of public health and urban planning with findings on how to avoid the spread of tuberculosis in urban centers. The Northern Whig reported: Town-planning must suit the particular needs of the community for which it was designed, as it was only by careful consideration of local conditions that individuality in towns could be preserved. It was not uniformity but variety that was required.26 She understood town planning as a social and aesthetic challenge, not only as a practical problem that should be studied by a town planning committee of experts that she wished to initiate. Shortly after her talk, Hobson organized a meeting with the Town Planning Association in Dublin to gain information, but no such committee was initiated in Belfast, possibly as a result of the outbreak of the First World War and subsequent violent conflict in Ireland.27

Practicing Architecture in Times of Political Struggle In 1914–1915 Hobson built her first house for herself in Carnalea, near Belfast. On the same street she built two more houses in 1920–1921, one for her parents, the other probably as an investment.28 Stylistically, the houses compare to Arts and Crafts–inspired dwellings with roof shapes that slightly curve outward, a round alcove on the side elevation of one of the houses, and details such as exposed wooden beams, wooden staircase railings, and artwork such as the built-in relief by sculptor Rosamond Praeger (1867–1954) in one of the dining rooms.29 The houses in Carnalea were built during a time of violent conflict in Ireland. During the First World War, the 1916 Easter Rising broke out that had been caused by long-standing sectarian divisions between the Catholic and Protestant population. The subsequent Irish War of Independence (1919–1921) led to the division of Ireland into the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland in 1921 and was followed by the Irish Civil War that continued until 1923. Hobson’s brother, John Bulmer Hobson, was a chief member of the Irish Volunteers and of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB), and although these organizations were involved in the planning of the Easter Rising, Bulmer Hobson was opposed to it and took no part in the fighting. The conflict caused considerable destruction in a number of Irish cities but especially in the center of Dublin. During the period of the Irish War of Independence and the partition of Ireland between 1920 to 1922, demonstrations and rioting also took place in Belfast.30 The damage in Belfast was described in a 1921 appeal for funds issued by the American Committee for Relief in Ireland and the Irish White Cross: Thousands of workers have been thrown out of employment by the burning of factories and creameries, and in consequence of the generally disturbed conditions in Belfast alone, thirty thousand persons, shipyard workers and their families, are on the verge of starvation.31

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Figure 6.3 Florence Fulton Hobson, House in Carnalea, 1914. Plans and elevations. Source: Roger Mitchell.

Figure 6.4 Florence Fulton Hobson, House in Carnalea, 1920–1921. In Maire Garvey, “Ireland’s First Woman Architect: Miss Florence F. Hobson,” The Crystal, September 1927, 263. Source: Roger Mitchell.

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Hobson left the Belfast Corporation in 1921 and during the Belfast Riots worked or volunteered with the Irish White Cross until c. 1922. This relief organization had been founded by the Quaker businessman James G. Douglas (1887–1954) in 1921, and she worked with the Reconstruction Commission that administered repayable loans to rebuild and reconstruct houses and devastated areas.32 The exact nature of her work is not known, but she might have undertaken surveying work, mapped, and assessed damages. Politically motivated disturbances continued in Belfast throughout the 1920s, and economic depression impacted on shipbuilding, textile, and construction industries—in 1929, 28 percent of the insured workforce was unemployed. On the other hand, women over the age of twenty-one gained voting rights and furthered their opportunities in professional fields during the 1920s.33 Women had been given access to universities already in 1908, and after the 1919 Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act, more entered professions such as medicine and law. In 1926, 14 percent of the medical profession in Northern Ireland was female, and a few women had been admitted to the Northern Ireland Bar.34 Hobson, who in all probability was still the only accredited architect in Northern Ireland, built two more houses: “Firenze” for her brother Harold Benjamin (1884–1946) in 1925, also in Carnalea (since destroyed), and a cottage for Helen Chenevix (1886–1963) in Killiney, near Dublin, around the same time.35 While the architecture of “Firenze” was similar to that of her first house, the cottage in Killiney seemed inspired by bungalow architecture rather than by Arts & Crafts architecture. Her client was an Irish Suffragist and trade unionist who founded, together with Louie Bennett (1870–1956), the Irish Women’s Suffrage Federation.36 It could have been Hobson’s mother’s connections that led to this commission, but it could also have been that she met Chenevix

Figure 6.5 Florence Fulton Hobson, Cottage for Helen Chenevix, Killiney, near Dublin, c. 1925. Source: Gary Quigg Photography.

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through Bennett, who had been with the Reconstruction Commission of the Irish White Cross in 1922.37 Altogether Hobson built five houses in independent practice and received a few commissions for shop and house alterations all of which appear to have been related to family members or acquaintances. In 1927 the article “Ireland’s First Woman Architect: Miss Florence F. Hobson” was published in the magazine The Crystal. The author, Maire Garvey, argued that “Homes designed by women for women” would become the slogan for a coming revolution in house design.38 She outlined Hobson’s houses as compact and logical in plan to argue that only a woman is capable of creating practical and labor-saving homes. Hers was an attempt to convince readers that women architects have innate abilities which enable them to design practical and user-friendly houses. Garvey was among a number of mostly female proponents of views that assigned women expert knowledge of domestic arrangements and claimed that they should be the preferred architects of houses.39 The argument did, however, limit Hobson’s 1911 aspirations, where her aim was self-realization within architecture as a whole and where she wrote: Many people declare that women should be domestic architects, and that they would no doubt excel in house designing on account of their special knowledge of domestic arrangements, but this is about as far as they are willing to go; any larger sphere of work has probably never presented itself to the minds of the majority of people.40 Her efforts to initiate a town planning committee in 1913 indicated too that she was indeed interested in “larger spheres of work.” After leaving the Belfast Corporation in 1921 and being unable to attract independent commissions, Garvey’s article nevertheless utilized essentialist reasoning to help Hobson acquire clients. In doing so, she placed Hobson within the above mentioned preexisting binary system that separated the spheres of men’s work and women’s work based on perceived natural abilities. This might have been a consequence of Hobson’s wish for independence. In 1911, she had reflected on obstacles when becoming an architect but did not take into consideration consequences she might have to face as an individual who tried to establish a professional identity that would be dissimilar to that of any woman of her background in Belfast. Garvey’s article can be interpreted as an attempt to synthesize or reconciliate the gap that Hobson created by being a woman and an architect at the same time. In that way, the article utilized essentialist arguments so that Hobson’s identity could be perceived as a natural and appropriate one for a woman in architecture.41 Hobson’s final attempt to gain recognition was a short note in a 1932 newspaper that reminded readers of Hobson: The opening of the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre, which has been built by a woman architect, Miss Elizabeth Scott, reminds me that Ireland has a successful woman architect in the person of Miss Florence Hobson.42 Neither Garvey’s article nor this note had the desired effect; Hobson did not build houses after the cottage in Killiney. During the 1930s she moved to Portrush where she opened a craft shop and retired in 1937.43

Conclusions The example of Charles as the first woman in the RIBA, the support of her mother, and family networks helped Hobson to become an architect. Her employment in the Belfast Corporation, efforts to initiate a town planning committee, and the articles in The Queen and The Crystal show that she made use of opportunities to pursue her goal of practicing architecture. Despite her efforts Hobson 90

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remained an inconsequential pioneer: her licentiate was not an immediate catalyst for women to choose architecture in Northern Ireland, she did not contribute to the history of Northern Irish architecture with a prolific or innovative portfolio, and she did not succeed in establishing a practice that could attract commissions outside the circle of family and acquaintances. Several factors can be suggested that inhibited her establishing an architectural practice.44 Family networks provided Hobson with some commissions but were not far-reaching enough to lead to further work, and war and political turmoil between 1914 and 1923 impacted on the construction industry and inhibited young architects in particular. Mass unemployment in Belfast during the 1920s also reduced opportunities for architects, and it is possible that Hobson’s brother’s involvement in the Easter Rising had detrimental effects on her reputation. In addition to these factors that were shared by most architects at the time, the 1927 article on Hobson not only tried to support her by using essentialist arguments, it also demonstrated the consequences of her transgressing traditions and seeking an independent identity as a woman in architecture—namely, that preexisting notions of what women ought to be and do was incompatible with Hobson’s aspiration to be an architect. While it was possible to become an architect in 1911 when institutional boundaries were in the process of transformation, it was not possible for Hobson to be a woman who practiced architecture.

Notes 1. Special thanks to Roger Mitchell for making Hobson’s papers available but also to Catherine Cotter, James Stevens Curl, Marnie Hays, Robert Heslip, Karen Ledwich, Caroline Maguire, Ryan McBride, Desmond McCabe, Mark McCaughan, Gary Quigg, Shane O’Toole, William Roulston, Lynne Walker, and Peter Walker for information and support. 2. Mary A. Bulmer Hobson, Memoirs of Six Generations (Belfast: Graham and Heslip, 1947), 68. On Hobson see: Tanja Poppelreuter, “Architecture as Method of Self-Realization: The Belfast Architect Florence Fulton Hobson,” in Women Designers, Craftswomen, Architects and Engineers between 1918 and 1945, ed. Marjan Groot et al., 256–67 (Ljubljana: MoMoWo, 2017). “Hobson, Florence Fulton,” Dictionary of Irish Architects: 1720–1940, accessed January  10, 2020, https://bit.ly/2yehR1q; and Cathy Hayes, “Hobson, Florence Fulton,” in Dictionary of Irish Biography, ed. James McGuire and James Quinn (Cambridge University Press and Royal Irish Academy, 2009). 3. H. Larry Ingle, “A Quaker Woman on Women’s Roles: Mary Penington to Friends, 1678,” Signs 16, no. 3 (1991): 587–96, Myrtle Hill and Margaret Ward, “Conflicting Rights: The Struggle for Female Citizenship in Northern Ireland,” in Women and Citizenship in Britain and Ireland in the Twentieth Century, ed. Esther Breitenbach and Pat Thane (London: Bloomsbury, 2010): 113–38. 4. Florence Fulton Hobson, This Is Not A Success Story, Manuscript (in private collection). See also: Florence Fulton Hobson Patterson, Letter to Mr. Sawyer, October 8, 1972 (The Public Record Office Northern Ireland, call no. D4489/11). 5. Lynne Walker, “The Entry of Women into the Architectural Profession in Britain,” Woman’s Art Journal 7, no. 1 (Spring–Summer, 1986): 16, and “The Admission of Lady Associates,” Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects (March 11, 1899): 278–81. 6. Ethel Charles, “A Plea for Women Practising Architecture,” The Builder 82 (February 1902): 179–83. 7. “May Women Practise Architecture?” The British Architect (February 21, 1902): 125. 8. Ibid. 9. Fulton Hobson attended the Friends’ Boarding School in Lisburn and the School of Art in Belfast. Royal Institute of British Architects, Licentiate 794 Florence Fulton Hobson: Statement RIBA (March 20, 1911). 10. “Phillips, J.J. & Son,” Dictionary of Irish Architects: 1720–1940, accessed February 14, 2020, https://bit. ly/2zJzXbV, and “Phillips, James John,” Dictionary of Irish Architects: 1720–1940, accessed January  20, 2020, https://bit.ly/2LAGWXx. “Death of Mr. St. John Phillips,” The Irish Builder and Engineer ( July 27, 1935): 646. 11. Bigger, Francis Joseph, Phillips, Jas. St. J. “Report,” Annual Report & Proceedings: Belfast Naturalists Field-Club 35, Series 2, Part 5 (1897–98): 407. 12. “Northern Whig,” Monday, February 9, 1903, newspaper clipping in RIBA, Licentiate 794. 13. B[ulmer] Hobson, “Some Souterrains in Antrim and Down,” Annual Report & Proceedings: Belfast Naturalists Field-Club 5, Series 2, Part 3 (1903–04): 214. 14. Hobson, Success Story.

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Tanja Poppelreuter 1 5. RIBA, Licentiate 794. 16. The cottages were superintended for B.C. Hobson, who may have been a family member. The lecture was given under the auspices of the Friends Institute. RIBA, Licentiate 794. Florence Fulton Hobson, Handwritten Curriculum Vitae, undated [after 1921] (in private collection). 17. “Munce, James,” Dictionary of Irish Architects: 1720–1940, accessed January 21, 2020, https://bit.ly/2zJ66QU. Hobson, Success Story. 18. Hobson, Success Story; RIBA, Licentiate 794. 19. David M. Walker, “The Architectural Profession in Scotland, 1840–1940: Background to the Biographical Notes,” Dictionary of Scottish Architects 1660–1980, accessed June 12, 2020, www.scottisharchitects.org.uk. 20. Anonymous [Florence Fulton Hobson], “Architecture as a Profession,” The Queen: The Lady’s Newspaper 3391 no. 80 (December 23, 1911), “Public Work and Women’s Employment,” The Queen: The Lady’s Newspaper (February 1912): 284. See also: Poppelreuter, “Architecture as Method,” 256–67. 21. Anonymous [Hobson], “Architecture.” 22. On essentialism see: Ann Heilmann, “Gender and Essentialism: Feminist Debates in the Twenty-first Century,” Critical Quarterly 53, no. 4 (2011): 78–89. 23. Lucy Delap, “Feminist and Anti-feminist Encounters in Edwardian Britain,” Historical Research 78, no. 201 (August 2005): 377–99. 24. Hobson, Curriculum Vitae; Florence Fulton Hobson, Letter to Roger Sawyer, June  2, 1972 (The Public Record Office Northern Ireland, call no. D4489/3). 25. “Town Planning,” Freemans Journal, April 29, 1913, 4. “Municipal Elections in the Provinces,” Irish Times, January 10, 1914. “Town Planning and the Public Health,” Belfast Newsletter, February 19, 1913, 5. 26. “Town-Planning and Public Health: Lecture by Miss F.F. Hobson,” The Northern Whig, February 19, 1913. 27. Freemans Journal, April 29, 1913, 4. 28. Hobson, Curriculum Vitae. The construction of the first house was delayed when the First World War broke out. Hobson, Success Story; also, Florence Fulton Hobson, Letter to Mr. Rollason, November 26, 1976 (in private collection). 29. Florence Fulton Hobson, Letter to Mr. Rollason, May  15, 1977 (in private collection). On Praeger, see: Joseph McBrinn, “ ‘A Populous Solitude’: The Life and Art of Sophia Rosamond Praeger, 1867–1954,” Women’s History Review 18, no. 4 (2009): 577–96. 30. Marc Mulholland, Northern Ireland: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001); Anne Dolan, Commemorating the Irish Civil War: History and Memory, 1923–2000 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006); John Dorney, “Belfast Riots—A Short History,” The Irish Story, accessed July 15, 2020, https://bit.ly/3gasIKl. 31. Richard Campbell et al., Report of American Committee for Relief in Ireland (New York: Treasurer’s and Secretary’s Office 51 Chambers Street, Emigrant Industrial Savings Bank, no date [1921]), 59. 32. Report of American Committee for Relief in Ireland (New York: American Committee for Relief in Ireland, 1922), 57; Irish White Cross Society, Report of the Irish White Cross 31 August 1922 (New York: American Committee for Relief in Ireland), 37. 33. In 1922 in the Free State and in 1928 in Northern Ireland. In the UK, the Representation of the People Act of 1918 had provided voting rights for women over the age of thirty who met a property qualification; the 1928 Equal Franchise Act lifted all age and property restrictions. “Women Get the Vote,” Living Heritage, accessed February 24, 2020, https://bit.ly/30cxD8h. 34. “A Century of Women—1920s,” A Century of Women, accessed July 20, 2020, www.acenturyofwomen.com. 35. Hobson, Success Story. 36. Vivien Kelly, “Irish Suffragettes at the Time of the Home Rule Crisis,” History Ireland 4, no. 1 (Spring 1996): 38. 37. Irish White Cross Society, Report of the Irish, 37. 38. Maire Garvey, “Ireland’s First Woman Architect: Miss Florence F. Hobson,” The Crystal, September 1927, 263. The cottage in Killiney is mentioned here and in “A Woman Architect,” Irish Independent, May 6, 1932, 5. Neither provide a street address or image, but the 1928 entry in Thom’s Directory lists Chenevix’s address on Kilmore Road in Killiney so that this house can be assumed to be the cottage Garvey mentioned. 39. See, for example: Annabel Dott, “The Woman Architect and Her Work,” The Architectural Review 44, no. 261 (August 1918), 31; S.C.M., “Women as Architects: The Training and the Cost,” The Manchester Guardian, September 22, 1922, 4; “Woman and the Home,” The Journal, April 19, 1928, 8. 40. Anonymous [Hobson], “Architecture.” 41. On identity formation see Joan W. Scott, “Fantasy Echo: History and the Construction of Identity,” Critical Inquiry 27, no. 2 (Winter 2001): 284–304. 42. G.G. “A Woman Architect,” Irish Independent, Friday, May 6, 1932.

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“This Is Not a Success Story” 43. The Institute of British Architects, The RIBA Kalendar (London: The Institute of British Architects, 1957–58), 613. 44. Kelly, “Irish Suffragettes at the Time of the Home Rule Crisis,” 38ff.

Bibliography “The Admission of Lady Associates.” Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects (March 11, 1899): 278–81. American Committee for Relief in Ireland. Report of American Committee for Relief in Ireland. New York: American Committee for Relief in Ireland, 1922. Anonymous [Florence Fulton Hobson]. “Architecture as a Profession.” The Queen: The Lady’s Newspaper 3391 no. 80 (December 23, 1911). “Belfast Naturalists’ Field Club. List of Officers.” Annual Report & Proceedings: Belfast Naturalists Field-Club 4, Series 2, Part 5 (1897–8): 407. B[ulmer] Hobson. “Some Souterrains in Antrim and Down.” Annual Report  & Proceedings: Belfast Naturalists Field-Club 5, Series 2, Part 3 (1903–04): 214. Bulmer Hobson, Mary A. Memoirs of Six Generations. Belfast: Graham and Heslip, 1947. Campbell, Richard et al. Report of American Committee for Relief in Ireland. New York: Treasurer’s and Secretary’s Office 51 Chambers Street, Emigrant Industrial Savings Bank, no date [1921]. “A Century of Women—1920s.” A Century of Women. Accessed July 20, 2020. www.acenturyofwomen.com. G.G. “A Woman Architect.” Irish Independent, May 6, 1932, 5. Charles, Ethel. “A Plea for Women Practising Architecture.” The Builder 82 (February 1902): 179–83. “Death of Mr. St. John Phillips.” The Irish Builder and Engineer ( July 27, 1935): 646. Delap, Lucy. “Feminist and Anti-feminist Encounters in Edwardian Britain.” Historical Research 78, no. 201 (August 2005): 377–99. Dolan, Anne. Commemorating the Irish Civil War: History and Memory, 1923–2000. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Dorney, John. “Belfast Riots—A Short History.” The Irish Story. Accessed July 15, 2020. https://bit.ly/3gasIKl. Dott, Annabel. “The Woman Architect and Her Work.” The Architectural Review 44, no. 261 (August 1918): 31. Garvey, Maire. “Ireland’s First Woman Architect: Miss Florence F. Hobson.” The Crystal, September 1927. Hayes, Cathy. “Hobson, Florence Fulton.” In Dictionary of Irish Biography, edited by James McGuire and James Quinn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press and Royal Irish Academy, 2009. Heilmann, Ann. “Gender and Essentialism: Feminist Debates in the Twenty-first Century.” Critical Quarterly 53, no. 4 (2011): 78–89. Hill, Myrtle, and Margaret Ward. “Conflicting Rights: The Struggle for Female Citizenship in Northern Ireland.” In Women and Citizenship in Britain and Ireland in the Twentieth Century, edited by Esther Breitenbach and Pat Thane, 113–38. London: Bloomsbury, 2010. “Hobson, Florence Fulton.” Dictionary of Irish Architects: 1720–1940. Accessed January 10, 2020. https://bit. ly/3dXMibt. Hobson, Florence Fulton. Handwritten Curriculum Vitae [undated, after 1921]. Held in private collection. Hobson, Florence Fulton. This is Not a Success Story. Manuscript. Held in private collection. Hobson, Florence Fulton. Letter to Roger Sawyer. June 2, 1972. Held at the Public Record Office Northern Ireland, call no. D4489/3. Hobson, Florence Fulton. Letter to Mr. Rollason. November 26, 1976. Held in private collection. Hobson, Florence Fulton. Letter to Mr. Rollason. May 15, 1977. Held in private collection. Hobson, Florence Fulton Patterson. Letter to Mr. Sawyer, October 8, 1972. Held at the Public Record Office Northern Ireland, call no. D4489/11. Ingle, H. Larry. “A Quaker Woman on Women’s Roles: Mary Penington to Friends, 1678.” Signs 16, no. 3 (1991): 587–96. Irish White Cross Society. Report of the Irish White Cross 31 August 1922. New York: American Committee for Relief in Ireland, 1922. Kelly, Vivien. “Irish Suffragettes at the Time of the Home Rule Crisis.” History Ireland 4, no. 1 (Spring 1996): 33–38. “May Women Practise Architecture?” The British Architect (February 21, 1902): 125. McBrinn, Joseph. “ ‘A Populous Solitude’: The Life and Art of Sophia Rosamond Praeger, 1867–1954.” Women’s History Review 18, no. 4 (2009): 577–96. Mulholland, Marc. Northern Ireland: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. “Munce, James.” Dictionary of Irish Architects: 1720–1940. Accessed January 21, 2020. https://bit.ly/2X2GEhq. “Municipal Elections in the Provinces.” Irish Times, January 10, 1914.

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Tanja Poppelreuter “Phillips, J.J. & Son.” Dictionary of Irish Architects: 1720–1940. Accessed May 2, 2020. https://bit.ly/2ZawMVq. “Phillips, James John.” Dictionary of Irish Architects: 1720–1940. Accessed May 2, 2020. https://bit.ly/2ZawRsc. Poppelreuter, Tanja. “Architecture as Method of Self-Realization: The Belfast Architect Florence Fulton Hobson.” In Women Designers, Craftswomen, Architects and Engineers between 1918 and 1945, edited by Marjan Groot et al., 256–67. Ljubljana: MoMoWo, 2017. “Public Work and Women’s Employment.” The Queen: The Lady’s Newspaper (February 1912): 284. Royal Institute of British Architects. Licentiate 794 Florence Fulton Hobson Statement RIBA. March 20, 1911. Royal Institute of British Architects. The RIBA Kalendar. London: Royal Institute of British Architects, 1957–8. Scott, Joan W. “Fantasy Echo: History and the Construction of Identity.” Critical Inquiry 27, no. 2 (Winter 2001): 284–304. S. C. M. “Women as Architects: The Training and the Cost.” The Manchester Guardian, September 22, 1922, 4. “Town Planning.” Freemans Journal, April 29, 1913. “Town Planning and the Public Health.” Belfast Newsletter, February 19, 1913. “Town-Planning and Public Health: Lecture by Miss F.F. Hobson.” The Northern Whig, February 19, 1913. Walker, David M. “The Architectural Profession in Scotland, 1840–1940: Background to the Biographical Notes.” Dictionary of Scottish Architects 1660–1980. Accessed June 12, 2020. www.scottisharchitects.org.uk. Walker, Lynne. “The Entry of Women into the Architectural Profession in Britain.” Woman’s Art Journal 7, no. 1 (Spring–Summer, 1986): 13–18. “Woman and the Home.” The Journal, April 19, 1928, 8. “Women Get the Vote.” Living Heritage. Accessed February 2, 2020. https://bit.ly/30cxD8h.

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PART II

Women in the Modern Movement: The First Half of the Twentieth Century The Limits of Engagement in the Architectural Profession and the Agenda of “Modern” Work Part II provides an overview of women’s expanding professional agency in architecture and design during the transformative era of Western modernity in the first half of the twentieth century. The chapters explore the limitations and challenges women encountered in different global regions— Europe, Palestine, and the United States—and the ways they strategized and responded to their assumed societal roles within the networks and economies of the new age. The authors’ research embarks on a variety of theoretical and stylistic alternatives, from industrial modernism or stylistic revivals to organic experimentation, and exposes a series of gendered constructs within this evolving movement. The chapters explore the work of women architects involved in the emerging International Style, with its utilitarian minimalism and spiritual underpinnings; other included studies uncover the work of women practicing architecture within the neoclassical template or those working at the intersections of craft and fine art. In Chapter 7, “Eileen Gray: Invitation to an Intellectual Journey” Carmen Espegel takes on an unmapped territory by presenting Eileen Gray as an outsider to the mainstream of modernity in the 1910s–1920s France and the United Kingdom, who avoided schools and movements and rather sought out her own personal response to the trends, debates, and architectural dilemmas of the early decades of the century. The author follows her career, from creating furniture and objects for a wealthy clientele to practicing architecture in her late forties and building primarily for herself. Eileen Gray’s work is analyzed through the lens of her intuitive approach based on the Hegelian concept of the Zeitgeist. Espegel considers Gray’s creative vocabulary in the context of her reflective, time-bound spiritual and practical experiences and discusses how her powerful designs illustrate investigation into the functional requirements, appropriating ergonomics for domestic life, eschewing overworked clichés, and materializing ideas of various scale with remarkable intensity and flare. In Chapter 8, “Blocks versus Knots: Bauhaus Women Weavers’ Contribution to Architecture’s Canon,” Harriet Harriss revises the contextual modernism of early twentieth-century Germany. She excavates Gottfried Semper’s treatise from half a century ago titled The Four Elements of Architecture, where he asserted that the twisting and knotting of threads, as opposed to the massing of blocks of stone, serves as the foundation from which not only textiles but also buildings were derived and argued that the most fundamental element of both the building and the textile was the knot. In 1919 Walter Gropius declared gender equality at the Bauhaus, yet his pedagogical writings reveal that the “strong male” gender was directed toward architecture, whereas the “beautiful female” gender had to be content with weaving. Within this context, Harriss examines the spatial innovations of textile

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forms and structures created by Gunta Stölzl, Benita Otte, and Anni Albers and explores their influence on architecture, engineering, and contemporary design. Through her research and discussion, Harriss argues for the essential role of female Bauhaus leaders in shaping the experiences suitable for a new lifestyle and asks readers to reconsider these women as role models and key contributors to the professional canon. In Chapter 9, “Lutah Maria Riggs: Portrait of a Modern Revival-Style Architect,” Volker M. Welter addresses women’s agency in the contexts of early twentieth-century US West Coast architecture by analyzing the remarkable contribution of Lutah Maria Riggs. Trained at the University of California, Berkeley, and known as the first locally registered female architect who worked mostly in Santa Barbara and Southern California, Riggs employed a variety of revivalist styles and was recognized as a supreme designer. The author composes a portrait of a powerful individual successfully challenging the field dominated by her male colleagues. At a time when contractors were expanding efforts in affordable mass housing, Riggs mediated between modernism and traditionalism and excelled in residential designs through fostering the notion of domesticity. By examining the work of Lutah Riggs, Welter creates a portrait of an architect who aimed at reconciling a modern lifestyle through her convictions that beauty and connoisseurship remain the basis of architecture. Rixt Hoekstra uncovers the life and work of Han ( Johanna Erna Else) Schröder, one of the first women to practice architecture in the Netherlands, in Chapter 10, “Regarding De Stijl Through a Gender Perspective: The Life and Work of Han Schröder.” By examining the legacy of the De Stijl movement through the prism of gender, she contrasts Schröder’s experiences in the Netherlands in the 1910s–1920s with her teaching in America during the 1960s–1980s. While the membership of the Dutch avant-garde circle of De Stijl is recognized as an exclusively male affair, the author presents a remarkable group of women closely connected to the movement, among them Nelly van Doesburg, a dada musician, artist, and wife of the founder of De Stijl Theo van Doesburg; Mathilda Brugman, a poet and author; and Marjorie Jewel Moss, a British constructivist artist who worked in painting and sculpture. The fact that Han Schröder—the daughter of Truus Schröder, the co-designer of the Rietveld-Schröder House, a UNESCO World Heritage Site built in 1924 in Utrecht—also belongs to that group is largely unknown, and the author asserts that the work of this exceptional forerunner in Dutch and American architectural history should be emphasized in fundamental readings on the built environment. Sigal Davidi in Chapter 11, “Reclaiming the Work of Women Architects in Mandatory Palestine,” provides an assessment of the era of the 1920s–1950s in Palestine and Israel with her discovery of the extraordinary records of women architects in the region. Unlike their European contemporaries working in more conservative professional and social circles, these women played an active role in planning the Jewish community’s institutions and fostering the ideas of modern architecture. The author investigates the awakening of the Zionist movement at the beginning of the twentieth century, which generated immigration waves of European Jews to Palestine under the British Mandate, particularly after the rise of the nazi regime in Germany, and addresses the work of women architects in the country that began in 1921 with the emigration of architect Lotte Cohn from Berlin. The construction boom of the 1930s during the phase of “nation building” provided fifteen remarkable women architects who were active there with unprecedented opportunities to plan new neighborhoods, develop urban projects, and design large-scale public buildings. Davidi identifies this group as a unique phenomenon owing to their common roots in Europe and reclaims their notable achievements. Part II concludes with Chapter 12, “More Than Shelter: Olive Tjaden’s Suburban Projects in New York and Florida” by Millicent Danziger Vollono and Lauren Vollono Drapala. This chapter returns to the 1920s–1940s on the East Coast of the United States and chronicles the practice of Olive Tjaden, a prolific designer who built over two thousand commissions in the twenty years she

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ran her New York office. Tjaden started her career at a moment when residential architecture was part of a national campaign to expand the housing stock of the country. Four years before Tjaden’s graduation from Cornell University’s Architecture Program in 1925, the Commerce Department’s Division of Building and Housing was founded, as well as the nonprofit advocacy organization Better Homes in America. Tjaden was the only female member of the American Institute of Architects for several years, and while forming her own firm in the late 1920s, she capitalized on her gender as a tactical advantage to designing homes. She strategically promoted her work and expertise to women, making use of the networks provided by female-oriented social clubs, and, with the passage of the National Housing Act in 1934 to incentivize private real estate development, she positioned herself as the appointed Loan Inspector for the newly established Federal Housing Agency. Her prolific output and administrative role serve as evidence for the substantial impact she had on Long Island’s residential communities, most notably in Garden City, NY.

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7 EILEEN GRAY Invitation to an Intellectual Journey Carmen Espegel

Introduction Despite the limited number of works that the Anglo-Irish designer and architect Eileen Gray (1878– 1976) has left us, the amazingly high quality of her creative legacy reveals her historical role as one of the most prominent figures of twentieth-century modernism. Her in-depth research into formbuilding rooted in her thorough knowledge of contemporary spiritual and material needs of humanity. She was capable of incorporating subjectivity into the realm of the objective, finding synergies between science and conscience, and integrating rationality and intimacy during the time of great political, economic, and social upheavals. Arguably, the spiritual energy and the vital force conveyed by Eileen Gray’s work stimulated the remarkable aesthetic excellence and transcendence of her trailblazing ideas, paving the way to establishing the paradigms of modernism.1 During the interwar era, her designs were widely published in lead architectural periodicals such as L’Architecture Vivante, L’Architecture d’Aujourd’Hui, Der Baumeister, Les Cahiers d’Art, L’Arredamento Moderno, Wendingen, Vogue, and Harper’s Bazaar. But over the course of the two decades that followed World War II, they virtually disappeared from the professional scene. It was not until 1968 that, thanks to the scholarly contribution by the foremost architectural historian Joseph Rykwert, the work of this “pioneer of modern design” was taken into consideration once again.2 After the famed Hôtel Drouot auction held in Paris in 1972, where personal belongings of the fashion designer and patron Jacques Doucet (1853–1929) were traded and where the folding screen by Gray’s design, ironically named Le Destin, was sold for the considerable sum of 36,000 USD, her name resurfaced in the world of architecture, creating a resurgence of interest in her extraordinary pieces. Eileen Gray, who always designed for herself, that is, for a specific individual, has received the unanimous admiration of the most demanding critics; a broad recognition of her creative, productive career; and an ethical and aesthetic stance of long-standing rigor toward her 150 designs and fortyfive architectural and interior renovation projects, of which only nine were built. Independent and solitary, she was never interested in belonging to a specific group, even though she did have close ties with the most radical avant-garde figures of the time. Her great longevity— her remarkable intellectual production lasted for seventy years—allowed her to observe how her designs served as a link between the efforts of the pioneers of early twentieth-century avant-garde and the critical work of the revisionists toward mid-century modernism. She entered the profession through the world of craftsmanship, making lacquered pieces, and furthered her practice by producing single objects and furniture, as well as developing interior spaces, and finally, at the age of fifty,

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Figure 7.1 Eileen Gray. Portrait by Berenice Abbot, Paris, c. 1926. Source: National Museum of Ireland, Dublin.

she crossed the threshold to the world of architecture. The varied scale of her commissions conferred a remarkable uniqueness to the outstanding range of her creativity.

Gray: A Nonconformist Born into a distinguished family, Eileen Gray spent her youth in her native Ireland and in London, the city that inspired her growing interest for drawing and fine arts. However, she was only able to escape the constraints of Victorianism after emigrating to Paris in 1902, where she continued her studies in graphic arts and painting at the École Colarossi and the Académie Julian. During those tumultuous years, Paris was the renowned capital of Cubism, Art Deco, and Sergei Diaghilev’s Russian ballets, which would greatly influence Gray’s worldview and the way she integrated body and movement into her designs of objects and furniture. The city of Paris “adopted” her, and she spent her life there until her passing in 1976 at the age of ninety-eight. Eileen Gray’s cultural “exile” was shared with that of her compatriots, the Irish avant-garde writer and literary critic James Joyce (1882–1941) and writer and theater director Samuel Beckett (1906–1989). In aspiration to withstand the rigid Victorian morality, they were calling for the incorporation of emotional, vital, and sensitive components into the realm of the arts, perceived through the lens of reason and science. Eileen Gray’s first visit to Paris in 1900 for a World’s Fair was life-changing—two years later she decided to leave the stubborn and constrained British capital and establish herself in France, and she

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settled in a Paris apartment on Rue Bonaparte. The City of Light provided the setting for extraordinary avant-garde movement bursting into the artistic scene, and despite her shyness, Gray felt at home in this bohemian atmosphere. With the assistance of the Japanese craftsman Seizo Sugawara, she perfected her lacquering technique and started decorating large surfaces, experimenting with metal, mother of pearl incrustations, and bas-reliefs, while expanding her chromatic palette beyond the traditional range of colors toward including deeper blues and greens. She sought to bring the opposites together in an attempt to create integrative designs that merged modernism and tradition, functionalism and spirituality, abstraction and figurativeness. Arguably, that approach would explain why Le Destin, the folding screen commissioned by Jacques Doucet and designed in 1913, paved the path that Gray would take to create her modernist pieces. In this work made of four panels lacquered in an intense red color, she combined sinuous abstract lines on the back side with an allegorical front side imagery depicting two naked youths, one of whom carried an old man wrapped in a cloak. The clash of styles presented the unique new take toward the syncretism of her future designs. Eileen’s passion for travel led her to a transatlantic journey to New York in 1912, and she spontaneously decided to cross the entire North American continent by train all the way to California and then travel along the coast from San Francisco to Seattle. During World War I, she resided in London and continued to work on lacquered pieces with Sugawara, yet without visible commercial success. Her first notable interior design commission, aimed at integrating lacquered work, textiles, and furniture, was the Rue de Lota apartment in Paris, which belonged to Madame Mathieu-Lévy, the second owner of the Suzanne Talbot Fashion House. Gray started working on that project upon her return to Paris at the end of war, and it turned into an ongoing effort consisting of several phases. Gray was immersed in the eccentric and sensual Orientalist atmosphere of the time, yet she managed to keep a distance between her bohemian circle and her practical commission, conceiving of a proposal that was functional and abstract at the same time and therefore contained essentially modern properties while also conveying an outspoken respect toward the stylistic revival. Her sumptuous furnishings were contrasted not only with panels decorated with a rhythmically undulating motif but also with an extensive collection of antique art. In her last intervention in 1924, this contrast was enhanced by incorporating vestibule spaces decorated with 450 lacquered black blocks, creating an effective, cohesive atmosphere. In 1922, following the business model established by the French architect and designer Pierre Chareau (1883–1950) and craftsman and interior designer Francis Jourdain (1876–1958), Eileen Gray established her own shop in Paris, the Galerie Jean Désert on 217 Rue de Faubourg SaintHonoré, a store that sold her own pieces and remained open until 1930. That commercial space witnessed a gradual transformation of the artist, from the aesthetics of decorativism to the splendors of pragmatic modernism. Gray seemed to have a profound knowledge of the materials she worked with, their raison d’être, and their limitations and peculiarities, be it steel, sycamore wood, or celluloid. A team of artisans assisted her in perfecting each piece, following consecutive experiments and tests. Her synthetic approach balanced the intellectual rigor with the meticulous precision of manual labor. For her first designs, set in the world of Art Deco, she chose highly sensual, luxurious, and sumptuous materials, while for her later works she focused on the industrial austerity of modern matter. Gray’s mysterious Boudoir Monte-Carlo, displayed at the Salon des Artistes Décorateurs in the Pavillon de Marsan in 1923, was the unambiguous predecessor of what would be her open plan spaces divided into different areas by the use of furniture. This eclectic piece blended a variety of practical uses together to create an autonomous atmosphere brought to life by a breath of lyricism. Its size and transformative properties were conceived as the traits of a complex cell envisaged to accommodate a personal pursuit of an individual, an idea that would inspire the Modern Movement.

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Figure 7.2 Chambre à coucher-boudoir Monte-Carlo, design by Eileen Gray, exhibited in the XIV Salon des Artistes Décorateurs, 1923. Source: Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Credit: © The National Museum of Ireland and Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

Gray: A Modernist From 1924, her personal relationship with Jean Badovici (1893–1956) greatly influenced Gray’s professional life by orienting her career toward architecture and modernism. Badovici, a Romanian architect and critic resettled to Paris, in 1923–1933 codirected with Christian Zervos and Albert Morancé one of the most prestigious periodicals in Europe of the time, L’Architecture Vivante, which published the iconic works of the new, modern, international architecture. Around 1926, Badovici commissioned Gray to design a small refuge for him in southern France, with the aim of creating a pioneering, experimental model integrating the ideals of the Modern Movement. Gray, a woman of talent and a great open mind who also retained sufficient financial resources, purchased a plot and gave it to her partner as a present, and there she began to learn the practice of architecture, by frequently using L’Architecture Vivante as a textbook. Gray’s approach to architecture was self-taught; a radical change took place in her career with the design of the villa in Roquebrune, the E.1027 or Maison en Bord de Mer, where with a critical stance, she adhered to the ideals of the avant-garde.3 In this small but infinite house, the human existence reverberated toward a phenomenological experience. The primary functions of the house were hidden in order to reveal new, previously unheard of uses, turning the dweller into an actor that dialogued with an inventive and eventful stage set–like design. Gray transformed useful practical elements into the objects of art, thus creating a place for laidback enjoyment. 102

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Figure 7.3 Living room of E.1027, design by Eileen Gray and Jean Badovici, 1929. Source: © The National Museum of Ireland and Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Courtesy: Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

By combining two compositional principles which, a priori, were antithetical, such as the collageobjet trouvé and symmetry, Gray revealed her creative abilities. First, she placed a set of unassociated elements in one continuous space, bringing them together and forming a balanced unit with parts that complemented one another. In the same way, the syntactic rules of a plastic composition were based on the actions of decentering, joining, or folding volumes and surfaces. In E.1027 the eclecticism manifested itself by Gray’s view on modernism, which for her was rooted both in English domesticity and in the Mediterranean tradition. The rationalist functionality of the Anglo-Saxon interior and the Mediterranean approach toward the relationship with its natural surroundings—for example, the implementation of architectural elements that mediate between the interior and the exterior, along with the use of climate control features—made the house an extraordinary object of the avant-garde. Traditional separation of interior design and architecture was irrelevant, due to an ongoing process of transformation from immobile elements to movable furniture. Her holistic approach to architectural workmanship led Gray toward the integration of a wide variety of artwork. Her walls became more solid by incorporating dense macrostructures used as furniture. Similarly, fixed and movable objects constantly made spaces vary and change. Walls, windows, awnings, niches, partitions, builtin features, curtains, folding screens, rugs, and chaises constituted a multilayered, choreographed architectural composition filled with lyrics and poetry. Even the names she gave to her pieces of furniture presented a combination of enigmatic and modern tones, that is, the Nonconformist chair, the Transat chair, and the Bibendum chair. 103

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Gray: A Builder Eileen Gray experimented with industrial materials and new assembly techniques, both in her designs for the Maison en Bord de Mer and for the furniture she continued to produce for the Jean Désert gallery. The combination of intellectual and trade-based approaches enabled her to imply correct construction methods and perfectly execute her designs. Retrospectively, her pieces of furniture did not belong to a specific style; what defined them was their efficiency. Her advanced pieces differed greatly from her first exercises. After the construction was finished in 1929, she became a founding member of the Union des Artistes Modernes (UAM), along with Pierre Chareau, René Herbst, Le Corbusier, Robert MalletStevens, Jean Prouvé, Sonia Delaunay, the sculptors Jean and Joël Martel, and Gustave Miklós, among others. The UAM united interior designers and architects who opposed the conservative positions of the dominant Société des Artistes Décorateurs. In 1929, Gray reconstructed Badovici’s Parisian apartment on Rue de Chateaubriand. In developing the designs for this place with an irregular plan and a single room of barely forty square meters, she took to the extreme the utilitarian approach that she experimented with at Roquebrune. The most audacious area was the hallway, which also served as the entrance to the bathroom, and included ceiling storage spaces as well as the kitchen closet camouflaged by shiny curtains and perforated steel screens.

Figure 7.4 Apartment for Jean Badovici on the Rue de Chateaubriand, design by Eileen Gray, 1929. Detail of the entry-storage and shower with metallic curtain. Source: National Museum of Ireland, Dublin.

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Two events marked the year 1930 for Eileen Gray: the closing of the Jean Désert Gallery and the presentation of E.1027: Maison en Bord de Mer at the first exhibition of the Union des Artistes Modernes held at the Pavillon de Marsan in the Tuileries Palace in Paris. In the designs that followed, she continued her research. Just a few years later, Gray and Badovici separated, and she moved to what would become her new summer home near the mountains of Castellar, Tempe à Pailla, where the simplicity of Roquebrune evolved into elaborate yet less spectacular designs. The house was built by adoptive reuse of the existing structure of water cisterns, two of which were turned into a garage and a basement. Both at Tempe à Pailla and at E.1027, Gray incorporated an interior skin that had greatly impacted the living spaces. In 1936, when vacationing in France became a conventional practice, Gray designed a complex Centre de vacances that combined a permanent infrastructure with a series of temporary housing units. The permanent section accommodated several types of properties—the dormitories, bathrooms, and laundromat on the upper level, and a kitchen, dining room, and library on the ground floor. Gray also designed another building with a restaurant and several dining halls and foresaw the installation of a series of cultural and sports facilities. After the end of World War II, she designed a Centre culturel et social, a multifunctional place with a distinctive roof that served as the ceiling over the large performance hall and as the seating area of an outdoor amphitheater. The facility also accommodated a restaurant, a library, and an exhibition room. When she was seventy-five years old, Eileen Gray started a new building project, Lou Pérou, the extension of an old cabin finished in 1958 that would become her last summer residence looking over St. Tropez. A stone wall enveloped the building along the perimeter, “creating a terrace and a garden at the same level as the house. To the west of the existing structure, she built a new wing with a kitchen, bathroom, bedroom and a loggia.”4

Gray: A Precursor Eileen Gray’s works became the basis for a critical revision of the Modern Movement—they amalgamated the variety of trends of the 1920s avant-garde, and they breathed life into the stubborn rationalism. In the late 1950s, the third generation of modernists would adopt these premises by establishing a meaningful reverse from the functionalist orthodoxy through a deeper understanding of the context and regional and social factors. By resorting to the world of senses as opposed to the mere rationalism, Eileen Gray was a pioneer, and that was her argument in the conversation with Jean Badovici, published in the magazine L’Architecture Vivante along with the article illuminating E.1027. In her response to the question that Badovici suggested in that dialogue, about her take on the challenges of the theoretical abstraction of modern architecture not being able to meet the spiritual or physical needs of humanity, Gray stated that the syncretism of both concepts—science-abstraction and senses-spirituality—was inevitable. She noted that intellectual frigidity was needed for modern architecture to grow roots and develop but that the time of transition had passed, and now people who inhabited architecture return “to an emotion purified by knowledge, enriched by ideas including the knowledge and understanding of scientific achievements.”5 This relatively utopian stance reflected on her study of the idea of human habitat with the aim of improving it that led her to projects she carried out after Roquebrune, with the focus on minimum dwellings, collective buildings, and designs for the vacation center. Few architects have expressed so much meaning in such a limited set of built objects. Her self-imposed obligation to adhere to the essence of things and to renounce ornamentation did not pilot a sterile functionalism. To the contrary, there is an extraordinary quality that gives those objects, which in a way are colloquial, a secret

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magnetic attraction, a sheen that keeps them alive in our memory. Gray’s work, firmly sustained by her refined command of the construction trade, and her dexterous understanding of art as a vicarious extension of life, remained unequaled.

Eileen Gray and the Great Figure of Reference Gray and Le Corbusier shared certain ideological stances in the sense that they both understood architecture as a form of art. However, Gray rejected an epical approach to practice and chimerical idealism, choosing instead a more lyrical, everyday path. Her revolutionary perspective was more democratic, since she understood the individual as a specific being and not as a generic entity, unlike Le Corbusier, who had more elitist, abstract, and solipsistic views. Gray’s position is utopian in a positivist sense, not because she hoped to free society from suffering but because she researched human habitat through the E.1027 house in order to improve it. Let us recall her later designs regarding minimum dwellings, collective housing, and the vacation center.6 At the Maison en Bord de Mer, she did not use mechanical analogies to mimic the form of a machine but focused on functional efficiency. The concept of a machine was implemented, instead, as a design mechanism, from the application of the “camping” style, to the division of spaces, to the noble presentation of all utilities, without diminishing the frankness of the idea by distorting it into decorativeness.7 The Taylorist notion of efficiency, economy, productivity, and precision was consented and used by Eileen Gray as a representation of maxims in her design for E.1027. Gray aimed to convey mystery in her designs. In this sense, a door was a passage to a surprise, a wish to penetrate, and a transition that was about to reveal the pleasure of suspense. Le Corbusier admired the E.1027 villa and admitted that the house was a product of a sophisticated intellectual process.8 Le Corbusier visited Roquebrune frequently, and there he discovered Gray’s design for the vacation center and decided to offer her a stand at the Pavillon des Temps Nouveaux at the 1937 International Exhibition in Paris. He described the project enthusiastically in the catalogue Des Canons, Des Munitions? Merci! Des Logis … S.V.P.9 There are many affinities between Gray’s and Le Corbusier’s proposals. In fact, Stanislaus von Moos even speculated that the master collaborated with her in the design of E.1027, saying that “he was a friend of Badovici and probably supported his efforts to become an architect. … It is certainly no accident that it shows similarities with the house that Le Corbusier built for his mother in Vevey in 1923.”10 Le Corbusier would later write a letter to Gray praising the villa and recognizing that she was the author, even though he also expressed a veiled criticism toward certain details, such as his suggestion to Badovici to remove the curved screen at the entrance, something that, fortunately, the latter never did.11 Le Corbusier argued that this piece was a visual obstacle that prevented the direct, panoramic perception of interior spaces, an interpretation that disputed Gray’s proposal of a refined progression and gradation of privacy in the entrance area. In 1938 and 1939, Le Corbusier painted several frescoes in the Maison without even asking permission from the architect. This action, which hurt Gray deeply to the point of considering it an act of vandalism, led to the eventual distancing of the Gray-Badovici couple from the master. In total, Le Corbusier painted seven murals, of which five still remain in the house, one of them covering the service entrance in the vestibule, thus invalidating the beautiful and enigmatic entrance that Gray had conceived; another one spans the white wall behind the large divan in the multipurpose room, thus altering the peaceful resting place that she had envisioned.12 The third mural was painted on the wall that separated the dining room from the staircase, the fourth in the guest room, and the fifth and most well known of them all, titled Sous les Pilotis, was materialized on the ground-floor wall between the porch and the house. Both the iconography used by Le Corbusier, nudes with a highly erotic component, and the forceful plasticity of the figures

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Figure 7.5 Fresco by Le Corbusier on the wall of E.1027 between the living room and the shower area, 1937–1938. Source: Frescos Le Corbusier/ADAGP, 2015, L4 (10)53.

came into conflict with the softness and gradual fluidity of the interior spaces of the villa, also affecting the subtle balance that existed between the architectural elements. After the painting of the murals, the relationship between Le Corbusier and Gray deteriorated. In April 1948, in a special issue of L’Architecture d’Aujourd’Hui dedicated to Le Corbusier, the master stated that: this villa which I have animated with paintings was very beautiful, with a white interior, and could have well done without my talent…  The walls chosen to receive the nine grand murals were precisely the dullest, the most insignificant. In this manner, the beautiful walls remain and the indifferent ones become interesting.13 Gray’s name was not even mentioned in a footnote, and Le Corbusier never attributed the work to her until he wrote the epitaph on Badovici’s passing in 1956. There is an interesting epilogue to the story of E.1027 that brings Gray, Badovici, and Le Corbusier back together. In 1950, the master bought a small plot next to the Maison, and there, two years later, he built his experimental cell, the Cabanon, in the hope that one day he would also own the villa. After Badovici’s death, the property was passed on to his sister, a nun who lived in Romania, and Le Corbusier persuaded his Swiss friend, architect Mme. Schelbert, to buy it, which she did in the belief that the house had been built by Le Corbusier himself. Eileen Gray never entered the house again—she

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was not even able to collect her furniture—but Mme. Schelbert kept the house exactly the way Gray had it while she lived there, and she invited Le Corbusier over for a longer stay. In August 1965, at the age of seventy-eight, the master went down to the sea for a swim and never came back.

Conclusion: Mediterranean Sensuality Throughout Eileen Gray’s work, and especially in the Maison en Bord de Mer, there is a persistent, radical, pioneering idea that serves as the unifying thread of her creative career: the Mediterranean sensuality, understood as a form of living and a culture of a vital bond with the environment. The Mediterranean culture and modernity are concepts that even the theorists of the Modern Movement linked together in order to conceal their rebellion against history. From the Mediterranean tradition, modernism took external parameters that, actually, determined it, such as pure, noble, fresh, and abstract whiteness; clear-edged volumes; and the flatness of the roofs. However, very few modernist buildings convey the knowledge of use of light and itineraries, the mixed spatial gradations between the exterior and the interior, the defensive and erotic forms of concealment, the infinite gray areas between the open and closed spaces, the richness of light-control mechanisms, and the lucid, contemplative, classical features that are intrinsic to Mediterranean architecture—the traits that, however, can be found in the Maison en Bord de Mer. Many of the parameters that differentiate a villa from a house were adopted at Roquebrune—the culture of leisure that it encourages with its spaces for reading or enjoying music; the promise of isolation that it offers by means of its multiple and unique partitions between rooms; the invitation it makes for self-search as an individual and as member of an intellectual collective; the spatial

Figure 7.6 Terrace of E.1027 by Eileen Gray and Jean Badovici, furnished with a rug and the Transat chair, both design by Eileen Gray. Source: National Museum of Ireland, Dublin.

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richness that it conveys by expanding inner spaces outward while also compressing them inward; the construction of a lost paradise recreating a lifestyle that shuns class and gender; the way it becomes a cultural symbol that expresses its ideological commitment to the creative avant-garde; the way it harbors individual development without renouncing the collective by endlessly searching for multiplicity; how it reflects on anthropomorphism and ergonomics and establishes a relationship and a dialogue between art and nature with the coetaneous use of naturalism and artifice; its search for privileged views while avoiding being seen; the certain ambiguity it transmits, in the sense of the “fourth dimension” between reality and illusion that Goethe mentioned, by the thoughtful use of materials, geometries, and spaces; the mechanisms used to represent the inhabitant through signs and symbols that can only be understood and deciphered by followers; the mutation that takes place from the cult of construction to the art of the void by conforming spaces without physical barriers; the form in which it humanizes nature to give it its real scale, highlighting and dramatizing the outer universe by introducing a measured geometry. It also reveals an understanding of a culture that is deeply rooted, slow, simple, and dramatic. E.1027 stipulates an abstraction of modernity due to fact that it is located in a specific place. It is a “regional” house, in the best sense of the word, if we consider it the spearhead of the movement that would reinterpret modernist postulates in the 1950s and 1960s.14 However, Martienssen, in his article “Mediterranean Houses,” published in the South African Architectural Record in 1941, argued that it was a highly abstract work, antithetical in its approach to more vernacular stances and a rationalized solution to Mediterranean issues when compared to the works that Gio Ponti (1891–1979) or Bernard Rudofsky (1905–1988) built in this same geographical region. Rykwert elaborated that Gray delivered the language of the Modern Movement in this house, even though it was an “original interpretation” of it. The integration of modernity and the Mediterranean character is readable in the design of the entrance, reflecting in its functionality on the Mediterranean paradigm by channeling a zigzag layout, producing a gradual and erotic access. Moreover, the “mechanical windows” recall the fenêtres en longueur of modernist orthodoxy, but they are taller, in accordance with the Mediterranean tradition. They play a crucial role in the masterful permanent ventilation system and almost reach the floor level in order to offer views of the plot, thus conveying the feeling of all-embracing openness, conceived as screens in themselves, given their lightness and mobility as objects and their capacity to transform closed spaces. The flat roof also addresses this approach by the way it intertwines the modernist cannon with the Mediterranean environment: double-layered, it provides shade and cross-ventilation. While the Maison is greatly indebted to the Mediterranean tradition, it also peeks into the future, sensing and pioneering architectural aspects that would be clearly defined in years to come, that is, vitality, randomness, a complex understanding of interior design and architecture, mobility, and transience. From the 1970s onward, Gray’s work would turn into a subject of research interest for critics because of their unique interpretation of the otherwise unyielding premises of the Modern Movement. Eileen Gray’s work could be summarized as a condensation of and a careful balance between varieties of contemporary architectural trends. The value of her work resides in that it is synthetic, dialectic, and mystifying, yet rational. Her ethical and aesthetic commitment achieves, without succumbing to eclecticism, a simultaneity of the classical and the modern vocabulary. This reveals her great talent and refinement which, in turn, enabled her to produce more diverse and complex designs, resulting in an architecture as an enduring query.

Notes 1. In the article that Jean Badovici, an architect and architecture critic active in Paris, published in 1924 about the Boudoir Monte-Carlo, titled “Eileen Gray. Interior 1922,” which can be considered a first encounter

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Carmen Espegel of the ideas Badovici and Gray would develop on the Maison en Bord de Mer in 1929, the author elaborated on the role of an artist as the conveyer of the internal connection between humanity and the universe: “The role of an artist is to foresee the eternal movement of sensibilities, to express the secret relationships between mankind and the universe, and to discover the uncharted paths that science only reveals as abstract and theoretical implications.” He further argued that “among the works of all artists of our time … nobody contributes more than Eileen Gray, in adherence with the laws of the mysterious world that science reveals to us.” He also implied that “her work is not a more or less laborious application of abstract concepts, it is the evidence to a rising integrative spirit” of the time and that Eileen’s “strong, albeit restless personality, inspires the austerity of the geometric constructions” and her “breath of deep lyricism enlivens the abstract conception.” Jean Badovici, “Eileen Gray. Interior 1922,” L’Architecture Vivante (Fall–Winter 1924): 27–28. Translated from French by the author. 2. Joseph Rykwert, “Eileen Gray: Pioneer of Design,” Architectural Review (December 1972): 357–61. 3. The alphanumeric game expressed in E.1027 is a reference to the collaboration between Eileen Gray and Jean Badovici for the construction of this project. The code was E = Eileen, 10 = Jean, 2 = Badovici, 7 = Gray. 4. Carmen Espegel, Women Architects in the Modern Movement (New York: Routledge, 2018), 122. 5. Jean Badovici and Eileen Gray, “De l’Éclectisme au Doute (Dialogue),” in L’Architecture Vivante (London: Da Capo Press & Trewin Copplestone Pub. Ltd, 1975), 17–21. 6. Petite Maison 2 (40 sq. m for a couple with two children), Petite Maison 4 (37 sq. m for a couple with four children), Maison Minimum 5 (33 sq. m for a couple with two children). In Stefan Hecker and Christian F. Müller, Eileen Gray, Works and Projects (Barcelona: Gustavo Gili, 1993), 164–66; Maison Famille Nombreuse, Maison Collective (forty-two housing units for two, three, or seven people). In Hecker and Müller, Eileen Gray, 168–71: A design carried out between 1935 and 1937 combined a residential building, a restaurant complex, a theater, a gymnasium, demountable stalls, and prefab concrete homes (Maison en Ellipse). It included graphic material, a model, and photographs and was on display in Le Corbusier’s Pavillon des Temps Nouveaux in 1937. See: Hecker and Müller, Eileen Gray, 196–207. 7. Description: L’Architecture Vivante (Fall–Winter 1929): 25–28. 8. Le Corbusier even gave the South African architect Rex Martienssen a guided tour of the house in 1938; later, Martienssen would publish it under the title “Mediterranean Houses” in the South African Architectural Record (October 1941): 350–58. 9. Le Corbusier, Des Canons, des Munitions? Merci! Des Logis … S.V.P. (Paris: L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui, 1937): 96–97. 10. Stanislaus von Moos, “Le Corbusier 1933–1960,” Oppositions 19, no. 20 (Winter/Spring 1980): 106. 11. Quoted from the letter that Le Corbusier wrote to Jean Badovici in 1949, in which he criticized the spinescreen furniture piece at the entrance. In the same letter he included a sketch of the entrance of E.1027: Je vous conseille de dévisser dans la salle cette guimbarde en contreplaqué qui ne fait qu’un pseudo et illusoire pendant à celle de la salle de bains. Votre pièce se transformera et l’entrèe en sera tout autre. I recommend that you disassemble this piece of junk made of plywood that is nothing more than a pseudo illusory companion of the one that exists in the shower area. This room will change and the entrance will be totally different. Document from the Archives Fondation Le Corbusier, Paris 12. Le Corbusier himself, as well as other historians, mentions nine paintings, even though only seven have been documented. 13. Reference made to frescoes painted by Le Corbusier in villas at Cap-Martin and at Vézelay. L’Architecture d’Aujourd’Hui, Special issue dedicated to Le Corbusier (April 1948). 14. In reference to Kenneth Frampton’s statement on regionalism.

Bibliography Adam, Peter. Eileen Gray, Architect/Designer. New York: Harry N. Abrams Inc, 1987. Badovici, Jean. “Interior 1922, Par Sileen [sic] Gray.” L’Architecture Vivante 6 (Fall–Winter 1924): 27–28, 36. Volumes 1–5. London: Da Capo Press & Trewin Copplestone Publishing Ltd, 1975. Badovici, Jean. “L’Art d’Eileen Gray.” Wendingen 6, no. 6 (Amsterdam 1924). Special edition dedicated to Eileen Gray. Badovici, Jean. “Eileen Gray.” In Intérieurs Français, 14–15. Paris: Éditions Albert Morancé, 1925. Colomina, Beatriz. “Battle Lines: E.1027.” In The Sex of Architecture, edited by Diane Agrest, Patricia Conway, and Leslie Kanes Weisman, 167–90. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc, 1996.

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Eileen Gray Constant, Caroline. “The Nonheroic Modernism of Eileen Gray.” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 53, no. 3 (September 1994): 265–79. “Eileen Gray [Villa Tempe à Pailla].” L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui 210 (September 1980): 6–9. Espegel, Carmen. Women Architects in the Modern Movement. New York: Routledge, 2018. Garner, Philippe. Eileen Gray: Design and Architecture, 1878–1976. Cologne: Benedikt Taschen Verlag GmbH, 1993. Giedion, Sigfried. “L’Architecture Contemporaine dans les Pays Méridionaux.” Les Cahiers d’Art, no. 2 (1931): 102–9. Gray, Eileen. “Intérieur à Paris, 1924.” L’Architecture Vivante (Fall–Winter 1926): 32. London: Da Capo Press & Trewin Copplestone Publishing Ltd, 1975. Gray, Eileen, and Jean Badovici. “E.1027: Maison en Bord de Mer, and De l’Éclectisme au Doute.” L’Architecture Vivante (Fall–Winter 1929): 17–38, 27–59. Volume 1–5. London: Da Capo Press & Trewin Copplestone Publishing Ltd, 1975. Gray, Eileen, and Jean Badovici. “La Maison Minimum.” L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui 1, no. 1 (November 1930). Hecker, Stefan, and Christian F. Müller. Eileen Gray, Works and Projects. Barcelona: Gustavo Gili, 1993. Johnson, J. Stewart. Eileen Gray, Designer: 1879–1976. Exhibition catalogue. London: Victoria  & Albert Museum, 1979, and New York: MOMA, 1980. L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui (April 1948). Special issue dedicated to Le Corbusier. Le Corbusier. Des Canons, des Munitions? Merci! Des Logis … S.V.P. Paris: L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui, 1937. Loye, Brigitte. Eileen Gray, 1879–1976: Architecture Design. Paris: Analeph/J.P. Viguier, 1984. Martienssen, Rex. “Mediterranean Houses.” South African Architectural Record (October 1941): 350–58. “Projet pour un Centre Culturel par Eileen Gray.” L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui 82 (1959): 41. Rayon, Jean Paul. “Eileen Gray: L’Étoile du Nord et L’Étoile du Sud.” In De Stijl et l’Architecture en France. Exhibition catalogue. Paris: Institute Française d’Architecture (IFA). Liege-Brussels: Pierre Mardaga, 1985. Reichlin, Bruno. “Das Fass des Diogenes Wird Wohnlich.” Archithese 4, no. 91 (1991): 72–75. Rubino, Luciano. “Eileen Gray (1879–1976): una Designer Contro il ‘Camping-style’.” In Le Spose Del Vento: la Donna Nelle Arti e Nel Design Degli Ultimi Cento Anni. Verona: Giorgio Bertani, 1979. Rubino, Luciano. “Eileen Gray (1879–1976): un Secolo di Totale Dedizione.” In Dalla Francia dell’Art Déco Verso un’Architettura Vera, edited by Pierre Chareau and Bernard Bijvoet. Rome: Edizioni Kappa, 1982. Rykwert, Joseph. “Un Omaggio a Eileen Gray. Pioniera del Design.” Domus 469 (1968): 21–34. Rykwert, Joseph. “Eileen Gray: Pioneer of Design.” Architectural Review CLII (December 1972): 357–61. Sartoris, Alberto. Gli elementi dell’Architettura Funzionale. Milan: Ulrico Hoepli Editore, 1931. Wils, Jan. “Eileen Gray, Meubelen en Interieurs.” Wendingen 6, no. 6 (1924). Special edition dedicated to Eileen Gray.

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8 BLOCKS VERSUS KNOTS* Bauhaus Women Weavers’ Contribution to Architecture’s Canon Harriet Harriss

Introduction In his pioneering treatise entitled The Four Elements of Architecture (1851), German architect Gottfried Semper (1803–1879) asserted that the threading, twisting, and knotting of threads—as opposed to the massing of blocks of stone—are the foundation from which all else was derived, not just textiles but buildings. He added that “the beginning of buildings coincides with the beginning of textiles” and that the most fundamental element of both building and textiles was the knot, a unifying component asserting interdependence between the two spheres of making.1 Despite their shared DNA, textiles and architecture (building) continue to be taught separately and largely practiced separately too. When questioning why this might be, the gender associations of these disciplines seem an obvious starting point for further analysis. Could it be that (male-dominated) architecture perceives its intimate connection to (female-dominated) textiles as a threat to its assumed supremacy? Or, is this boundary reinforced purely for aesthetic rather than gender-sensitive reasons, for example, due to architecture’s ongoing status anxiety as to whether it is more art than craft?2 There may of course be other reasons, or it may be a combination of both. However, one of the most compelling arguments in support of these tentative hypotheses is provided in Walter Gropius’s Bauhaus.3 Upon opening the school in 1919, he originally declared “equality between the sexes”; how these overtures played out in practice was a different matter. Although Gropius had insisted that there would be “no difference between the beautiful and the strong sex,” these terminologies are problematic in themselves. The “strong sex” (men) were directed toward painting, carving, and, from 1927 onward, architecture; in contrast, the “beautiful sex” (women) were required to study weaving.4 This disciplinary gender apartheid was most likely a consequence of Gropius’s belief that women thought in two dimensions, whereas men thought in three.5 Subsequently, weaving and textiles became the medium through which women could, perhaps subversively, express their threedimensional talent and architectural creativity. Whereas the men of the Bauhaus, such as Walter Gropius and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886– 1944), are captured in history as having made a seminal impact upon architecture, and proved themselves pivotal to its advancement, the Bauhaus weavers were afforded no such accolade. Instead, the women weavers’ contribution to architecture has been either undervalued or ignored—or wrongly attributed to a master—with the exception of Anni Albers, who only became successful after she abandoned the Bauhaus in 1933.

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Having been denied their rights to equal participation in the architecture workshop, Gunta Stölzl, Benita Otte, Anni Albers, Otti Berger, and even the “failed” weavers Lilly Reich and Alma Siedhoff-Buscher found other means to generate architectural outcomes. This is what this chapter seeks to evidence, and in doing so it builds the case for a historical restitution of the Bauhaus women as spatial producers into the canon of architecture. It does this in several ways. It reexamines the textile-making processes and material outputs of the Bauhaus women, the context in which they worked, and the gendered partitioning of acts of making. It interrogates their work in relation to established gender stereotypes in architecture, including notions of the lone male architect, and how modernist writers and formalist art historians throughout the twentieth century have chosen to privilege the architecture of men. It also considers the extent to which the weavers’ work involved three-dimensional, spatial experimentation and prototyping, such as “supporting, impeding or modifying” the tensions between structure and material, and how these processes are profoundly connected to architectural production and therefore provide an alternative material record of the principals of architecture during the early twentieth century.6 Finally, it demonstrates the extent to which their work continues to impact upon the theories, pedagogies, and practices of today’s architectural making and spatial outputs and how it has helped to rehabilitate the previously partitioned but fundamentally connected disciplines of textiles and architecture.

Gendered Making The identification of weaving as female far preceded Gropius, or indeed Le Corbusier’s edicts: “There is a hierarchy in the arts: decorative art at the bottom, and the human form at the top. Because we are men.”7 The problem emerged in the Middle Ages, when woven textiles were categorized as craft rather than as art and, as a consequence, were considered inferior until after the establishment of eighteenth-century Renaissance academies.8 The emergence of Arts and Crafts (UK and US), Art Nouveau (France), Jugendstil (Germany), and Modérn (Russia) in the late nineteenth century and their collective emphasis upon “applied arts” repatriated textiles to spheres of artistic rather than craft production, although they were commonly categorized as “decorative art,” a convention that many feminist scholars have since identified as a term used to partition women’s craft work from men’s craft work. Subsequently, the term “decorative art” was typically applied in a pejorative manner to mean “female.” For Gropius, “decorative arts dilettantism” meant “amateur,” which is what his exclusion of women would only serve to reinforce.9 His views were likely informed by those of Adolf Loos (1870–1933), whose infamous Ornament and Crime (1908) rejected decoration and ornamentation, associating them with an array of perceived negative characteristics including “femininity,” and served to reinforce assumptions about women’s relationship (or lack thereof) to the making of modern design.10 Perhaps both Loos and Gropius were resisting the humanist legacy of the Arts and Crafts movement (1880–1910), whose emphasis upon designing for the domestic environment and the value of skills that were widely considered feminine had allowed many women to participate in creative culture, albeit largely due to the fact that craftwork was seen as a natural extension of their traditional domestic roles. For Loos, the absence of ornamentation was a prerequisite to the “evolution of culture.”11 Subsequently, when Gropius insisted on partitioning disciplines by gender and restricting the number of courses available to women for fear the reputation of the school would be damaged, this seemed like a surprising departure from the rising Zeitgeist toward gender equality that surrounded him.12 For example, Germany had been admitting women into architecture programs since 1908—perhaps not un-coincidentally, the same year Loos penned Ornament and Crime—but some twenty years after their counterparts in the USA and ten years behind the UK.13 If the women were, as Gropius asserted, amateurish and unable to think in three dimensions, it is not clear why he

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considered their participation in the architecture studio a threat to male architects, nor why he went to such great lengths to ensure they were excluded.

Principles, Production, and the Industrial Imperative As noted by Glen Adamson, “Craft is a highly contested concept that was in some sense invented alongside design within and against the beginnings of industrialism.”14 Although the Bauhaus program had its antecedents in the ideas of the Werkbund, a movement committed to fostering links between artists and German industrialists to develop a German identity through design and architecture, reconciling the production methods of Arts and Crafts with the industrial imperative for mass production and the material and practical transformation of the home proved hard to achieve.15 While its program inclined toward libertarian socialism, the Bauhaus also sought to prove itself as a capitalist institution and a business due to financial need, not just by choice.16 In order to meet this ambition, Gropius’s pedagogy required students to learn not in classrooms, but in laboratory-style workshops where “prototypes of products suitable for mass production are carefully developed and continually improved.” He insisted that these “laboratories train and educate a new type of worker for craft and industry, who has an equal command of both technology and form.”17 Although the Bauhaus relied on limited municipal funds and other donations like other arts institutions, these funds were unsurprisingly contingent on its status and success and prompted the need to showcase the activities of the school to a wider public. In effect, if consumers did not want or were not interested in the outputs produced by the school, the pedagogic model would not be able to turn a profit. In response to this, the masters of the Bauhaus decided that the best strategy should involve offering exhibitions and talks as well as sales of one-off pieces such as paintings, but these sales yielded insufficient income to the school. While the masters insisted that students design for industry, there was no instruction on how to do this. Subsequently, it was up to the women weavers to figure out how to produce income-generating textiles. To do this, they began pioneering the technical processes needed to mass-produce textiles and in doing so succeeded in reaching a mass audience by making production affordable and accessible to the average German household. The extent to which the women weavers achieved this is examined on an individual basis later in this chapter. Suffice to say the women weavers, rather than faltering in the face of obvious discrimination, instead found resourceful and even entrepreneurial ways around it. For the Bauhaus masters, the women’s success caused some anxiety. They argued that the women were taking valuable employment away from their male counterparts and threatening the “good reputation” of the school, which further justified their segregation from the male-only disciplines.18 After all, the Bauhaus masters had first thought that in providing a “women’s class”—weaving—they would solve the “female problem,” presumably by keeping the amateurs away from the professionals. What they had not anticipated was that the weaving workshop turned into one of the most productive and commercially successful at the Bauhaus, and its ubiquity served to secure its iconography. Indeed, their ideas and innovations not only brought vital income into the school, but externally, they led to a surge in development in industrial design and to a complete a reevaluation of the “artistic” nature of textile art.19 In contrast, the uniqueness of building commissions were nowhere close to being as able to generate income as textiles. That the women’s weaving workshop made the biggest financial contribution toward saving the Bauhaus from economic failure (seconded by the carpentry, which was mixed male and female) is not how history has chosen to remember these women.20 Instead, it has favored depicting the success of the Bauhaus as a consequence of predominantly male talent, a misapprehension that has served to perpetuate romantic and illusory notions of lone-male achievement, a myth that still holds sway, even today.

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The Women of the Bauhaus Of the fifty or so books written about the Bauhaus, only a few historians—among them, Ulrike Müller, Tai Smith, and Sigrid Wortmann Weltge—have considered the women weavers in any detail, but in doing so, they have established a sound body of knowledge concerning the work of these women and their legacies from which further analyses can be built. Oscar Schlemmer noted, “Where there is wool, there is a woman who weaves, if only to kill time.”21 At the time of writing, however, a nascent erosion of progress toward gender equality compels many historians to revisit and re-situate these accounts not only in pursuit of factual accuracy but as a means to better understand the underlying forces affecting contemporary power relations. Writing these restorative accounts therefore becomes an act of resistance. Previously, where the Bauhaus weavers’ work has been catalogued, the authors have been largely textile historians, rather than architecture historians. This has meant that the accounts have focused more keenly on their textile work and its processes, rather than on the spatial application of these outputs or their separate architectural work. Subsequently, there is a need to examine their woven outputs for their spatial, not constructed, textile integrity and also to consider their architectural designs through an architecture historian’s lens. To achieve this, the work of Benita Otte, Gunta Stölzl, Anni Albers, Gertrud Arndt, Otti Berger, and the “failed” weavers, Lilly Reich and Alma Siedhoff-Buscher, will each be examined in turn, with a view to identifying the extent of their architectural ability and impact.

Layering, Perspective, Space Benita Otte (1892–1976), a trained painting teacher who joined the Bauhaus at twenty-eight, drew inspiration from the painter Paul Klee to develop wall hangings that layered rich gradations of color within a rectangular grid that have been deemed suggestive of architecture and landscape: “It was good that we started to experiment from the very first with such uncluttered minds, naively and without real expertise.”22 These large, one-off textile pieces proved easy to sell because while critics did not expect to find meaning in textiles, their abstract visual language combined innovation with accessibility, utility, and affordability. Nevertheless, her wall hangings and rugs were highly regarded; one was featured next to Marcel Breuer’s children’s chair and table, adding a child-friendly flourish of color and pattern to an otherwise somewhat austere children-focused design. In 1922, planning began on a big Bauhaus exhibition directed by painter, printmaker, and architect Georg Muche (1895–1987). His intention was to create a show home in order to exhibit the Bauhaus outputs, and he tasked Otte with the drawing of the isometric projection and ultimately the spatial organization of the house. Muche acknowledged the “forms of great beauty and in the spatial perspective of her architectural drawing she made—in colored layers of tone—both the external form and the interiors simultaneously transparent.”23 Benita also designed a highly functional kitchen for the 1923 Haus am Horn exhibition that became the prototype of the age and was considered “the most functional and therefore the innovatory room in the house.”24 Although some historians attribute furniture maker Ernst Gebhard co-authorship status, the innovations within the kitchen are closely associated with the activities of the consumer, tasks that were overwhelmingly performed by women. As a man within that period, Gebhard would have been an unlikely consumer, and therefore the key innovations—easy-clean surfaces, strong natural lighting to the work areas, and built-in cupboards and storage jars, all of which improved efficiency and hygiene—are probably Otte’s.25 To all intents and purposes, Otte designed and produced architectural designs that matched and even exceeded the standard of her architect contemporaries, making her an architect by definition, despite being denied the training and the title.

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Figure 8.1 Top: Carpet for a children’s room by Benite Koch-Otte, with Marcel Breuer’s children’s chair and table, 1923. Bottom: Tactile Board, design Otti Berger, 1928. Source: Top: Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin. Bottom: Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin.

Brand Reputation and Distribution Gunta Stölzl (1897–1983) is widely considered to be one of the most successful Bauhaus women. She stated, “We wanted to create things with contemporary relevance. … Huge potential for experimentation lay before us.”26 An able writer, she became the key theorist of textile processes and, in doing so, disrupted the notion that crafts are manual or technical but never intellectual.27 Stölzl joined the Bauhaus in 1919, embracing the sense of postwar optimism and the need to fill the “vacuum” that Gropius insisted needed to be “built up.”28 Gropius’s alarm over the number of women joining the Bauhaus, captured in the minutes of a masters’ council meeting, prompted the 116

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creation of the weaving workshop in 1920, but it was one that lacked technology or teaching. This deficit required Stölzl to tenaciously adopt an experimental, learning-by-doing approach that shifted the nature of her work from what she described as “pretentious and autocratic … pictures made of wool” toward something that “subordinated itself to the home … achieving a great unity between material and function,” resulting in a more profound domestic impact.29 Initially, it was Stölzl’s collaboration with men, much like Otte’s, that offered the means through which she could access architectural outcomes, in this case chairs, with architect and cabinet-maker Marcel Breuer. This developed into a productive and enduring collaboration between carpentry and weaving, which, alongside the production of “metre fabrics” sold to industry as prototypes under Stölzl’s initiative, generated much-needed income to the Bauhaus. When right-wing political powers forced the closure of the Weimar school and Gropius moved the school to Dessau in 1927, Stölzl took over the role of directing the weaving department in the wake of Georg Muche, becoming the first female master at the school, and shifting the pedagogic agenda further toward serving the needs of industry. Outputs included the cushions, curtains, and seating fabrics of a theater café in Dessau, of which no images remain, and the bedcover and curtain fabrics for the Bauhaus student accommodation, each of which enabled her to assume the role of an interior designer. Today, her textile work is considered some of the most experimental, innovative, and iconic of the Bauhaus weavers and served most effectively to build the Bauhaus “brand,” reputation, and distribution. Her impact was architectural but also financial—and her attributes were those of any CFO (chief financial officer) in today’s world of corporate parlance.

Weaving as Designing Anni Albers (1899–1994) joined Stölzl in transforming Bauhaus textiles from a craft connoisseur’s concern to a public consumable through a process of industrialization, forming the blueprint through which all Bauhaus products and goods reached a mass audience. Her position was that “work has to be experimental. … We must revisit manual and technical possibilities … then understand industry and work for it … so the way leads to individual items and mass production.”30 Albers designed patterns for industry, gave lectures, and wrote books, and in 1933 after the National Socialists closed the school, she escaped nazi persecution by fleeing to the USA and exporting Bauhaus principles and processes. Using design to transform the lives of women was one of her key motivational drivers. In her 1924 essay “Wohnökonomie” (“Living Economy”), she defined the “conventional style of living” as a “used-up machine, which makes the woman a slave to the house” and emphasized the need for a shift from a long-standing assumption in art history that, unlike art and architecture, crafts are manual or technical but never intellectual.31 Whereas John Ruskin (1819–1900) and William Morris (1834–1896) of the British Arts and Crafts movement had attempted to generate theories of making as a means to intellectualize and, by implication, validate craft as equal to art, Albers made the first attempt at theorizing craft from the perspective of weaving. In her practical work, she produced interior elements that required an architectural eye for spatial composition. Her 1930 graduation piece combined a soft-proof, lightreflecting wall hanging that could be adapted for use as a curtain and was installed in the Bundesschule Auditorium in the Gewerkschaftsschule (trade union school) in Bernau, designed by Hannes Meyer.32 Like the other Bauhaus women weavers, she relied upon men to give her the means through which her works could be situated and viewed within an architectural context. This dependency is perhaps most keenly evidenced in her relationship with her husband, the architect Josef Albers, which was noted for its turbulence as much as its exchange of creative ideas. Although the extent of her influence upon his architectural outcomes is hard to quantify, Josef Albers’s Loggia brick wall (1967)—evoking a distinctive woven pattern—is a likely piece of evidence. In addition to this, Anni 117

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Albers’s architectural abilities are evidenced by her drawings, particularly her three-dimensional sketch for a plain weave, and her abstract paintings. Ultimately, her ability to work with symmetrical and asymmetrical forms, motifs, and complex geometries, along with her enthusiasm to work with new materials, are all skills vital to architectural production and would have no doubt resulted in intriguing spatial outcomes, had she only been permitted to produce them.

Enduring Icons and Economic Success Gertrud Arndt, formerly Gertrud Hantschk (1903–2000) wanted to study architecture but was directed toward the weaving workshop along with all the other women, despite displaying obvious spatial talent in the mixed discipline preliminary course. Instead, Georg Muche’s advice to her was to “make a rug out of it,” rather than a building, and her first project became a rug for the Gropius’s office, which she designed to echo the cubist principles used to inform the interior design and layout. She elaborated, “I have often wondered about how so many people find every piece of fabric so important as if it were a revelation. For whom? For what? To earn money, yes, that is a necessity.”33 Unlike Albers, Arndt resisted any attempt at theorizing her weaving work, instead focusing on making pieces that were hugely commercially successful. Perhaps this was in part due to her modest circumstances, which required her to take on making exhibition pieces and samples in order to earn money. Some of these samples proved so popular that they were rereleased by Stock Company in 1979.34 As late as 1990, her work was being remanufactured as carpet designs for Vorwerk Company, a testimony to the enduring integrity of her work. Whereas many Bauhaus buildings feel of their time and are recognized as historic artifacts, Arndt’s designs continue to feel contemporary and relevant to today’s tastes and practical needs.

Material Innovation, Creative Industrialization Otti Berger (1898–1944) joined the Bauhaus soon after the new building designed by Walter Gropius opened in 1926. Like other new students, Berger enrolled in the preliminary training program under Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, who trained students to develop a sense of touch within their work as well as produce industrial outputs. Berger excelled in the touch assignment by creating a textile “touching board” resembling a material syntax that was later featured in Moholy-Nagy’s book, Von Material zur Architektur (1929), and it continues to be used as an illustration of his pedagogy and artistic philosophy. She explained, “The fabric becomes expression. Why then do we need flowers, climbing plants, ornaments? The fabric itself lives.”35 Within a year, Berger was working in the weaving studio, which was by then run by Gunta Stölzl, who had shifted the emphasis from artistic expression toward developing prototypes for industry.36 Perhaps one of the remarkable aspects of Berger’s creative methods was the way in which she used the loom as a three-dimensional modeling space, testing her ideas through the process of weaving. Drawing inspiration from Klee’s polyphony experiments with color, Berger demonstrated a remarkable sensitivity to gradients and mixes and understood color as sound, perhaps as a consequence of her profound hearing loss caused by illness. Berger, much like Albers, understood the need to commercialize textiles and focused her efforts on commissions for industry after graduating in 1930. By 1932 Berger had negotiated a manufacturing license for Bauhaus fabrics to be mass-produced. Berger continued to teach at the Bauhaus until its dissolution by the nazis in 1933. Despite briefly moving to England and also securing an appointment in Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s new Bauhaus in Chicago, she was unable to leave Europe and died in Auschwitz in 1944. Much like the other women weavers, she was very able to transpose Klee’s painting principles from the canvas to the interior. Her sensitive use of woven color gradients, prototyped within her watercolors, were later used in her translucent dividing curtain and

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featured fine threads in a variety of lemon chiffon shades. These curtains, or versions of them, seem to be featured in Mies van der Rohe’s Villa Tugendhat in 1930. After the closure of the Bauhaus Dessau in 1932 and prior to her temporary escape from nazi Germany to the United Kingdom in 1937, Berger set up her own design practice producing fabrics for architects and textile companies as well as individual material mixes, which she successfully patented.37 Berger was not only a talented designer but evidently enterprising and entrepreneurial, someone who could form a bridge between architectural desires and industrial demands. Clues as to the potential scale of her impact, had her life not been cut tragically short, remain woven into to all her exceptional work.

Future Generation Market Building Alma Siedhoff-Buscher (1899–1944) is one of the less known women weavers, due in part to her self-declared inability to succeed in this medium, which limited her engagement in the medium. She insisted, “I have never got on with any thread but I wanted to try it because I believed that every material would bend to a serious will and hard work.”38 Indeed, her indisputable incompetence at weaving prompted the masters to allow her to focus on easier assignments in the carpentry workshop, and she became the only woman allowed to do so.39 According to historian Gillian Naylor, it was Siedhoff-Buscher who produced the most interesting experimental work in the carpentry workshop during this period. She invented a variety of toy and furniture designs, including the “small ship-building game,” whose color blocks strongly resemble those pioneered within the weaving workshops. Contrived of twenty-two blocks in primary colors, children could choose to configure them into a boat or generate their own forms. “Work and play are interchangeable,” she wrote, “like at the Bauhaus.”40 In addition to this, Siedhoff-Buscher designed a furniture system for children that allowed them to redeploy detachable components and create their own play spaces and enclosures. Both these two inventions and her nursery furniture for the Haus Am Horn exhibition became inspirational prototypes for children’s toys and furniture that were copied the world over. Siedhoff-Buscher also designed cutout kits and coloring books with publisher Verlag Otto Maier Ravensburg. However, it was her interior products that were viewed as her most pioneering work: not only was the children’s furniture washable, but it was designed to “grow with the child” by transforming itself from a changing table to a puppet theater to a desk. Siedhoff-Buscher died in 1944 during an air raid, yet her work embodies Bauhaus’s distinctive aesthetics and core thesis that emphasized the need for playful, experimental, interdisciplinary, and visionary design that facilitated the purpose-free development of an individual.41 In addition to this, Alma Siedhoff-Buscher’s work, in speaking to young children, ensured that future generations were recruited to the Bauhaus cause, securing its commercial success. However, perhaps more importantly, by creating a threedimensional pedagogic prototype, Siedhoff-Buscher affirmed that the Bauhaus teaching and learning principles were shared across the world—perhaps even more effectively than any written edicts from the masters.

Invention, Inspiration, and Appropriation The question of authorship and originality has been a perennial preoccupation in design. Where the boundary sits between inspiration, influence, and appropriation is often contested, making it difficult to identify the extent to which women’s woven work was transposed into architecture by the male masters. However, there are some relatively clear-cut cases. Lilly Reich (1885–1947) who led the weaving studio for a year and became the only woman “master” at the Bauhaus during 1932, was an established interior and furniture designer when she joined the Bauhaus. While Reich’s

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Figure 8.2 Top: Bauhaus Bauspiel (construction set), design Alma Siedhoff-Buscher, 1923. Bottom: Cabinet by Lilly Reich, shown in situ by onyx wall and drawn curtain, with material thought to be chosen by Reich, in the main living area of Tugendhat Villa Buffet, Mies van der Rohe, 1931. All elements contribute to the architectural form. Source: Top: Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin. Photostudio Bartsch. Bottom: Rudolf Sandalo Jr., 1931, Brno City Museum.

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Figure 8.3 Top: Tubular steel furniture designs by Mies van der Rohe and Lilly Reich as shown in the price list for Bamberg Metallwerkstätten, 1931. Note that Reich’s designs are indicated by model numbers that begin with “LR for Lilly Reich.” Bottom: The Barcelona Couch, Lilly Reich and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, 1930. Commissioned by Philip Johnson. Manufactured by Knoll, the design remains solely attributed to Mies van der Rohe. Source: Top: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, LD-DIG-Ds-0663. Bottom: Knoll, Inc.

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leadership of the weaving workshop was less than successful—she emphasized textile printing, had no patience for weaving technologies, and was therefore considered irrelevant to the work the other women were producing—her chair designs for the Bauhaus, often incorporating woven fabric over metal frames, are the most iconic of all the chairs produced by the school. She stated, “Who would know the way to be found in the new form? Not in the footsteps of today’s defining circles. Haste makes waste.”42 However, the recognition of her work, even now, remains elusive. The Barcelona Couch, still manufactured today by Knoll, remains stubbornly attributed to Mies van der Rohe, despite the fact that historians have found compelling evidence that identifies Lily as an equal co-designer if not the sole author. For example, the daybed’s original design shares striking similarities with one Reich designed for an apartment in 1930, whose distinctive tubular steel feet were adopted by and accredited to Mies van der Rohe after World War II.43 However, were it not for Reich’s foresight in boxing up some three thousand of Mies’s drawings and nine hundred of her own and asking a friend to store them for her during the war, the extent of his appropriation of her work may well have gone unrecorded. What these documents reveal is that Reich was indeed the sole author of the chairs used throughout van der Rohe’s architectural work, which remain attributed to him but not to her. Before joining the Bauhaus, Reich collaborated with Mies on a range of different projects, including the German Werkbund Residential Projects at the Weissenhof housing estate in Stuttgart; the exhibition of fashion and silk in Berlin in 1927; and International Exhibition in Barcelona in 1929. Reich was particularly adept at designing and configuring the fabrics and furniture to convey the sense of “floating space” that characterizes Mies’s buildings. This included the writing desk and bookcase in Fritz Tugendhat’s room and the white cabinet with dark glazing in the main living area, whose construction reflects that of the steel structural system of the house.44 As Reich’s cooking cupboard, designed for the 1931 German Building Exhibition illustrates, she was evidently very capable of architectural design. In light of the scope of her work, the affirmation that she contributed toward the architectural form and not just the interiors of Tugendhat house—now widely acknowledged as the stylistic blueprint for all of Mies’s subsequent buildings—seems probable, not just possible. Like the other women associated with the weaving workshop, however, the significance of her architectural work has been generally ignored. What remains is an analysis of the legacies of these women and their impact upon the architectural theories, pedagogies, and practices that continue to resonate today.

Spatial Impact: Weaving Theories and Architecture That Bauhaus Dessau (1926) building façade by architect Walter Gropius resembles the warp and weft of a loom is a subjective suggestion. And yet there are many similarities between how surfaces and structures are conceived in architecture and textiles. Glen Adamson argues, “Isn’t craft something mastered in the hands, not in the mind? Something consisting of physical actions, rather than abstract ideas?”45 Whereas architectural processes and outcomes and the practical and philosophical imperatives that drive them have been widely theorized, the theorization of textiles has been less extensive. Subsequently, an understanding of their shared processes could identify points of theoretical exchange, too. In terms of process, for example, architects as much as weavers learn to work with sinuous, amorphous yet potentially rigid, tensile material that shares the same dependence upon structure, whether creating façades or wall hangings. Determining how the warp (vertical threads) interact with the weft (horizontal threads) requires the same set of creative and technical skills an architect uses to resolve how mullions interact with transoms or walls interact with floors. For German architect and art historian Gottfried Semper (1803–1879), an analysis of the shared

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Figure 8.4 Left: Page from Otti Berger, “Stoffe im Raum,” ReD (Prague) 3, no. 5, 1930. Right: Cover of Anni Albers’s book On Weaving, c. 1965. Source: Left: 143 Slavic and Baltic Division, New York Public Library, Astor, Lennox, and Tiden Foundations. Right: Anni Albers papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

characteristics between the two disciplines formed the basis of his theoretical proposition: that the two were not necessarily separate disciplines. He describes their processes as involving: Transform[ation of] raw materials with the appropriate properties into products, whose common features are great pliancy and considerable absolute strength, sometimes serving in threaded and banded forms as bindings and fastenings, sometimes used as pliant surfaces to cover, to hold, to dress, to enclose, and so forth.46 Semper’s ideas, published in 1952, preceded the Bauhaus by over half a century, but gained influence due to the textile tradition at the heart of the Austria-Hungary’s imperial legacy. His ideas inspired modern architects to not only design cloth and clothing but to express characteristics of the textiles in their building façades and interiors.47 Further, the industrial advancements of that period provided new materials with which to experiment. For Semper, textiles perform the same fundamental role as architecture—by providing a protective barrier between people and the world outside. Yet the Loos-inspired modernist rejection of “ornament” resulted in spaces where textiles played a conciliatory role between the minimalist functionalist ideals of modernism and the need to meet the basic humanist needs of comfort and shelter. For the weaving women of the Bauhaus, the theorization of their work was not only a means through which the status of textiles was raised to align with other (male) disciplines such as architecture, but also a vehicle through which the relationship between textiles and architecture could be

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further scrutinized. For Otti Berger, for example, architecture and textiles were inextricably linked, yet it was Anni Albers, the more accomplished writer and theorist, who considered the relationship in more detail.48 In her book Selected Writings on Design, the chapter entitled “The Pliable Plane, Textiles in Architecture” observes the dynamics of the textiles’ historic transition from the exterior to the interior, for example, from the external fabric of a nomadic tent, to fabrics for domestic comfort, warmth, and individual attire that imposed a partition which modern lifestyles and new technologies could now transcend. To illustrate this approach, Albers pointed to the role of textiles in providing soundabsorption, light-reflection, or mildew-resistance and highlighted that the speed at advancements in textiles are, in response to our ever growing needs, accelerating at a rate never before experienced in history.49 Albers also serves to reinforce the significance of textiles within the future of architecture, stating that textiles should not simply be added to architecture at the end of a project but should be an integral part of the entire project development: The essentially structural principles that relate the work of building and weaving could form the basis of a new understanding between the architect and the inventive weaver … from a collaboration … textiles, so often no more than an afterthought in planning, might take place again as a contributing thought.50 Where textiles and architecture differ is in relation to the nature of the outputs. While architectural design, in general, results in buildings, textile outputs and applications can be more multifarious. Moreover, textiles can, through the convergence of industrial and digital production techniques, capture the “craft” element “that is lost or cannot be achieved due to economic conditions and symbolize[s] a contemporary design spirit.”51 In contrast, today’s architects “don’t do craft” and are more likely to be “time-pressed specifiers, picking products out of catalogues with an eye to maximizing convenience and minimizing liability.”52 In this regard, textiles continue to mediate between architecture and the consumer.

Enduring Impact: Textile Processes and Spatial Pedagogies Within Walter Gropius’s Bauhaus, the core pedagogic principle was that theory and practice were inseparable; one could not be contrived without the other, and they should both be generated in the workshops through the process of making. While functionality was a key goal, it should not be achieved at the sacrifice of beauty or skill. This approach to thinking through making has left a lasting legacy on contemporary teaching models, since both textiles and architecture training remain predominantly studio or workshop based. The advent of digitization has had a significant impact upon the pedagogy of the architecture studio, and weavers have been similarly affected. If the future of architecture is “heralded by technological interfaces, programmable surfaces and architectonic capabilities” to the same extent that textiles are, there are still lessons to be learned from the tactile experimentation that enabled the Bauhaus weavers to discover new structures, patterns, production models, and applications for textiles.53 Bringing textile weaving experiments into architecture, divorcing students from the comfort of their typical architectural tools, and making the task analogue rather than digital allowed students to explore patterns, forms, technologies, processes, materials, and even structural elements within textile mediums that offered new ways of designing space. For textile theorists Janis Jefferies and Diana Wood Conroy, “allowing [students] the poetic and the meaningful mark of the self, can bring back tactile sensation that seems to be missing in our physical environments.”54 While the need to teach students digital skills is of course essential, the speed at which technologies and digital tools evolve

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renders most of the packages and devices obsolete within the duration of an average undergraduate degree. In contrast to this, tactile learning provides students with the means through which they pioneer their own way of making—both the thinking and doing, the theory and the practice—that much like the Bauhaus women weavers’ self-directed effort, is more likely to generate innovative results. While some textile theorists posit the next generation of textiles to be “heralded by technological interfaces, programmable surfaces and architectonic capabilities,” it is the forms of tactile learning that will endure independent of the changing technologies that each trope in innovation and interface brings.55 This applies as much to textiles pedagogy as it does to architecture, and as Otti Berger argued, “Cloth is tactility. The tactile in cloth is primary. A cloth should be touched [gegriffen]. One must be able to ‘grasp’ [begriffen] [its structure] with the hands.”56

Enduring Impact: Architectural Weaving in Professional Practice Whereas the influence of the women weavers’ work and of weaving as a method of spatial creation was something the Bauhaus masters chose not to acknowledge, some of the world’s most regarded architects have taken a different view. American architect, systems theorist, inventor, and futurist Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983) compared Anni Albers’s “woven fabric surfaces” with the “multidimensional … complexities of earth’s cities” as seen from “aeronautical altitudes.”57 Architect David Adjaye observed, “What’s interesting to me is this idea of fabric and weaving as a kind of abstraction of making places that people come together in.”58 Le Corbusier (1887–1965), who had, like Adolf Loos, publicly rejected ornament in architecture, attributed special significance to tapestries. In his essay “Tapestries: Nomadic Murals”—nomadic should in this instance be taken to mean “portable”—Le Corbusier argued that “the destiny of the tapestry of today emerges: it becomes the mural of the modern age,” and he described them as “woolen walls,” assigning them the status of an architectural component.59 He produced approximately twenty-seven known tapestry drawings, known as cartoons, from 1936 to 1965, according to La Fondation Le Corbusier in Paris. Perhaps his most notable 765 sq. yd. tapestry, produced in collaboration with the weavers of Firminy, near Lyon, was made for the High Court Palace of Justice in Chandigarh, India in 1961.60 It is not entirely clear why Le Corbusier, who was explicitly committed to modernist principles, found the medieval craft of tapestry to be a complementary element within his architecture; it might have something to do with the precedents set by the Bauhaus women, whose colorful woven pieces were featured in some of the most significant Bauhaus spaces. An additional explanation is offered by art historian Rebecca Houze, whose analysis of Gottfried Semper’s work provides a potential link between Le Corbusier’s tapestry intrigue and Semper’s claims on the shared characteristics of architecture and textiles. Houze asserts that Semper’s theory of architectural “dress” can perhaps be best understood as tapestry, because it performs the same function; in effect it “mediates between building and spectator just as clothing mediates between the individual body and the wearer’s environment,” echoing Anni Albers’s observations discussed earlier.61

Conclusion This study of the Bauhaus women weavers’ contributions to architecture has served to highlight the extent to which their work was simultaneously ignored or dismissed as amateur and also coopted into architecture as a valued spatial mediator or harvested as a much-needed institutional income-generator. It has evidenced occasions when the work was appropriated or wrongly credited to their male counterparts and sought to demonstrate how the work of the women weavers proved pivotal in

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ensuring that the Bauhaus not only survived but also thrived. It provides an account of why the women were behind some of the most iconic work produced by the Bauhaus, whose enduring appeal is demonstrated by the fact that many of their inventions remain in production today. To categorize these women as talented weavers whose textile innovations transformed modern textiles is to account for only half of their story, since despite their weaving workshop confinement they were either able to generate architectural and spatial outputs or to produce the textiles that remarkably impacted architecture. Yet despite their vital contribution to the Bauhaus school, the architecture it produced, and the Bauhaus’s culture, the women weavers were never fully recognized for their work. Their legacies inspire and challenge architecture in terms of philosophies, structures, processes, and social relations, and they also remind new architects of greater humanistic obligations.

Notes * The author wishes to thank Monika Parrinder, Sonya Feinstein, the Bauhaus Archive, Barbora Benčíková at the Studijní a dokumentační centrum, Vila Tugendhat, Maia Weston at Knoll, Inc for their help and invaluable support. 1. Gottfried Semper, The Four Elements of Architecture and Other Writings. Translated by Harry Francis Mallgrave and Wolfgang Herrmann (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 254. 2. Ulrike Müller, Bauhaus Women: Art, Handicraft, Design (Paris: Flammarion, 2009), 8. 3. Walter Gropius (1883–1969), German-American master of modernist architecture and educator, particularly renowned as the founder and first director of the Bauhaus school (1919–1928). 4. Jonathan Glancey, “Haus Proud: The Women of the Bauhaus,” The Guardian, November 6, 2009. 5. Ibid. 6. Tai Smith, Bauhaus Weaving Theory: From Feminine Craft to Mode of Design (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2014), xiii. 7. Cited: Le Corbusier and Amédée Ozenfant, 1918. 8. Mildred Constantine and Jack Lenor Larsen, Beyond Craft: The Art Fabric (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1973), 7. 9. Ulrike Müller, Bauhaus Women: Art, Handicraft, Design (Paris: Flammarion, 2009), 8. 10. Tina Potočnik, “Female Students of Jože Plečnik between Tradition and Modernism,” in Ideological Equals: Women Architects in Socialist Europe 1945–1989, ed. Mary Pepchinski and Mariann Simon (London: Routledge, 2016), 34–47. 11. Adolf Loos, Ornament and Crime: Selected Essays, trans. Michael Mitchell, ed. Adolf Opel (Riverside, CA: Ariadne Press, 1997), 167. 12. Potočnik, “Female Students of Jože Plečnik between Tradition and Modernism,” 34. 13. Mary Pepchinski and Mariann Simon, eds, Ideological Equals: Women Architects in Socialist Europe 1945–1989 (London: Routledge, 2016), 189. 14. In Glen Adamson, The Invention of Craft (London: Bloomsbury, 2013). 15. On the Bauhaus program: Erik Ghenoiu, “Post Industrial Spaces of Production: The New Brooklyn Economy and the Deutsche Werkbund,” in The Architecture of Industry: Changing Paradigms in Industrial Building and Planning, ed. Mathew Aitchison (Farnham: Ashgate, 2014), 19. 16. Christina Volkmann and Christian de Cock, “Consuming the Bauhaus,” Consumption, Markets and Culture 9, no. 2 (2006): 129. 17. William Cooke, “The Endless Influence of the Bauhaus,” BBC Culture, 10 November 2017, accessed February 28, 2020, www.bbc.com/culture/story/20171109-the-endless-influence-of-the-bauhaus. 18. Müller, Bauhaus Women, 10. 19. Ibid., 11. 20. At first reading, Michael Siebenbrodt and Lutz Schöbe’s claim that “hardly any other workshop put its mark on the Bauhaus with such lasting effect than the carpentry workshop” (see Bauhaus, Parkstone International, 2012, 149) seems to suggest that the carpentry workshop was the most productive and iconic. However, the use of the term “hardly” indicates that there were indeed other contenders, which they choose not to name. 21. Cited: Oskar Schlemmer, in Müller, Bauhaus Women, 10. 22. Cited: Benita Otte, in Müller, Bauhaus Women, 37. 23. Ibid. 24. Gillian Naylor, Bauhaus Reassessed: Sources and Design Theory (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1985), 116. 25. Ibid.

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Blocks versus Knots 2 6. Quote from Gunta Stölzl, “Bauhaus Master,” Bauhaus Zeitschrift für Gestaltung, no. 2 ( July 1931). 27. Smith, Bauhaus Weaving Theory, xi. 28. Gropius addressed the canteen opening party at the Bauhaus declaring, “We stand before a vacuum, it must be filled, it must be built up, and every hand is needed for the job.” Cited in Stölzl’s diary, October 8, 1919. 29. See in Naylor, Bauhaus Reassessed, 109, 152; second quote in Bauhaus Journal no. 1 (1931), cited after Wingler op. cit, designboom.com, 193, accessed February  28, 2020, www.designboom.com/architecture/ bauhaus-journal-1926–1931-facsimile-edition-lars-muller-04–07–2019. 30. Cited after Anni Albers in Review by Rachel Epp Buller of Bauhaus Women: Art, Handicraft, Design by Ulrike Muller (Flammarion, 2009), published in Woman’s Art Journal 31, no. 2 (Fall/Winter 2010): 52. 31. Smith, Bauhaus Weaving Theory, xxi. 32. Müller, Bauhaus Women, 2010, 53. 33. Cited: Gertrud Arndt, in Müller, Bauhaus Women, 61. 34. Müller, Bauhaus Women, 61. 35. Cited: Otti Berger, Ibid., 65. 36. Müller, Bauhaus Women, 63. 37. Ibid., 66. 38. Cited: Alma Siedhoff-Buscher, Ibid., 113. 39. Naylor, Bauhaus Reassessed, 108. 40. Ibid., 107. 41. Müller, Bauhaus Women, 66. 42. Cited: Lilly Reich, in Die Form, 1922—see Müller, Bauhaus Women, 106. 43. Christiane Lange, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Lilly Reich (Stuttgart and Berlin: Hatje Cantz, 2007), 101. 44. Rebecca Veit, “Lilly Reich Was More Than Mies’s Collaborator: Five Things You Probably Didn’t Know about the German Modernist Designer,” Core 77, August 2, 2018. 45. Cited: Glenn Adamson, Thinking Through Craft (Oxford, UK: Berg Publishers, 2007), 1. 46. Semper, The Four Elements of Architecture, 215. 47. Rebecca Houze, “The Textile as Structural Framework: Gottfried Semper’s Bekleidungsprinzip and the Case of Vienna 1900,” Textile 4, no. 3 (2006): 292. 48. Otti Berger, “Stoffe im Raum,” ReD 3, no. 5 (1930): 143. 49. Anni Albers, Selected Writings on Design (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2001), 47. 50. Anni Albers, September 1957, cited: Ibid., 51. 51. Janis Jefferies and Diana Wood Conroy, “Shaping Space: Textiles and Architecture—An Introduction,” Textile 4, no. 3 (2006): 233–37, 235. 52. Catherine Slessor, “Architects Should Get Their Craft Freak On,” Architects’ Journal, January  21, 2016, accessed February 28, 2020, www.architectsjournal.co.uk/opinion/architects-should-get-their-craft-freakon/10001735.article. 53. Bradley Quinn, Textile Designers at the Cutting Edge (London: Laurence King Publishing, 2009), 6. 54. Jefferies and Conroy, “Shaping Space,” 265. 55. Quinn, Textile Designers at the Cutting Edge, 6. 56. Smith, Bauhaus Weaving Theory, 97. 57. Buckminster Fuller, cited on the back cover of third edition of Anni Albers’s On Designing (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1979). 58. Quote: David Adjaye, in Alex Palmer, “Is Architecture Actually a Form of Weaving?” Smithsonian.com, June  29, 2015, 1, accessed February  28, 2020, www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/ architecture-actually-form-weaving-180955698/. 59. Le Corbusier, “Tapisseries muralnomad,” Zodiac no. 7 (1960): 57. 60. Wendy Moonan, “Antiques; Le Corbusier Saw Tapestry as Part of Art,” The New York Times online, September 28, 2001, accessed February 28, 2020, www.nytimes.com/2001/09/28/arts/antiques-le-corbusiersaw-tapestry-as-part-of-art.html. 61. Houze, “The Textile as Structural Framework,” 9.

Bibliography Adamson, Glenn. Thinking Through Craft. Oxford, UK: Berg Publishers, 2007. Albers, Anni. Anni Albers: Selected Writings on Design. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2001. Bergdoll, Barry, Leah Dickerman, et  al. Bauhaus 1919–1933: Workshops for Modernity. New York: MOMA, 2009.

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Harriet Harriss Berger, Otti. “Stoffe im Raum.” ReD (Prague) 3, no. 5 (1930): 143–45. Constantine, Mildred, and Jack Lenor Larsen. Beyond Craft: The Art Fabric. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Co, 1973. Cooke, William. “The Endless Influence of the Bauhaus.” BBC Culture, November 10, 2017. www.bbc.com/ culture/story/20171109-the-endless-influence-of-the-bauhaus. Droste, Magdalena. Bauhaus 1919–1933. Cologne, Germany: Taschen, 2019. Ghenoiu, Erik. “Post Industrial Spaces of Production: The New Brooklyn Economy and the Deutsche Werkbund.” In The Architecture of Industry: Changing Paradigms in Industrial Building and Planning, edited by Mathew Aitchison, 19. Farnham: Ashgate, 2014. Houze, Rebecca. “The Textile as Structural Framework: Gottfried Semper’s Bekleidungsprinzip and the Case of Vienna 1900.” Textile 4, no. 3 (2006): 292–311. Houze, Rebecca. “Hungarian Nationalism, Gottfried Semper, and the Budapest Museum of Applied Art.” Studies in the Decorative Arts 16, no. 2 (2009): 7–38. Itten, Johannes. Design and Form: The Basic Course at the Bauhaus and Later. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, 1975. Janeiro, Jan, Jack Lenor Larsen, and Nancy Orban. Fiberarts Design Book Five. Edited by Ann Batchelder. Asheville, NC: Lark Books, 1995. Jefferies, Janis, and Diana Wood Conroy. “Shaping Space: Textiles and Architecture—An Introduction.” Textile 4, no. 3 (2006): 233–37. Lange, Christiane. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Lilly Reich. Stuttgart and Berlin: Hatje Cantz, 2007. Le Corbusier. “Tapisseries muralnomad.” Zodiac no. 7 (1960): 57–63. Loos, Adolf. Ornament and Crime: Selected Essays. Translated by Michael Mitchell and Edited by Adolf Opel. Riverside, CA: Ariadne Press, 1997. Moonan, Wendy. “Antiques; Le Corbusier Saw Tapestry as Part of Art.” The New York Times Online, September 28, 2001. www.nytimes.com/2001/09/28/arts/antiques-le-corbusier-saw-tapestry-as-part-of-art.html. Müller, Ulrike. Bauhaus Women: Art, Handicraft, Design. Paris: Flammarion, 2009. Naylor, Gillian. Bauhaus Reassessed: Sources and Design Theory. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1985. Palmer, Alex. “Is Architecture Actually a Form of Weaving?” Smithsonian.com, June 29, 2015. www.smithsonian mag.com/smithsonian-institution/architecture-actually-form-weaving-180955698/. Pepchinski, Mary, and Mariann Simon, eds. Ideological Equals: Women Architects in Socialist Europe 1945–1989. London: Routledge, 2016. Potočnik, Tina. “Female Students of Jože Plečnik between Tradition and Modernism.” In Ideological Equals: Women Architects in Socialist Europe 1945–1989, edited by Mary Pepchinski and Mariann Simon, 34–47. London: Routledge, 2016. Quinn, Bradley. Textile Designers at the Cutting Edge. London: Laurence King Publishing, 2009. Semper, Gottfried. “Der Stil in den Technischen und Tektonischen Kunsten, Oder Praktische Aesthetik.” In The Four Elements of Architecture and Other Writings, translated by Harry Francis Mallgrave and Wolfgang Herrmann. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989. Sennett, Richard. The Craftsman. London: Allen Lane and Penguin Press, 2008. “Shaping Space: Textiles and Architecture—An Introduction.” Textile: Cloth and Culture. Special Issue, ed. Janis K. Jefferies and Diana Wood Conroy Diana Wood Conroy is Professor of Visual Arts in the School of Art and Design, Faculty of Creative Arts, University of Wollongong, Australia. With a Bachelor of Arts in classical archaeology, and a Doctor of Creative Arts degree, her work as a writer and as an artist centers on the relationship between art, archaeology, and textiles through the approach of material culture. Her tapestry and drawing is held in Australian and international collections., 4, no. 3 (Fall 2006): 265. Siebenbrodt, Michael, and Lutz Schöbe. Bauhaus. New York: Parkstone International, 2012. Slessor, Catherine. “Architects should get their craft freak on.” Architects’ Journal, January 21, 2016. www.archi tectsjournal.co.uk/opinion/architects-should-get-their-craft-freak-on/10001735.article. Smith, Tai. Bauhaus Weaving Theory: From Feminine Craft to Mode of Design. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2014. Stölzl, Gunta. “Bauhaus Master.” Bauhaus Zeitschrift für Gestaltung, no. 2, July 1931. Tamboukou, Maria. Sewing, Fighting and Writing: Radical Practices in Work, Politics and Culture. Lanham and New York: Rowman & Littlefield International, 2015. Veit, Rebecca. “Lilly Reich Was More Than Mies’s Collaborator: Five Things You Probably Didn’t Know about the German Modernist Designer.” Core 77, August  2, 2018. www.core77.com/posts/55200/ Lilly-Reich-Was-More-Than-Miess-Collaborator. Volkmann, Christina, and Christian de Cock. “Consuming the Bauhaus.” Consumption, Markets and Culture 9, no. 2 (2006): 129–36. Wortmann Weltge, Sigrid. Women’s Work: Textile Art from the Bauhaus. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1993.

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9 LUTAH MARIA RIGGS A Portrait of a Modern Revival-Style Architect Volker M. Welter

Introduction According to most accounts of her life and work, the Santa Barbara architect Lutah Maria Riggs (1896–1984) began practicing architecture in the 1920s as a designer of Spanish Colonial Revival– style and Mediterranean Revival–style buildings, then turned to mid-century modernism in the late 1940s and early 1950s before settling on a restrained, modernized classicism.1 Constant in Riggs’s professional life, however, was less an architectural style or even a sequence of styles, but a type of client and a type of building. Many, if not most, of Riggs’s clients could afford to commission individually designed houses and were interested in art in general and in architecture specifically, even if the reasons differed, for example, ranging from idealistic, artistic concerns to a display of social standing. They also understood the design of a home as an extension of the personality of the owner and therefore required architectural services that would express a client’s character rather than a stylistic or other architectural dogma. Single-family and detached houses became, accordingly, the mainstay of Riggs’s architectural practice. Early feminist writings on female architects sometimes considered such focus as exemplifying a confining “domestic domain” that Riggs, like other female architects, was happy to “escape from” in favor of non-domestic commissions.2 Yet this viewpoint easily misses the exceptional importance that domestic architecture played in Riggs’s successful career. Following a brief biographical overview of the life and career of Riggs, this chapter focuses exclusively on selected examples of her domestic architecture, mostly from the Santa Barbara area and broadly spanning the 1930s to the 1970s. Riggs’s long architectural career rested on a close symbiosis between the architect, her clients, and the regional setting, which ensured the local and regional success of her architecture.3

A Life in Architecture When Riggs moved with her mother to Santa Barbara in 1914, she arrived during a time, between 1900 and 1929, when California was, according to feminist historian Harriet Rochlin (1924–2017), “more hospitable” to women as architects “than … any time before or after.” Rochlin cites among the likely causes a large demand for buildings because of California’s rapid population growth and offers as an exemplary proof the first ten architecture students who entered UC Berkeley in 1904, a group that comprised equal numbers of male and female students.4

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Figure 9.1 Lutah Maria Riggs at her drafting table. Photograph, no date (c. 1939). Source: Lutah Maria Riggs papers, Architecture and Design Collection, July 2019. Courtesy: Art, Design and Architecture Museum, University of California, Santa Barbara.

Born in Toledo, Ohio, on October 31, 1896, Riggs spent her childhood and youth with her mother and relatives in Ohio and Indiana.5 For health reasons Riggs’s father had moved in the later 1890s to Pasadena, where he succumbed to a religious cult, abandoned his small family, and died in 1905. After a short-lived second marriage, in 1912 her mother married Theodore Dickscheidt, whose subsequent search for work in the Santa Barbara area eventually brought Riggs to California.6 The date when architecture captured the imagination of Riggs is not known. David Gebhard points to a lakeside cabin somewhere in Michigan that she designed during her school years but also emphasizes that the few surviving drawings from those years do not foreshadow Riggs’s eventual rise to “one of America’s gifted architectural artists.”7 From 1918 to 1921 Riggs attended the architecture school at the University of California (UC) at Berkeley. After graduating in 1919 she remained in 130

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Berkeley for graduate studies while also taking temporary drafting jobs in Northern California in order to support herself. In 1921 Riggs succeeded “with perseverance” and after several inquiries to secure a job in the office of the well-known Santa Barbara architect George Washington Smith (1876–1930).8 Upon Smith’s death in 1930, Riggs and a colleague took over the office, but when that partnership did not turn out to be a happy one, Riggs set out on her own.9 During the Second World War Riggs worked in Hollywood as a set designer for movie productions. After the war she reopened the office with the California-born Arvin Benjamin Shaw III (1916–1973), an architecture graduate from Yale University, as her junior partner. By 1951 Shaw had set up an office with colleagues in New York, and Riggs returned to running her practice on her own. Notwithstanding the positive depiction of early twentieth-century California, American historian Harriet Rochlin overall draws a far more critical picture of the situation of the few female Californian architects. Parity was never reached again, either at UC Berkeley, where only three other women enrolled when Riggs had entered as an undergraduate student, or within the profession at large.10 By comparison, Riggs’s career does not illustrate, at least on paper, obvious setbacks because of her sex. Even with regard to the documented difficulties in obtaining the much-coveted first job with Smith, it is not quite clear whether Smith’s hesitation to employ Riggs upon her first inquiry was driven by concerns about insufficient new commissions rather than prejudice against female architects. During her long career, Riggs repeatedly received recognition from peers and the public at large. In 1917 she won a competitive scholarship in Santa Barbara to attend UC Berkeley, and in 1919 she won an Alumni Award at UC Berkeley for one of her drawings. She presided twice over the Santa Barbara chapter of the AIA (1941, 1953); in 1960 she became the third female fellow of the AIA; a year later she was the first woman appointed to the State Board of Architectural Examiners and served on the jury for a new California governor’s mansion.11 In 1966 she was the first architect to receive a Los Angeles Times Women of the Year Award; other winners that year were Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Jean King.12 Emerging feminist architectural history also began considering Riggs: for example, in 1978 drawings by Lutah Maria Riggs and fellow architect Julia Morgan (1872–1957) formed a separate exhibition in Los Angeles that accompanied the Southern California stop of the groundbreaking exhibition Women in American Architecture: A  Historic and Contemporary Perspective.13 In winter 1992–1993 the Santa Barbara Museum of Art hosted the first retrospective exhibition dedicated to Riggs and published the first and only comprehensive scholarly assessment of her life and work.14

A Home on Her Own UC Berkeley’s architecture school was founded and initially chaired by the architect John Galen Howard (1864–1931), who based the teaching on the French École des Beaux-Arts. Consequently, the program emphasized the studio as the preferred pedagogical setting, plans as the starting points of designs, and drawings as the means of communicating architectural ideas. While in architecture school, Riggs honed her drafting skills and especially internalized the importance of the plan for a successful design, as is evidenced by the numerous variations of plans for many of her designs that are preserved in her archive. Once Riggs started in Smith’s office, her new boss turned into her sponsor. Smith and his wife invited and financially supported Riggs’s traveling with them to Europe and Mexico.15 Smith was an important Santa Barbara architect designing mostly domestic revival-style homes for wealthy residents of the area and important civic buildings—for example, the Lobero Theatre in downtown Santa Barbara. Smith recognized his employee’s exceptional drawing skills by increasingly relying on her for “the overall design of a building” and “producing many presentation drawings of details.”16 Working alongside Smith, in turn, introduced Riggs to the network of private clients for homes 131

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in Santa Barbara, Montecito, and the region. Collaborating with Smith on civic buildings—Riggs, for example, produced stunning presentation drawings of the Lobero Theatre (1922–1924) and was in charge of much of the interior design—made her name known among the civic-minded and engaged members of the larger Santa Barbara community.17 Probably the most consequential act of Smith’s sponsorship was financially helping Riggs to acquire the land on which, again supported by Smith, she would build Clavelitos (Carnations), a home in Montecito that Riggs designed for herself from 1926 to 1927. Stylistically, Clavelitos is a Spanish Colonial Revival–style building evoking buildings in Spanish colonial Mexico. Conceptually, however, the design represents more than a stylistic reference to an idealized colonial past. Architectural historian Patricia Gebhard emphasizes the strict separation between public and private spaces, which was facilitated by Riggs locating the house in the northwest corner of the lot, as far from the street as possible.18 An auto court acts as an outdoor public reception space with a garage defining the southern edge. Only those who were invited to step through an adjacent arched gate would enter the private realm. The interior illustrates Riggs’s skill of thinking about space as a volume as well as considering the masses of a building when designing its exterior. A double-height living room forms the center of the house with a dining area to one side that is located under an upper-level guest room that could also be accessed from the auto court via an outdoor stairway. To the other side, the living room extends into a one-story section, followed by Riggs’s private bedroom. At the far, eastern end, the bedroom opened to a private grass plot, enclosed by hedges, which completed the sequence of ever more private spaces as one penetrated the home. To the north of these lower-level rooms, Riggs arranged a row of narrow service spaces such as kitchen, laundry, and storage areas, and a bathroom. To the south, across a west-east walkway, she placed a central outdoor terrace, flanked by a vegetable garden on one side and a rose garden on the other. Thus, by 1927, when just thirty years old, Riggs owned a home that for the rest of her life, except during the Second World War, provided her with that sense of domestic belonging and stability that she had probably dreamed for during the many moves of her childhood and youth. Professionally, her house demonstrated to potential clients her architectural skills: excellent siting of a building on its lot for effect, comfort, privacy, and efficient use of the land; functional and workable plans; spatial volumes that heightened the purposes of rooms; safeguarding privacy and private space while creating welcoming public spaces within a home; and, finally, a carefully choreographed relationship between indoor rooms and outdoor spaces. The style of her home was almost accidental to these architectural principles, although it did express Riggs’s affinity with the romanticizing notion of a lush and emotive Spanish colonial and Mexican way of life. Her house was, accordingly, brightly colored and painted.19

The Clients of a Woman Architect Gebhard characterizes Riggs as a “gentlewoman … architect” who did not pursue her practice as a “business-person architect,” which raises questions about Riggs’s clients and how they connected with her for domestic design projects.20 Some clients came to Riggs as the successor to Smith, the original designer of their houses. Most notably among these is probably the industrialist George Fox Steedman (1871–1940), for whom Smith had designed between 1922 and 1925 the Spanish Colonial Revival–style Casa del Herrero (House of the Blacksmith) in Montecito. When taking up employment with Smith, one of Riggs’s earliest assignments was drafting preliminary drawings for the new building; when she briefly took over the office after Smith’s death, she inherited the project of adding a library to the house.21 Other clients had non-architectural links to the region. Among them were Maximilian von Romberg and his wife Emily (née Hall), for whom Riggs built a large estate house from 1936 to 132

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Figure 9.2 Clavelitos—Lutah Maria Riggs Residence, Montecito, CA, 1926–1927, architect Lutah Maria Riggs. Partial view of the living room, spiral stairs lead to upper-level guest room. Photograph, no date. Source: Lutah Maria Riggs papers, Architecture and Design Collection, July 2019. Courtesy: Art, Design & Architecture Museum, University of California, Santa Barbara.

1938. Presumably, the contact to Riggs came through the Hall family, which was long established in Montecito. The regional connection was different, but equally personal, for Dr. Ellis Fischel (1883–1938) and his wife Marguerite Fischel (née Kauffman, 1884–1950), clients from St. Louis. In the early 1930s, Riggs worked for them on a substantial but ultimately unrealized Art Deco home in the Montecito foothills. Both sons of the Fischels were afflicted by spastic cerebral palsy. After her firstborn son had succumbed to the illness, Marguerite Fischel administered a strenuous regiment of daily physiotherapy to her second son for many years, enabling him to live a nearly unimpeded life.22 Contacts with Riggs probably began around 1925, when mother and child took up wintering in California, where the boy attended schools in Ojai and Santa Barbara.23 133

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Some clients approached Riggs once they had decided to move to, or to at least own a holiday or weekend home in, the Santa Barbara area. Often these clients came from Southern California, for example, the Los Angeles lawyer Kent Kane Parrot (1880–1956); historians do not seem to have found any reason to depict this shady Los Angeles political figure in a favorable light.24 For Riggs, Parrot and his third wife turned out to be loyal clients, asking for the remodel of a bungalow in Montecito in 1937–1940, which was further remodeled in the early 1950s, and designs for other homes in Carmel, California. The businessman Allen Breed Walker managed the La Quinta Inn, a well-known resort frequented by the Hollywood crowd and other wealthy guests in La Quinta, California, when in 1934 he commissioned from Riggs a house in Montecito. The Walkers liked their home in Montecito and followed up in 1941 with a remodel through Riggs of another house in Los Angeles. Some commissions came from clients from outside of California who were, however, about to relocate to the state. In the mid-1930s, for example, Riggs designed a house in the Sherman Oaks area for William Leon Graves (1876–1940) and Florence Christmas Eno Graves (1877–1961), an expatriate couple that had returned to the United States after thirty-five years in Paris, where Graves had been a banker. During the First World War Florence Graves, a Daughter of the American Revolution, had nursed wounded soldiers in France. She was also active in the American suffragette movement and the progressive Eugenics movement, supporting, for example, Margaret Sanger and her ideas about birth control.25 Most of Riggs’s clients wished to own a house in the Santa Barbara region; most were of comparable socioeconomic, usually upper-middle-class or upper-class, background; and all had a strong, even if a layperson’s, interest in architecture, interiors, often landscape architecture and gardening, and sometimes even art.26 To them, creating a home meant expressing their personalities. Riggs’s definition of a home as “a place of retreat and rest, a place of happiness, if possible, and … enough beauty to provide a lift for the spirit” dovetailed with that goal.27

Modern Houses In and Near Santa Barbara After graduating from Harvard University in 1892, Steedman joined the family business in St. Louis, an iron foundry, steel mill, and manufacturing company—thus the name of his California home— although one of his passions was architecture.28 In 1926 he endowed the Steedman Fellowship in Architecture at Washington University, St. Louis, followed in 1928 by the George Fox Steedman Architectural Collection at the St. Louis Public Library.29 Steedman was architecturally knowledgeable and aesthetically aware, as exemplified by a letter to Riggs in which he insisted that she adopts his “simple, fairly inexpensive” plan for the library that would result in “only one unit” and a main façade with a “nice long line.”30 As built, the short, octagonal library tower integrates perfectly into the overall appearance of the home. Inside, neogothic shelves crowned by a mural frieze painted by Channing Peak underneath ornate ceiling beams outline an intimate space, one of the most memorable rooms of the home. Parallel to the library, in 1931 Riggs designed a house with an adjacent guesthouse in the Montecito foothills for Dr. Ellis and Marguerite Fischel, who coincidentally were also from St. Louis. In a letter to Mrs. Fischel, Riggs wrote enthusiastically about the library, an “exceedingly interesting job, because he [Steedman] is doing it very nicely.”31 The never-built Fischel House was similarly the result of ongoing, close consultations, especially between Mrs. Fischel and Riggs. This example, however, also sheds light on Riggs’s crucial role in the design of a home. Dr. Ellis Fischel was a well-known cancer doctor in Missouri.32 Marguerite Fischel was a composer; she had studied with the Swiss-American composer Ernest Bloch. Art history knows of Mrs. Fischel as the buyer of a Georgia O’Keeffe painting that enabled the artist to acquire her first car.33 Fischel approached the architectural design as she would a musical composition, with her attention 134

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oscillating between an overall musical theme, individual melodic passages, and shorter motifs. Once the theme for the house had been set as a “Greco-Chinois flavor,” attention shifted to individual aspects, for example, a flat roof, a bedroom with immediate access to a roof terrace, or a southern exposure with terraces.34 The many details, even if their designs followed Mrs. Fischel’s explicit wishes, created confusion. Listing eight styles, ranging from Pompeiian, to Chinese, to Adobe, through to Modern, and details such as pillars, pergolas, and patios that had each been designed in one of the eight styles, she asked, “What sort of child has Mama got?”35 One of Riggs’s responsibilities in the design process then was to synthesize the numerous ideas of her clients into a coherent architectural whole. For the Fischel House, Riggs settled on a classically inspired, severe Art Deco modernity; in 1933, she wrote to Fischel that the W. & J. Sloane model home at the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair looked “so much like the (proposed) Fischel residence that I gasped.”36 The Walker house (1934) in Montecito and the Graves house (1935–1936) in Sherman Oaks were both French Revival–style designs; the Walker house has been called a “modernized French design,” as specified by the owner, and the Graves house “French Provençale.”37 The Sherman Oaks house was a symmetrical building with a raised central pavilion flanked on two sides by lower ones. The owners imported antique French building elements hoping that they would help to recreate the setting of their long expatriate life in France. The unusual sequence of rooms of the Walker house with, for example, an octagonal library that doubled as the access “corridor” to the adjacent

Figure 9.3 Fischel House, Montecito, CA, c. 1931, architect Lutah Maria Riggs, not built. Photomechanical reproduction of a perspective drawing by Konrad W. Konrad (1910–2000). Source: Lutah Maria Riggs papers, Architecture and Design Collection, July 2019. Courtesy: Art, Design & Architecture Museum, University of California, Santa Barbara.

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bedrooms was an idea of the owner. Riggs strung out the required rooms in a graceful, one-story building that provided a perfectly symmetrical entrance façade to please the owner’s wish for a residence that appeared palatial, while the other long façade granted ocean views from most of the rooms.38 The von Romberg commission of a mansion in Montecito (1936–1938) challenged Riggs to combine into a single design the widely diverging ideas of a married couple. Emily von Romberg envisioned a modern house that would allow her to define herself as a modern woman; later in her life, after her third marriage to Burton Tremaine, she became as Emily Tremaine, one of America’s foremost mid-twentieth-century patrons of modern art.39 Max von Romberg envisioned a house that honored the noble German background of his father. Riggs aimed to accommodate the conflicting wishes of her two clients through the entire design and construction process. The completed building successfully fused Germanic-medieval, neo-Georgian, and Art Deco interiors, with the three styles indicating whether rooms were considered as male and thus mostly for Max von Romberg, female and therefore spaces primarily for Emily von Romberg, or interior spaces shared by the couple and their guests. The Art Deco spaces Riggs created in cooperation with modern interior designer Paul Frankl. The exterior was a composition of stripped-down, plain geometric forms that, however, emphasized architectural mass over volume. Irrespective of the differences in styles, all these houses were designed by largely following BeauxArts architectural principles. Their floorplans are organized around main and subsidiary axes, provide suites of clearly defined individual rooms, and identify spaces of significant functions through octagonal or elliptical geometric shapes. In addition, they are carefully placed on their sites and in their surroundings. Riggs explained to the Fischels that “having drawings and specifications by a good architect” ensured that their new home would “harmonize with neighboring buildings.”40 The von Romberg mansion’s geometric massing evoked Mediterranean overtones comparable to other nearby homes. By contrast, the Graves House, “one of the showplaces of the San Fernando Valley,” aimed at setting an example in an area near Los Angeles that was undergoing rapid development.41 Riggs’s preference for Beaux-Arts principles, especially the use of floorplans commanding the basic configuration of the building, also marked the mid-twentieth-century Alice Erving House in Santa Barbara, which received public acclaim in a variety of publications. Alice Erving (1906–1975) grew up in Santa Barbara.42 In 1944 she wrote a letter to Riggs about the wish of her mother, Alice Langdon Erving (1872–1955), to “have you do a house for us.”43 To this end, the two women had “been reading up on modern architecture + would like to take advantages of the new techniques + materials + the modern concept of aesthetics.” Alice Erving even read Sigfried Giedion’s Time, Space and Architecture, which she “found fascinating.”44 From 1950 to 1951 the Ervings erected two houses on adjacent pieces of land in Montecito’s foothills. On the northern piece, an L-shaped, ranch-type home with references to Asian architecture was constructed for the mother; the daughter’s home was built on the larger southern plot. The gardens for both houses were designed by the modernist landscape architect Thomas D. Church (1902–1978). The Alice Erving house was the masterpiece of the collaboration between Riggs and Shaw. Shaw’s early preliminary sketches show floorplans that combine primary geometric forms such as circle, square, and triangle. The stiffness of this formalist approach loosened up only when Riggs aligned the footprint of the house along an imagined axis of the lot, which connected views of the mountains in the north with glimpses of the sea to the south. The home as built is a pyramid erected over a triangular plan. Sharply angled glass walls open the living room to the garden and the distant ocean; more glass walls on the northern side allow one to look at the mountains rising behind the home. Two almost identically sized, squarish pavilions bookend at the mountain side the base of the triangle. One pavilion accommodates a private 136

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Figure 9.4 Alice Erving House, Montecito, CA, 1950–1951, architects Lutah Maria Riggs and Arvin B. Shaw III. Partial view of north façade with one of the two symmetrically placed pavilions and paved walkway toward the main entrance. Photograph, c. 1952. Source: Lutah Maria Riggs papers, Architecture and Design Collection, July 2019. Courtesy: Art, Design & Architecture Museum, University of California, Santa Barbara.

bedroom suite, the other service spaces such as the kitchen, and a guest room. Both together reinforce the basic symmetry of the plan of the house, which, however, is visually obscured through an organically shaped landscape design and free-form garden elements that extend interior spaces to the outside. The Erving House does not illustrate Riggs breaking away from the Beaux-Arts design principles that informed so much of her architecture, but rather the application of these principles to modernist-inspired domestic architecture. Subsequent domestic designs by Riggs reinforce this conclusion. From 1955 to 1956, Riggs worked on Hesperides in Montecito, a home that combined traditional compositional means, such as symmetry, with proportions borrowed from English Georgian interiors, columns copied from 1920s Swedish architecture, and technical details taken from recent works by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. The client was Wright Salton Ludington (1900–1992), a wealthy art collector, one of the founders of the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, and a longtime Santa Barbara resident. Earlier in his life, Ludington had inherited Val Verde, a mansion that the architect Bertram Goodhue had designed in 1915 in a Mediterranean classical style and which Riggs had remodeled for Ludington in 1952. In November  1972, Ludington inquired with Riggs whether she was “still in business”—the architect was by then seventy-seven years old.45 The result of the handwritten note was October Hill 137

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(1973–1975), Ludington’s third home overall and a house that Riggs designed as three interlocking, staggered cubes with pared-down architectural details such as cornices and free-standing brick pillars faintly echoing classical architectural traditions. For both of his Riggs-designed houses, Ludington had provided basic designs sketches that Riggs would develop into working drafts. While Riggs supervised the construction of October Hill, Ludington traveled around Europe. Writing to her from Munich, Ludington addressed the postwar reconstruction of the Bavarian capital as “good conservative modern architecture.”46 Ludington’s line reveals his hopes for a new home that was completed in his absence. It also expresses the trust he and many other clients placed into Riggs as their architect, and it summarizes well what designing domestic architecture in Santa Barbara and Montecito was for Riggs all about: to achieve good and conservative modern architecture.

Conclusion Over her long career, Riggs designed and completed many buildings. Gebhard’s list of selected works comprises 209 entries for realized new buildings and alterations of existing ones for the period from 1926 to 1980.47 Among these entries are excellent but few public designs in the Santa Barbara area, for example, the Vedanta Temple (1956) in Montecito. Likewise, Riggs’s domestic and urban design works of the late 1930s to early 1940s on the Palos Verdes peninsula at the southwestern edge of the greater Los Angeles region would deserve another scholarly analysis, as would the small

Figure 9.5 October Hill—Wright S. Ludington House no. 3, Montecito, CA, 1973–1975, architect Lutah Maria Riggs. View from the garden toward the three interlocking cubes. Photograph, no date. Source: Lutah Maria Riggs papers, Architecture and Design Collection, July 2019. Courtesy: Art, Design & Architecture Museum, University of California, Santa Barbara.

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body of intriguing designs that Riggs and Shaw produced during their brief partnership. The latter included a collaboration with Brazilian modernist Oscar Niemeyer (1907–2012); from 1946 to 1948 the trio worked on a beach house for the Tremaine family.48 This unrealized project, however, takes us straight back to the Santa Barbara region, which is the key to understanding Riggs’s architectural œuvre. Riggs’s detailed knowledge of the local area, its architectural traditions, and topographical and geographical conditions dovetailed perfectly with her clients’ wishes to make a home in the region by commissioning designs for private houses. Riggs’s traditional architectural training added a third imperative component to this mutually beneficial relationship. In short, the synergy between architect, client, and region was the basis of Riggs’s successful career. This intrinsic collaboration arguably is a cause of the limited interest architectural history has paid to Riggs. Her œuvre does not allow for easy integration into an architectural history that still considers all too often architectural modernism as the teleological objective of modern architecture, understood as a sociopolitical reform project. Nor does Riggs fit well into a feminist architectural history, as long as domestic architecture and design are considered to be only insignificant branches of the superior tree of modern architecture.

Notes 1. Kim Blair, “Lutah Riggs—a Designing Woman,” Los Angeles Times, October 17, 1966, C1; Art Seidenbaum, “Woman of the Year: Lutah Maria Riggs Lines Up Future,” Los Angeles Times, January 4, 1967, D1; David Gebhard, Lutah Maria Riggs: A Woman in Architecture 1921 to 1980 (Santa Barbara: Capra Press, 1992); Abigail A. Van Slyck, “Lutah Maria Riggs,” in Notable American Women: Completing the Twentieth Century, ed. Susan Ware and Stacy Lorraine Braukman, 570–71 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004); Sarah Allaback, The First American Women Architects (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2008), 193–203; Erin Graffy, “The Underlying Architecture of Lutah,” Santa Barbara Magazine, Winter 2014, 140–44, 174; Melinda Gándara, Lutah Maria Riggs: An Invisible Fingerprint, an Indelible Mark (Montecito: Lutah Maria Riggs Society, 2015); Jessica Rausch, “The Groundbreaking and Adaptable Architecture of Lutah Maria Riggs,” Institute of Classical Architecture & Art, Articles, March 21, 2018, www.classicist.org/ articles/lutah-maria-riggs; “Lutah Maria Riggs,” Biographical Database, International Archive of Women in Architecture, accessed February 20, 2020, https://iawadb.lib.vt.edu/view_all.php?person_pk=339. 2. Mary Otis Stevens, “Struggle for Place: Women in Architecture: 1920–1960,” in Women in American Architecture: A Historic and Contemporary Perspective, ed. Susann Torre (New York: Whitney Library of Design, 1977), 88–102, 98. 3. I wish to express my gratitude to the Architecture & Design Collection and the Art, Design & Architecture Museum, UC Santa Barbara, for support of my research and granting rights to reproduce the illustrations. 4. Harriet Rochlin, “A Distinguished Generation of Women Architects in California,” AIA Journal 66, no. 9 (August 1977): 38–41, 38. 5. Unless noted otherwise, all biographical data was retrieved from Gebhard, Riggs, especially pp. 1–7. 6. Gándara, Lutah Maria Riggs, 11. 7. Gebhard, Riggs, 2. 8. Van Slyck, “Lutah Maria Riggs,” 570. 9. Gebhard, Riggs, 15. 10. Ibid., 3. The three students were Rose Luis, Irene McFall, and Elah Hale; Rochlin, “Women Architects,” 42, points out that in 1977, of 1,493 registered architects in Northern and Southern California, only twenty-six were women. 11. “Board Post Filled,” Los Angeles Times, November  2, 1961, C16; “Mansion Judge Named,” Los Angeles Times, October 22, 1961, H2. 12. Ursula Vils, “Nine Receive Awards as Times Women of the Year,” Los Angeles Times, December 13, 1966, C1. The landscape architect Ruth P. Schellhorn received the honor in 1955, see: Lynn Simross, “10 Honored as Time Women of the Year,” Los Angeles Times, March 11, 1975, B1–B2 (B1). 13. John Dreyfuss, “Women’s Work in Architecture,” Los Angeles Times, May 18, 1978, H1. 14. “Retrospective of Work of Local Architect at Santa Barbara Museum of Art until January 17,” Los Angeles Times, December 10, 1992, VCJ16. On official recognitions of Riggs, see Van Slyck, “Lutah Maria Riggs,” 570.

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Volker M. Welter 15. Kurt G. F. Helfrich, Picturing Tradition: Lutah Maria Riggs Encounters Mexican Architecture (Santa Barbara: University Art Museum, UCSB, 2004). 16. Gebhard, Riggs, 9. 17. Patricia Gebhard, George Washington Smith: Architect of the Spanish Colonial Revival (Salt Lake City: Gibbs Smith, 2005), 93. 18. The original building has been extended and today’s lot is larger than the size Riggs worked with when designing house and garden in 1926. 19. Gándara, Lutah Maria Riggs, 44. 20. Gebhard, Riggs, 43. 21. Ibid., 9. 22. Marguerite K. Fischel, The Spastic Child: A Record of Successfully Achieved Muscle Control in Little’s Disease (St. Louis: The C.V. Mosby Company, 1934). 23. Ibid., 65, 92. 24. Tom Sitton, “The ‘Boss’ without a Machine: Kent K. Parrot and Los Angeles Politics in the 1920s,” Southern California Quarterly 67, no. 4 (Winter 1985): 365–87. 25. “Mrs. Graves, World War I Nurse, Dies,” Pasadena Independent, June 27, 1961, 11. 26. Gebhard, Riggs, 43. 27. Kim Blair, “Lutah Riggs—a Designing Woman,” Los Angeles Times, October 17, 1966, C1. 28. The Steedman Family, accessed July  8, 2019, https://steedmanfellowship.wustl.edu/history/thesteedman-family/. 29. See History of the Fellowship, https://steedmanfellowship.wustl.edu/history. Also: St. Louis Public Library, The Steedman Architectural Library, www.slpl.org/blogs/post/the-steedman-architectural-library/. All sites accessed February 2, 2020. 30. G. F. Steedman, Letter to L. M. Riggs, November 19, 1930, 1 (Folder 96/1045, L. M. Riggs papers, Architecture & Design Collection, Art, Design & Architecture Museum, UC Santa Barbara, hereafter referred to as ADC). 31. L. M. Riggs, Letter to M. Fischel, September 2, 1933, 2 (Folder 82/412, Riggs papers, ADC). 32. “Ellis Fischel—The Man behind the Mission,” accessed July  10, 2019, www.muhealth.org/locations/ ellis-fischel-cancer-center/ellis-fischel-history. 33. Sotheby’s New York Fall 2002 Highlights, Press Release Photographs, October 24, 2002, accessed July 10, 2019, https://sothebys.gcs-web.com/static-files/80304550-cf38-4d9f-aee3–58b4cd0fee2b. 34. L. M. Riggs, Letter to M. K. Fischel, September 16, 1931, 2 (Folder 82/412, Riggs papers, ADC). 35. M. K. Fischel, Letter to L. M. Riggs, not dated [c. November–December 1931], iv (Folder 82/412, Riggs papers, ADC). 36. L. M. Riggs, Letter to M. K. Fischel, September 2, 1933 (Folder 82/412, Riggs papers, ADC). 37. “House for Allen Breed Walker, Montecito, CA,” The Architectural Forum 67, no. 1 ( July 1937): 34–35 (35); untitled and undated clipping from unidentified newspaper (Folder 83/445, Riggs papers, ADC). 38. The house lost its exquisite proportions when a second story was added at an unknown date. 39. Also: Volker M. Welter, Tremaine Houses: One Family’s Patronage of Domestic Architecture in Midcentury America (Los Angeles: Getty Publications, 2019), especially Chapters 1 and 2. 40. L. M. Riggs, Letter to E. Fischel, October 27, 1931, 1 (Folder 82/412, Riggs papers, ADC). 41. Untitled and undated clipping from unidentified newspaper (Folder 83/445, Riggs papers, ADC). 42. David F. Myrick, Montecito and Santa Barbara: The Days of the Great Estates (Pasadena: Pentrex Media Group, 1991), 470. 43. A. Erving, Letter to L. M. Riggs, December 2, 1940, 1 (Folder 82/398, Riggs papers, ADC). 44. Ibid. 45. W. S. Ludington, Letter to L. M. Riggs, November 22, 1972 (Folder 90/763, Riggs papers, ADC). 46. W. S. Ludington, Letter to L. M. Riggs, June 9, 1973, 1 (Folder 90/763, Riggs papers, ADC). 47. Gebhard, Riggs, 121–26; this data excludes unrealized projects. 48. Welter, Tremaine Houses, Chapter 4.

Bibliography Allaback, Sarah. The First American Women Architects. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2008. Gándara, Melinda. Lutah Maria Riggs: An Invisible Fingerprint, an Indelible Mark. Montecito: Lutah Maria Riggs Society, 2015. Gebhard, David. Lutah Maria Riggs: A Woman in Architecture 1921 to 1980. Santa Barbara: Capra Press, 1992.

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Lutah Maria Riggs Gebhard, Patricia. George Washington Smith: Architect of the Spanish Colonial Revival. Salt Lake City: Gibbs Smith, 2005. Helfrich, Kurt G. F. Picturing Tradition: Lutah Maria Riggs Encounters Mexican Architecture. Santa Barbara: University Art Museum, UCSB, 2004. Van Slyck, Abigail A. “Lutah Maria Riggs.” In Notable American Women: Completing the Twentieth Century, edited by Susan Ware and Stacy Lorraine Braukman. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004. Welter, Volker M. Tremaine Houses: One Family’s Patronage of Domestic Architecture in Midcentury America. Los Angeles: Getty Publications, 2019.

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10 REGARDING DE STIJL THROUGH A GENDER PERSPECTIVE The Life and Work of Han Schröder Rixt Hoekstra Introduction Born in the first decades of the twentieth century, Han Schröder (1918–1992) belonged to a group of pioneering women who established their architectural practice in the Netherlands. Her life was characterized by a close relationship with the artistic avant-garde, based on both professional choices and her private situation. Han Schröder’s engagement with the ideas of De Stijl is largely unknown, which may be explained by the fact that she started to actively advocate its ideas only after her immigration to the United States. In this way, Han Schröder may be counted among the women who formed a group of advocates, supporters, and partners involved with De Stijl.1 The history of these women makes clear that De Stijl should not be regarded exclusively as a gathering of canonical artists and designers, but rather as a more diffuse network of diverse actors with different, and often conflicting, ideas.2 Han Schröder was not only an advocate of De Stijl’s ideas; in addition, she was also a practicing architect. As is often the case with pioneer Dutch female architects, family relationships paved the way for her career in architecture. However, in Han’s case it was not her father or brother that enabled her architectural work; instead, it was her mother, Truus Schröder, and her partner, Gerrit Rietveld (1888–1964).3 From the point of view of gender studies this is relevant: while her mother was already a pioneering woman, Han took a further step upon the ladder of emancipation. This implies that within one family, in two generations, the transformation of architectural activities as an unpaid amateur pursuit to full membership in the architectural profession took place. Han’s family constellation had another important consequence. Unlike, for example, Nelly van Doesburg, Han’s preference for a modernist aesthetic did not come about as a result of breaking with a bourgeois environment. Rather, it was something she grew up with and that later in her life she carried with her as an inheritance. It was also a load with which she, in one way or another, had to come to terms. As one of the first Dutch female architects, Han Schröder’s life was dominated by the ménage à trois between herself, her mother, and Rietveld. She was confronted with the fact that the bond between her mother and Rietveld stretched out to encompass both the professional and the intimate sphere; as a consequence, Han’s ideas about architecture were mediated not only through the interaction with her mother, but also through the partnership of her mother with Rietveld and through her own relationship with the architect. Also, there was the Rietveld-Schröder House, which for Han was the concrete physical setting of her upbringing. Connecting the lives of both Han Schröder 142

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and her mother was their admiration for the architect Rietveld. However, while her mother was a silent yet influential actor in the background, Han Schröder became a professionally working architect who had her own practice.4 In a way, she faced the double burden of establishing herself as a pioneer and developing an authentic architectural language in the vicinity of Rietveld. Arguably that was no easy task, which explains her choice to break off her career in the Netherlands at the start of the 1960s and to immigrate to the United States. This chapter deals with the early career of Han Schröder, a remarkable Dutch architect who has been for a long time “hidden from history,” and provides a biographical insight into her life prior to the immigration to the United States.5 The current case study is also aimed at drawing attention to the significant yet greatly overlooked contribution of women to the Dutch avant-garde architectural culture.

Growing Up in the House Johanna Erna Elsa (Han) Schröder ( July  16, 1918–March  20, 1992), a Dutch architect born in Utrecht, a city located in the central part of the Netherlands, was the youngest daughter of Adriaan Christiaan (Frits) Schröder (1878–1923) and Geertruida Antonia (Truus) Schröder-Schräder (1889– 1985). She had an older brother Binnert (1912–1995) and an older sister Marjan (1913–1990). Han was five years old when her father died in 1923 at the age of thirty-four. Up to that time Han had lived in a large house in the Biltstraat, a typical well-to-do bourgeois dwelling filled with heavy, dark furniture and high-ceilinged, formal rooms. After the death of Frits Schröder, the family had to move to a smaller home. With support by Truus Schröder, Rietveld, who had almost exclusively

Figure 10.1 Han Schröder and her mother. Photograph, c. 1950. Source: International Archive of Women in Architecture, Special Collections, University Library, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Credit: Han Schröder.

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occupied himself with furniture up until that moment, designed a detached house in the outskirts of the city with an open view over the surrounding landscape. In terms of typology, use of materials, and design, the house was utterly distinct from anything built in the Netherlands at that time.6 For Han, who was six years of age at the time, the relocation in 1925 was like stepping from one universe into another. While in the old house she was looked after by a housemaid, in the new house she lived in close association with her mother and siblings in an open space.7 For Truus Schröder the move to a new house implied a break with her conservative bourgeois past and the adaptation of a modern, emancipatory lifestyle. A philosophy of progressive education was an integral part of this way of life.8 Not only did the house facilitate the living itself as a liberating activity, but the everyday life of mother and children was also carefully designed. Living together in an open space, for example, had the advantage for children who witnessed intellectual conversations and debates.9 Later, Truus Schröder admitted that living in that house was challenging for her children—on the weekends, for example, a crowd of classmates would gather outside to get a glimpse and bully Han for living in the “loony house.”10 Han Schröder did not share much about her childhood. On one occasion, however, she opened up when the author Corrie Nagtegaal, who in the 1980s was writing her book about Truus Schröder, interviewed her about her childhood.11 Compared to the idealism of her mother, Han Schröder’s account was in many ways sobering. She confessed that during the first eighteen years of her life, she was not particularly interested in the ambitions of her mother. The house events didn’t apply to her, nor would she understand the advancement of living in that setting.12 Nevertheless, as a child Han was aware of the fact that for her mother, the upbringing of her and her siblings was a vital project. As per her recollection, the refined advancement started when her mother contacted Mrs. Sandberg, the mother of Willem Sandberg, later the curator of the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam.13 During the 1920s, Mrs. Sandberg, née Maria Elisabeth Henriette Geisweit van der Netten (1871–1961), a well-off enlightened pedagogue, delivered lectures about new educational methods, and Truus asserted that these insights had a promise to be useful for the education of her son Binnert.14 Mrs. Sandberg advocated freedom, creativity, and transparency as fundamental educational values. According to her teachings, the goal of education is to create responsible, self-disciplined human beings with a decent sense of morality.15 For Han’s mother, an important ambition of raising her daughters was also constituted in developing their sense of economic independence. Consequently, Truus taught her teenagers to analyze the stock market and to keep track of expenses, to be in charge of the household for a day, to cook, and to instruct the housemaid.16 In Han’s words, though her mother did not value promises, she inquired that Han, when leaving for her study in Switzerland, would promise to study the divorce laws of the country in which she was going to get married and preferably employ, if needed, a female lawyer.17 Developing creative aspirations and skills was another ambition. As a teenager Han studied woodworking and furniture making in the workshop of Gerard Groenekan, the assistant of Rietveld.18 On workdays, Han’s mother was professionally active—she accompanied Rietveld during his visits to patrons or worked in his studio, and in late afternoons, she returned home to assist the children with their homework.19 Han’s memoirs do not provide observations about the physical characteristics of the house. In a commented curriculum vitae she wrote in 1980, she mentioned a group of avant-garde artists and designers who visited the house in the 1920s and 1930s; the open plan of the structure enabled her to witness vivid and emotional interactions.20 The relationship between her mother and Rietveld implied another theme of Han’s recollection. For Rietveld, Truus was a business partner, but for third parties this perception was not always evident. Her mother’s collaboration with Rietveld was an important component of Han’s childhood. Han Schröder was also clearly aware of the talents and the limitations of her mother. As she recalled, her mother did not have any expertise in the field of

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drawing, materials, or constructions, but she did have a good sense of proportion, shape, and size.21 Han also praised her mother for her creative capacities. At Rietveld’s studio, her mother’s tasks would mostly be of administrative nature.22 Her mother was a discussion partner for Rietveld, and she would passionately defend her point of view. As Han remembered, her mother was a passionate and principled woman who was thorough and accurate in her actions, and Han Schröder had great admiration for her.

A Student of Architecture Raised in the Rietveld-Schröder House as the second daughter of Truus Schröder-Schräder, Han Schröder seemed destined for a life in architecture and design. However, as a teenager her ambitions took a different shape: she wanted to become a doctor, and it was only after her uncle, who was a doctor himself, advised her not to do so that Han decided to give up on that ambition. Both her mother and Rietveld guided her to consider a career in architecture as a most suitable profession for her.23 In her thorough way, Truus Schröder engaged a center for vocational guidance to assess her competences—a unique step to take for “professional” career advice—and in 1936 she approached the Dutch Foundation for Psychotechnique for an analysis of her daughter’s character.24 The career advisors were confronted with a young woman whose behavior did not comply with the common notions of femininity. In fact, they described her as unusually strong-willed and as having an “almost male push” to organize and get things done, besides character traits such as a sense of compassion and warmth for others.25 The career advisors outlined a clear interest in architecture, a good sense for composition, a “spatial imagination,” and a strong potential as a practical organizer, and they concluded by confirming Han’s predisposition to study architecture yet also suggested she consider a business alternative.26 This verdict was remarkable considering that other Dutch female architects of the time were also confronted with the conservative expectations toward gender tracing back to the nineteenth-century ideology exclusively attributing artistic creativity and originality to men and not to women.27 Truus Schröder took little notice of conservative philosophies and started the search for an appropriate architectural school for her daughter—she corresponded with the architect Marius Duintjer (1908–1983), who had studied at the ETH in Zürich.28 While Truus was already considering the ETH as an option, she asked Duintjer for advice, and he implied that Schröder had to look for a practical school for her daughter without too much theory. Yet Truus insisted that Han was already way too practical and that she needed philosophical guidance.29 Ultimately, they concluded, the ETH in Zürich would be a good option, as the school with a modernist orientation and an international outlook. Duintjer also advised that there was a considerable group of female architectural students in Zürich, including his niece.30 Han made the decision to go to Zürich, however her dream of a career in chemistry or medicine always followed her. From 1936 to 1940, she was enrolled as an architecture student at the ETH and lived in Switzerland. Han enjoyed the life abroad; the distance from her mother and Rietveld enabled her to find her own path. In Zürich, she met the art historian Florence Maly, her lifelong partner. After her graduation in 1940 she was employed as a research assistant for Swiss architectural historian Siegfried Giedion (1888–1968), who was finishing his book Space Time and Architecture, the Growth of a New Tradition (1941) and inspired Han to stay in Switzerland and write a dissertation.31 However, after having worked for Giedion she could not find any further employment.32 By 1940 Europe was at war; returning to the occupied Netherlands was not an option, and her brother Binnert, who was living in the Dutch East Indies, invited her to stay in his house.33 Han agreed to come after she received a job offer from a local designer.34 Furthermore, her nephew Jan Poelhekke, an art historian working at the press agency of the Dutch legation in Lisbon, insisted that she should come to Lisbon

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and that he would arrange her documents, and Han arrived in Lisbon in 1941.35 However, the trip to the Far East proved to be impossible due to money problems and her health, and Han decided to stay in Lisbon. Giedion, who resettled to the United States, made an attempt to employ her as his secretary in America; when this attempt failed Jan Poelhekke arranged a job for her at the Dutch legation and the Red Cross.36 In 1944 she moved to London to work for the Dutch government at the Department of the Interior of the Netherlands, but she refused to continue her job as a draftsperson of masterplans of emergency public housing because she considered them inhumane. Instead, she studied American and British systems for prefabricated housing and led an intense and adventurous life in Lisbon and London.37 For her, the war implied an extension of her international life and the opportunity to gain professional experience beyond the world of architecture and design.

Return to the Netherlands In 1946 Han Schröder returned to the Netherlands, where, due to a lack of building materials, finding a job in architecture was not easy. Moreover, Han arguably experienced “a crisis of direction”—compared to her international adventures, the architectural world in the Netherlands no longer appealed to her and she experienced the need to recalibrate her goals. At this point Han and her mother decided to again consult the Dutch Foundation for Psychotechnique to help her define

Figure 10.2 Han Schröder with her colleagues at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, 1947. Han is standing in the second row, second from the left. Source: International Archive of Women in Architecture, Special Collections, University Library, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Credit: Han Schröder.

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her future path. The foundation produced a substantial report on Han’s capacities, revealing her outstanding personality in respect to expectations toward common women. They also observed a “male decisiveness and perseverance” and a great sense of autonomy and primed that Han’s disciplined nature as a woman of principles would harm her “female emotional life.”38 In 1946, through her mother’s network, Han Schröder started her job at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, where in 1945 Willem Sandberg (1897–1984) was appointed as a director. As an assistant, Han helped to reorganize the museum in the postwar era, including recovering art works hidden during German occupation.39 Han was involved in organizing the first postwar exhibitions dedicated to modern art and design, including the eminent show Le Corbusier, Painter, Architect, Urban Planner held in 1947.40 Finally, in 1949 Han Schröder accepted a job in architecture: she was employed by Rietveld and worked in his studio, shoulder-to-shoulder also with his own children, Wim and Jan. That provided an opportunity for her to contribute to a wide variety of projects, with special attention to interior design. As Han declared later, her training as an architect and a good designer was completed in Rietveld’s studio.41 Han participated in prestigious design projects, among them the Netherlands Exhibition Pavilion in Venice (1953) and the Sonsbeek Sculpture Pavilion (1954), and also was part of the team who produced exhibition design and interior design for private properties as well as public housing projects.42 Together with her mother and Rietveld, she contributed to the postwar canonization of De Stijl through her work for the celebrated De Stijl exhibition held in Amsterdam in 1951 and in New York in 1952–1953, which was the first historical retrospective solely dedicated to this modernist movement.43 Among her designs displayed in the show were color perspectives, plans, and elevation drawings of the Rietveld-Schröder House, and on her first trip to New York in 1952 for the exhibit installation in the Museum of Modern Art, she also designed a showroom for the frame maker Henry Heydenrijk.44

Setting Up an Architectural Office In 1954 Han Schröder took the daring step to open her own office for architecture and interior and graphic design. This pioneering decision elevated her to becoming one of two independent female architects among three thousand registered male architects.45 To emphasize her professionalism Han Schröder became a member of the Dutch Institute of Architects (BNA), the Dutch Federation of Interior Designers (BNI), and the International Federation of Interior Designers (IFI).46 She rented a room in a three-hundred-year-old tilting house on an Amsterdam canal called “De Kromme Waal.” Looking back on this decision later in life Han Schröder remarked that she probably wanted to prove herself by taking an independent path. According to her recollection, she stubbornly rejected all good advice except for an occasional practical tip by Rietveld. As she later remarked, in the world of architects, women were at that moment “tolerated but not considered.”47 Han Schröder maintained the architectural office for almost ten years, from 1954 to 1963, the year of her immigration to the United States. Her brother Binnert entrusted her with her first commission to design and build a house—in 1954 he returned from the Far East and needed a home in Hattem, a town on the northern side of the national park De Hoge Veluwe.48 Five years later, in 1960, she designed another private home for the contractor Gaastra, who was a friend of her mother and Rietveld, in Zeist. However, the majority of Schröder’s commissions had a social character: for example, she specialized in the design of youth centers, a new building genre at the time and a product of the emerging welfare society. Also, she designed a public housing project in Kockengen (1961–62) and an apartment block for retired single nurses in Austerlitz (1962).49 Another part of her

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Figure 10.3 House for Binnert Schröder in Hattem, 1954, architect Han Schröder. East view. Source: Jan Versnel. Credit: Maria Austria Institute Amsterdam.

commissions comprised the renovation of existing houses often carrying a social function: for example, Han Schröder developed a reconstruction project of Ellinchem, the Center for Troubled Youth, in 1955–1963, and in 1955 she designed a housing project for rejected children in De Poort in Bussum (not realized). In 1962 she designed a new auditorium and a snack bar for the Academy of Social Work in Amsterdam. Apart from these ‘didactic’ buildings she also restored buildings with a recreational purpose: for example, in 1962 she renovated the Kessler House in Den Dolder, a former estate used as a recreation site for the employees of the Dutch Steel Furnaces. A part of Han’s design work was also constituted by numerous commissions for interiors.50 Han Schröder’s portfolio specifically contained designs for professional women, such as social workers, psychologists, and editors. According to Schröder, these single women were often overworked and not inclined to do a lot of housework. Han’s designs therefore contained not only carefully considered furnishing arrangements but also professional advice on how to manage their lives. In more conventional family situations Han would ponder the views of a housewife. For example, the house she designed for her brother had a U-shaped plan, with the living and dining rooms, study, and kitchen all intertwined as a unit.51 For Han this idea of spatial and functional integration was important because it secured communications between the housewife and other family members, who gathered at hours when a lot of kitchen work needed to be done. For this reason, no doors separating different areas would be installed; instead, spaces merged smoothly, and the housewife should have experienced the views and conversations together with the rest of the family. The kitchen was positioned approximately 148

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Figure 10.4 House for Binnert Schröder in Hattem, architect Han Schröder. Interior view, to the right: kitchen with housewife. Source: Jan Versnel. Credit: Maria Austria Institute Amsterdam.

twenty inches higher than the living area so that the housewife could enjoy the view, through the study, onto the park on the west side of the house. By the early 1960s, Han Schröder’s architectural office grew increasingly successful despite apparent challenges emerging constantly for a woman in the architectural profession. Her designs, like the Gaastra House, received favorable comments from critics, and her commissions increased to such an extent that an expansion of the studio appeared inevitable. In 1963 she received a large commission to build a retirement home in Arnhem, but her mind was set: she decided to immigrate to the United States. Among the reasons behind this decision Schröder indicated that the growing architectural office was “somehow burdening” her.52 Her archival records confirm that she also missed her partner Florence, who around that time resettled to the United States.53 Other reasons may have contributed too, such as her exceptional, complicated position as a female architect in the Netherlands, as well as the fact that it was hard to accomplish her identity and her own architectural signature in the vicinity of her mother and Rietveld. Han closed her office in the Netherlands and proceeded with the new international life.

Conclusion While Han Schröder was an exponent of a major Dutch avant-garde movement, her work has never been the subject of research and interpretation. No books or articles have been written about her, and her name does not appear in dictionaries of art and design. One might argue that this was the fate of many female architects in Europe at the time. However, in the case of Han Schröder, this 149

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omission is less evident. She was, after all, a card-carrying, fully paid-up member of the architectural profession. She was educated alongside male architects in one of Europe’s most prestigious architectural schools, and she was a noticeable link of formal and informal networks in her field. Indeed, these factors helped her to get commissions, and at the start of the 1960s her work was also modestly circulated, mostly under the header “rare female architect,” in newspapers and minor architectural journals. However, her name never appeared in the established building press in the Netherlands nor in the architectural history books. There are many reasons for this neglect. For example, Schröder benefited from working with Rietveld, but this also led to a situation in which the attribution of a building, and therefore the credit for it, went exclusively to Rietveld himself. Her chances of establishing an autonomous profile and creating her own identity were better once she had founded her architectural office. However, she left the country before she could build a name for herself and achieve visibility on the basis of a significant body of work. In the Netherlands until the 1980s, patriarchal assumptions in terms of women’s role and ability as designers had imperative, biased consequences that greatly contributed to the absence of a robust justified perspective of Dutch architectural chronicle. Only now, by identifying, studying, and revealing the impact of remarkable professional women such as Han Schröder on Dutch architecture, can we create a truthful reading of the history of the built environment in the region and in global perspective.

Notes 1. Read in Doris Wintgens, Peggy-Nelly, Peggy Guggenheim and Nelly van Doesburg, Advocates of de Stijl (Rotterdam: 010 Publishers, 2017), also: Katjuscha Otte and Ingelies Vermeulen, Vrouwen in het leven van Piet Mondriaan (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2017). 2. Ed Taverne and Dolf Broekhuizen, J.J.P. Oud’s Shell Building Design and Reception (Rotterdam: 010 Publishers, 1995); also: Ed Taverne, “The Only Truly Canonical Building in Northern Europe,” in Mart Stam’s Trousers: Stories from behind the Scenes of Dutch Moral Modernism, ed. Gerard Hadders, Michael Speaks, and Wouter Vanstiphout (Crimson) (Rotterdam: 010 Publishers, 1990), 93–107. 3. “Gerrit Thomas Rietveld: Dutch Architect,” in Encyclopaedia Britannica, accessed March  8, 2020, www. britannica.com/biography/Gerrit-Thomas-Rietveld. 4. Alice Friedman, Women and the Making of the Modern House: A Social and Architectural History (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1998). 5. About the life and work of Han Schröder see: IAWA Collection at Virginia Tech, http://ead.lib.virginia. edu/vivaxtf/view?docId=vt/viblbv01284.xml; and “Un Dia | Una Arquitecta.” Sites accessed March  8, 2020, https://undiaunaarquitecta2.wordpress.com/2016/11/19/han-schroder-1918–1992/. 6. Taverne, “The only,” 101. 7. Friedman, Women and the Making of the Modern House, 76–77. 8. Ibid., 75. 9. Ibid., 78. 10. Ibid., 79. 11. Corry Nagtegaal, Tr. Schröder-Schräder; bewoonster van het Rietveld Schröderhuis (Utrecht: Impress, 1987). 12. Han Schröder, Letter to Corrie Nagtegaal, “Voor Corrie Nagtegaal over moeder, voor haar boekje” (IAWA, Box 10, Folder 4: 1–14), 5. 13. Ibid. 14. Kees Kuiken, “Netten, Maria Elisabeth Geisweit van der (1871–1961),” in Digitaal Vrouwenlexicon van Nederland, 2017; also: Schröder, Letter to Nagtegaal, 5. 15. Kuiken, “Netten.” 16. Schröder, Letter to Nagtegaal, 5. 17. Ibid., 1. 18. Ibid., 5. 19. Ibid., 5, 6. 20. Han Schröder, Autobiographical Essay on the Basis of Curriculum Vitae (IAWA, Box 5, Folder 24: 4).

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Regarding De Stijl 2 1. Schröder, Letter to Nagtegaal, 10. 22. Ibid., 9. 23. Ibid. 24. Pieter Van Strien and Jacques Dane, Driekwart eeuw Psychotechniek in Nederland; de magie van het testen (Assen: Koninklijke Gorcum, 2001). Also: “Report of the Nederlandse Stichting voor Psychotechniek” (April 23, 1936. IAWA, Box 1, Folder 4). 25. Read in “Report of Nederlandse Stichting,” 2: “Karakterologisch paart zij aan een haast mannelijke ‘push’ en wil tot aanpakken en regelen een behoorlijke mate van medegevoel, warmte en inleving in anderen.” 26. Ibid. 27. Marlite Halbertsma and Kitty Zijlmans, Gezichtspunten, Een inleiding in de methoden van de kunstgeschiedenis (Nijmegen: SUN, 199), 222. 28. Truus Schröder, Letter to Marius Duintjer, no date (IAWA, Box 1, Folder 3). Marius Duintjer was a lead Dutch architect who designed important buildings during the postwar reconstruction of the Netherlands, i.e., the “Opstandingskerk” (the Resurrection Church) and the Dutch National Bank in Amsterdam. P. K. A. Pennink, Marius Duintjer Architect (Amsterdam: Architectengroep Duintjer BV, 1986). 29. Ibid. 30. Since the nineteenth century, Swiss universities had an exceptional, liberal policy regarding female students. From its establishment in 1855, the ETH was open to both men and women; in 1867 the University of Zürich opened its doors to women from abroad. However, for Swiss women it was not possible to study there, for they did not have access to secondary schools, see: Truus Schröder, Letter to Marius Duintjer. Also: Helena Seražin, “Women’s Education and Training: National and International Mappings,” in Women’s Creativity since the Modern Movement, Toward a New Perception and Reception (1918–2018), ed. Helena Seražin, Emilia Garda, and Caterina Franchini (Ljubljana: ZRC SAZU France Stele Institute of Art History, ZRC Publishing House, 2018), 21–35; and Ibid., Katia Frey and Eliana Perotti, “Flora RuchatRoncati, First Woman Professor at ETH Zürich: Introducing Women’s Standpoint in Architecture Pedagogy,” in Women’s Creativity since the Modern Movement (1918–2018). Toward a New Perception and Reception, ed. Helena Serain, Caterina Franchini, and Emilia Garda (Ljubljana: France Stele Institute of Art History, Založba ZRC, 2018), 58–67. 31. Schröder, Autobiographical, 5. 32. Ibid. 33. Binnert Schröder, Letter to Han Schröder ( January 18, 1940. IAWA, Box 1, Folder 4). 34. Schröder, Autobiographical, 5. 35. Jan Poelhekke, Letter to Han Schröder (November 26, 1940. IAWA, Box 1, Folder 4); and Schröder, Autobiographical, 5. 36. Siegfried Giedion, Letter “To whom it may concern” (Zurich, July 16, 1941. IAWA, Box 1, Folder 4). 37. Schröder, Autobiographical, 5; Rein Harrenstein, Letter to Han Schröder (September 3, 1943. IAWA, Box 1, Folder 5). 38. Translation by author from Dutch, quote from “Report from the Nederlandse Stichting voor Psychotechniek” ( January 16, 1946. IAWA, Box 1, Folder 4): “Met mannelijke vastberadenheid en doorzettingsvermogen gaat zij door het leven, waarbij zij volkomen zelfstandig haar weg wil bepalen … haar zelfdiscipline is groot. Intussen doet zij haar vrouwelijke gevoelsleven hiermee tekort.” Also: “Binnen die kring laat zij zich gaan … daarbuiten wordt haar houding voornamelijk beheerst, nuchter en zakelijk … Zij is doorgaans streng prinicpieel … zij blijft trouw aan eigen besluiten.” 39. Schröder, Autobiographical, 7–8. 40. Ibid. 41. Ibid., 9. 42. References in: Marijke Küper and Ida Van Zijl, Gerrit Rietveld 1881–1964, Het volledige werk (Utrecht: Centraal Museum, 1992), 232, 243, 252, 259, 272, 277, 287. 43. References in: Hanna Schouten, “De Stijl—from Amsterdam to New York, the (Re)presentation of De Stijl in the Historical Retrospective: De Stijl Exhibition in the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam (1951) and the Museum of Modern Art in New York (1952–53)” (Grad. thesis, Rijksuniversiteit Leiden, 2016), 17. 44. Schröder, Autobiographical, 8. 45. Ibid., 10. 46. Ibid., 1. 47. Ibid., 10. 48. Ibid., 11. 49. Ibid., 12–13. 50. Ibid., 13–15.

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Rixt Hoekstra 51. Han Schröder, “Woonhuis Ir. B.S. te Hattem” (Typoscript. IAWA, Box  10, Folder 19), also: KarlHeinz Stocker, “House near Amsterdam, Maison aux Pays-Bas, Haus in Hattem,” International Asbestos Cement Review 24 (October 1961): 11–12, see IAWA, Box 6, Folder 17; and in Maristella Casciato, “Dutch Case Study Houses. Rietveld’s Contribution to Modern Living in Perspective,” in Rietveld’s Universe, ed. Rob Dettingmeijer, Marie-Thérèse van Thoor, and Ida Van Zijl (Rotterdam: NAI Publishers, 2010), 76–98. 52. Schröder, Autobiographical, 14. 53. Box 8, Folder 20 contains photographs of a housing project for retired nurses in Austerlitz, with these messages handwritten by Schröder to Florence.

Bibliography Casciato, Maristella. “Dutch Case Study Houses. Rietveld’s Contribution to Modern Living in Perspective.” In Rietveld’s Universe, edited by Rob Dettingmeijer, Marie-Thérèse van Thoor, and Ida Van Zijl, 76–98. Rotterdam: NAI Publishers, 2010. Frey, Katia, and Eliana Perotti. “Flora Ruchat-Roncati, First Woman Professor at ETH Zurich: Introducing Women’s Standpoint in Architecture Pedagogy.” In Women’s Creativity since the Modern Movement, toward a New Perception and Reception (1918–2018), edited by Helena Seražin, Emilia Garda, and Caterina Franchini, 58–67. Ljubljana: ZRC SAZU France Stele Institute of Art History, ZRC Publishing House, 2018. https:// uifs.zrc-sazu.si/sites/default/files/momowo_torin_2018_final.pdf. Friedman, Alice. Women and the Making of the Modern House: A Social and Architectural History. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1998. Giedion, Siegfried. Space, Time and Architecture: The Growth of a New Tradition. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1941. Halbertsma, Marlite, and Kitty Zijlmans. Gezichtspunten, Een inleiding in de methoden van de kunstgeschiedenis. Nijmegen: SUN, 1993. Kuiken, Kees. “Netten, Maria Elisabeth Geisweit van der (1871–1961).” In Digitaal Vrouwenlexicon van Nederland, 2017. http://resources.huygens.knaw.nl/vrouwenlexicon. Kuper, Marijke, and Ida Van Zijl. Gerrit Rietveld 1881–1964, Het volledige werk. Utrecht: Centraal Museum, 1992. Nagtegaal, Corry. Tr. Schröder-Schräder; bewoonster van het Rietveld Schröderhuis. Utrecht: Impress, 1987. Otte, Katjuscha, and Ingelies Vermeulen. Vrouwen in het leven van Piet Mondriaan. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2017. Pennink, Peter. Marius Duintjer Architect. Amsterdam: Architectengroep Duintjer BV, 1986. Schouten, Hanna. “De Stijl—from Amsterdam to New York, the (Re)presentation of De Stijl in the Historical Retrospective. De Stijl Exhibition in the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam (1951) and the Museum of Modern Art in New York (1952–53).” Grad. thesis, Rijksuniversiteit Leiden, 2016. Seražin, Helena. “Women’s Education and Training: National and International Mappings.” In Women’s Creativity Since the Modern Movement: Toward a New Perception and Reception (1918–2018), edited by Helena Seražin, Emilia Garda, and Caterina Franchini, 21–35. Ljubljana: ZRC SAZU France Stele Institute of Art History, ZRC Publishing House, 2018. https://uifs.zrc-sazu.si/sites/default/files/momowo_torin_2018_ final.pdf. Stocker, Karl-Heinz. “House near Amsterdam, Maison aux Pays-Bas, Haus in Hattem.” International Asbestos Cement Review 24 (October 1961): 11–12. Taverne, Ed. “The Only Truly Canonical Building in Northern Europe” In Mart Stam’s Trousers: Stories from behind the Scenes of Dutch Moral Modernism, edited by Gerard Hadders, Michael Speaks, and Wouter Vanstiphout (Crimson), 93–107. Rotterdam: 010 Publishers, 1990. Taverne, Ed, and Dolf Broekhuizen. J.J.P. Oud’s Shell Building Design and Reception. Rotterdam: 010 Publishers, 1995. Tegethoff, Wolf. “Rietveld’s Residential Concepts. From Manifesto to Domestic Privacy.” In Rietveld’s Universe, edited by Rob Dettingmeijer, Marie-Thérèse van Thoor, and Ida Van Zijl, 64–76. Rotterdam: NAI Publishers, 2010. Van Strien, Pieter, and Jacques Dane. Driekwart eeuw Psychotechniek in Nederland; de magie van het testen. Assen: Koninklijke Gorcum, 2001. Wintgens, Doris. Peggy-Nelly, Peggy Guggenheim and Nelly van Doesburg, Advocates of de Stijl. Rotterdam: 010 Publishers, 2017.

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Resources in “Han Schroeder Architectural Papers 1926–1998,” IAWA, Special Collections, University Libraries, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA Giedion, Sigfried. Letter “To whom it may concern,” Zurich, July 16, 1941. IAWA, Box 1, Folder 4. Harrenstein, Rein. Letter to Han Schröder, September 03, 1943. IAWA, Box 1, Folder 5. Poelhekke, Jan. Letter to Han Schröder, November 26, 1940. IAWA, Box 1, Folder 4. Report of the Nederlandse Stichting voor Psychotechniek, January 16, 1946. IAWA, Box 1, Folder 4. Report of the Nederlandse Stichting voor Psychotechniek, April 23, 1936. IAWA, Box 1, Folder 4. Schröder, Binnert. Letter to Han Schröder, January 18, 1940. IAWA, Box 1, Folder 4. Schröder, Han. “Autobiographical Essay on the Basis of Curriculum Vitae.” IAWA, Box 5, Folder 24: 4. Schröder, Han. Letter to Corrie Nagtegaal, “Voor Corrie Nagtegaal over moeder, voor haar boekje,” no date. IAWA, Box 10, Folder 4: 1–14. Schröder, Han. “Woonhuis Ir. B.S. te Hattem.” Typoscript. IAWA, Box 10, Folder 19. Schröder, Han, and Marjan. Letter to notary Koch, Leidsegracht Amsterdam, October 29, 1954. IAWA, Box 3, Folder 5. Schröder, Truus. Letter to Marius Duintjer, no date. IAWA, Box 1, Folder 3.

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11 RECLAIMING THE WORK OF WOMEN ARCHITECTS IN MANDATORY PALESTINE Sigal Davidi

Introduction In 2019, the Vienna University of Technology invited me to lecture on the first Viennese women architects who graduated the university and immigrated to Palestine under the British Mandate.1 That year, the university celebrated a centennial to its admitting women to architectural studies. Among the first women architects who had studied in Vienna before immigrating to Palestine in the 1930s were Dora Gad and Helene Roth. Both of them pursued successful careers in their new homeland and became prominent designers in Israel. Walking the passageways of Ben Gurion Airport terminal, I passed by a photo exhibition titled Parliament Shaping Israeli Society, celebrating the seventieth anniversary of the Knesset (Israel’s parliament) Building. Ample space was dedicated to the architecture of the Knesset building and to its architect, Joseph Klarwein. Photos of its interior were also displayed—the Plenary Hall with Danny Karavan’s artwork and the Reception Hall with Marc Chagall’s tapestries. Yet the name of the interior designer—Dora Gad—was missing. Dora Gad (1912–2003) immigrated to Palestine in 1936 and had an extremely successful, impressive, and long career that began in Mandatory Palestine and peaked after the establishment of the State of Israel. Her work stood out for its innovative spirit and for its important contribution to the field of design in Israel. In the early decades of Israel’s statehood, Gad played a key role in designing projects for the newly established national institutions.2 Her interior designs, which covered a variety of fields, represented the nascent Israeli identity in a unique and original way.3 Her works included the interior design of the foreign minister’s residence, which later became the official residence of Israel’s prime ministers (1950); the National Library (1956); several Israeli embassies abroad; the overseas offices of El Al, Israel’s newly established national carrier (1956– 1959); and, no less importantly, El Al’s three new “Britannia” airplanes (1957). In collaboration with Alfred Mansfeld and Munio Weinraub, Gad designed the interiors of nine ships for ZIM, Israel’s first national commercial shipping company, including that of ZIM’s flagship, Shalom (1964). Throughout the 1960s, Dora Gad was involved in planning key national projects in Israel. After winning a competition with architect Al Mansfeld, they jointly planned the Israel Museum in Jerusalem (the building and its interior). In 1966, Gad and Mansfeld received the Israel Prize, Israel’s most coveted and prestigious award, for this project. The prize was also a tribute to Gad’s thirty years of work, during which she advanced and shaped Israel’s interior design world. Gad was the first

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Figure 11.1 The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, architects Dora Gad and Al Mansfeld, 1966. Source: The Dora Gad Archive. Credit: College of Management Academic Studies and the Israel Architecture Archive (IAA); can be accessed online as part of a collaborative initiative between the Ministry of Jerusalem and Heritage, the National Library of Israel, Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, and the Judaica collection at the Harvard University Library.

woman to win the Israel Prize in architecture. In the same year, Gad also designed the interior of the new Knesset Building in Jerusalem. Like Dora Gad, an impressive number of women architects left a distinctive mark on planning, designing, and building the new Jewish society in Mandatory Palestine and later in the new State of Israel. In spite of that, their outstanding achievements have been largely ignored and remain forgotten to this day in the Israeli historiography and in the modern architectural discourse. Numerous books and comprehensive academic studies have been dedicated solely to the work of firstgeneration male architects in Palestine. Bringing to light the work of women, whose creations and activities have been pushed to the margins and excluded from historiography, remains a pressing need in Israel, especially in architectural research. The feminist critical method firmly contends that these neglected and forgotten works can and should be salvaged. This chapter sheds light on the work and enormous contribution of first-generation women architects during the British Mandate period in Palestine and in the early years of Israeli statehood. It describes the reasons for their successful acceptance into the architectural profession in Palestine and explains why eventually they fell into oblivion in historiography.

Women Architects in Mandatory Palestine The rise of the Zionist movement around the turn of the twentieth century marked the beginning of a massive immigration of European Jews to Palestine, which increased after the nazis rose to power in Germany. Women architects first began working there as early as 1921, with the arrival of the first woman architect Lotte Cohn (1893–1983) from Berlin. Cohn, the third woman to graduate the architecture department of the Technical University of Berlin in 1916, became one of the most prominent architects in Palestine and was a pioneer in her personal life, her work, and her writing. Cohn spent the first decade in her new homeland in Jerusalem, where she worked at the Palestine Land Development Company, alongside the well-known architect and town planner Richard

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Kauffmann.4 Simultaneously, she also worked independently and planned groundbreaking projects for the Jewish Yishuv such as the first Agricultural School for Women in the cooperative agricultural village of Nahalal (1924) and a collective children’s home in Hefziba, the first ever planned in a kibbutz (1926). Moving to Tel Aviv in 1931, she opened her own firm with engineer Josef Mahrer, who had just arrived from Vienna. During the 1930s and 1940s, she planned innovative projects in Tel Aviv, among them the first workers’ restaurant equipped with electric appliances (1931); a healthcare center for mothers, babies, and pregnant women in the Kerem HaTeymanim neighborhood (1933); the modern Kaete Dan Hotel by the sea (1933); an office building (1936); and a large residential neighborhood in northern Tel Aviv (1947–57), which comprised apartment buildings, row houses, and commercial areas. Cohn played a significant role in making Tel Aviv a token of modern architecture. She expressed her opinions boldly in lectures and conferences as well as in articles she wrote for architectural journals, women’s magazines, and daily newspapers. In the 1930s, seventeen women architects were already working in Palestine. In addition to Cohn and Gad, the best known among them were Genia Averbuch (1909–1977), Elsa Gidoni Mandelstamm (1899–1978), Gertrud Goldschmidt (1898–1997), Judith Stolzer Segall (1904–1990), and Helene Roth (1904–1995). These women architects had an important part in introducing and advancing modern architecture into their new country. They planned residential neighborhoods, individual apartment buildings, urban projects, and large public structures, including new social institutions. The individual biographies of these women architects reveal amazingly similar life stories and professional characteristics that permit sketching a “collective biography” of them

Figure 11.2 Apartment building, Tel Aviv, architect Lotte Cohn, 1936. Source: Yitzhak Kalter. Credit: Kalter Collection. Courtesy: The Association of Engineering, Architects and Graduates in Technological Sciences in Israel (AEAI), Tel Aviv Museum of Art.

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and their varied innovative work in Eretz Yisrael. This blend of shared properties made them a singular phenomenon.

New Opportunities in a New Homeland Most of the women architects who arrived in Mandatory Palestine belonged with the first group of women who graduated architecture studies at technical universities in Germany and Vienna. Those who had left Germany in the 1920s were driven by a Zionist ideology. However, most of those who arrived in the 1930s had to flee Europe after the nazis rose to power in 1933 and immediately proceeded to pass anti-Jewish laws that excluded Jews from every aspect of public and civil life. The hasty immigration faced the newly arrived women architects with many difficulties. They had to familiarize themselves with the new environment and climate, especially the extremely hot summer, and adapt to the cultural and social differences. Professionally, they needed to adjust to local building regulations, materials, and methods, and not least of all, they had to master the Hebrew language. Despite these hurdles, most of them found work right away. Several found jobs at various public planning departments, such as city engineers’ offices, the Public Works Department of the British government, or the Jewish Agency Planning Department, as well as at private architectural firms. After a rather short period of adjustment, having gained some experience, they set out to open their own independent architectural firms. They chose to settle in the first Hebrew city, Tel Aviv (est. 1909), a modern urban center and the heart of the Jewish society. Tel Aviv was a middle-class stronghold, where the building momentum included both institutional and private projects. Women architects often opened private firms with male colleagues or engineers, a common habit in the local architectural milieu of the time. In the male-dominated realm of architecture, male cooperation made it easier for women architects to engage in professional work, and they were keen on making the best of this privilege. During their short pre-immigration period in Europe, these women architects mainly worked as employees of architecture firms. A few of them had already worked independently, designing interiors and furniture. The move to their new homeland offered them new opportunities to expand their scope of activity by cooperating with various groups and individuals involved in building housing projects and public institutions.

Gender Inequality in the Jewish Society There is nothing trivial about the fact that in their new homeland, women architects were able to make a remarkable professional impression and work side by side with their male colleagues. Gender equality was not among the guiding principles of the nascent Jewish society in Palestine. Research studies exposed the significant inequality that existed between men and women in every aspect of life: women workers earned less than their male counterparts and were the first to be fired in economic crises.5 Even in the Kibbutzim that pretended to be symbols of social equality, most women filled traditional feminine duties, such as kitchen work, laundry, nursing, and childcare. They owed part of their success to the special circumstances that developed in Palestine in the early 1930s. At that time, the Jewish society was establishing itself by building Kibbutzim and Moshavim, socialist and cooperative agricultural communities, as well as new towns and neighborhoods, along with its own public institutions. The range of opportunities that were open for the local architects of both genders was so wide that men architects did not feel threatened by women entering “their” professional domain. By joining forces, male and female architects together de facto promoted a less discriminative variety of professional opportunities for both genders. Another point to remember is that architecture, like many other professions, was taking its first steps in Palestine and was not set in its ways as it was in Europe. This may explain why the attitude 157

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toward women was not as patronizing, allowing them to exhibit their talents. In an article Lotte Cohn published in a daily newspaper titled Eretz Yisrael Women in Technical Professions she describes this point plainly and humorously: Eretz Yisrael does not observe every strong tradition; it is open to adopt any innovation and follow the new spirit. This phenomenon is particularly noticeable in the technical professions. … Certain newcomers wonder: A woman engineer? Can a woman undertake such work? But people living in Eretz Yisrael have cast off these doubts. Moreover, a high percentage of the women architects are important and outstanding women, with extraordinary talents, who have long established themselves so that their colleagues not only tolerate them but also have special appreciation for them.6 Their contemporaries in Britain and Germany, for example, were denied such opportunities. Working within conservative professional and social circles, they remained confined to domestic architecture, while the planning of public buildings continued being the exclusive, zealously guarded territory of male architects.7

Winning Architectural Competitions The designers of many Jewish-community building projects were winners of local architectural competitions, which the Association of Architects made vigorous efforts to promote. Most of those competitions were anonymous, and the fact that many of the prize winners were women was proof of their high-quality work. The competitions’ judges were celebrated architects and engineers who held prestigious professional positions, such as the Tel Aviv city engineer, the head of the Technion Department of Architecture, and the chief engineer of the Jewish Agency technical department. The competitions gave the female winners a seal of approval from their male colleagues, further enhanced their professional visibility, and paved their way to attaining financial independence and setting up firms of their own. Significantly, winning the competitions allowed those women architects to present their designs and win large-scale projects, mostly public buildings. Thus, in 1934, at the young age of twentyfive, Genia Averbuch won the competition for designing the Zina Dizengoff Square, gaining fame overnight.8 The square became one of the city’s central landmarks and a symbol of its modernism. In the same year, Gertrud Goldschmidt won a competition for designing the Farmer’s House in Rehovot, the cultural and administrative center of the local Farmers’ Federation. In 1935, Judith Stolzer Segall earned professional recognition by winning a public competition for designing the central synagogue of the small town of Hadera, in which forty-one architects participated. She was the first woman to design a synagogue in Mandatory Palestine.9

Planning Housing Projects With the pre- and postwar waves of immigration, the Jewish population grew rapidly, creating a pressing need for effective housing solutions. During the 1930s and 1940s, the planning of apartment buildings was, therefore, a central issue in the local architectural discourse and practice. Most women architects planned in Tel Aviv. In 1935, Judith Stolzer Segall won a public competition for designing an entire neighborhood of 160 apartments.10 This was a first attempt to build affordable dwellings for teachers and city employees. Cohn planned a new neighborhood in northern Tel Aviv; Gidoni planned apartment buildings; and Averbuch designed urban villas and numerous apartment buildings.11 158

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Figure 11.3 Zina Dizengoff Square, Tel Aviv, architect Genia Averbuch, 1938. Source: Matson Collection.

Figure 11.4 The Central Synagogue in Hadera, architect Judith Stolzer Segall, 1935. Frontal view, 2014. Source: Sigal Davidi.

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Figure 11.5 Apartment building, Tel Aviv, architect Elsa Gidoni Mandelstamm, 1935. Drawing published in Palestine Building Annual 1934–1935.

Roth and Gad specialized in interior design of apartments and shops and became quite prominent in that field. By planning and designing apartment buildings, women architects significantly contributed to the emergence of a local modern architectural language. To adjust to the local climate, long balconies with built-in shading elements replaced the typical horizontal windows of the European modern style. Many of Averbuch’s works are included among the buildings selected for preservation by the Tel Aviv municipality. Projects by women architects were widely publicized in the contemporary local daily press and in women’s magazines. The women’s magazines and the daily press applauded their achievements as professional women and broadcast their success in public.12 In contrast, the local architectural journal Building in the Near East, which published articles that discussed planning and design issues, mentioned the architects’ surnames and the initials of their first names, thus often blurring the fact that some of the mentioned architects were women. The projects of women architects were also mentioned in international professional journals such as the well-known French journal L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui and the British journal The Architectural Review.13 The publicity given to the work of women architects inspired other women to seek professional jobs in the public sphere and consolidated the position of women in architecture.

Collaboration With Zionist Women’s Organizations Genia Averbuch, Lotte Cohn, and Elsa Gidoni Mandelstamm stood out as the planners of institutions for women, initiated by Zionist women’s organizations.14 Those organizations comprised female volunteers who worked from the 1920s onward to advance the common goals of women and cater to their needs within the Jewish community. Seeking to help women adapt to

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their new land, they set out to build autonomous modern structures planned and managed by women for women. They deliberately invited women architects to participate in the architectural competitions they initiated toward planning their buildings, assigning them an important role in promoting the organizations’ policies. Thus, women architects had the opportunity to take part in determining the image of the Jewish society’s new social institutions. As early as 1923, Lotte Cohn planned the first public building sponsored by a women’s organization in Palestine. It was the Agricultural School for Women in Nahalal, with classrooms and dormitories for students and teachers. Elsa Gidoni Mandelstamm embarked on her first project as an independent architect in 1934, after winning a WIZO competition for designing the Domestic Science and Agriculture School in Nachlat Yitzhak near Tel Aviv.15 The competition marked the beginning of a productive cooperation between Gidoni and the women’s organizations. During five years in Mandatory Palestine, before relocating to the United States in 1938, Gidoni designed six buildings for institutions initiated by women’s organizations. They included the Women Pioneers’ House in Tel Aviv, apartments and workshops for single new immigrant women; the WIZO House, the organization’ headquarters in Tel Aviv; a women’s club and training kitchen; and women’s lodgings in a training agricultural farm.16 Averbuch won the competition for designing the Women Pioneers’ House in Jerusalem in 1939.17 Winning this competition marked the beginning of Averbuch’s long-term professional collaboration with five major Zionist women’s organizations. From the mid-1940s through the early years of Israel’s statehood, Averbuch designed youth villages for Holocaust survivor children for these organizations.18 The buildings’ design represented the cultural approaches that guided the establishment of new institutions. It illustrated the principles of progress—an efficient household promoting health and hygiene—and introduced the Jewish society, specifically the women, to the advantages of the modern domestic sphere.19 Their architectural plans gave particular attention to ventilation, sunlit interiors, balconies for recreation in the fresh air, roof terraces for sports activities, and electric kitchens. They embodied the role of a new woman within the nascent Jewish society.

Remembrance and Recognition in Israeli Historiography As proven in this chapter, women architects designed a large number of diverse projects and won considerable fame during the British Mandate period. Despite that, nearly all of their work is forgotten. Most of these buildings remain standing, although time has left its mark on them; some are derelict and have lost all signs of their glorious past. With the fading of the women architects’ names, their buildings have not been listed for preservation in the villages and cities where they stand. Physical deterioration of structures built for women’s organizations has been often the unwelcome result of changes made to their function and sometimes their falling into disuse. The initiatives of women’s organizations during the British Mandate period have not won the recognition they deserved in the Israeli historiography. The Jewish Yishuv regarded their work as “feminine” and therefore of lesser value and importance within the comprehensive public effort to establish a new society.20 Consequently, their contribution to the pioneering effort and the advancement of the nascent society was never fully acknowledged. I argue that the work women architects carried out for the women’s organizations was pushed aside and was not commemorated for exactly the same reason. Another reason why the women architects who were so successful during the British Mandate period have faded into oblivion could be attributed to the clash between their professional achievements and the gender-oriented conventions of commitment to family and home. In Palestine,

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women architects were highly motivated and utterly committed to their professional challenges, even at the expense of family life. Lotte Cohn, Elsa Gidoni Mandelstamm, Dora Gad, Helene Roth, and Judith Stolzer Segall remained single or were married but never had children. Women architects who became mothers ended up abandoning their profession, or saw their careers come to a standstill. This was the case of Gertrude Goldschmidt, Gertrude Krolik, and Zipora Neufeld-Cherniak. Of all the women architects who were mothers, Genia Averbuch was the only one to have had a long, successful career in architecture. Not having children was the cost for the preservation of their heritage, while no one was there to document and carefully keep record of their projects or preserve their architectural drawings and photographs. When Gad died in 2003, all the materials she had kept in her office were chucked into boxes without being catalogued, and access to them has proven very difficult. In terms of architectural conservation, Tel Aviv has been the most active among Israel’s cities and villages and has drawn comprehensive conservation plans. Luckily, many apartment buildings planned by women architects are situated in Tel Aviv’s White City area, designated a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage Site in 2003. Tel Aviv’s municipality has recently renovated the most famous symbol of the White City, Zina Dizengoff Square, inaugurated in 1938. In 1978, the municipality decided to separate the pedestrian and traffic levels to improve traffic flow in the square. The issue of whether or not to restore the square’s original shape was the subject of a heated public debate for several years.21 Finally, in 2018, on the square’s eightieth anniversary, the municipality reconstructed it with minor changes to accommodate traffic. This unique case of renovation-reconstruction in Tel Aviv’s history indicates a change in the Israeli perception of conservation, possibly also acknowledging at long last the contribution of women architects to Israel’s architectural legacy. Collecting information on women architects and their projects has been an extremely demanding process. The materials they left are dispersed between several archives, and most of them are not catalogued under their names, to the point that in certain cases researching their work proved almost impossible. Their impressive, significant, and broad body of work, which had enormous implications for the historical development of Israeli society, was neglected and forgotten. Now, finally the Israel National Library is running a project for high-quality scanning and cataloguing of Gad’s and Roth’s collections. The project is part of a comprehensive national project for the preservation of Israeli visual and stage art and will make the collections accessible online to the public. The study of women architects’ legacy in Israel presented in this chapter is set out to correct the historical injustice done to them. I examined their superb architectural work, which, I hope will be included in modern architectural historiography in Israel and worldwide.

Notes 1. From 1920 to the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, Palestine under the British Mandate was also referred to as Palestine or Eretz Yisrael (Land of Israel), one of its biblical names. The members of the Jewish community called themselves “the Yishuv.” 2. Dora Gad and her husband, architect Yehezkel Gad, worked together until his death in 1958 at the age of forty-seven. 3. Gad Archive, Israel National Library, Jerusalem; Ran Shechori, “Dora Gad: The Israeli Presence in Interior Design,” in Architecture in Israel (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv Museum of Art, 1997). 4. For decades, their joint projects were accredited to Kauffmann alone. Recent research has revealed that the plans carry both their signatures. 5. See, for example: Dvorah Bernstein, A Woman in Eretz Yisrael: Aspiring for Equality in the Yishuv Era (Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hame’uchad, 1987), 126–28; Bat Sheva Margalit Stern, Redemption in Chains: The Women Workers’ Movement in Eretz Yisrael 1920–1939 ( Jerusalem: Yad Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, 2006). 6. Lotte Cohn, “The Eretz Yisrael Woman in Technical Professions,” Doar Hayom, 3 April 1935, 3.

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Women Architects in Mandatory Palestine 7. Despina Stratigakos, “Architects in Skirts: The Public Image of Women Architects in Wilhelmine Germany,” Journal of Architectural Education 55 no. 2 (2001): 90–100; Lynne Walker, “Women and Architecture,” in Gender Space Architecture: An Interdisciplinary Introduction, ed. Jane Rendell, Barbara Penner, and Iain Borden (London and New York: Routledge, 2000), 244–57. 8. “Competition among Architects for Designing a Square in the Name of Zina Dizengoff,” HaBinyan (December 1934): 18 [Hebrew]. 9. “Competition for Planning a Synagogue in Hadera,” HaBinyan (August 1935): 9 [Hebrew]. 10. Y. Segall, “Kiryan Meir Neighborhood. Apartment Houses of Kupat Am bnak in Tel Aviv,” HaBinyan (August 1937): 18. 11. “Rassco Neighborhood Tel Aviv,” Journal of the Association of Engineers and Architects in Eretz Israel (February 1947): 12 [Hebrew]. 12. For example: “First Prize Awarded to Woman Architect,” The Palestine Post, August 6, 1944, 3; Lea Grundig, “The Woman Architect of Eretz Yisrael,” Dvar HaPo’elet 2–3, March 16, 1948, 25–26 [Hebrew]. 13. Sam Barkai and Julius Posener, “Maisons de Jeunes Emigrées à Tel Aviv. Architect: Elsa Gidoni,” L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui 9 (1937), 23; Ya’acov Schiffman, “The New Palestine,” The Architectural Review 503 (1938), 142–54 [Hebrew]. 14. Four women’s organizations collaborated with women architects during the mandate period: WIZO (Women International Zionist Organization), General Council of Women Workers, LENI (Women’s League for Israel), and MWOA (Mizrachi Women’s Organization of America). In the 1950s, Averbuch also worked for B’nai B’rith Women of America (BBW). 15. “Domestic Science and Agriculture School for Women’s International Zionist Organization. Planners: E. Gidoni—Al. Zeissler,” Building in the Near East (August 1936): 12 [Hebrew]. 16. “Close Competition for Building a Pioneer Women’s house in Tel Aviv,” Building in the Near East (August 1935): 10 [Hebrew]. 17. Sigal Davidi, “From the Margins to the Center: Urban Housing for Single Jewish Women in Pre-state Israel,” Women’s History Review 28, no. 1 (2018): 85–110. 18. Sigal Davidi, “Genia Averbuch: Modernism Meets the Vernacular; Youth Villages for New Immigrants, 1948–1955,” in Israel as a Modern Architectural Experimental Lab (1948–1978), ed. Anat Geva and Inbal BenAsher Gitler (Bristol and Wilmington: Intellect Books, 2020), 147–72. 19. Sigal Davidi, “By Women for Women: Modernism, Architecture and Gender in Building the New Jewish Society in Mandatory Palestine,” Architectural Research Quarterly 20 (2016): 217–30. 20. Hanna Herzog, “The Fringes of the Margin: Women’s Organizations in the Civic Sector of the Yishuv,” in Pioneers and Homemakers: Jewish Women in Pre-state Israel, ed. Deborah S. Bernstein (New York State University Press, 1992), 285–302. 21. For example: Naama Riba, “Israelis Demand Tel Aviv Consults Them on Redesign of Iconic Dizengoff Square,” Haaretz, April  26, 2016; Naama Riba, “Public Absent from Unveiling of Plan to Revamp Tel Aviv’s Iconic Dizengoff Square,” Haaretz, June 8, 2016.

Bibliography Barkai, Sam, and Julius Posener. “Maisons de Jeunes Emigrées à Tel Aviv. Architect: Elsa Gidoni.” L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui 9 (1937): 23. Bernstein, Dvorah. A Woman in Eretz Yisrael: Aspiring for Equality in the Yishuv Era. Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hame’uchad, 1987 [Hebrew]. “Close Competition for Building a Pioneer Women’s House in Tel Aviv.” Building in the Near East (August 1935): 10 [Hebrew]. Cohn, Lotte. “The Eretz Yisrael Woman in Technical Professions,” Doar Hayom, 3 April 1935, 3. “Competition among Architects for Designing a Square in the Name of Zina Dizengoff.” HaBinyan (December 1934): 18 [Hebrew]. “Competition for Planning a Synagogue in Hadera.” HaBinyan (August 1935): 9 [Hebrew]. Davidi, Sigal. “By Women for Women: Modernism, Architecture and Gender in Building the New Jewish Society in Mandatory Palestine.” Architectural Research Quarterly 20 (2016): 217–30. Davidi, Sigal. “From the Margins to the Center: Urban Housing for Single Jewish Women in Pre-state Israel.” Women’s History Review 28, no. 1 (2018): 85–110. Davidi, Sigal. “Genia Averbuch: Modernism Meets the Vernacular; Youth Villages for New Immigrants, 1948– 1955.” In Israel as a Modern Architectural Experimental Lab (1948–1978), edited by Anat Geva and Inbal BenAsher Gitler, 147–72. Bristol and Wilmington: Intellect Books, 2020.

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Sigal Davidi “Domestic Science and Agriculture School for Women’s International Zionist Organization. Planners: E. Gidoni—Al. Zeissler.” Building in the Near East (August 1936): 12 [Hebrew]. “First Prize Awarded to Woman Architect.” The Palestine Post, August 6, 1944, 3. Grundig, Lea. “The Woman Architect of Eretz Yisrael.” Dvar HaPo’elet 2–3 (March 16, 1948): 25–26 [Hebrew]. Herzog, Hanna. “The Fringes of the Margin: Women’s Organizations in the Civic Sector of the Yishuv.” In Pioneers and Homemakers: Jewish Women in Pre-state Israel, edited by Deborah S. Bernstein, 285–302. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992. “Rassco Neighborhood Tel Aviv.” Journal of the Association of Engineers and Architects in Eretz Israel (February 1947): 12 [Hebrew]. Schiffman, Ya’acov. “The New Palestine.” The Architectural Review 503 (1938): 142–54. Segall, Y. “Kiryan Meir Neighborhood. Apartment Houses of Kupat Am bnak in Tel Aviv.” HaBinyan (August 1937): 18 [Hebrew]. Shechori, Ran. “Dora Gad: The Israeli Presence in Interior Design.” In Architecture in Israel. Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv Museum of Art, 1997. Stern, Bat Sheva Margalit. Redemption in Chains: The Women Workers’ Movement in Eretz Yisrael 1920–1939. Jerusalem: Yad Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, 2006 [Hebrew]. Stratigakos, Despina. “Architects in Skirts: The Public Image of Women Architects in Wilhelmine Germany.” Journal of Architectural Education 55 no. 2 (2001): 90–100. Walker, Lynne. “Women and Architecture.” In Gender Space Architecture: An Interdisciplinary Introduction, edited by Jane Rendell, Barbara Penner, and Iain Borden, 244–57. London and New York: Routledge, [1989] 2000.

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12 MORE THAN SHELTER Olive Tjaden’s Suburban Projects in New York and Florida Millicent Danziger Vollono and Lauren Vollono Drapala

Introduction Beginning her professional career during the American suburban expansion of the 1920s, architectturned-developer Olive Frances Tjaden led a remarkably successful design career well into the midtwentieth century.1 Estimated to have completed over two thousand commissions, Tjaden designed residential, commercial, religious, and civic commissions in communities across Long Island, NY, Fort Lauderdale, FL, and beyond.2 Records of her architectural designs, which largely survive in the Olive Tjaden Papers at Cornell University Library, reflect a fluid design acumen that ranged from historic revival styles to more abstracted and streamlined aesthetics.3 It was her ability to traverse the emerging landscape of suburban development using her gender, social position, and involvement in federal housing initiatives, however, that helped her maintain a marketing advantage over her competitors.4 This analysis of Tjaden’s career provides an important case study to further examine the ways in which gender, race, and government initiatives intersected to set the foundations of the pre– and post–World War II suburban built environment in the United States. While recent scholarship has interrogated the role of women in architecture, analyses of specific designers have largely ignored more nuanced discussions of economic class and segregation in American suburbanization. British scholar Penny Sparke, in her groundbreaking research on interior decorator Elsie De Wolfe, has worked to expand the notions of women’s roles within architecture and design not only as producers, consumers, and clients, but also as collaborators and commentators through cultivation of personal relationships and same-sex networking.5 Similarly, historian Alice Friedman has studied the influence of female clients on iconic modernist architecture in the United States, challenging the perceived notion that women were passive clients, revealing instead that the client-consumer was as much a producer as the architect.6 These studies, however, place the focus on immensely wealthy women as patrons rather than centering on middle-class clients. Tjaden’s career trajectory, in contrast, represents a different trend of female designer, which appealed to a broader economic range of clientele, achieving some of her greatest success in middle-class speculative housing projects, often without a specific client in mind.

Tjaden’s Early Training Tjaden’s earliest professional training integrated residential, fine art, and landscape design alongside an interest and opportunity in creating affordable residential homes. Born in Brooklyn, New York,

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on November 24, 1904, Olive Frances Tjaden began her architecture training at the age of sixteen at the School of Architecture at Cornell University.7 In 1925 she graduated in an accelerated four years with her BA in architecture.8 Tjaden took her first position with Richard T. Childs, a Mineola realtor and president of the Long Island Real Estate Board, advertising that he aimed to build “distinctive homes for people of moderate means” at a cost of under $12,000.9 His development approach appealed directly to middle-class homeowners with customizable and unique features, and Tjaden would apply these principles for her own en-masse housing for other developers and future entrepreneurship.10 Tjaden’s initial success working with Childs began a trend that stretched across her career, in which she increasingly designed moderately priced homes and suburban amenities in middle-class, white communities through programs actively incentivized by federal housing programs. Tjaden began her career shortly after the creation of the Commerce Department’s Division of Building and Housing and the non-profit advocacy organization Better Homes in America in 1921, which promoted increased regulation in housing standards. Tjaden held membership in the American Institute of Architects (AIA), which throughout the 1920s actively campaigned against unmonitored expansion with increased zoning laws as a means of promoting the services of licensed architects.11 The movement toward greater regulation in planned communities created increased demands for the services Tjaden provided as a licensed architect in her private practice.

Gendering Architecture: Claiming Authority as a Female Designer Much as earlier female designers, such as Elsie De Wolfe, did before her, Tjaden advertised and promoted her design philosophy through the construction of her own home at the start of her private practice.12 Tjaden opened her architectural practice at 109 Seventh Street in Garden City in 1928 and simultaneously began constructing her home as a showplace to distinguish her work from her colleagues. Remaining single until she had firmly established her professional career, Tjaden designed the three-story Norman French–style house to house both her and her parents at 104 Eleventh Street in Garden City. The exterior is characterized by its steep gabled roof, decorative stained glass windows with board and batten shutters, and the sculptural quality of the chimney cap and cans and gardens which Tjaden designed herself; these characteristics would become trademarks visible in many of Tjaden’s other residential designs. In an interview in 1938, after having completed over four hundred houses, Tjaden reminisced: I put together much of my own house in Garden City, which I built as a test of my ability, to see if what I did on paper was practical for construction. I laid brick and cut glass and learned to tell others how, experiencing of course the age-old resentment against a girl telling older men what to do.13 Her insistence on laying brick and cutting glass as a “test of [her] ability” was a direct confrontation with the gender stereotypes that plagued many of her female colleagues. Similarly, her decision to design her showcase home as a single woman with her married parents operated both as a means to provide a relatable example of a single-family home type to potential clients, while also serving to normalize Tjaden’s single status and homeownership, both of which were largely atypical for the contemporary women she was intending to appeal to as clients.14 Like earlier female architects, such as Philadelphia’s Minerva Parker Nichols (1860–1949) and Boston’s Lois Lilley Howe (1864–1964) and Eleanor Manning (1884–1973), Tjaden capitalized on her gender to promote the feminine appeal of her residential commissions. In her interpretation of functionalized design, she claimed authority in residential design by stating: Women architects are scarce. Men do not appreciate how large the closets must be or the space between shelves. Kitchen comfort is purely a woman’s job. There are not more 166

More Than Shelter

Figure 12.1 Olive Tjaden with two workmen at a construction site of her home at 104 Eleventh Street in Garden City, NY, c. 1928. Source: Gustav Anderson. Credit: Olive Tjaden Papers, No. 15–6–2919. Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library.

women architects because the course is hard. It involves detail and technical work from which most girls shrink. I love that part of it. Comes naturally, I guess.15 Both owning her expertise while attempting to remain non-threatening to her male clients, Tjaden’s success as an architect was often marked by this tightrope of gender and professional expectations.

Creating Communities Through Exclusivity: The Power of Social Networks Tjaden’s choice to locate her home and offices in Garden City was strategic; it took advantage of the social networks established with the recent incorporation of the village in 1919 and the adoption of its first comprehensive zoning ordinance in 1924. Located approximately twelve miles from Manhattan, the town was the vision of industrialist turned developer Alexander Turney Stewart, founded as a private community in 1869 and opened for development with the incorporation of the Garden City Company in 1893.16 As Tjaden established her business in the late 1920s, the town catered to a growing resort community of predominantly white residents who enjoyed racing automobiles and aviation and valued newly formed utility companies and education systems.17 While earlier decades of urban professional life may have excluded professional women like Tjaden from networking socially with potential clients, the new lifestyle encouraged through Garden City’s ordinances provided unique opportunities for her to connect to a growing network of white, middle-class, professionally oriented clientele. For years Tjaden was the only female member of the AIA, and she relied on extensively networking through female social groups in her local community as a means to gain professional recognition. From 1930, Tjaden served as an active member of the Cornell Women’s Club, the Zonta Club of the Town of Hempstead, the Fine Arts Federation of New York, and other business and civic associations.18 Through these organizations, Tjaden tapped into networks to foster her professional exposure, often utilizing the basement entertainment complex of her Garden City home as a venue 167

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for parties, teas, and meetings, while also showcasing her work. When asked about envisioning the house of the future, Tjaden expounded that it was women, and not men, who would promote individual design over prefabrication in residential design. She explained that: It’s the woman who buys the house from the aesthetic point of view. Lots of people will want “more than a shelter,” which is adequate in times of stress. They will want an individual home, which they had the joy of building themselves.19 Tjaden is often quoted referring to the women she worked with not merely as users but as collaborators in her residential designs.20 Given the absence of client information and correspondence in Tjaden’s surviving archives, the actual success rate of her social networking in acquiring commissions is challenging to establish.21 Tjaden designed a six-bedroom Tudor Revival mansion for a fellow bridge player, Vera Hammann and her husband Charles, at 55 Cove Road in Huntington, NY, in 1929.22 Similarly, Thora Eilertsen, a business owner and member of the Freeport Business Women’s Club, and her husband Emil likely contracted Tjaden through shared contacts at the Zonta Club to design the façade and interior of Emile’s Beauty Shop at 82 N. Village Avenue in Rockville Centre, NY. The interior featured a unique Art Deco–inspired aesthetic for Tjaden, which included a full salon, massage room, and children’s room.23 Both the acquisition of large-scale residential commissions and small commercial renovations display the wide range of services Tjaden employed to network and attract female clientele to her design practice. As historian Natalie Naylor has detailed, women were disproportionately affected by the Great Depression on Long Island and throughout the country, as most government assistance programs limited options for employment of women throughout the 1930s.24 The federal government legislation between 1932 and 1937 prohibited more than one family member from working in civil service, and the popular Civilian Corporation Corps enrolled only men. Whereas there was limited opportunity for married women, Tjaden’s single status throughout the 1930s likely bolstered her candidacy for her involvement with the Federal Housing Agency.

Aligning With Federal Programs: Housing Across Long Island With the 1934 passage of the National Housing Act, Tjaden strategically positioned herself amidst government incentivizing programs that directly aided private real estate development as a national economic strategy to boost consumption. Appointed as a loan inspector for the newly established Federal Housing Agency (FHA), Tjaden served as an intermediator between federal funds and development projects in her Long Island region and in turn worked heavily as a designer on many suburban commercial and residential developments that were supported through FHA funds.25 Whereas the earliest years of Tjaden’s career tended to feature expansive private residential commissions, her involvement with the FHA coincided with a shift toward developments that featured mass-quantity residential spaces designed with variations of a specific theme. The impetus for this shift is evidenced by her short-lived residences in Woodmere, NY, for the Jacobi brothers, who served as the president and vice president of the Schenley Distilling Corporation. Tjaden designed an impressive 1931 Tudor Revival mansion for Mr. and Mrs. Harold Jacobi,26 completing Sanford Jacobi’s Georgian Colonial–style white mansion with extensive gardens just a couple of years later.27 Within ten years, these two residences were purchased by the firm of Jaeger Brothers and demolished to accommodate approximately forty new homes in a residential community.28 The demolition of these two major Tjaden commissions is indicative of a larger trend in housing development toward subdivided, modest housing developments by the late 1930s. The demand for large-scale

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Figure 12.2 Sanford Jacobi Residence, Hewlett, NY, architect Olive Frances Tjaden. Aerial view, c. 1935 (demolished) Source: Olive Tjaden Papers, No. 15–6–2919. Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library.

mansions in the Five Towns community of Long Island was already waning in favor of more modest, middle-class housing developments, and Tjaden pivoted to meet the need. Tjaden participated in creating residential prototypes for mass housing developments throughout Long Island that were often directly supported by FHA funding. The Seawane Golf and Beach Clubs contracted Tjaden to design their four-bedroom model home in Hewlett Bay Park (now Hewlett Harbor), which appeared to be a miniaturized version of the Sanford Jacobi house situated on threefourths of an acre overlooking the golf course with waterfront views on three sides. FHA representatives were present at the model home’s groundbreaking on the federally sponsored National Better Housing Day.29 Tjaden was similarly commissioned to contribute designs for the New Salem houses in Port Washington, on Long Island’s North Shore, which initially featured one hundred homes that were copies or modifications of historic New England houses. Whereas Tjaden contributed to massive building projects in these developments, her work was rarely credited by her name and reflected a loss of architectural ownership in favor of the developer’s prominence. Tjaden maintained her individual design esteem through participation in federally sponsored design exhibitions, such as her “Yuletide Cottage” design of January 1936. Valued at $12,000 and available as a raffle item in which sixty thousand people participated, the model house was displayed at the locally sponsored Better Housing Exposition in Mineola, NY, to encourage homeowners to invest in innovations in housing construction.30 While the home’s features were hailed as “ten years ahead of its time,” the house’s exterior belied its more innovative features with a French Provincial

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Figure 12.3 Mack Markowitz Oldsmobile Showroom, Main Street at Bedell Avenue, Hempstead, NY, architect Olive Frances Tjaden, c. 1935 (demolished) Source: Olive Tjaden Papers, No. 15–6–2919. Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library.

design with brick veneer.31 Tjaden continued to revise her conception of the model home in her submission to the Town of Tomorrow exhibition at the 1939–1940 New York World’s Fair, themed the “Dawn of a New Day.”32 Though not featured in the final exhibition, Tjaden’s submission reflected her continued interest in designing homes that were both affordable and featured cutting-edge technology.33 The expositions were promoting the mission of the FHA and intended to encourage consumerism and homeownership in newly developed suburban communities. These communities were sustained not only through residential construction, but by new type of amenities that supported suburban lifestyles. Tjaden’s success in Long Island’s suburban markets was dependent on two major federally funded transportation initiatives: the continued development and expansion of the Long Island Railroad and the development of a highway system to support automobile travel. From early on in her career, Tjaden produced innovation design solutions to the selling and maintenance of automobiles through her commissions for Oldsmobile dealer Mack Markowitz, one of the first Long Islanders to open large automobile dealerships. Tjaden designed his first Mineola branch in 1928. However, it was Tjaden’s 1935 design for Markowitz’s flagship location in Hempstead, NY, that dramatically altered the existing prototypes for car maintenance. While earlier car dealers considered the service aspect a messy inconvenience and farmed out repairs, Tjaden’s design for the Markowitz dealership prominently displayed multiple lifts, a paint and body shop, and breakthrough diagnostic tools that are now considered standard.34 With a showroom at the front, a filling station to the right of the main entrance, and an integrated service center at the rear, the Markowitz dealership pushed the boundaries of the garage paradigm to reflect changing tastes in suburban car ownership and maintenance that were essential to Long Island’s federally funded suburban expansion.

Architect-Turned-Developer: Tjaden’s Transition to Fort Lauderdale Following her first marriage to architect and builder Carl Johnson in May 1945, the architect subsequently referred to as Tjaden Johnson adapted her architectural approach to the rapidly developing Floridian suburbs.35 Mirroring the growth of residential communities on Long Island, the population of Fort Lauderdale, FL, grew rapidly throughout the first half of the twentieth century.36 Despite 170

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the economically depressed conditions of the 1930s throughout the United States, by 1950 the population reached a peak of fifty thousand, which was supported by a vast network of city planning efforts, as well as civic-minded organizations.37 Tjaden benefited from connections to both and joined a community of transplants moving to the city following the end of World War II. During 1945, the Johnsons began their first collaborative projects in Florida. Olive Tjaden Johnson is listed as architect of record of at least 12 single family residences and accompanying outbuildings, six duplex and multi-unit apartments, a church and a car dealership.38 A third of these were owned by Carl or the couple, and Olive was the sole owner of one property. She maintained her memberships in Zonta and the Cornell Alumni Association and became an active member of several other professional and civic organizations, including the Business and Professional Women’s Club of Broward County.39 Tjaden Johnson designed the organization’s clubhouse (1949) in the Croissant Park neighborhood of Fort Lauderdale.40 The marriage and business partnership provided new opportunities for Tjaden Johnson to serve as both designer and developer for her projects, but it also presented significant challenges to establishing and maintaining credit for her designs. The Johnsons invested in real estate in Las Olas Isles and proceeded to design and build single-family residences and duplex apartment buildings. In his description of the Hendricks Isle duplex apartments, architect Jack Clement Quigley reflected: I would say the success of these structures, the sale of them at a handsome profit, was almost entirely due to her [Tjaden’s] ability to design and furnish each of the buildings. … It was the decoration, the homy [sic] atmosphere and the fact that it was a completely finished project that went a long way toward selling the structure.41 Tjaden’s noted ability to design appropriately for both the social and financial parameters of her projects continues to contribute to the longevity of her architectural designs well after their construction

Figure 12.4 Hovey-Mercury Apartments at 208 Hendricks Isle, Fort Lauderdale, FL, architect Olive Frances Tjaden, completed between 1953 and 1954. Postcard image.

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dates. The latter part of her career in Florida, however, was largely disrupted by the souring personal relationship with her husband, Carl Johnson, which ended in divorce in 1969. Their correspondences during this period are acrid, with Johnson taking credit for Tjaden’s work and Tjaden aggressively defending her reputation. This brief attack on Tjaden’s professional integrity toward the end of her career is indicative of some of the greater inequities of husband-wife design teams in midtwentieth-century architecture. The significance of her early career as a single professional cannot be overstated, as it worked to establish her reputation and independence as an architect.

Conclusion By revealing and examining this remarkable historical narrative, it is our belief that the case study of Olive Frances Tjaden can serve as a means to interrogate the work of many women working in vernacular architecture in the pre– and post–World War II residential building programs in the United States. This chapter intends to probe the innovative means and methods through which Tjaden successfully applied by considering potential gender stereotypes to her professional advantage during a period of economic depression. Olive Frances Tjaden, like so many female architects of her time, perpetually balanced the tenacity of her professionalism with the perceived notions of her gender. Her notable surviving design commissions reflect her innovative approach to solving the issues of new architectural types in a largely expanding suburban market.

Notes 1. Building permits signed with Tjaden’s name are documented from 1927 in New York to 1955 in Florida. 2. The estimate of Tjaden’s total commissions was published in an exhibit of Olive Tjaden artifacts, Olive Tjaden Hall (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University, September 2016). 3. The authors wish to thank the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library (hereafter DRMC/CUL) for access to the Olive Tjaden Papers, 1919–1980, and the publishing permission for use of the photographs included in this chapter. 4. Tjaden’s full portfolio of work is woefully under-documented, but please refer to an earlier article for more biographic overview of her life and commissions: Lauren V. Drapala and Millicent D. Vollono, “Designing Suburbia: Olive Tjaden on Long Island,” Nassau County Historical Society Journal 71 (2016): 1–14. 5. Penny (Penelope Anne) Sparke, “Introduction,” in Women’s Places: Architecture and Design 1860–1960 (London: Routledge, 2003). 6. Alice Friedman, Women and the Making of Modern Architecture (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007). 7. Tjaden was descended from several generations of Danish architects and builders, and her father was a building inspector for the City of New York. Living in Germany, her great-grandfather, Herman August Francke, and her grandfather, Ludwig Francke, were said to have designed and built some of Europe’s remarkable edifices. Seth Baker, “Miss  Tjarden [sic] Plans Homes for Women,” Newsday, January  10, 1941, 23. 8. Tjaden subsequently received a Certificate in Industrial Design from New York University (1940) and a Certificate in City Planning from MIT (1944). 9. Vincent Miller, “A Distinctive Suburban Development,” Brooklyn Life and Activities of Long Island Society, March 20, 1926, 22. 10. Tjaden reportedly also worked for several prominent theater architects in New York City, including Thomas W. Lamb, Gustav Erda, and Harrison G. Weisman, between 1925 and 1928 until opening her private office. Gerry Fitch, “A Woman of Blueprints,” New York Sun, February 19, 1938, 41. 11. Lisa Marie Tucker, “The Architects’ Small House Service Bureau and Interior Design in the 1920s and 1930s,” Journal of Interior Design 34, no. 1 (September 2008): 57–69. 12. Penny Sparke discusses De Wolfe’s promotion of her home in greater detail in the article “The ‘Ideal’ and the ‘Real’ Interior in Elsie De Wolfe’s The House in Good Taste of 1913,” Journal of Design History 16, no. 1 (2003): 63–76, and expanded upon in Penny Sparke, Elsie De Wolfe: The Birth of Modern Interior Decoration, ed. Mitchell Owens (New York: Acanthus Press, 2005).

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More Than Shelter 1 3. Ibid. 14. Dolores Hayden traces the ideology of “female domesticity” as a concept wedded to a cult of male home ownership that began in Victorian society and perpetuated throughout twentieth-century American housing ideals. Dolores Hayden, Building Suburbia: Green Fields and Urban Growth 1820–2000 (New York: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2009): 20. 15. “Garden City Woman Turns to Architecture,” newspaper clipping in Olive Tjaden Papers (DRMC/CUL). 16. For an overview about the development of Garden City, NY, see Richard Guy Wilson, “Garden City: American Versions of Utopia,” in Gardens of Eden, ed. Robert B. McKay (London: W.W. Norton & Company, 2015): 22–45. 17. Mildred H. Smith, History of Garden City (Manhasset, NY: Channel Press, Inc, 1963): 111. 18. “Cornell Women’s Club of Long Island Will Meet Today at Olive Tjaden’s Home in Garden City,” New York Herald Tribune, March 31, 1940, D5. 19. Adelaide Kerr, “Women Will Plan House of Tomorrow,” St. Cloud Times, April 17, 1943, 7. 20. Adelaide Kerr, “Woman’s Hand to be Seen in Plan of Future Homes,” The News-Palladium, Benton Harbor, MI, April 26, 1943. 21. The project drawings and related records that survive in the Olive Tjaden Papers in the DRMC/CUL rarely contain client or address information, making it difficult to establish relationships without secondary source information. 22. The two women were often listed as playing in the same events, see “Women’s Club Juniors to Present ‘Gambols’ in Garden City Friday,” New York Herald, April 27, 1930, F7. 23. Though the building survives in an altered appearance as of January 2019, Tjaden’s original design was documented in a series of photographs, now available through the American Memory Collection. Tjaden, Olive, Architect, Gottscho-Schleisner, Inc., photographer. Emile’s Beauty Shop, 82 N. Village Ave., Rockville Centre, Long Island. From rear to front. New York Rockville Centre, 1939. Photograph, retrieved from the Library of Congress May 2, 2020, www.loc.gov/item/gsc1994014439/PP/. The Eilertsens hosted a gala opening for the building on October 2, 1939. 24. Natalie A. Naylor, Women in Long Island’s Past: A History of Eminent Ladies and Everyday Lives (Charleston, SC: The History Press, 2012). 25. Though the mortgage lending practices of the Federal Housing Agency have been largely critiqued for discrimination against black homeowners and urban housing policies, policy historian Judge Glock has interrogated these claims to provide a more nuanced understanding of the complexity and diverse approach to the FHA loan policies throughout the program’s operation. Judge Glock, “How the Federal Housing Administration Tried to Save America’s Cities, 1934–1960,” Journal of Public Policy 28, no. 2 (2016): 290–317. 26. The H. Jacobi Residence was the subject of a 1935 article in Good Housekeeping. Attached to her copy of the article, Tjaden was quick to note that she was responsible for the design of the interior woodwork and several interior color schemes attributed to Mrs. Jacobi. Olive Tjaden Papers (DRMC/CUL). 27. In addition to the Jacobi mansions, Tjaden also designed more modest houses for Harold Jacobi’s daughters and sons-in-law, Edith and Arthur Marks and Alice and Arnold Schlossberg, at 69 (Marks) and 75 (Schlossberg) Willow Road in the incorporated village of Woodsburgh; the houses still stand in 2019. 28. “Plan Fine Home Community on Hewlett Harbor Estate,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, April 27, 1941, 30. 29. “Hewlett Bay Park Marks Housing Day,” article in Tjaden Scrapbook, no source indicated. Olive Tjaden Papers (DRMC/CUL). 30. It was held in the warehouse of the Mack Motors Plant on Jericho Turnpike, another Tjaden building. 31. Twenty men were hired to complete its construction, which took place between August and October 1935. 32. “Home Building Center: New York World’s Fair, 1939,” Architectural Forum 71 ( July 1939): unpaginated. The Town of Tomorrow included thirteen demonstration homes meant to exemplify the proper use of nationally available materials, equipment, and methods for home building or home modernization. Tjaden’s design, a traditional style with streamlined elements, was a two-story home with an attached garage, with a top floor that featured two large bedrooms, a bath, and a sun deck, and a main level that included a kitchen, a dining room, a living room with a fireplace, and a terraced patio; a reading room led to the lower-level basement with laundry room. 33. Tjaden may have been working in collaboration with the architectural firm of Evans, Moore and Woodbridge. Grover Whalen, Letter to Olive F. Tjaden, Cameron Clark, Almus Pratt Evans, Lawrence Moore, and Frederick J. Woodbridge, addressed to 101 Park Avenue, New York City. Olive Tjaden Papers (DRMC/CUL). 34. “Markowitz Firm Has New Building,” Nassau Daily Review, June 25, 1935, 79. Unfortunately, the building at the northeast corner of Main and Bedell Streets was demolished in 2017.

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Millicent Danziger Vollono and Lauren Vollono Drapala 35. Carl Johnson received his architectural training and later continued his education at a technical college in Connecticut. The couple was married in May 1945 by Rev. Roscoe T. Foust at the Episcopal Church of the Ascension in New York City. 36. William C. Crawford, “Richard Schermerhorn, Jr., New York Engineer and Landscape Architect: Fort Lauderdale’s First City Planner,” Broward Legacy (Summer/Fall 1998): 5. 37. Claire M. Crawford, “Fort Lauderdale’s Cultural Journey,” Broward Legacy 26, no. 1 (2006): 15. 38. Kingdom Hall, SE 14th Street, 1952. 39. As part of their “Use Your Vote in ’48” promotion, Tjaden Johnson and the county registrar produced a radio show on local channel WFTL, which presented voter information in a question-and-answer format. 40. Bill Crawford, “Olive Tjaden (Van Sickle)—Women’s History  Month,” Florida’s Big Dig, February  20, 2016, accessed July 2, 2020, https://floridasbigdig.me/tag/olive-tjaden-vansickle. 41. Jack Clement Quigley, “Deposition at Divorce Hearing for Olive and Carl Johnson” (December 12, 1968), Olive Tjaden Papers (DRMC/CUL).

Bibliography Archival Collection: Tjaden, Olive. Olive Tjaden Papers, 1919–1980. Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Collection No: 15-6-2919, Cornell University Library. Crawford, Claire M. “Fort Lauderdale’s Cultural Journey.” Broward Legacy 26, no. 1 (2006). Crawford, William C. “Richard Schermerhorn, Jr, New York Engineer and Landscape Architect: Fort Lauderdale’s First City Planner.” Broward Legacy 21, no. 3–4 (Summer/Fall 1998): 2–17. Drapala, Lauren V., and Millicent D. Vollono. “Designing Suburbia: Olive Tjaden on Long Island.” Nassau County Historical Society Journal 71 (2016): 1–14. Friedman, Alice. Women and the Making of Modern Architecture. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007. Glock, Judge. “How the Federal Housing Administration Tried to Save America’s Cities, 1934–1960.” Journal of Public Policy 28, no. 2 (2016): 290–317. Hayden, Dolores. Building Suburbia: Green Fields and Urban Growth 1820–2000. New York: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2009. Naylor, Natalie A. Women in Long Island’s Past: A History of Eminent Ladies and Everyday Lives. Charleston, SC: The History Press, 2012. Smith, Mildred H. History of Garden City. Manhasset, NY: Channel Press, Inc, 1963. Sparke, Penny. “The ‘Ideal’ and the ‘Real’ Interior in Elsie De Wolfe’s The House in Good Taste of 1913.” Journal of Design History 16, no. 1 (2003): 63–76, Sparke, Penny. Women’s Places: Architecture and Design 1860–1960. London: Routledge, 2003. Sparke, Penny. Elsie De Wolfe: The Birth of Modern Interior Decoration, ed. Mitchell Owens. New York: Acanthus Press, 2005. Tucker, Lisa Marie. “The Architects’ Small House Service Bureau and Interior Design in the 1920s and 1930s.” Journal of Interior Design 34, no. 1 (September 2008): 57–69. Wilson, Richard Guy. “Garden City: American Versions of Utopia.” In Gardens of Eden, edited by Robert B. McKay, 22–45. London: W.W. Norton & Company, 2015.

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PART III

Women in the Context of Mid-Century Modernism Mainstream Practice Formations, Public Engagement, and Women’s Wider Agency in the Field In Part III, the authors explore women’s contributions to mid-twentieth-century modernism, with a particular focus on the ties between American and European architecture. The devastation of built environments during World War II, the deadliest and most destructive war in human history that lasted from 1939 to 1945 (over sixty million dead, largely of men fallen in combat), led to massive rebuilding efforts. The tragedies of warfare followed by the Cold War, which dominated the global scene over the second half of the twentieth century, and the establishment of new regimes generated a tide of immigration of well-educated international professionals to the United States. Remarkably, the postwar US economy had a gross national product that was greater than all the allied powers combined, fueling formidable building campaigns on American soil. The modernist approach of the era was shaped by the urgent need for new affordable materials, mass-produced items, and speedy urban and suburban developments. Postwar prosperity advanced manufacturing technologies and propelled the spread of modern architecture and design in the 1950s and 1960s. The studies presented here provide critical opportunities to recast more equitable frameworks of architectural histories by unveiling commanding female leadership and expertise in the profession. The chapters highlight new forms of knowledge and new ways of acting in the world. They feature remarkable female role models who created and developed professional agendas that resonated with the new imperatives of postwar modernity and broadened the panoramas of architectural practice, consultancy, criticism and advocacy, craft, artistry, collecting, collaborations, and public engagement. Part III begins with the chapter “Lois Davidson Gottlieb: ‘A Woman Fellow’ ” by Katherine ­Kaford Papineau and Rylee Soquella Woodcock that situates a pioneering figure of Lois Davidson Gottlieb within the trajectory of mid-twentieth-century modernism. Gottlieb blazed new architectural trails conditioned by her studies in the arts, engineering, and architecture at Stanford and Harvard Universities and her apprenticeship at Taliesin West with Frank Lloyd Wright. The authors examine how Gottlieb’s designs balance the organicism and nuanced detail honed during her Taliesin fellowship in combination with the use of novel materials such as steel and glass, as illustrated in her residential structures in Riverside, CA. Her work served as a beacon of modernism that set the tone for the contemporary architectural scene in a city known for its conservative Mission Revival– and Victorian-style dwellings. Erin McKellar in Chapter  14, “Consulting and Curating the Modern Interior: The Work of Hilde Reiss, 1943–1946,” highlights another female figure in modernist architecture. She examines

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Bauhaus-trained Hilde Reiss’s architectural consultancy and curatorship, arguing that her career presents a model for evaluating women’s roles within the discipline. The author affirms that although Reiss was not a practicing professional, she guided ordinary Americans’ conceptions of modern architecture as a consultant for the Vallejo Housing Authority and as a curator for the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, MN. McKellar emphasizes two projects in this chapter: Your Home, a magazine that Reiss wrote and edited to advise inhabitants of Vallejo’s war housing projects on how to transform their temporary dwellings into homes, and Ideas for Better Living, a Walker Art Center display that aimed to familiarize visitors with modern domestic architecture and design. By making extensive use of the Walker Art Center’s archives and examining Reiss’s published works, the author contends that traditional studies on architectural practice represent but one way to understand women’s professional narratives and that platforms such as consultancy and curatorship signify important yet largely unexplored modes of women’s architectural agency. Often formed as the only viable way for a female architect to start her own practice, husbandwife architecture firms emerged in the 1920s and became more prevalent as more female architects entered the field. In Chapter 15, “Architect, Partner, Wife: Mid-Century Husband-and-Wife Partnerships,” Kate Reggev investigates the dynamics of male-female and husband-wife architectural partnerships in mid-century America. Such partnerships were often crucial for women’s professional employment, facilitating a balance between a career and family life. Reggev pays particular attention to firms within the modernist movement who espoused architectural breaks with past traditions while maintaining conservative identities and gender roles. Many of these architecture firms considered residential architecture as the traditional specialization of women in design, and Reggev explores how despite limited opportunities, these spaces and buildings signified innovative achievements in the field. Jan Frohburg, in Chapter 16, “ ‘Mrs. Meric Callery’,” examines women’s wider agency in architecture and art in France and the US, with a focus on Mary Callery, an American sculptor and collector who lived and worked in Paris throughout the 1930s and later returned to the US. Her highly personal sculptures were featured at the Valentin Gallery and in Vogue magazine, she collaborated with Fernand Léger and Georgia O’Keeffe, and Mies van der Rohe converted an old barn into her studio space. In fact, Callery’s work marked a juncture: her independence grew out of avant-garde practices that merged formal sensibility with an experimental approach to craftsmanship entangled in modernist architectural settings. Frohburg positions Callery in line with other twentieth-century female leaders who skirted rather than attracted public attention. His critical analysis of her professional strategies brings to light both her independence as a professional and her absence from mainstream accounts of mid-century modernism. The author argues that although being well connected and despite prominent commissions, this significant sculptor received little recognition, and he asks probing questions about Callery’s eclipse from public consciousness within the context of gendered perceptions. Katherine Kaford Papineau uncovers the work of another magnificent figure in Chapter  17, “Katherine Morrow Ford: Designs for Living.” An architectural critic for House & Garden magazine, columnist for the Los Angeles Times, and coauthor of several architectural books and domestic advice manuals, Morrow Ford remains one of the most instrumental female critics who promoted both modern architecture and modern architects in mid-twentieth-century writings alongside other wellknown architectural critics, such as Esther McCoy and Elizabeth Gordon. Similar to the role models presented in previous chapters, she occupied a strategic position in the male-centric world of architecture, art, and design, and her writings addressed American East, West, and Midwest modernism. Papineau highlights her approach to blending domestic advice column prose with architectural criticism in professional journals, targeting a female audience, and navigating the field of high modernist design for the public. The author evaluates Katherine Morrow Ford’s career by advancing larger

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inquiries on gendered roles and thus the ability of women to achieve success while operating and negotiating the socially constructed views of mid-century America. Part III concludes with Chapter 18, “Architect, Builder, Client, Secretary: The Women of the Sarasota School” by Christopher S. Wilson, who lifts the veil of obscurity of women’s contributions to the Sarasota School of Architecture and writes them into the histories of the American built environment. A regional variation of modern architecture that thrived in southwest Florida in 1940–1970, the SSA took its aesthetic cues from the modern architecture that had developed in 1920s Europe and adapted those forms to the tropical Florida climate. The author introduces male architects—Ralph Twitchell, Paul Rudolph, and William Rupp—as recognized leaders of that movement and stresses that contributions to the SSA by women have been largely ignored or unwritten. This chapter aims to balance this disparity by narrating the involvement in the SSA of a group of women: architect Elizabeth Boylston Waters; builder Ruth Richmond; retired architect and client Mary Hook; and secretary and bookkeeper for SSA founder Ralph Twitchell, Lu Andrews, and offers a rewarding rewriting of this regional school.

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13 LOIS DAVIDSON GOTTLIEB A Woman Fellow Katherine Kaford Papineau and Rylee Soquella Woodcock

For Lois Davidson Gottlieb (1926–2018), architecture was a way of life, a seamless melding of art, the built environment, and design with the emotional and intellectual desires of architect and client. She applied this philosophy to every detail of her prolific career. This chapter highlights Gottlieb’s efforts to chart a professional career in the male-dominated field of architecture and her specific contribution to mid-century modern architecture in Riverside, California. Of the one hundred women who apprenticed with Frank Lloyd Wright, she is one of the few who pursued a full career as an architect, taught college classes and wrote books, and completed one hundred projects throughout her lifetime. As a pioneer in the field, Gottlieb’s designs balance the organicism and nuanced detail inspired by her Taliesin fellowship with new materials and experimental technologies such as steel, glass, concrete, plastics, and Styrofoam. She noted, “I have found it most rewarding to try to make various corners of the world a little more comfortable and beautiful.”1 Her projects can be found in California, Washington, Idaho, Arizona, and Virginia. Regardless of the location, Gottlieb’s residential designs embody Wrightian principles that look to the landscape for inspiration in order to “make all aspects of living … compatible with the environment.”2

A Woman Fellow Born in San Francisco on November 13, 1926, Gottlieb studied art and engineering at Stanford University until a chance encounter with Frank Lloyd Wright’s Hanna House (1936) provided a transformative experience. As she described it, she felt like “she had never heard music before and suddenly she heard a symphony.”3 Inspired, she joined Wright’s Taliesin fellowship and moved to Scottsdale, Arizona, in 1948, where she was immediately engulfed by Wright’s philosophy of organic architecture and a hands-on approach to learning through making. The apprentices were responsible for building much of the grounds and were encouraged to find beauty in everything. No detail was unworthy of attention. When she arrived at Taliesin West, Mrs. Wright led her to a tent among all the communal structures and instructed her: “it is up to you to make it beautiful.”4 Gottlieb recalled building furniture for and decorating her own tent. She quickly learned the necessity of cabinet doors for her shelves after a layer of desert dust covered her clothes, and she experimented with building a three-legged chair because it was easier to make a balanced chair of three legs rather than four. These experiences taught her the practicality of designing for living. Later, when she

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Figure 13.1 Lois Davidson Gottlieb, c. 1950. Source: Karen Gottlieb and Mark Gottlieb.

attended Harvard, she was dismayed that her fellow students didn’t make any effort to decorate their dorms. She lamented, “How could people be interested in architecture and not do something about it for themselves?”5 Tending crops, housekeeping, gardening, and churning ice cream on Saturday afternoons were part of the weekly curriculum at Taliesin, as were chamber music performances, philosophical discussions through the garden with Wright, and general collaboration with the other apprentices. Gottlieb described the difference between theoretical instruction at Stanford versus the practical application she experienced under Wright’s direction: As a student at Stanford, I had studied flashing, a waterproofing device, but really had no idea how this worked. After spending several days on top of a ladder, chiselling [sic] a slot into a stone wall, I understood completely what flashing was all about.6 In 2001, Gottlieb published a catalogue of photographs she took in 1948–1949 as an apprentice at Taliesin that chronicled the day-to-day practices of Wright’s holistic approach to design. In the introduction, she mused that she was probably the only apprentice who brought a camera. With her simple $25 Kodak Bantam, the 40 mm color slides not only documented the buildings, surroundings, and apprentices, but details of the landscape and organic patterns that suggested the effect of Wright’s training.7 Even at the age of twenty-two, Gottlieb demonstrated a keen eye that understood the important influences of nature and site.

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After Taliesin, and with her family’s strong encouragement, Gottlieb attended Harvard to earn a more “traditional” degree in architecture. At the time, the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) was run by Joseph Hudnut (1886–1968), a dean who was responsible for shifting the pedagogy of the school away from its classical Beaux-Arts training to an iteration of the German-founded Bauhaus under the direction of Walter Gropius (1883–1969). Rather than studying classical orders, students at Harvard’s GSD embraced the Machine Age and celebrated the inherent beauty of materials. Gottlieb’s architectural training was a unique blend of two approaches: one that looked to the landscape for organic inspiration and one that drew from newly mass-produced materials and technologies. Gottlieb’s oeuvre represents a cohesive blending of both philosophies. After graduation, Gottlieb returned to San Francisco and worked for Charles Warren Callister (1917–2008) before starting her own firm in Sausalito with fellow Taliesin apprentice A. Jane Duncombe (1925–2015) in 1951. The residential design firm of Duncombe–Davidson was active from 1951 to 1956. Gottlieb’s first solo project set the tone for a long career of distinctive style. Nestled into the hillside, a one-room bachelor pad, designed and built for Dr. Gregory Val-Goeschen in Inverness, California, was based on a rotated square plan whose corner extended views toward the valley and landscape below. Inspired by her tent-living experiences at Taliesin, the 576-square-foot home was crafted for spatial economy and essential living. Gottlieb frequently explained that the reason people’s houses were cluttered was because they didn’t have a proper place for their things.8 The Val-Goeschen House (1951) included built-in storage space cleverly hidden behind the couch, shelving above the sleeping nook, a built-in desk, and custom designed furniture to fit the space and complement the redwood and mahogany materials. True to her Wright-inspired roots, the house was anchored by a centrally located fireplace that opened to the living and dining spaces, not only providing warmth but a focal point, as well. The sloping roofline and extended eaves provided shade from the summer sun while the southeast-facing glass walls captured views of the mountains and nearby Pacific Ocean. Borrowing another signature Wright detail, the glass panels met the corner with an invisible seam and connected the perpendicular panels without a wooden mullion to preserve the view. The design earned her national acclaim and was featured in House Beautiful magazine in 1953. The caption praised how “cleverly the designer has sited the house” and described the sloping form as a ship’s prow.9 Continuing the seafarer’s analogy, another caption described her spatial mastery as “neat as a sea captain’s quarters.”10 Local press also showcased the house. The Sunday News described the house with the headline, “Unmarried Homemaker: 26-year-old Miss is Successful Architect,” while Marin Magazine declared, “Blonde Designs, Builds Houses in Marin.”11 Although one article gave her credit for being involved with the construction and manual labor and another included a photograph of Gottlieb poring over blueprints with a contractor, her work was often framed in reference to her gender and unmarried status, as was common for so many women practicing architecture in the mid-century. Hardly bothered and ever the feminist, Gottlieb refused to pursue licensure because, as she claimed, the American Institute of Architects (AIA) would give a license to “anyone with a stupid idea.” Rather, the mark of a true designer could be found in the details and craftmanship of the finished product. As proof of this, her design career flourished without a hitch. Despite the local and national recognition, Gottlieb’s studies were not complete in her eyes. She sold her car for $1,500 to fund a trip around the world to tour historic architecture for a year and a half, with an extended stay in Egypt. On the recommendation of Wright, she worked for noted modernist architect Hassan Fathy (1900–1989) and designed a camel race track in Luxor, Egypt. After touring Africa and Japan, Gottlieb returned to San Francisco and met and married Robert Gottlieb (1924–2007), a violist in the San Francisco Symphony, in 1955. Engaged only two weeks after meeting at a dinner party, their union was blessed by Wright who declared, “Ah, with music and architecture you can conquer the world!”12 Their whirlwind romance was truly a perfect

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complement of creative minds. Throughout over fifty years of marriage, Robert built all of the furniture Lois designed for their many homes. In 1960, Gottlieb began a new chapter of her career as a lecturer at College of the Holy Names in Oakland, California, where Robert also taught and conducted the orchestra, and simultaneously at Alameda State College in Hayward, California, in 1962. Teaching and developing curriculum at both institutions quickly produced a book, published in 1965, in collaboration with architectural photographer Julius Shulman (1910–2009). Environment and Design in Housing was written as a textbook for an introductory architecture class, covering a brief overview of architectural history and styles, the urban environment, the tectonics of drafting, materials, ornament, and making home. Robert’s career as a professor of music brought their family to Riverside, where he taught at the University of California, Riverside, from 1963 to 1971. Gottlieb continued to teach architecture at the University of California, Riverside extension school from 1966 to 1972. During this time, she designed eight houses in Riverside County, several of which are on the national register of historic sites. Gottlieb’s work is notable within the context and history of Riverside, as she was one of the few architects designing houses that would later be termed “mid-century modernist,” rather than contributing to the prevalent bungalows, adobes, and clapboard-sided Victorians found in the suburban areas.

Riverside Modern The history of Riverside and its architecture can be traced back to its agricultural roots. When the first land grant was sold by the Mexican government to Don Juan Bandini on May 22, 1840, the Jurupa Rancho became the location of the earliest settlement in what would become Riverside. The land changed hands twice, after a failed attempt at a silk growing colony, and the first orange trees were planted in 1871, one year after Riverside was founded by Judge John W. North (1815–1890) of New York. It was considered a fertile valley, with dry air and little moisture, low rainfall yet a steady water supply from the Santa Ana River, and little difference between the high heat of summer, which averaged 70 degrees Fahrenheit in July, versus the cold of a January winter, which averaged 51 degrees.13 The city’s reputation as a citrus producer was solidified by the 1885 World’s Fair in New Orleans, where Riverside won gold medals in several categories against Florida, Mexico, and Mediterranean countries for the best twenty varieties of oranges grown in California, the United States, and the world, and took home silver medals for the best lemons worldwide.14 By 1889, Riverside was considered the “most prosperous and beautiful settlement in Southern California, noted throughout the United States for the excellence of its citrus fruits, and the home, we might say the birth-place, of the Washington Naval orange.”15 Early prosperity brought an eclectic mix of styles to the burgeoning downtown area, including Beaux-Arts classicism, Mission Revival, Spanish Revival, Chigguresque, Art Deco, Richardsonian, and Victorian, as well as noted architects Arthur Benton (1858–1927), Myron Hunt (1868–1952), G. Stanley Wilson (1878–1958), Julia Morgan (1872–1957), and Henry L.A. Jekel (1876–1960). Frank Miller’s Glenwood Hotel, a twelve-room home and guest house built in 1876, grew to encompass a city block in the heart of the downtown area. Renamed the Glenwood Mission Inn, the luxury hotel boasted 275 rooms by 1903. Built in four phases by at least three different architects, the destination hotel drew visitors to dine in its Spanish courtyard, get married in its St. Francis chapel with historic early eighteenth-century carved cedar altarpiece, and tour the labyrinthine passages, staircases, and rotundas. Riverside’s proximity to the nearby intersection of the Southern Pacific and California Southern railway lines provided respite for weary west-bound travelers as early as 1882. The city is also located roughly halfway between Los Angeles and Palm Springs and again functioned as a lunch stop for east-bound weekend automobile travelers, especially the Hollywood crowd. To add to the plethora of architectural styles found on municipal buildings in the heart of 182

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the city, residential architecture in the orange groves even borrowed from Victorian-style mansions, complete with gingerbread trim. In a city known for its Mission Revival style buildings and eclectic estates, Gottlieb’s work is rare. During the heyday of mid-century modernist design, Southern California architects were more likely to practice in Los Angeles or Palm Springs, where a free-thinking experimental culture embraced glass-and-steel structures and suspended butterfly roofs. Rather than drawing upon historic Riverside, Gottlieb looked to the natural site, either terracing down a hillside or wrapping the plan around the landscape. Upon relocating to Riverside in 1963, Gottlieb decided to remodel the tract home they temporarily purchased while she designed a new home for the family. As a freelance residential designer, Gottlieb worked out of a desk in her bedroom, stowing away her T-square and scale when her children returned home from school. She tried to be as economical as possible out of respect for her clients’ pockets, and although she could manage the structural calculations herself, she felt that an engineer could do the work in half the time and for a third of the cost. She frequently collaborated with Per T. Ron (1926–2017), a structural engineer and the president of Johnson & Nielsen Engineering Firm in Riverside. Gottlieb was often hired to design additions to existing houses in established neighborhoods. Her larger house commissions are located in the Woodcrest, Arlington, and Quail communities of Riverside, areas that were developing on the outskirts of the city in the 1960s. These homes were often sited on larger pieces of land that allowed Gottlieb’s style to flourish as she connected her designs to the landscape. The family home, the Robert Gottlieb House (1966), was situated on the edge of the orange groves and in close proximity to the University of California, Riverside. The low eave of the fourbedroom house kept the elevation low to the ground, while a vertical fireplace feature anchored the design. Karen Gottlieb (1956) and Mark Gottlieb (1957), children of the architect, fondly recalled voting on either a backyard pool or air conditioner for their new home. A swimming pool was the obvious choice for two young children, although they did have to put in the “man labor” by moving one wheelbarrow filled with bricks every day after school to pave the surrounding patio and deck. Even without central air conditioning, the house kept relatively cool due to the extended eave and adobe and brick materials. The open plan allowed space to move freely from living room to dining room to kitchen, while the form of the house wrapped around the beloved pool and provided views of the backyard from the glass perimeter walls. A few details again suggest Gottlieb’s training with Wright. Aside from the extended eave that evokes a horizontal line through the landscape, the front door is located in a recessed corner niche that is angled away from the street. This is similar to the entrances of so many of Wright’s projects, such as the Frederick C. Robie House (1909) in Chicago and Wright’s own architectural studio (1985) in Oak Park, Illinois, where the front door is accessed through either a loggia or small porch and rarely faces the street. The effect of this spatial compression brings the elevation of the house down to the human scale. Wright’s influence is felt on the interior, as well, where a dropped ceiling functions again as a play between spatial compression and release and doubles as a light shelf to cast ambient light throughout the space. The natural color of the brick and wood materials provided a warm neutral backdrop for the collection of art, artifacts and souvenirs from their many travels, and musical instruments on display throughout the home. In 1967, Robert received a Fulbright Scholarship to teach at the Calcutta School of Music, and the family moved to India for a year. After a brief return to Riverside, the Gottliebs moved once again to India when Lois received her own Fulbright to teach arts and crafts in Calcutta and Nepal in 1970. In between Fulbright sabbaticals in India, Gottlieb designed and built the Mackey House (1966– 1971) for Edward and Barbara Mackey, located on a hill overlooking the lights of the valley, the Santa Ana River, and the historic edge of Victoria Street. In 2015, the house was designated as a city landmark as a rare example of mid-century modern architecture in Riverside. While Gottlieb’s style 183

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Figure 13.2 Robert, Lois, Karen, and Mark Gottlieb in the Gottlieb House, Riverside, CA, architect Lois Davidson Gottlieb, 1970. Photograph: Julius Shulman. Source: © J. Paul Getty Trust. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2004.R.10).

does not conjure up images of sleek modernist interiors and Eames chairs, her work contributed to the handful of unique modern homes built in Riverside, alongside notable mid-century architect Clinton Marr (1925–2016). The Mackeys lived a few blocks away from the Gottlieb house, were impressed by its design, and loved the open plan and flow of space. They had purchased ten acres of ungraded property with the intention of developing six or seven buildable lots for houses. They were interested in Wright’s work, and when ready to build, Gottlieb seemed like the obvious choice. After hiking around the hill all afternoon, Gottlieb decided to take advantage of the view and designed a three-level house that hugged the crest of the hill and cascaded down the west-facing façade. True to her developed style, low, extended eaves provided passive solar heat and kept the massing low to the ground, while three fireplaces anchored the design to the hill. The angle of the terraced split-levels functioned as a design feature and is found in all material choices, from poured concrete to glass to teak wood detailing. This evenly spaced chevron pattern, featured so prominently in all three concrete fireplaces, the upper clerestory, and the walls of the main living floor provide aesthetic coherence on each level and suggest a proportionate module of spacing throughout the design, similar to the work of another one of Wright’s apprentices, Rudolph M. Schindler (1887–1953). Some of his early residential work in nearby Los Angeles also uses the idea of a module to dictate the proportions of plan and elevation as seen at the Schindler–Chace House (1922) and the James Eads Howe House (1925). The Mackey House is truly a masterful play of spatial relationships. Gottlieb designed hidden storage compartments, a dumbwaiter, and shelving throughout the house, as well as built-in furniture to 184

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Figure 13.3 The Mackey House, Riverside, CA, architect Lois Davidson Gottlieb, 1975. Photograph: Julius Shulman. Source: © J. Paul Getty Trust. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2004.R.10).

complement the overall design. To make room for a bathroom on the main living floor, the kitchen lost some square footage, but Gottlieb’s careful designs for efficient storage produced a well-designed space. Similar to the design in her own house, Gottlieb included a dropped light shelf running the length of the plan from kitchen to living room that provided soft, indirect light throughout the house. The natural teak wood, concrete, and terracotta floor are complemented by green and teal hand-glazed Japanese tiles in the bathrooms and kitchen. Two carved wooden screens function as closet doors that greet the visitor upon entry to the house. A souvenir gift from Mrs. Mackey’s parents, the Chinese characters read “long life and happy marriage.” Gottlieb collaborated with Mrs. Mackey to create a home for their family of four that allowed spaces for living and entertaining. On the third level, two children’s rooms, a guest room, and a playroom with fireplace opened out onto a patio with firepit, designed by landscape architect Dorothy Dunbar. In 1979, the firepit was replaced by a swimming pool and poured concrete pavers and retaining walls that echoed the grooves of the chevroned fireplaces. Mr. Mackey described the many parties hosted in the house that often spilled onto the surrounding patios. Gottlieb’s designs not only created a house but a home for their family.

Perfect Client, Ideal Architect In 1991, Gottlieb designed and built one final masterpiece for son and daughter-in-law, Mark and Sharon Gottlieb, in Fairfax Station, Virginia. 185

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Figure 13.4 Mark and Sharon Gottlieb House, Fairfax Station, VA, architect Lois Davidson Gottlieb, 1991. Living room. Source: Mark Gottlieb

An opportunity described as the “perfect client” for the “ideal architect,” Mark and Lois collaborated on an experimental structure that pushed even their contractors and engineers to find high-tech solutions to their innovative materials. As with all of her projects, Gottlieb’s design began with a tour of the site and a long hike through several acres of wooded property. The shape of the final design gave the best views of the surrounding woods and water and wrapped a long, open angle around the berm of a hill. Set into the hillside, the subterranean garage, photography studio, office, and storage space supported the main living level that sat on the crest of the hill. To keep the house as maintenance free as possible, Gottlieb chose twenty-four-feet-long prefabricated glulam (gluelaminated timber) posts to span the width of the house. These exposed beams created a beautiful spine down the center of the upper level and supported a 256-foot-long skylight. Gottlieb chose Iceblock, a low-grade insulating material made of hollow Styrofoam blocks roughly 4 x 4 ft. that were later filled with concrete for the walls. Light as a feather, they were easy to assemble, and the majority of the framing came together in only a day. The exterior was covered in brick to match local and historical building techniques. The roof was constructed of R-control panels, prefabricated panels that were both insulating and structural. Again, eight inches of Styrofoam were sandwiched between plywood panels. Beams helped extend the eave several feet past the exterior wall. In a documentary on the construction of the house, Building the Dream, Gottlieb explained that many people expect indoor plumbing in a home but do not expect lighting. As seen in many of her earlier projects, light shelves extend the length of the living rooms and provide soft ambient lighting. Sliding doors met flush at the roofline and indoor ceiling height to create a continuity between indoor and outdoor spaces, effectively extending the perception of the room into the landscape. To keep views of the landscape uninterrupted, eighty-six windows and sliding doors were installed, including

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a 135-degree mitered window to parallel the form of the house and preserve the view. Strips made of sawdust and recycled plastic bags were used for the surrounding deck. Gottlieb tried to use as few different materials as possible to keep the composition cohesive. The craftsmanship of the design is found in the precision of parallel angles and levels that terrace throughout the site. Inspired by Wright’s philosophy that the hearthstones were the heart of the home, a large fireplace anchored the house at its core, providing both structural and aesthetic support. The front door included two leaded glass panels designed by Wright in 1911, a nostalgic reminder of Gottlieb’s mentor and inspiration for design.

Conclusion Despite presumptions of Wright’s starchitect persona, Gottlieb fondly recalled a teacher who was always available to answer questions and who worked alongside his students regardless of gender. The design-build approach to architectural education at Taliesin ensured that a girl was treated like a fellow and was given the same opportunities to design, create, and succeed. Gottlieb’s work is significant as a reflection of the context of mid-century modernist design and materials combined with Wright’s philosophy on organic architecture that contributed to the rich landscape of modern design in Southern California. Her passion for design and belief that the “process of making beautiful things is rewarding” is felt in every project, big or small.16

Notes 1. Lois Davidson Gottlieb, Environment and Design in Housing (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1965), v. 2. Lois Davidson Gottlieb, A Way of Life: An Apprenticeship with Frank Lloyd Wright (Australia: The Images Publishing Group Pty, 2001), 19. 3. Beverly Willis, dir., 100 Women Architects in the Studio of Frank Lloyd Wright: ‘A Girl is a Fellow Here’ (New York: Beverly Willis Architectural Foundation, 2009), DVD. 4. Gottlieb, Environment, v. 5. Willis, 100. 6. Gottlieb, A Way, 89. 7. Ibid., 23. 8. Authors’ conversation with Gottlieb’s daughter, Karen Gottlieb, and son, Mark Gottlieb, July 14, 2020. 9. James Marston Fitch, “This One-Room House Has Design Character,” House Beautiful ( January  1953): 122–25. 10. Ibid. 11. “Unmarried Homemaker: 26-year-old Miss is Successful Architect,” Sunday News, May 3, 1953. “Blonde Designs, Builds Houses in Marin,” Marin Magazine, Saturday, March 21, 1953, M8–M9. 12. Karen Gottlieb, on family biography and history. 13. Lewis J. Holmes, Riverside Directory: Containing a Short Sketch of its History, Description of Its Location, Scenery, Climate, Resources, Etc. A Full and Complete General and Business Directory, 1889 (Riverside: Daily Press Steam Print, 1889), 13. 14. Ibid., 15. 15. Ibid., 2. 16. Eva Soltes, Lois Gottlieb, and Mark Gottlieb, dir., Building a Dream: A Family Affair (New York: Insight Media, 1998), DVD.

Bibliography “Blonde Designs, Builds Houses in Marin.” Marin Magazine. Saturday, March 21, 1953, M8–M9. Fitch, James Marston. “This One-Room House Has Design Character.” House Beautiful 95 ( January  1953): 122–25. Gottlieb, Lois Davidson. Environment and Design in Housing. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1965.

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Katherine Kaford Papineau and Rylee Soquella Woodcock Gottlieb, Lois Davidson. A Way of Life: An Apprenticeship with Frank Lloyd Wright. Australia: The Images Publishing Group Pty Ltd, 2001. Holmes, Lewis J. Riverside Directory: Containing a Short Sketch of its History, Description of Its Location, Scenery, Climate, Resources, Etc. A Full and Complete General and Business Directory, 1889. Riverside: Daily Press Steam Print, 1889. Soltes, Eva, Lois Gottlieb, and Mark Gottlieb, dir. Building a Dream: A Family Affair. New York: Insight Media, 1998. DVD. “Unmarried Homemaker: 26-year-old Miss is Successful Architect.” Sunday News, May 3, 1953. Willis, Beverly, dir. 100 Women Architects in the Studio of Frank Lloyd Wright: “A Girl is a Fellow Here.” New York: Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation, 2009. DVD.

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14 CONSULTING AND CURATING THE MODERN INTERIOR The Work of Hilde Reiss, 1943–1946 Erin McKellar Introduction In February 1946, Mademoiselle magazine featured an article that promoted interior design as a career for modern women. The article’s author, Polly Weaver, indicated that professionals approached the interior of a house as a design problem that could be solved by careful architectural planning.1 In addition to spotlighting practitioners of interior design and architecture, the article highlighted the work of curators of modern design such as Hilde Reiss (1909–2002). By then the head of the Walker Art Center’s new Everyday Art Gallery, which had opened in January 1946, Reiss combined skills in drafting, construction, and design to build a reputation as a design professional.2 Although the Bauhaus-trained Reiss never practiced architecture, she cultivated a diverse career throughout the 1930s and 1940s, when she guided ordinary Americans’ conceptions of modern architecture as a consultant for the housing authority in Vallejo, California (1942–1945), and as a curator for the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota (1945–1949). Two of Reiss’s projects exemplify these activities: Your Home (1943–1944), a short magazine that Reiss wrote and edited to advise inhabitants of Vallejo’s war housing projects on how to transform their temporary dwellings into homes, and Ideas for Better Living (1946), the first Walker Art Center display, which aimed to familiarize visitors with modern domestic architecture and design by showcasing objects ranging from tableware to architectural plans. Analyzing Reiss’s activity as a consultant and curator builds upon the work of architectural and design historians such as Elizabeth Darling, Alice Friedman, and Grace Lees-Maffei, who have shown that women have participated in architectural design without practicing architecture in the role of experts and clients.3 This chapter expands our understanding of women’s architectural activity by demonstrating how consultants and curators such as Reiss simultaneously impacted architectural discourse and guided the expectations of non-professional audiences. Closely reading Reiss’s published works, such as Your Home and the Everyday Art Quarterly, and examining the Walker Art Center’s archives, including an oral history project with Reiss, reveals that platforms such as consultancy and curatorship represent significant yet largely unexplored modes of women’s architectural agency. As revealed by the presence of an article on women’s design-related careers in the February 1946 issue of Mademoiselle, women have long recognized the significance of careers in consultancy and curatorship, thus necessitating broader reconsideration and professional acknowledgment of their trailblazing contribution to the discipline.

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Figure 14.1 Hilde Reiss, architect, New York City, c. 1940–1955. Source: Lotte Jacobi. Credit: © 2019 The University of New Hampshire, used with permission.

Education and Early Career Reiss’s early projects point toward the direction that she took in her work in Vallejo and at the Walker Art Center. Although she ultimately established her career in the United States, she was born in Germany, where she studied art and mathematics before enrolling at the State Academy of Building in Weimar (1929) and the Bauhaus in Dessau (1930–1932), from which she received her diploma.4 Once Reiss arrived in the US in 1933, her Bauhaus background aided her in building a reputation as a teacher, writer, editor, consultant, and curator. Based in New York throughout the 1930s, she worked in the offices of designers such as Norman Bel Geddes, Eleanor LeMaire, and Gilbert Rohde. From 1935 she taught at the New School for Social Research and the Design Laboratory, a newly established school sponsored by the Federal Art Project—a New Deal program that funded American artists, supported American design research, and established more than a hundred community art centers across the US.5 Particularly struck by the time she spent at the Design Laboratory, Reiss described the school, which attempted to operate on Bauhaus principles, as “like nothing else that existed at the time in how to look at design.”6 Indeed, the Design Laboratory aimed to put designers to work during the Depression by mediating between experimental modernist design and business culture.7 Although much remains unknown today about Reiss’s career as an educator, this work marks one significant type of architectural agency: through teaching, Reiss influenced emerging professionals. While living in New York, Reiss modernized existing homes and published some of these projects in the journal Arts and Decoration. These commissions, executed with fellow Design Laboratory instructor and Bauhaus classmate Lila Ulrich, reveal the ideas that Reiss continued to explore throughout her career. In February 1935, an article titled “Experiment in Change” presented a proposal to renovate a living room, dining room, and sitting room in a thirteen-room apartment on Park Avenue. Reiss and Ulrich measured and documented the traditionally furnished apartment and offered their client suggestions for modernizing and simplifying the space 190

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by focusing on color and furniture arrangement, two easily changeable aspects of an interior, in order to achieve their results.8 In the apartment’s dining room, which the article noted had always posed an “architectural problem” for the clients because it was too small to host large dinners, Reiss and Ulrich proposed visually expanding the room by removing molding and painting the walls a neutral color. They also advised rearranging the existing furniture to create more space and recommended removing one of the room’s heavy sideboards, proposing instead a narrower, built-in replacement.9 This project exemplified ideas espoused by Bauhaus teaching. By the time Reiss started at the Bauhaus in 1930, Mies van der Rohe was director, and under his leadership, the school increasingly focused on architecture. Reiss’s modifications, especially features such as built-in furniture, demonstrate the unified aesthetic that the Bauhaus emphasized at this time. The project also outlined key concepts to which Reiss would adhere as she took on consultancy and curatorial projects focused on low- and middle-income families, dispensing such advice and tailoring it to the circumstances of her clients and audiences. First, Reiss focused on achieving a sense of spaciousness by suggesting color schemes and furniture arrangements that would make rooms look brighter and more open.10 Second, Reiss focused on the use of spaces, proposing multipurpose solutions where they were appropriate. While Reiss engaged in such work throughout the 1930s, private architectural commissions became scarce in the 1940s as the nation focused on preparing for war. The early 1940s work that Reiss obtained was contingent on the career of her husband, architect William Friedman, whom Reiss had met at the Design Laboratory, where he had worked as the school’s director.11 In 1942, Friedman obtained a position at the Heart Mountain Relocation Center—a site located between the towns of Cody and Powell in northwest Wyoming. The center comprised one of ten camps used to intern people of Japanese ancestry, most of whom were US citizens, who had been forced from their homes on the West Coast after the issuance of Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942, which had authorized officials to deport and imprison all people of Japanese ancestry from California and parts of Arizona, Oregon, and Washington.12 Once Reiss had moved to Wyoming she volunteered to help transform Heart Mountain’s existing army barracks into schools, nurseries, community centers, shops, and so on.13 While no records appear to illustrate these projects as unambiguously modified by Reiss, we can extrapolate that she probably drew upon her earlier experience remodeling elite dwellings to remake these spaces. Even without detailed documentation of these projects, being able to situate women’s architectural expertise into highly charged wartime projects like the internment camps offers a richer picture of this chapter of our history. Although neither the projects nor Reiss’s view of her role in them appear to have been documented, the knowledge that trained experts such as Reiss participated in making the camps “livable” underscores the planning expertise involved in the internment process.

Advising Ordinary Americans Reiss and Friedman’s wartime work brought them further west to California’s San Francisco Bay Area, where Reiss became a technical consultant for the Housing Authority of the City of Vallejo.14 Site of the Mare Island Naval Shipyard, Vallejo gained strategic importance during World War II, when the base served as the West Coast’s main submarine port and a major center for shipbuilding. Although Vallejo had been a town of only about thirty thousand in 1940, its population rapidly expanded, and by 1943 forty thousand people were employed by the Naval Yard alone.15 As part of a nationwide government-sponsored defense housing initiative, architects and contractors quickly stepped in to alleviate the stress on the town’s overcrowded housing stock.16 In Vallejo, these professionals provided twelve thousand new housing units, the best-known examples of which formed the development Carquinez Heights (1941–1942), designed by William Wilson Wurster.17 191

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Figure 14.2 Dining room in New York City apartment, 1935, architects Hilde Reiss and Lila Ulrich. Arts and Decoration, February 1935.

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As technical consultant, Reiss initially furnished community buildings, much as she had done at Heart Mountain.18 However, Reiss soon expanded her role by adding services to advise the inhabitants of Vallejo’s war housing projects on how to transform their small temporary dwellings into homes. Coaxing war workers and their families to create satisfactory homes was important for two key reasons. First, it was essential to instill positive feelings about the authority housing in war workers and their families because the government needed to maintain morale to ensure successful defense preparedness. Second, and more materially, much of the defense housing had been built to standards to which Americans would not have been accustomed. Because the new housing had to be constructed quickly and inexpensively, units were restricted to a minimum of dwelling types, and room sizes were kept small.19 This was especially true in temporary housing, where speed, economy, and conserving critical materials meant that architects and builders kept room sizes smaller and maintained higher densities than in permanent projects.20 Reiss thus perceived a need to advise Vallejo residents on how to dwell in their new housing—and saw an opportunity to increase her visibility. She reached the thirty-five thousand residents of the authority housing by setting up model apartments and by starting the magazine Your Home, which suggested how people could furnish the various types of dwellings. Written and edited entirely by Reiss, the magazine adopted a warm, approachable tone that aimed to assist readers in making their homes as comfortable as possible.21 Throughout the short magazine Reiss encouraged inhabitants to take ownership of their dwellings, urging them to imaginatively transform their temporary accommodation into homes. Unlike the owners of the apartment that Reiss had redesigned in New York, families assigned to Vallejo’s authority-provided housing often had meager resources. Hundreds of them, moreover, had traveled great distances in order to take up work in Vallejo and had been unable to bring their own furnishings with them.22 Some of the houses and apartments came unfurnished, while others contained only essential pieces of furniture, such as beds, chairs, tables, and dressers.23 Reiss thus illustrated how families could furnish their dwellings by combining modest furniture and manageable do-it-yourself projects that kept in mind the material circumstances of her audience. Made available to inhabitants of authority housing free of cost, Your Home was published bimonthly and printed in numbers of ten thousand.24 In addition to dispensing advice, Reiss encouraged her readers to participate in the project by sending in their own suggestions and do-it-yourself solutions, thus enlisting them in the larger collective endeavor of transforming Vallejo’s wartime housing developments into communities. Surviving issues of Your Home (1943–1944) reveal that Reiss’s work in Vallejo clearly stemmed from her earlier projects in New York, where she had focused on creating functional and spacious interiors by manipulating easy-to-change elements such as color, lighting, and furnishing. In Your Home much of Reiss’s advice thus centered on presenting modern design principles to teach her audience how to dwell in Vallejo’s temporary apartments, tailoring her suggestions to suit the actual floor plans that could be found in Vallejo developments, such as Carquinez Heights and Chabot Terrace, both designed by William Wilson Wurster, as well as Solano Apartments and Amador Apartments, constructed by the contractors Barrett  & Hilp. Rather than telling families exactly what to buy, and indeed recognizing that families often could not buy much new furniture, Reiss equipped her readers to plan their dwellings. In the first issue of Your Home, for example, she drew upon her Bauhaus training by instructing inhabitants to avoid bulky sets of furniture, instead advocating that “small furniture with simple lines gives a feeling of spaciousness,” and similarly explaining that using unadorned objects and unpatterned fabrics would make small rooms seem larger.25 Reiss also showed users how to group their furniture to create unobstructed circulation paths and comfortable conversation groups.26 In addition, she taught her readers how to recognize different aspects of interior design by showing them how to distinguish between direct and indirect lighting and how to employ and set up each type, as well as what to look for

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Figure 14.3 Pages offering guidelines for readers from Your Home 2, January 1944. Housing Authority of the City of Vallejo.

Figure 14.4 Pages showing model interiors at Solano Apartments from Your Home 2, January 1944. Housing Authority of the City of Vallejo.

when buying fabrics. Each idea had appeared in the elite spaces that Reiss and Ulrich had fashioned in New York City in 1935, though in this case Reiss modified the concepts to suit families of more modest incomes. To concretize such principles for her readers, Reiss set up several model apartments in Vallejo and ran them with the help of a committee of local women.27 The first demonstration apartment opened on December 15, 1943, at the Solano Apartments. Located near the housing development’s community center, the model apartment served as a “home planning center” where residents could

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obtain advice on furniture arrangement, color schemes, fabric selection, and other problems.28 Reiss planned and designed the apartment by combining authority-supplied furniture, do-it-yourself projects, and store-bought accessories, underscoring that all furnishing had been accomplished inexpensively with readily available and practical materials—in short, using the resources available to the inhabitants of Vallejo’s housing. Throughout Your Home, she helped readers to ask themselves questions that would help them plan their spaces, such as “Have we made the best possible use of available space?” “Who will use this room?” and “What will take place in this room?”29 A visit to the demonstration apartment was intended to both inspire readers of Your Home and to help them devise solutions as they sought to apply these questions to their own dwellings. As her readers answered questions about the function of their homes, Reiss encouraged them to customize their dwellings in ways that made sense for their lives. For example, because typical oneor two-room apartments were small in size, Reiss encouraged her readers to think of their dwellings imaginatively and not remain tied to concepts such as bedrooms and living rooms. In one article she suggested that “Mr. and Mrs. A.,” a family with a four-year-old daughter living in a one-bedroom dwelling, could instead conceptualize both living room and bedroom as multipurpose spaces by transforming the living room into a combination living and sleeping room for the parents and the single bedroom into a nursery with play area.30 Reiss also applied such advice to furniture, suggesting that her readers could build their own folding screens from redwood slats and fabric and then use them to divide rooms on an as-needed basis.31 Reiss saw this project as an important one because she believed that war workers needed to feel a sense of home and community, even if their jobs were not permanent. She reflected on the project by remarking, “I put out a little brochure showing people how to furnish their wartime, so-called temporary apartments, but they lasted for a long time.”32 Accordingly, the project reached quite a few households in the area. Because Your Home was distributed free of charge in numbers of ten thousand copies, Vallejo inhabitants who otherwise might not have read such a publication probably encountered the magazine. In this respect we can consider Reiss’s work in Vallejo as a considerable project of architectural and design outreach. Indeed, when Reiss was asked to publicize the project in Arts and Architecture in August 1944, she referred to it as “an experiment in tenant service” and to Vallejo’s housing as a “progressive community.”33 The notion of creating a progressive community through design was central to Reiss’s practice and would continue to inform her work throughout her career.

Curating Everyday Art Reiss reiterated many of Your Home’s ideas in her displays for the Everyday Art Gallery at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. In February 1945, about six months after Friedman was appointed assistant director of the Walker Art Center, Reiss became the curator of the newly established Everyday Art Gallery and the editor of Everyday Art Quarterly.34 One of the first US museum spaces devoted to modern design, the Everyday Art Gallery comprised 1,600 square feet of gallery space that Reiss and Friedman collaboratively designed.35 Here Reiss aimed to “acquaint people with better ideas for living” by displaying modern design and providing information to help American consumers learn about standards for architecture, home furnishing, and everyday objects.36 Reiss drew upon the expertise that she had developed throughout her career to explore topics such as Furniture and Fabrics (March 26–May 19, 1946), Modern Textile Design ( January 9–February 23, 1947), and Sectional Furniture (March 4–April 22, 1947). Because the Walker Art Center had been set up under the Works Progress Administration Federal Arts Project, this goal also explicitly extended the center’s community service–oriented social mission by aiming to create an American museumgoer and consumer who was educated in modern design. To support these aims, the gallery included a library area alongside display spaces so visitors could read about modern architecture and design. In addition,

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from 1946 until she left the center in 1949, Reiss edited Everyday Art Quarterly, a publication that brought the ideas featured in the gallery into homes in the Twin Cities and beyond. As Reiss had done throughout Your Home, her displays for the Everyday Art Gallery disseminated practical information about design, materials, prices, and purchasing.37 The Everyday Art Gallery opened in January  1946 with Ideas for Better Living ( January  9–March  17, 1946), an exhibition that displayed objects ranging from tableware and appliances to furniture and architectural plans. Such objects included an automatic electric iron manufactured by General Mills; a combination radio-phonograph-record cabinet designed by Alexander Girard for International Detrola; Storagewall, which had been designed by George Nelson and built for Life in cooperation with Architectural Forum; and a model of a solar house designed by George Fred Keck.38 By showing such objects, which ranged from a home appliance to an entire house, Reiss hoped to equip her audience to create better environments for living. Reiss saw the project as a form of “community education” and believed that teaching her audience how to go about building better environments using new materials and techniques was an essential social goal. She saw objects ranging from houses to drinking glasses as having “a far-reaching influence on our wellbeing. There is no need to tolerate inconvenience and ugliness in any one of them.”39 She used the objects on display to help visitors recognize qualities such as form, materials, proportion, color, and texture. As she had done throughout Your Home by asking her readers questions and inviting them to offer their own suggestions, here Reiss prompted audience participation by inviting her viewers to “look critically at the objects around us” and asking them questions such as “Are our utensils, our furniture as satisfactory as they could be?” “Do [our chairs] fit the natural contours of the comfortably clothed figure today?” and “What should be the relationship between appearance and utility?”40 In so doing Reiss sought to demonstrate that the medium of the exhibition was not necessarily

Figure 14.5 Installation view of Ideas for Better Living, curated by Hilde Reiss, 1946. Source: Rolphe Dauphin for Walker Art Center. Walker Art Center Archives.

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one-sided but could be used to create a conversation between curator and audience, institution and individual. When Ideas for Better Living opened, art historian and critic Elizabeth McCausland praised the new gallery for its “especial timeliness,” centering on domestic architecture and design at a time when production was beginning to shift from defense-related industries to consumer goods.41 McCausland acknowledged that “home” offered a powerful sense of stability during the postwar years, as it had done throughout the war, and suggested that displaying domestic architecture and objects would support the peace that had been established since 1945. In part, transforming a house or apartment into a home meant acquiring the goods to furnish and finish a dwelling, as Reiss had demonstrated throughout Your Home. While some of the objects shown were not yet available, one section of the exhibit included a sample of “well designed articles from Minneapolis stores,” indicating to visitors where they could buy such things.42 In order to extend “ideas for better living” to the scale of the entire dwelling, Reiss and her colleagues taught visitors how to furnish their homes in Idea House II (1947–1948). This ambitious display presented a full-scale modern house that had been designed by Reiss, Friedman, and Minneapolis-based architect Malcolm Lein, who had also designed the center’s first Idea House in 1941. Here Reiss showcased elements of modern architectural design and highlighted the work of designers such as Alvar Aalto, Isamu Noguchi, and Eva Zeisel. While the exhibitions that Reiss assembled for the Walker Art Center did reach fairly large audiences, Reiss believed that museum exhibitions had limitations. As much as she enjoyed her work at the Walker Art Center, Reiss questioned, “what good does it do to show all these things of everyday use as kind of museum pieces?” when visitors really wanted to know where to buy such things.43 Remarking that there were very few places to obtain modern home furnishings in the US, she believed that it would ultimately be more satisfying to run a shop to sell objects that she had selected rather than simply displaying them “in exhibits that can’t be touched.”44 She eventually relocated to Palo Alto, where she set up and ran a successful shop called House of Today from 1952–1966. This career change was ultimately similar to her role in Vallejo because it brought her into direct contact with people who wanted to remake their spaces.

Conclusion Reiss’s professional activities, which never included conventional architectural practice, provide a path for exploring and expanding how we understand the role of women in the making of modern architecture. Although Reiss never practiced as a licensed architect, it would be shortsighted to evaluate her career outside of architectural history particularly because she excelled for decades as a role model both within and beyond the discipline, obtaining influential positions as an educator, interior designer, consultant, and curator. By teaching and publicizing her work in the 1930s, Reiss ensured that young professionals could learn from her activities. Her later work, meanwhile, meant that Reiss became an architectural mediator, exposing audiences—both readers and exhibition goers—to new architectural ideas. Moreover, fostering awareness in the types of work in which women such as Reiss engaged, in particular wartime work at the Heart Mountain and in Vallejo, means that we can better understand women’s professional lives. In turn, such narratives serve to enrich and complicate the fraught histories of war. It is also useful to think about Reiss’s audience and her engagement with them. During wartime, her consultancy for the Housing Authority of the City of Vallejo was clearly aimed at women as homemakers and users—and as citizens. Reiss saw her work as a community design outreach project in which she encouraged women in Vallejo to think of their temporary housing as homes and gave them the agency with which to improve their dwellings on their own. In her roles in Vallejo, at the Walker Art Center, and beyond, Reiss taught women how to consume modern design, thus expanding this project into the postwar years. In this way Reiss transformed 197

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non-professional women into an audience for modern architecture and design, ensuring its expanded popularity after World War II. However, Reiss’s career also illustrates the limitations that were placed on many female architectural professionals and the resourcefulness with which they had to approach their practice. Many of Reiss’s early career opportunities, in particular her work at Heart Mountain and the Walker Art Center, were tied to her husband’s career moves. Her roles were also lower in status than Friedman’s and in some cases did not come with remuneration. In addition, Reiss never received the same offers of employment that other Bauhaus émigrés received, for example, working on projects such as Aluminum City Terrace, which had been designed by Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer for the employees of the Alcoa factories in New Kensington, Pennsylvania.45 Instead, Reiss resourcefully created professional space for herself, seized opportunities where they existed, and crafted positions where there were none. But this piecemeal approach to employment also makes Reiss’s career difficult to uncover, as no archive records her activities, which largely have been reconstructed through period-published materials. This partly explains why women architects have so often been overlooked in architectural history and reveals how much work we have yet to do to reconstruct their activities.

Notes 1. Polly Weaver, “Design for a Modern Career,” Mademoiselle, February 1946. 2. Many thanks to Jill Vuchetich at the Walker Art Center, Beth Sheckler at the University of New Hampshire, Jim Kern at the Vallejo Naval and Historical Museum, and Joanna Altman at the City of Vallejo for their help and support of my research. 3. Elizabeth Darling, “Introduction” in Elizabeth Denby, Europe Re-Housed (London: Routledge, 2015); Alice T. Friedman, Women and the Making of the Modern House: A Social and Architectural History (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1998); and Grace Lees-Maffei, Design at Home: Domestic Advice Books in Britain and the USA Since 1945 (New York: Routledge, 2014). 4. Reiss received Bauhaus Diploma No. 89. Inge Schaefer Horton, Early Women Architects of the San Francisco Bay Area: The Lives and Work of Fifty Professionals, 1890–1951 ( Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 2010), 353. Reiss studied under Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Ludwig Hilberseimer while at the Bauhaus. Hilde Reiss, Interview by Martha Ruddy, March 17, 2000 (Walker Art Center Archives). 5. On the Federal Art Project (1935–1943)—the visual arts component of the Works Progress Administration—see Victoria Grieve, The Federal Art Project and the Creation of Middlebrow Culture (Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2009). 6. Reiss, Interview by Ruddy. 7. Shannan Clark, “When Modernism Was Still Radical: The Design Laboratory and the Cultural Politics of Depression-Era America,” American Studies 50, no. 3/4 (Fall/Winter 2009): 35–36. 8. “Experiment in Change,” Arts and Decoration (February 1935): 5. 9. Ibid., 8. 10. On spaciousness see Sandy Isenstadt, The Modern American House: Spaciousness and Middle-Class Identity (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006). 11. Interview with Reiss by Ruddy. Friedman studied at New York University, Atelier Whitman Goodman, and the University of Minnesota. He began practicing architecture in 1926, designing houses, interiors, exhibitions, and furniture. “Importance of Everyday Objects,” Interiors (March 1946): 60. 12. The architecture of US internment camps is still yet to be studied exhaustively. On Japanese internment, see Michi Nishiura Weglyn, Years of Infamy: The Untold Story of America’s Concentration Camps (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1996); Greg Robinson, By Order of the President: FDR and the Internment of Japanese Americans (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001); and Greg Robinson, A Tragedy of Democracy: Japanese Confinement in North America (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009). 13. Horton, 354; Weaver, “Design for a Modern Career,” 310. 14. Reiss obtained this position through friends. Reiss, Interview by Ruddy. 15. “People Make Production,” California Arts and Architecture ( June 1943): 35. 16. For an overview of the wartime housing program see Jean-Louis Cohen, Architecture in Uniform: Designing and Building for the Second World War (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011), 111–27. For regionspecific studies see Chapter 4 of Greg Hise, Magnetic Los Angeles: Planning the Twentieth-Century Metropolis

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Consulting and Curating the Modern Interior (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999); Sarah Jo Peterson, Planning the Home Front: Building Bombers and Communities at Willow Run (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2013); and Kristin M. Szylvian, “The Federal Housing Program During World War II,” in From Tenements to the Taylor Homes, ed. John F. Bauman, Roger Biles, and Kristin M. Szylvian (University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000). 17. William Wilson Wurster, “Carquinez Heights,” California Arts and Architecture (November  1941); Fred Langhorst, “A New Approach to Large-scale Housing,” California Arts and Architecture (April 1942); and “Vallejo: War Housing Case History,” California Arts and Architecture (December 1942). On Wurster’s work in Vallejo see Greg Hise, “Building Design as Social Art: The Public Architecture of William Wurster, 1935–1950,” in An Everyday Modernism: The Houses of William Wurster, ed. Marc Treib (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1995). 18. Weaver, “Design for a Modern Career,” 310. 19. “Dwelling Design” in Federal Public Housing Authority of the National Housing Agency, Standards for War Housing, Excluding Temporary Housing (Washington, DC: Federal Public Housing Authority, 1942), 2 and 4. 20. Federal Public Housing Authority of the National Housing Agency, “Temporary Housing,” War Housing Technical Bulletin D-2, unpaginated. 21. Letter from Charles F. Daley, chairman of the Housing Authority of the City of Vallejo, Your Home 1 (November 1943): unpaginated. 22. Hilde Reiss Friedman, Your Home 3 (March 1944): 11. 23. Hilde Reiss Friedman, “Housing Project as Progressive Community,” Arts and Architecture (August 1944): 18. 24. Reiss quoted in Weaver, “Design for a Modern Career,” 310. 25. Reiss Friedman, Your Home 1 (November 1943): unpaginated. 26. Reiss Friedman, Your Home 2 ( January 1944): 6–7. 27. This committee comprised Rosabell E. Mattison, Helen Crisp, and Virginia Kuemerle. Reiss Friedman, Your Home 3, 11. 28. Images of the apartment appeared in the second issue of Your Home in January 1944. Reiss Friedman, Your Home 2, 3. 29. Reiss Friedman, Your Home 1, unpaginated. 30. Ibid. 31. Ibid. 32. Interview with Reiss by Ruddy. 33. Reiss Friedman, “Housing Project as Progressive Community,” Arts and Architecture (August 1944): 18. 34. Exhibition records, 1940–1961. Prepared by Martha Ruddy, November  1, 1998 (Walker Art Center Archives). 35. “Importance of Everyday Objects,” Interiors (March 1946): 55. 36. Press release dated January 9, 1946. Ideas for Better Living Exhibition Files (Box 6, Folder 15. Walker Art Center Archives). 37. “The Gallery of Everyday Art,” Everyday Art Quarterly (Summer 1946): 2. 38. No comprehensive object list survives in the Walker Art Center’s exhibition records. Articles recorded the range of material shown in Ideas for Better Living. “Importance of Everyday Objects,” Interiors (March 1946): 55, and “Ideas for Better Living,” Everyday Art Quarterly (Summer 1946): 5. 39. “Press information concerning the Everyday Art Gallery,” January 9, 1946, Idea House II Exhibition Files (Box 15, Folder 11. Walker Art Center Archives). 40. Ibid. 41. Elizabeth McCausland, “Gallery of Everyday Art,” Arts and Architecture (March 1946): unpaginated. 42. Installation image of Ideas for Better Living (Walker Art Center Archives). 43. Reiss, Interview by Ruddy. 44. Ibid. 45. Peter S. Reed, “Enlisting Modernism,” in World War II and the American Dream, ed. Donald Albrecht (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995), 13–16.

Bibliography Albrecht, Donald, ed. World War II and the American Dream: How Wartime Building Changed a Nation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995. “A Century Intervenes.” Arts and Decoration 42 (March 1935): 12–17. Clark, Shannan. “When Modernism Was Still Radical: The Design Laboratory and the Cultural Politics of Depression-Era America.” American Studies 50, no. 3/4 (Fall/Winter 2009): 35–36.

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15 ARCHITECT, PARTNER, WIFE Mid-Century Husband-and-Wife Partnerships Kate Reggev

Introduction In 1881 at the age of twenty-five, Louise Blanchard Bethune (1856–1913) opened her own practice in Buffalo, New York, and became the first American woman to start an architectural firm.1 A short two months afterward, she married former coworker Robert Bethune, and together they opened an architectural office. Bethune is widely considered a pioneer as the first professional female architect in the United States, and her firm was also one of several firsts: the first male-female architectural partnership, and the first husband-and-wife-run architecture firm in the country. Their office, initially called the gender-neutral R.A. and L. Bethune, Architects, or Bethune & Bethune Architects, entangled the two in ways that the profession had not yet seen or experienced. Since then, women have continued to open architectural practices with their significant others, at first occasionally, as women trickled into architecture schools in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and then increasingly, as women entered the profession in the 1930s through 1960s. Indeed, by mid-century, some of the most recognized names in American design and architecture were husband-and-wife (or significant other) duos: Ray and Charles Eames, Florence and Hans Knoll, and Louis Kahn and Anne Tyng, among others. As Architectural Record noted in 1948, “Some husband-and-wife partnerships have been particularly successful, and have done outstanding work.”2 While the challenges for women in the early to mid-twentieth century of working in American and Western European architecture have been documented by historians, little research has been devoted to the collaborations between women who opened their own successful practices with a life partner, typically a man. As a whole, the concept of collaboration has not received the attention and credit it is due; for decades, much of the focus has been on the architect as a lone genius, an individual (male) figure as the practitioner and creator of modern architecture—from Frank Lloyd Wright to Walter Gropius, Le Corbusier to Marcel Breuer. The few women that have received recognition for their work since the late nineteenth century are noted as individuals rather than teams. In reality, however, collaboration was, in the words of critic Beatriz Colomina, one of the “secrets of modern architecture.”3 This chapter highlights the collaborative approach in American architectural practice, focusing on married or long-term partners during the early to mid-twentieth century, when the discipline experienced enormous change, from the way that architecture was practiced, to the aesthetics that were considered modern, to the societal standards for women. The dynamics of professional trajectories are examined: the formation of these practices, the structure of collaboration and design in

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Figure 15.1 The firm of Bethune, Bethune & Fuchs. Photograph, c. 1881. Source: Nancy Herlan Brady.

the workplace and how it was (or wasn’t) distinct from earlier traditional partnerships, public perception of the work, and how these dispositions either reinforced or refuted societal expectations in mid-century America. Ultimately, this chapter asserts that not only were these husband-wife partnerships a path for women to have their own practice, they also provided a fundamentally different paradigm of equal collaboration that was otherwise unattainable in the field.

Early Architectural Partnerships Prior to the mid-nineteenth century, architecture in the United States was an informal field that builders and carpenters engaged in after self-teaching or craft apprenticeship and was typically practiced by individuals with a select few drafters or builders working beneath them, such as H. H. Richardson (1838–1886) or Richard Morris Hunt (1827–1895). Partnerships and formal collaborations were not common in architecture during this period, although they certainly existed in other fields and over the course of history had been recognized as potentially fruitful, inspiring, and productive endeavors. However, after the Civil War, a “culture of professionalism” developed in the United States, resulting in the creation of some of the nation’s first academic programs in architecture and later, the implementation of architectural licensing exams.4 As the field continued to formalize in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the notion of collaborating in a partnership between pairs or in groups of three or more architects—virtually always all male—became increasingly prevalent. Architects who had previously practiced alone, such as Louis H. Sullivan (1856–1924) and Daniel H. Burnham (1846–1912), formed partnerships with Dankmar Adler (1844–1900) and John Wellborn Root (1850–1891), respectively, so that they could tackle larger and more complex projects; as Sullivan recounted to Burnham in 1874, “you can’t handle big things unless you have an organization.”5 202

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The partners had often met while in school or while working together at an architecture firm. When the partnerships were formed, individual abilities allowed each partner to balance the different tasks, from business development to project typology. McKim, Mead, and White, one of the most renowned American firms at the turn of the twentieth century, relied on the design sensibilities of Charles Follen McKim (1847–1909) and Stanford White (1853–1906) and the financial and organizational skills of William Rutherford Mead (1846–1928) for their long success. The rest of the office was organized through a combination of a hierarchical structure reflective of other large companies at the time and a studio model that had its origins in the Beaux-Arts training. Most architectural offices of a comparable size employed a similar structure.6

Early Husband-Wife Partnerships Absent from nearly all of the major architectural firms from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was the presence of female partners, despite their growing existence in architecture schools and firms. By the 1910s and 1920s, partnerships in architectural firms expanded beyond the traditional all-male typology into small firms with a husband-and-wife duo at the helm. While certainly not common, this type of structure was one of the few avenues through which women were able to work in the field. However, women in the profession often stopped after marriage. For example, Mary Gannon (1867–1932) stopped practicing at her own firm, Gannon and Hands (established 1894), the first female architectural partnership in the United States, when she married and had a child around 1900.7 This pattern reflected societal norms of the time that selectively accepted single women in the workplace but nearly universally shunned middle-class married women from working outside the home. An exception to this rule was if a woman were to work with or for her husband. The creation of a husband-wife partnership was thus seen as the only socially acceptable and often financially viable way for a female architect to partake in having one’s own practice. The first female member of the Chicago chapter of the AIA, Elizabeth Kimball Nedved (1897–1969), stated: If I hadn’t got married I never would have gone ahead with it [becoming a practicing architect]. I think that unless a girl is unusually strong minded, she will give up her career after marriage unless her husband happens to be careering along the same line.8 Nedved’s comment speaks to both society’s expectations of “giving up her career after marriage” and also the support and encouragement she received from her marriage, without which she “never would have gone ahead with” practicing architecture. Often, the couple had met while studying together in architecture school, married soon after graduation or after a few years of working, and then opened their own practice together. Verna Cook Salomonsky (1890–1978), for example, completed coursework in architecture at Columbia University in 1912 and 1913, where she met classmate Edgar Salomonsky.9 They married in 1920, and shortly thereafter the two hung their shingle, completing many residential projects in the growing New York City suburbs.10 Similarly, Elizabeth Kimball Nedved met her future husband and partner when “she was given a draughting [sic] table right next to that of an affable young man named Rudolph Nedved” at Chicago’s Armour Institute of Technology.11 The two married in 1925 directly after Rudolph’s graduation and opened Nedved & Kimball in 1926.12 Significantly, these early husband-and-wife partnerships also allowed the wife the flexibility to practice architecture while remaining committed to her traditional role in the family as the main caregiver for children. Bethune, for example, continued to practice after giving birth to her son in 1883, and having a child “appears to have had little impact on the firm’s production.”13 Census 203

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records indicate that Nedved had two children by 1931, the year in which she was elected president of the Women’s Architectural Club of Chicago, and continued to practice architecture.14 However, these women were the exception rather than the rule; even if a female architect opened a practice with her husband, she would often leave the practice or significantly reduce her work hours once she had children, sometimes picking up drafting work as they got older.

Implicit and Explicit Collaboration The structure of a husband-and-wife partnership, in addition to actively maintaining a family and professional life, allowed for a collaborative, if complexly balanced, work environment. Early articles written by men on women in architecture suggested that women might be capable of drafting and design but that they would fundamentally work best as “coadjutors to architects,” that is, assistants.15 In contrast to this inferred dynamic, most often the wives in these partnerships played an equally important role to that of her husband, and decisions were often made together as a team. For example, early California architect Gertrude Comfort Morrow (1888–1983) began working with her husband Irving Morrow in the 1920s, establishing the gender-neutrally named firm of Morrow & Morrow. This simple inclusion of her married name in the name of the firm implied co-ownership and participation. However, her contributions for the design of the Golden Gate Bridge’s toll plaza, entry towers and pylons, lighting standards, and burnt orange color—one of the firm’s most iconic projects—have sometimes been questioned, largely because the project’s contract was in her husband’s name. To counteract this argument, historian Inge Horton points to Irving Morrow’s intentional use of the pronouns “we,” “us,” and “our” in his correspondence about the bridge’s design, indicating their shared contributions on the project and the decisions that were made together.16 On the other hand, collaboration at Bethune & Bethune Architects (later Bethune, Bethune & Fuchs) divided “office work” from “outside” work. In 1893, American Women’s Illustrated World stated that “Mrs. Bethune has for some years taken entire charge of the office work, and complete superintendence of one-third of the outside work.”17 In other words, Louise Blanchard Bethune oversaw business and legal aspects and additionally was responsible for a third of the designing and drafting in the office, with her other two partners responsible for the other two-thirds.18 Indeed, Blanchard Bethune often emphasized her role as a “businesswoman” in public addresses, reminding the audience that architecture was not an avocation, but a business that needed to earn a profit.19 This partnership structure mimicked the model in which one principal or partner was responsible for the “office” side of things; however, the division of the design and drafting work among the three partners refuted the traditional vision of an individual, male design genius who was responsible for all aspects of a design.

Establishing a Name and a Project Type One of the most visible aspects of a firm was its name. Women in architecture had long struggled with how to publicly present themselves in print: they were often mistaken for men or addressed with prefixes such as “Miss” that felt patronizing. Accomplished New York architect Katharine Cotheal Budd (1860–1951) requested to be referred to as “Katharine Cotheal Budd, Architect,” but instead was typically addressed as “Miss K.C.B.” when not addressed as “K.C.B., Esq.” or “Mr.”20 Lois Lilley Howe (1964–1964) was the second woman voted into the AIA because the electing members believed the name “Lois” to be that of a male architect; others attempted to hide their blatantly female names by using their first initial, such as C. (Charlotte) Julian Mesic (1889–1961), who worked as a drafter in the office of architect Julia Morgan.21

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Figure 15.2 Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. A drawing from the office of Morrow & Morrow names Irving F. Morrow as the consulting architect. His wife and partner, Gertrude Morrow, was likely not included because the contract was in her husband’s name. Source: Morrow, Irving & Gertrude Comfort Morrow Collection, Environmental Design Archives, UC Berkeley.

Women in partnerships with their husbands typically employed their last name in the name of the firm; this, like using the initials of one’s first name, was both honest and ambiguous, truthful but perhaps misleading. Morrow & Morrow, for example, could be a partnership between a father and son or two brothers; R.A. and L. Bethune, Architects strategically employed initials in the name of the firm. However, the inclusion of both names expressed the collaboration between the two, highlighting joint contributions. At times, the partnership grew or was modified, requiring alterations to the firm name as well as the original method of collaboration and equality. In 1929, the architecture firm of Kimball & Nedved merged with an existing Chicago firm to become Hamilton, Fellows, & Nedved; the dropping of “Kimball” from the name of the firm was indicative of their attitude toward female partner Elizabeth Kimball Nedved.22 Technically, she joined the firm as an equal partner; however, Elizabeth’s role in the office would be de-emphasized, verging on invisible in publications and described in her AIA membership application as a “silent partner.”23 Hand in hand with public perceptions of these firms were their project typologies. “Victorian society’s rigid sexual stereotypes” dictated that if a woman were to leave the home for work, “she was only supposed to concern herself with matters pertaining to domestic life.”24 It was believed that

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women had an innate understanding of spaces like kitchens and closets, making women uniquely qualified to design homes. This perspective lived on well into the late 1940s; many felt that “it is natural that residential architecture should be their [women’s] natural forte.”25 As a result, women who opened their own practices and those who had firms with their husbands found themselves primarily working on housing, most often single-family residences, but at times larger apartment buildings or tenement buildings. Even if women were interested in designing other typologies, the message openly conveyed in schools, offices, and the press was that a woman’s place, if it had to be in architecture, was in the home. For example, California architect Helen Douglass French (1900–1994) worked both independently and as a team with her husband Prentiss French; when working together, they focused on domestic architecture, but when working separately, Prentiss had the opportunity to work on landscape designs for large institutional projects—a type that Helen did not convey.26 Residential design was “inherently conservative, the scale of buildings usually determined by individual needs and conservative practice” rather than the more forward-thinking, larger-scale projects of corporations, institutions, and organizations.27

Mid-Century Partnerships in Architecture Until the 1930s and 1940s, large architecture firms continued to rely on the bureaucratic model of balanced and shared responsibilities developed at the turn of the century. However, the Great Depression in the 1930s obliterated many establishments in the United States, and in the years following World War II, the profession as a whole experienced broad transformation in scale and scope.28 During this period, many firms created operational structures that differed from their Beaux-Arts predecessors, where hierarchy and a connection to a specific name held significant cachet. Instead, there was a shift toward a more abstract notion of a company, achieved by emphasizing the group in its entirety; collaboration rather than individual artistic effort was acknowledged and extolled. Absent from this type of firm was the notion of a “heroic” figure as the sole architect of a project. Some practices, like Skidmore, Owings and Merrill (SOM), sought an anonymous, corporate model that emphasized an ambiguous group identity. At SOM, established in 1936, the partners “aimed to present the firm as a collective identity,” similar to other modern corporations and brands, and all major decisions were made together and democratically because officially, all of the partners were equal.29 Ultimately, this team-based, democratic approach would become one of the hallmarks of corporate architecture at mid-century and in the following decades, reflected both in client lists and iconic designs of “ubiquitous glass-and-metal curtain walls.”30

Mid-Century Husband-Wife Partnerships By the 1950s and 1960s, architectural partnerships between husbands and wives were increasingly commonplace, in large part due to the growing albeit selective, acceptance of women in architecture. While more women were entering architectural practice, their admittance came under the same circumstances as before: by practicing residential architecture or working with their husbands. In 1948, Architectural Record conducted a survey of one thousand women in architecture, concluding that residential work was both the easiest for women to obtain and the most “natural for women to engage in.”31 That same year, the United States Bureau of Labor published a report on women in architecture and engineering, noting that “it is also claimed that women can make a special contribution in the field of home and apartment-house design” and that “a number of women architects are engaged in practice with their architect husbands.”32 Although the report acknowledged that “most women who are registered architects challenge this view” that women are predisposed to design domestic spaces, both statistics and the media demonstrated that female architects were still 206

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relegated to specific ways of working, whether in tandem with a male architect or in a building type already associated with women and domesticity.33 Similarities between early and later husband-and-wife couples in architecture extended beyond the accepted modes of practice and followed similar patterns to those established in previous decades, from the formation of the partnership to the project typologies and the means of collaboration. As in early partnerships, the mid-century couples typically met while in school or working in the same office. Ray (1912–1988) and Charles Eames (1907–1978), for example, one of the most widely recognized and productive husband-and-wife collaborators of the era, met in 1940 at Cranbrook Academy, where Ray was a student and Charles a teacher and head of the industrial design department.34 Shirley Kerr and H. Hunter Kennard met at the Washington, DC, office of Faulkner, Kingsbury, & Stenhouse Architects, married in 1954, and formed their Maryland-based practice in 1958. The collaborative nature of practicing together was another consistent characteristic of husbandand-wife partnerships. By the 1950s, many found SOM’s collaborative, democratic, and seemingly anonymous approach to design in the workplace to be new and innovative—so much so that the firm was recognized by the Museum of Modern Art with a monographic exhibition in 1950. Architectural historian Beatriz Colomina notes that “for the first time, teamwork, instead of individual genius, was acknowledged in architecture.”35 However, this type of dynamic had been practiced for decades by husband-and-wife architectural partnerships as early as the 1880s. However, there were major distinctions between the large corporate partnerships and the husband-wife partnerships of mid-century in scale and setup of firm, types of executed projects, and budgets and funding. Regardless of these differences, at the heart of collaboration—whether it was between a husband and wife or between partners at SOM—was a willingness to share and compromise in order to achieve the best outcome for a project. Communication, be it an office-wide memo or a quick discussion over lunch in a couple’s kitchen, was critical. Architect Mrs. Arthur J. Richards of Fairfax County, VA, noted that conversations between her and her husband, a builder, followed a calm methodology: “We work problems out as they occur. … No one really blames the other for mistakes; we just get busy and straighten them out.”36 In these healthy partnerships, blame of an individual was of little significance in the common goal of a project. Unfortunately, even when collaboration was successful, as in the case of Ray and Charles Eames, it was not always outwardly represented as such. Historians have noted that Ray and Charles each contributed differently to the partnership, Ray more in aesthetics and Charles in technology.37 However, this dynamic was rarely explained publicly: Charles Eames was often the voice of the firm both in public and in the office, in part because of Ray’s shyness, but also because of his bravado and male presence. In a television appearance in 1956, for example, the host introduced Ray as “Mrs. Eames,” who will “tell us how she helps Charles design these chairs.”38 The design establishment demoted Ray to a helper, but the partnership undoubtedly benefited from her presence.

Balancing Family Life Even if collaboration in the office was a key ingredient for these successful husband-and-wife partnerships, sharing of responsibilities did not always extend to the home, where it was still anticipated that women would continue as a traditional mother and wife figure. Various publications highlighted the complex roles that these women were expected to fill: wife, architect, mother, designer, cook, business woman, laundress, draftsman; the wife in the husband-and-wife partnership was constantly managing several jobs at the same time. In 1948, Architectural Record profiled ten women in architecture, noting that “seven are successfully combining marriage and a career,” and while not easy, it was indeed possible and increasingly acceptable to continue practicing architecture after marriage—contrasting what had previously been strongly discouraged, if not seen as improper.39 Yet even if these multiple roles were recognized, public perception suggested 207

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that women were still first and foremost mothers and wives and architects second or third. A 1956 issue of LIFE magazine profiled architect Margaret King Hunter (1919–1997), who practiced with her husband Edgar, in Hanover, New Hampshire. LIFE described her as “one of the country’s few successful women architects” who designed her own home to “suit her own needs as mother, cook, and laundress.”40 The article, titled “Housewife’s House,” was indicative of how the magazine chose to depict Hunter: while the text acknowledged the many roles she played, the title and full-color images only depicted her as a housewife, feeding and playing with her children, dishcloth in hand; an image of Hunter drawing at her desk was never shown. Ironically, the home she designed was distinctly modern and broke away from tradition, but this modernist point of view did not extend into societal norms. For some couples, maintaining a satisfying balance required nontraditional ways of living. Architect Paul Bentel, son of architect couple Maria Azzarone Bentel (1928–2000) and Frederick Bentel, affectionately described his upbringing as “bohemian,” in which he and his siblings “grew up in the studio” of Bentel & Bentel, the practice established in 1957 by their parents in Long Island, NY. Paul Bentel recalls his sister sleeping on a makeshift bed of blankets and pillows stored under their mother’s desk for when their parents were “en charette” and mid-design on a project, unable to return home in time for their children’s bedtime.41 Even if broader society expected a female architect to continue balancing her roles, for certain couples, the husband understood the complexity and stress of the many hats she had to wear.

Figure 15.3 Fred and Maria Bentel in front of Midge Carr Art Center at New York Institute of Technology in Old Westbury, NY. Photograph, c. 1979. Source: Paul Bentel.

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On Her Own: Partnership Evolution Another major distinction between early and mid-century duos was the possibility for the wife’s role to evolve and change. By mid-century, a woman who left the profession after having children often designed homes for her family or friends. These small projects acted as stepping stones toward working with her husband in a partnership as the children grew older, or establishing her own firm, and were even more common when the ideal of equal contributors broke down because of various circumstances. Alberta Raffl Pfeiffer (1899–1994), for example, married fellow graduate of the University of Illinois Homer Pfeiffer in 1930, and together they opened their firm in 1933, completing over seventy projects by 1940, largely in Connecticut.42 With the onset of World War II, Homer joined the Navy and supervised the construction of naval buildings, while Alberta continued their work, which led to the establishment of her own firm after the war.43 She maintained her busy residential practice from 1940 until 1977, completing more than 170 projects.44 In this case, it took the onset of a war for Alberta to practice on her own, although it led to a long and fruitful career. Similarly, Rebecca Wood Esherick Watkin (1913–2010), who married fellow University of Pennsylvania alumnus Joseph Esherick in 1938, struggled to find a position in California.45 She worked for her husband’s firm in the 1940s after earning her own architectural license; this allowed her to raise their three children while still working in architecture and also gave her the flexibility to design their own residence. In the end, this work gave her the skills, knowledge, and confidence to start her own firm in 1951 after the two had divorced.

Figure 15.4 Family residence of architect Rebecca Wood Esherick Watkin, Kentfield, CA. Her upstairs office, with drafting table and desk. Photograph, c. 1955. Source: Rebecca Wood Watkin Architectural Drawings, 1940–1989, Ms1995–009, Special Collections, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA.

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For California couple Lois Wilson Langhorst (1914–1989) and Fred Langhorst, who had established a practice together in 1942, marriage was intertwined with an unequal professional partnership: Lois was not licensed until 1948, which meant that she could not formally stamp or file projects, and her husband typically commanded more respect on the jobsite.46 After their separation, Lois went on to Harvard to earn a degree in architectural history and later taught at the University of California at Berkeley and other schools.47

Conclusion By the 1950s, modernism had taken a firm hold in the United States, but ironically, the practice of architecture itself and the social constructs within the field had not evolved in a way that reflected these sensibilities. Although women were accepted, they were shunted into specialties like residential design or encouraged to open firms with their architect husbands in order to practice. These offices, like the early husband-and-wife duos of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and even the traditional male partnerships, were founded on principles of collaboration and teamwork, with the same ideals and goals of shared benefits and burdens of running a business. However, many of these relationships were complex and multilayered, reflective not only of workplace dynamics involving gender, but also of public perceptions of working women and their roles as mothers and wives. Early female architects sought to disguise their sex with ambiguously gendered firm names and little discussion of family life in the office. By mid-century, women found that while society and the industry had “permitted” them into the field, they remained laden with the burden of fulfilling the traditional vision of mother and wife alongside the modern ones of designer, architect, businesswoman, and partner—a virtually impossible feat. Ultimately, early husband-and-wife partnerships created a means for female architects to work in an environment where they had both collaboration and agency and paved the way for the many more married partners of the 1940s and 1950s. These in turn acted as role models for later generations of women during the second wave of feminism in the 1970s and afterward, stretching into the partnerships that exist today, when women can open a practice with their spouse by choice rather than necessity. Although we still struggle with the expectations of women who “have it all” and need to “do it all,” by examining these earlier partnerships, we can better understand the dynamic relationships of teamwork, partnerships, and marriage today.

Notes 1. Johanna Hays, “Louise Blanchard Bethune: Architect Extraordinaire and First American Woman Architect, Practiced in Buffalo, New York (1881–1905)” (PhD diss., Auburn University, AL, 2007), 18. 2. “A Thousand Women in Architecture, Part II,” Architectural Record 103, no. 6 ( June 1948): 108. 3. Beatriz Colomina, “Collaborations: The Private Life of Modern Architecture,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 58, no. 3 (1999): 462–71. 4. Jan Jennings, Cheap and Tasteful Dwellings: Design Competitions and the Convenient Interior, 1879–1909 (Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press, 2005), 83. 5. Louis H. Sullivan, Autobiography of an Idea (New York: Press of the American Institute of Architects, 1926), 285–86. 6. Michael Kubo, “Architecture Incorporated: Authorship, Anonymity, and Collaboration in Postwar Modernism” (PhD diss., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, 2011), 25–26. 7. Susana Torre, Women in American Architecture: A Historic and Contemporary Perspective (New York: Whitney Library of Design, 1977), 66; Allaback, The First American Women Architects, 83–84, 92. 8. “Why Not?” Chicago Daily Tribune, May 6, 1928, 3; “Woman Is Made Member of Firm of Architects,” Chicago Daily Tribune, January 6, 1929. 9. “Salomonsky, Verna Cook, Membership Files,” The AIA Historical Directory of American Architects, The American Institute of Architects Archives, “Salomonsky, Verna Cook” (ahd1038963), accessed May  8, 2020, https://aiahistoricaldirectory.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/AHDAA/overview.

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Architect, Partner, Wife 1 0. “Personals,” The American Architect and the Architectural Review 120, no. 2380 (November 9, 1921): 376. 11. “Why Not?” 3. 12. “Here and There and This and That,” Pencil Points VI 8 (August 1925): 104. 13. Sarah Allaback, The First American Women Architects (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2008), 45–46. 14. “Elizabeth Nedved New Head of Women’s Architectural Club,” Chicago Daily Tribune, September 13, 1931, 26. 15. American Architect and Building News 1, no. 40 (September 30, 1876): 313. 16. Inge Schaefer Horton, “Daring to Design Modern: Women Architects of Northern California,” accessed May  2, 2020, www.docomomo-us.org/news/daring-to-design-modern-women-architects-of-northerncalifornia. 17. “Some Distinguished Women of Buffalo,” American Women’s Illustrated World, October 7, 1893. 18. Long-time employee William Fuchs joined as a third partner in 1891. 19. Hays, “Louise Blanchard Bethune,” 83. 20. Allaback, The First American Women Architects, 1. 21. Ibid., 2. 22. “Woman Is Made,” B1. 23. Ibid.; “Nedved, Elizabeth K. Membership Files,” The AIA Historical Directory of American Architects, The American Institute of Architects Archives, “Nedved, Elizabeth K,” (ahd1032224), accessed May 2, 2020, https://aiahistoricaldirectory.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/AHDAA/overview. 24. Gwendolyn Wright, “On the Fringes of the Profession: Women in American Architecture,” in The Architect: Chapters in the History of the Profession, ed. Spiro Kostof (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2000), 281–83. 25. “A Thousand Women, Part II,” 108. 26. Inge Horton, Early Women Architects of the San Francisco Bay Area: The Lives and Work of Fifty Professionals, 1890–1951 ( Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 2010), 227. 27. Wright, “On the Fringes of the Profession,” 283. 28. Kubo, “Architecture Incorporated,” 24. 29. Hyun Tae Jung, “Organization and Abstraction: The Architecture of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill from 1936 to 1956” (PhD diss., Columbia University, New York, NY, 2001), 11–12. 30. Reinhold Martin, The Organizational Complex: Architecture, Media, and Corporate Space (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2003), 5. 31. “A Thousand Women, Part I,” 105. 32. The Outlook for Women in Architecture and Engineering: Women’s Bureau Bulletin 223–225 (Washington, DC: US Department of Labor, Women’s Bureau, 1948), 5–10. 33. Ibid. 34. Pat Kirkham, Charles and Ray Eames: Designers of the Twentieth Century (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1998), 45. 35. Colomina, “Collaborations.” 36. Paul M. Herron, “Husband, Wife Build in VA,” Washington Post, January 27, 1952, 2. 37. Joseph Giovannini, “The Office of Charles Eames and Ray Kaiser: The Material Trail,” in The Work of Charles and Ray Eames: A Legacy of Invention, ed. Donald Albrecht (New York: Abrams, 1997), 56. 38. Kirkham, Charles and Ray Eames, 83. 39. “A Thousand Women, Part II,” 108. 40. “Housewife’s House,” LIFE 41, no. 26 (December 24, 1956): 134–37. 41. Paul Bentel, email message to Kate Reggev, December 7, 2016. 42. Allaback, The First American Women Architects, 174. 43. Ibid., 175. 44. “She Sees Bright Future for Handwork,” The Hartford Courant, August 9, 1952, 22; “Alberta Pfeiffer,” IAWA Newsletter 2 (Fall 1990): 1. 45. Horton, “Daring.” 46. Alan Hess, Forgotten Modern: California Houses 1940–1970 (Charleston, SC: Gibbs Smith, 2007), 157. 47. “Lois Wilson Worley Langhorst,” Dynamic National Archive, Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation, accessed May 2, 2020, https://dna.bwaf.org/architect/langhorst-lois-wilson-worley.

Bibliography Allaback, Sarah. The First American Women Architects. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2008. Colomina, Beatriz. “Collaborations: The Private Life of Modern Architecture.” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 58, no. 3 (1999): 462–71.

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Kate Reggev Giovannini, Joseph. “The Office of Charles Eames and Ray Kaiser: The Material Trail.” In The Work of Charles and Ray Eames: A Legacy of Invention, edited by Donald Albrecht, 45–71. New York: Abrams, 1997. Hays, Johanna. “Louise Blanchard Bethune: Architect Extraordinaire and First American Woman Architect, Practiced in Buffalo, New York (1881–1905).” PhD diss., Auburn University, Auburn, AL, 2007. Hess, Alan. Forgotten Modern: California Houses 1940–1970. Charleston, SC: Gibbs Smith, 2007. Horton, Inge. Early Women Architects of the San Francisco Bay Area: The Lives and Work of Fifty Professionals, 1890–1951. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 2010. Horton, Inge Schaefer. “Daring to Design Modern: Women Architects of Northern California.” DoCoMoMo US Newsletter, August  11, 2014. www.docomomo-us.org/news/daring-to-design-modern-womenarchitects-of-northern-california. “Housewife’s House.” LIFE 41, no. 26 (December 24, 1956): 134–37. Jennings, Jan. Cheap and Tasteful Dwellings: Design Competitions and the Convenient Interior, 1879–1909. Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press, 2005. Kubo, Michael. “Architecture Incorporated: Authorship, Anonymity, and Collaboration in Postwar Modernism.” PhD diss., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, 2011. Martin, Reinhold. The Organizational Complex: Architecture, Media, and Corporate Space. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2003. The Outlook for Women in Architecture and Engineering: Women’s Bureau Bulletin 223, no. 5 (U.S. Department of Labor, Women’s Bureau, Washington, DC: 1948). “Some Distinguished Women of Buffalo.” American Women’s Illustrated World, October 7, 1893. “A Thousand Women in Architecture, Part I.” Architectural Record 103, no. 3 (March 1948): 105–13. “A Thousand Women in Architecture, Part II.” Architectural Record 103 no. 6 ( June 1948), 108–15. Torre, Susana. Women in American Architecture: A  Historic and Contemporary Perspective. New York: Whitney Library of Design, 1977. Wright, Gwendolyn. “On the Fringes of the Profession: Women in American Architecture.” In The Architect: Chapters in the History of the Profession, edited by Spiro Kostof, 280–308. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2000.

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16 “MRS. MERIC CALLERY” Jan Frohburg

Introduction When in 1939 the Museum of Modern Art in New York held its seminal exhibition Picasso—Forty Years of His Art, curator Alfred Barr acknowledged that the project was “particularly indebted to Mrs. Meric Callery.”1 Barr saw in Callery a person capable of “maneuvering through the devious intrigues which surround Picasso.”2 Yet the person so adept at negotiating the intricacies of modern art and of European and American society did so under an adopted name. “Meric Callery” likely was a homophone appropriation from the original name. Used persistently over time, the pseudonym obscured gender, identity, and marital status, and it certainly played its part in successfully navigating the vagaries of the modern art world. But who was the person behind the adopted name?3 Mary Callery (1903–1977) was not only a discerning collector and patron of the arts but also a lauded sculptor. Callery’s trajectory in life and art “was not a straight-edges highway, but curved, endlessly like the lithe lines of her sculpted figures, opening new vistas at every turn,” as fine arts scholar and museum director Philip R. Adams observed.4 Whereas her oeuvre included a number of impressive portrait heads, her best-known works were open structures, either cast or assembled from distinct pieces. Her work owed much to the classical tradition and it engaged the framework of avant-garde art, yet it belonged to both and neither. Although often linked to the New York School and usually associated with Abstract Expressionism, her oeuvre stands apart.5 Adams recognized Callery’s exceptional status as an independent woman artist: “And throughout her career the growing authority of her style, with its sure wit and grace, has been warmed by an implicit womanly strength.”6 Yet despite receiving public commissions and being an integral part of New York’s artistic scene, both Callery’s oeuvre and her private art collection faded from public consciousness. Her sculptural work, her legacy in studio-based abstract art, and her potential influence on the immediate postwar period of American art remain underexplored.7 In the only monograph on her work, art critic Christian Zervos identified Callery’s “triple deference to reality, sign and technique, and the dynamic element of her imagination” as the constituent qualities of her art, which he thought was “both traditional and highly evolved” and informed by the “hidden yet active life of the artist.”8 Outlining the life and work of one woman artist, however lightly, helps to establish the central role of woman artists in the evolution of modern art and to “trace an alternative strand of art history, a history of hands-on, large studio-produced abstract sculpture.”9 Callery’s personal circumstances as well as her approach to art accounted for both her independence as an artist and her omission from the main narrative of mid-century modernism in American art. Yet when subsequent generations of woman artists invented “radically new forms and processes that privilege solo studio practice, tactility, and the idiosyncrasies of the artist’s own hand,” they did so in continuation of Callery’s work.10 213

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Private Life: Family, Partners, and Friends Born in New York on June 19, 1903, Mary Kenna Callery grew up in Pittsburgh. As the daughter of an aspiring and socially well-connected family, she received an elite upbringing that enforced her innate confidence and sense of independence. Growing up in a cultivated home, Mary made early contact with art, reportedly modeling her first chubby bear cub out of clay when only twelve years old.11 As a teenager, Mary had her likeness painted by prominent portraitist Lydia Field Emmet (1866–1952), an indication of the wealth and status of the Callery family. In 1923 Callery married New York lawyer Fredric René Coudert Jr. (1898–1972). Their daughter Caroline (1926–1974) was born three years later. Callery actively supported her husband in his political ambition, yet in 1930 Callery left him and their young daughter to pursue an independent career as an artist. Although their daughter intermittently traveled with her mother, Caroline mainly grew up in her father’s family. Callery settled in Paris where she continued to live throughout the 1930s. In Europe Callery met Carlo Frua de Angeli (1895–1969), a wealthy textile industrialist and fine art collector from Milan who introduced her to modern art. Even though societal pressure forced their separation two years later, Callery remained firmly committed to modern art. While living and working in Paris, Callery joined an illustrious circle of artists. Pablo Picasso was taken by the tall blonde American, and Callery adored him as an artist, even though she found him “impossible” as a man.12 Man Ray in his sketches and photographs captured Callery’s exquisite dress sense, her keen eye, and tight lips. Callery also met Zervos, then also gallerist, publisher, and editor-in-chief of the Cahiers d’Art. A central figure within the Paris art scene, he became a persistent advocate and collector of her work. Callery’s lifelong friendship with American sculptor Alexander Calder originated in Paris, too. Her studio in the 14th arrondissement became a popular gathering place for Parisian artists, among them Marcel Duchamp, Henri Laurens, and Amédée Ozenfant. Henri Matisse used her studio on occasion, as did Fernand Léger. His monumental painting Composition aux Deux Perroquets (1935–1939), considered to be his major work of the decade, was completed there. As close personal friends, Callery supported Léger by buying several of his works, and after leaving Paris at the onset of war, both artists would eventually collaborate in New York. Callery returned to the United States in early July 1940, spending time in the American West, in Montana and Wyoming. In the summer of 1943, possibly encouraged by Alfred Stieglitz, Callery visited the Ghost Ranch in New Mexico to meet Georgia O’Keeffe. Their productive relationship lasted through the following two decades. Back in New York, Callery converted a coach house in the Upper East Side into her studio and apartment where she displayed her splendid Picassos in the stairwell, so architect and curator Philip Johnson, a close family friend, remembered: Mary had wonderful taste, the place was immaculately laid out, and the living part where we had cocktails was lovely. Her bedroom was upstairs but the lower level was like the converted lofts you see today, but with all these wonderful paintings she had brought back from Europe. I recall many Picassos and a number of Légers and a Matisse. Her tidy studio was in the rear and it was attractive and neat. She was very beautiful, you know.13 Many recognized her strong personality and her Junoesque beauty. “A tall blonde with grey eyes in a square face, Callery had an uninhibited wit and a boisterous sense of fun,” journalist and biographer Laurie Lisle found.14 The ever-perceptive yet occasionally malicious curator Alan Priest called her “belligerent and bossy.”15 Johnson remembered Callery as “a mother-of-us-all kind of person.”16 Possibly as early as 1942, Johnson introduced Callery to architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, who had recently emigrated from Germany and was reinventing himself as a Chicago architect. Callery paired European sophistication with American candor. Mies, usually taciturn and withdrawn, was comfortable in her presence, and over the course of the next decade a romantic relationship developed. Once again, Callery came to exert decisive influence on the shaping of the environment 214

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in which she lived and worked. Around 1947, Callery acquired—likely in exchange for art works— two historic timber barns near Huntington, Long Island, on rural land adjoining the estate of architect Wallace Harrison, another family friend. Callery used the larger barn as her studio, while the smaller one, with Mies’s help, was converted into the “living barn.”17 Alongside her own work, the house prominently displayed select pieces from her art collection. Following the tradition of the

Figure 16.1 Mary Callery, with one of her sculptures. Photograph: Tet Arnold von Borsig, c. 1945. Source: The Estates of Mary Callery and Tet Arnold von Borsig. Courtesy: Francis M. Naumann, 2020.

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sculpture garden, the sheltered terraces at either side of the house became a testing ground for Callery’s work; large glazed openings, the former barn doors, connected the interior to the landscaped grounds around it. To see and understand her sculptures in the context of an architectural setting had a decisive impact on the direction of her work throughout the 1950s, echoing past and foreshadowing future tendencies in general artistic practice. Callery balanced the intimate relationship of her sculpture and its context, aiming for an organic integration of nature, art, and architecture. With apparent ease Callery created a relaxed atmosphere, and the Huntington barn, like her studios in Paris and New York before, became an informal gathering place for her artist friends. However, Callery found herself increasingly isolated, personally and artistically. After the barn conversion was complete, the personal relationship with Mies grew distant. Yet their friendship lasted beyond Callery’s move back to Paris in 1956. Once again living and working in Europe, Callery revived her engagement with architecture. In Cadaqués, a Catalan village popular with artists, architects Peter G. Harnden and Lanfranco Bombelli

Figure 16.2 Living barn near Huntington, Long Island, with sculptures by Mary Callery, Seated Figure, 1947–1952, and Standing Woman, 1949. Source: Personal collection. Courtesy: The Estate of Mary Callery, 2020.

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converted two houses as her summer home and studio.18 Like with the Huntington barn before, Callery sought to emphasize the local building tradition and its vernacular elements while inhabiting them with an assuredly modern sensibility. Place translated into matter, and matter translated into atmosphere. Traveling to New York on occasion, Callery divided most of her time between Cadaqués, where she often spent the summers in the company of Alexina “Teeny” Duchamp, and her apartment in Paris. When Callery’s daughter, unbalanced and always troubled, took her own life in 1974, Callery remained outwardly stoic, yet her artistic energy was drained. With her health deteriorating over the last decade of her life, Mary Callery died in Paris on February  12, 1977. Renowned Catalan architect and sculptor Xavier Corbero carved the simple marble slab that marks her modest grave in Cadaqués.

Accomplished Artist: Sculptor, Collaborator, and Collector From 1921 Callery studied sculpture at the notable Arts Students League in New York where Edward Francis McCartan (1879–1947) was her teacher. Owing much to the Beaux-Arts tradition, his figurative work imbued softly modeled forms with dynamic energy—qualities that can still be found in Callery’s work later in her career. In Paris her work followed rather conventional lines, initially under the guidance of Russian-born sculptor Jacques Loutchansky, but Picasso’s influence soon became inescapable. Callery remembered him as “generous with his enthusiasm,” and she reflected a few years later, “The more one saw, the greater he became. I find myself even now repeating the things I became aware of through him.” Then as well as later, Callery was shy to discuss her work: For years Picasso teased me about my work since I did not have the courage to show it to him. … He would look at me, his intelligent keen eyes twinkling and say “Well, what have you done today, a seascape?”19 It was not until 1955 that Callery had the confidence and good humor to finally make a study for a seascape, the most unlikely subject for a sculpture. This characteristic determination and her wit remain evident throughout her work. Away from Paris, Callery’s experiments with sculptural form took new directions. Reflecting on the evolution of her approach to making art, Callery acknowledged, “I had known always that an art must be firmly planted—that it grows through care, through the loving of it, through tries and cries, and wants—and that somehow, then, it comes about.”20 Her increasingly open structures defied the heavy mass traditionally associated with sculpture, and exact silhouette was emphasized over closed volume. “I started stretching out the figures,” Callery explained, “without much thought of whether I was overdoing it or not.”21 Callery started to reduce, exaggerate, and animate her sculptural forms ever since Picasso had told her, “Don’t work with a model. Don’t you know that a human body has a head, two arms, and two legs?”22 Her elongated figures appear lightly drawn with softly flowing lines, and the stretched bodies of dancers and acrobats were tenderly balanced. Henry McBride, another art critic who was sympathetic of her work, considered the “slimness” in her figures as the pursuit of “a persistent feminine ideal,” although he also recognized that it was not “an exclusively feminine device.”23 Callery’s sculptures were at the same time personal, playful, and disquietingly intense. The apparent reality of form gave way to the impetuous vitality of expression. Yet rather than being driven by considerations of form, Callery engaged with the materials of her work and explored the textural and sculptural potential they offered. Callery appreciated craft, and her work emphasized haptic qualities. She was hands-on and preferred to do her own welding, again taking inspiration from Picasso “in her unlikely use of this physical, blue-collar technique.”24 Even though Callery employed the professional services of the Roman Bronze Works Foundry in 217

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New York and the foundries of Rudier and Valsuani in Paris for her castings, her approach aligned with a “critique of mastery” in modern art.25 Zervos’s shorthand description of her sculptures as “wrought iron ‘ideograms’ ” not only pointed toward the importance of material in her work, it also referred to the expressive aspect of her work, the abstracted representation of ideas that were essentially independent of the material used.26 For Callery, the exploration of either form or material alone was not enough. “To be a work of art,” she insisted, “it must have its emotional life. One must like the thing, be attracted to it, or even be repulsed. It must work on you. Only then does it become living. That for me was the hardest thing to learn.”27 As the academic rules in art became obsolete, artists were free to follow their intuition and to challenge the boundaries of their discipline. Callery came to seek the emotional dimension of her sculptural work not in a particular subject or genre but in the engaging interplay of space and form. Acrobats, often in a small troupe, became a favored motive, generally treated with delicacy and subtle poise. This emphasis of space as bounded and measured by form was to resonate throughout her work from the late 1940s onward. Referring to her numerous pieces of balancing acrobats, Zervos observed a profound connection between the apparent lightness of Callery’s subject and her precise work as a sculptor: “For the artist and acrobat alike everything depends on the success of a concept carefully and slowly worked out, governed by a rigorous logic.”28 Yet Callery ventured to expand the scope of her sculptural work. “In order to achieve [a fresh vision],” she wrote in 1955, “I am trying to give my pieces more meaning than just a study of forms and spaces.”29 Harmonious balance soon yielded to carefully calibrated tension. Confidence in her artistic vision is evident in Callery’s sense of humor and the apparent lightness of her work, and paired with her openness when working together with others they allowed Callery to realize significant collaborative projects. By 1943 Callery and Léger completed a series of polychrome compositions that sought to integrate sculpture and background, object and context,

Figure 16.3 Mary Callery, Conversation, 1949. Bronze, 71/2 x 133/4 x 10 inches. Source: Francis M. Naumann, 2020. Credit: The Estate of Mary Callery.

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by way of purposeful dissonance.30 At the cusp of installation art the distinction between sculpting and painting no longer applied. As with Matisse and Léger before, Callery also opened her studio to O’Keeffe. Both artists worked side by side at the time when O’Keeffe was in New York preparing for her retrospective at MoMA, the museum’s first devoted to a woman artist. With Callery’s guidance O’Keeffe modeled Abstraction (1946), an uncoiling spiral of circles within circles, her first sculpture in almost thirty years. Once cast in aluminum, O’Keeffe thought the spiral’s form strong enough to consider it a benchmark piece for her work. Callery became one of the few women artists able to maintain “a close, if competitive, friendship” with the strong-willed and independent elder artist.31 Ever since their first meeting in 1943, Callery returned to New Mexico on occasion and stayed with O’Keeffe. Song of the Desert (1945), a composition of swirling forms, translated Callery’s experience of the barren landscape into “one of the most lyrical and purely abstract sculptures of her career.”32 Other pieces captured the morbid roughness of skulls and rams’ horns that were prominent around O’Keeffe’s house and in her paintings. During one of her stays at the Ghost Ranch, Callery modeled a portrait head of her artist friend, found to be “amazingly true” when first exhibited at the Arts Club in Chicago in 1946.33 Also on display was a bronze Portrait of C.V.—likely gallerist and art dealer Curt Valentin, another of Callery’s close friends—“which everyone thought was of Gen. Eisenhower.”34 Versed in both carving and casting, Callery made portraits throughout the 1940s and 1950s. Portraiture as an artistic genre was still considered to be of lower status, yet it was often the only field of work open to female artists, who were particularly limited to painting or modeling children, then deemed naturally suited to women. One of the first professional painters striving to overcome the marginalization of women artists was Lydia Field Emmett, the same who had painted Mary’s

Figure 16.4 Mary Callery, Song of the Desert, 1945. Bronze, 283/4 x 261/2 x 10 inches. Source: Francis M. Naumann, 2020. Credit: George and Susan Mittendorf.

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likeness as a young girl. Emmet endeavored to make portrait painting a challenging artistic problem, addressing the twin challenge of “getting true likeness and expressing your sitter” and “painting a picture for its own sake,” as she explained.35 The portrait of Mary was hardly more than a professional commission for Emmet, and we can only speculate whether Emmet discussed her thoughts with her then teenaged model and whether young Mary absorbed any of them. Callery understood portraits as a corrective to her more abstract work. “In the matter of my portraits: It is a different fascination to work from real life. The work done without a model helps unendingly when one is again face to face with nature,” Callery wrote, and “The change from nature to one’s own imagination and vice versa is continually enriching.”36 Complementing abstraction with representation and continuously alternating between both modes was common practice for many women artists of the 1940s, yet they often found their work sidelined by the debilitating criterion of “originality.” In postwar American art the parallelism of abstraction and representation was derided for its apparent lack of commitment to avant-garde principles, another “feminine” characteristic antithetical to the tenets of “major art” as propagated by modernist art critics like Clement Greenberg.37 In Callery’s work “from real life,” particularities gave way to character, and encountering the individual became a way to express essential qualities. Zervos recognized this structural potential in her sculptures that allowed Callery “to probe deeply into any architectural problems that may arise.”38 In the first decades of the twentieth century figurative art sought its independence from the architectural commission, and over the following decades sculpture developed toward objects involved in space.39 No longer understood as ornament or decoration but as a vital and integral part of its environment, Callery’s mature work answered to this aspiration with authority. The “excessive slimness” of her figures, “this dismissal of all excess baggage,” according to McBride, “fits in with the architectural simplicities that have come upon the whole modernistic world” and “that we have grown used to.”40 One of Callery’s most prominent sculptures was Three Birds in Flight (1953). The large installation of streamlined birds with gently curving, outstretched wings was suspended within the sixty feet high and fully glazed lobby of the new Pittsburgh headquarters of aluminum company Alcoa, designed by the New York architects Harrison & Abramovitz. Callery thought it “a great opportunity to work in such a large scale,” and when she characterized Three Birds as a “new problem,” she echoed Mies when describing his approach to Baukunst.41 A  number of large-scale public sculptures demonstrated the architectural ambition of her work. The Fables of La Fontaine (1954) at P.S. 34 was inseparable from its built context, a modernist school complex on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, also designed by Harrison & Abramovitz. Welded from standard steel profiles and flat bar stock and inserted into a wall opening, the figurative screen humorously played on Mies’s use of I-beams in his carefully detailed buildings. Not unlike a construction site, this sculpture was engaging at a very human level. The Fables not only depicted motion but inspired it. Callery continued her exploration of motion in sculpture as part of the American exhibit at the 1958 World’s Fair in Brussels, Belgium, curated by oddly matched architects Peter G. Harnden and Bernard Rudofsky. Here, Callery created a kinetic fountain with twisted conduits and whirling waterwheels, placed within a shallow pool inside of the vast circular pavilion designed by Edward Durell Stone. Callery’s sculptural work came to visually and acoustically activate the architectural space around it, thus expanding on sculpture’s traditional role of quietly inhabiting space and again striking a connection with contemporary artistic practices beyond her own discipline. This emergent relational quality in both Callery’s personality and work introduced a physical as well as psychological dimension that has since been developed further in collaborative and interdisciplinary projects by artists of a younger generation. Callery’s artistic confidence was born out of independence and expressed itself through openended investigation. The lightness, joyfulness, and technical experiment in her sculptures resonated 220

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Figure 16.5 Mary Callery, The Fables of La Fontaine, 1954. Painted steel, 114 x 20 x 2 inches. Photograph: Caroline Coudert Boosey. Source: Caroline Coudert Boosey. Courtesy: The Estate of Mary Callery, 2020.

with an initially optimistic outlook in postwar American society and art. But the cultural climate changed, and while Callery sculpted her elegantly smooth elongated figures, Alberto Giacometti carved painfully gnarled bodies and Jackson Pollock in his barn on Long Island pushed abstract expressionist painting to an extreme. These artists and others came to express their existential angst, yet Callery did not. At the same time Callery was not interested in emergent (or: deliberately constructed) narratives of American triumphalism. Probably aware of the disconnect between her work and the artistic outlook of her peers, Callery revisited surrealist positions in her sculptures of the late 1950s. Her move back to Paris may be read as an attempt to reconnect with those ideas that had initially inspired her work. The figurative emphasis of her sculptures throughout the 1940s and 1950s gradually gave way to abstracted natural forms and calligraphic motives. “Compositions” replaced her earlier, more narrative sculptures, and Callery’s work of the 1960s “grew rougher and more experimental,” as art critic Marie T. Keller noted.42 As her preference in materials shifted from bronze to steel and brass, Callery’s pieces became more and more like spatial jewelry, suggestive of signs and symbols.43 In addition to becoming a distinguished sculptor Callery was an extraordinarily discerning collector. She acquired many works directly from the artists and others through the Parisian dealer Paul Rosenberg. Callery returned to the United States, in the words of Alfred Barr, “with more Picassos than anyone in America.”44 Others may in fact have owned larger collections, but conscious of the quality of her collection, Callery “liked to say that Walter Chrysler had more but that hers were more important.”45 Never one to seek public recognition, Callery exhibited her collection only once in its entirety, at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1945.46 Callery expanded her collection throughout the rest of her life, but by 2009 most of it was dispersed at auction.47 221

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Independent Individual: Exposure, (Non)Recognition, and Legacy Callery’s sculptural work gradually shifted away from the static figure toward the delicately balanced and ultimately became spatially engaged. With progressive abstraction, the realism in her work receded in favor of an exploration of material properties and spatial presence, often to coincide with a tightening in formal expression. Recognizably natural elements yielded to industrial motives. More constructed than composed, her work was part of an emancipatory process that saw sculpture and architecture meet as distinct equals before fully merging into one. In Callery’s work, form and space came to engage in a carefully calibrated interplay while at the same time acknowledging their respective contexts. As her art transferred onto its architectural setting a sense of its original lightness and elegance, even humor, it not only transformed it into a friendly environment; Callery’s work humanized the context to which it related. Callery received several prominent commissions and major modernist art critics championed her talent, yet neither public opinion nor art criticism was always kind to Callery’s work. Her large untitled bronze sculpture that still today adorns the proscenium arch of the Metropolitan Opera House was locally ridiculed as “the giant chastity belt.”48 The New York art critic Hilton Kramer, a stalwart defender of conservative aesthetic values, scorned it as “not only a strikingly unlovely work in itself, but the kind of work that immediately identifies itself as an artistic nullity.”49 Throughout her lifetime, the foremost American museums and art galleries exhibited Callery’s work.50 And while leading museums and institutions added Callery’s sculptures to their collections, few are on public display at present.51 Callery’s work marked an important juncture in modern art during a transitional period with profound political and cultural changes in American society, yet her contributions were rarely acknowledged, for complex and manifold reasons. Her artistic independence grew out of avantgarde practices that merged formal sensibility with an experimental approach to craftsmanship, yet without the radicalism of next-generation artists. Callery came to reject modeling in her work and used industrial techniques, but she would not embrace large-scale or serial fabrication, the assisted production of art. Other artists claimed the vanguard position, and according to Marika Herskovic, who extensively surveyed American Abstract Expressionism, Callery “was left behind by the market oriented, commercial trend in art.”52 Callery had worked with others as equals, but she never took students and taught only briefly, in the summer of 1945, at Black Mountain College. Her approach to making art was characterized by authority without autocracy and instinct rather than instruction. Whereas there was a recognizable style to her work, Callery was not part of a group or “school” that might have secured her place in American modern art. When publishing the Cahiers d’Art, Zervos often relied on pieces from Callery’s collection, which were usually credited to Mme (or Mrs.) Méric Callery, as were her contributions to subsequent exhibitions and publications, including those by the Museum of Modern Art. And while Callery had confidence in her extraordinary sense for quality in art and the means to pursue it, she was reluctant to expose the person behind the collection. Callery was well connected socially, surely comfortable around friends, and may have been very open in her private relationships—yet she never sought public recognition. Certainly, Callery was “born into privilege” and had to make little effort to generate a livable income from the art she made or collected.53 She even opposed the commercialization of art, and those who knew her described Callery as “independent” and “very discrete.”54 Personality aside, gender may have been another reason for seeing Callery omitted from the mainstream accounts of mid-century American modern art.55 At a time when a woman was known only by her husband’s name, Callery’s adopted pseudonym suggested a married woman—which Callery was not. Yet she was not shy to announce, “I am a sculptress.”56 And even though Callery exhibited under her own name, she was not alone in

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obscuring her identity by changing her name in an attempt to subvert gendered expectations and the prevailing limitations imposed on women artists.57 This points to a gendered culture at a time when independent woman artists were rare and woman collectors rarer still, with the elder Gertrude Stein and Callery’s near-contemporaries Hilla Rebay and Peggy Guggenheim as notable exceptions.58 Public opinion allocated a rather conservative position to woman artists. A contemporary article in the Chicago Sunday Tribune outlined the societal role “young women artists”—Callery was forty-two at the time—were expected to fulfill: “irresistibly charming,” “extremely chic,” and “a distinct social as well as artistic asset”; the merit of her sculptural work became anecdotal in the process.59 While certainly well-meaning and generally kind in tone, the article was, nevertheless, as condescending as it was confining. Callery was of a generation of women artists that had to establish their independence against the encroachment of public attention, eschewing publicity rather than seeking it. Self-promotion of the kind at which her male peers excelled was considered exceedingly unwomanly according to the tenets of the times. Like other important women in twentieth-century art, Callery skirted rather than attracted public attention—an observation that challenges the idea that modern art is indivisible from publicity. Artists of subsequent generations were free to employ a different strategy: with a given confidence in the possibility of uncompromising artistic independence—as demonstrated by Callery—artists came to define their artist persona through publicity, not in spite of it. In retrospect, we come to appreciate that Callery and her generation of women artists prepared the ground for the fundamental transition from the practice of public art to the public practice of art.

Notes 1. Alfred Barr, ed., Picasso—Forty Years of His Art (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1939), 7. 2. Alfred Barr to Meric Callery, January 27, 1939, Alfred H. Barr, Jr. Papers (The Museum of Modern Art Archives). 3. In my effort to understand Mary Callery as an artist and a person, I am most indebted to George Mittendorf, the great-nephew of Mary Callery, and Susan Mittendorf, as well as to Lucy Brownlee and Francis Naumann for sharing their time, invaluable background information, and, most importantly, their enthusiasm. 4. Mary Callery, Sculpture (New York: Wittenborn, 1961), V–VI. 5. Marika Herskovic, ed., American Abstract Expressionism of the 1950s: An Illustrated Survey with Artists’ Statements, Artwork, and Biographies (New York: New York School Press, 2003), 70–73. 6. Ibid., VI. 7. Recent scholarship successfully challenges and expands the narratives of American art in the mid-twentieth century with respect to how women artists responded to stylistic shifts in avant-garde art practices, harsh political transformations, and changing gender expectations, and while many significant women artists are lifted from historical obscurity, Callery is not; see, for instance, Helen Langa and Paula Wisotzki, eds, American Women Artists, 1935–1970: Gender, Culture, and Politics (Abingdon: Ashgate, 2016). 8. Callery, Sculpture, 119. 9. Holland Cotter, “Are All-Woman Shows Good or Bad for Art?” The New York Times, March 16, 2016. 10. Paul Schimmel and Jenni Sorkin, eds, Revolution in the Making: Abstract Sculpture by Women, 1947–2016 (Milan: Skira, 2016). 11. Anon, “Stretched Statues,” LIFE 33, no. 20 (November 17, 1952): 143. 12. George Mittendorf, personal conversation with author, May 9, 2015. 13. Frank D. Welch, Philip Johnson & Texas (Austin: University of Texas, 2000), 35. 14. Laurie Lisle, Portrait of an Artist: A  Biography of Georgia O’Keeffe (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2010), 367. 15. Hunter Drohojowska-Philp, Full Bloom: The Art and Life of Georgia O’Keeffe (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2004), 454. 16. Kazys Varnelis, ed., The Philip Johnson Tapes: Interviews by Robert A.M. Stern (New York: The Monacelli Press, 2008), 94.

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Jan Frohburg 17. Caroline Rob Zaleski, Long Island Modernism 1930–1980 (New York and London: W. W. Norton & Company, 2012), 216–23. 18. Manuel Martin, El Cadaqués de Peter Harnden i Lanfranco Bombelli (Girona: Col.legi d’Arquitectes Catalunya, 2003), 56–65, 88–89. 19. Mary Callery, “The Last Time I Saw Picasso,” ARTnews 41, no. 2 (March 1–14, 1942): 23. 20. Mary Callery, “In a Way …” Design 47, no. 8 (April 1946): 5. 21. Anon, “Stretched Statues,” 143. 22. Callery, “The Last Time,” 23. 23. Henry McBride, “Anent Mary Callery,” in Mary Callery, exhibition catalogue (New York: Curt Valentin Gallery, 1952). 24. Kenneth Wayne and Erik Neil, eds, Long Island Moderns: Art and Architecture on the North Shore and Beyond (Huntington: Heckscher Museum, 2009), 31. 25. The “critique of mastery,” including the use of domestic implements and rough finishes, has been recognized as characteristic of women artists, especially those working outside of canonical practice; for a more detailed discussion see Ann Eden Gibson, Abstract Expressionism: Other Politics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997). 26. Christian Zervos, “Reflections on the Sculpture of Mary Callery, excerpts from an article in Cahiers d’art, Paris, February  1950, translated by Dolly Chareau,” in Mary Callery, exhibition catalogue (New York: Buchholz Gallery, 1950). 27. Mary Callery, “Notes on My Sculpture,” in Mary Callery, exhibition catalogue (New York: Curt Valentin Gallery, 1955). 28. Zervos, “Reflections on the Sculpture of Mary Callery.” 29. Callery, “Notes.” 30. Ibid. 31. Drohojowska-Philp, Full Bloom, 454. 32. Marie T. Keller, Mary Callery, exhibition catalogue (New York: Francis M. Naumann, 2018). 33. Eleanor Jewett, “Pissarro Art Show Called Warm, Fresh,” Chicago Sunday Tribune, January 20, 1946. 34. Thalia, “Sculpture by Mary Callery at Arts Club,” Chicago Sunday Tribune, January 13, 1946. 35. Kirsten Swinth, Painting Professionals: Women Artists and the Development of Modern American Art, 1870–1930 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001), 87. 36. Callery, “Notes.” 37. Gibson makes this argument in much more detail in her comprehensive challenge to the marginalization of women artists in mid-century American art, Abstract Expressionism: Other Politics. 38. Zervos, “Reflections on the Sculpture of Mary Callery.” 39. For a wider discussion of sculpture’s shifting relationship with modern architecture, see Penelope Curtis, Patio and Pavilion: The Place of Sculpture in Modern Architecture (London: Ridinghouse, 2007). 40. McBride, “Anent Mary Callery.” 41. Callery, “Notes.” 42. Keller, Mary Callery. 43. Mary Callery, Symbols, exhibition catalogue (New York: M. Koedler & Co., 1961). 44. Welch, Philip Johnson & Texas, 22. 45. Drohojowska-Philp, Full Bloom, 401. 46. The exhibition included twenty-three paintings, seventeen drawings and prints, and one sculpture by Picasso, and another six paintings and two drawings by Léger. Anon, “The Callery Collection: PicassoLéger,” The Philadelphia Museum Bulletin 40, no. 204 ( January 1945): 35–48. 47. Anon, L’œil d’un sculpteur: Collection Mary Callery, auction catalogue (Paris: Christie’s, 2009). 48. Officially described in the Met’s 1966 guidebook as an “untitled ensemble of bronze forms creating a bouquet of sculptured arabesques,” the piece was also mocked as “an enigmatic bundle of perforated strips and gilded noodles” and a “spaghetti spoon in congress with plumbers strap,” or simply called “the car wreck.” 49. Hilton Kramer, “Another Sculptural Nullity for New York’s Lincoln Center,” The New York Times, July 31, 1966. 50. Callery regularly exhibited at the Buchholz Gallery, the Curt Valentin Gallery, M. Knoedler in New York, and MAI in Paris, and she printed original work at the New York–based Universal Limited Art Editions, ULAE. 51. Callery’s work is represented in these collections, among others: The Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; and the

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“Mrs. Meric Callery” Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburg, as well as the JP Morgan Chase Art Collection and the Johnson Collection. 52. Marika Herskovic, “Mary Callery, Sculptor and Collector,” Parisian Fields, Responses, December 21, 2011, accessed August 1, 2020, https://parisianfields.com/2011/10/16/mary-callery-sculptor-and-collector/. 53. Francis M. Naumann, Two Forgotten  Women of American Modernism: Sculptor Mary Callery / Painter Peter Miller, exhibition catalogue (New York: Francis M. Naumann Gallery, January 12–February 23, 2018). 54. George Mittendorf, personal conversation, May 9, 2015. 55. Gallerist Francis M. Naumann noted that, with the exception of specialized studies in the field of midcentury American modernism, artists like Callery are absent from historical records of the New York art scene in the mid-1940s. There are several reasons for these omissions, one of which may have been gender. Naumann, “Two Forgotten Women.” 56. Callery, “The Last Time,” 23. 57. Other mid-century artists engaging in gender masquerade include Lee Krasner (Lena/Lenore Krassner), Peter Miller (Henrietta Myers), Michael (Corinne) West, and George (Grace) Hartigan. 58. Peggy Guggenheim staged two important exhibitions, Exhibition by 31 Women in 1943, followed up by The Women in 1945; Callery was not included in either of the two. For the pivotal role of Peggy Guggenheim in promoting women artists, see Siobhán Conaty, Art of This Century: The Women, exhibition catalogue (East Hampton: Pollock-Krasner House, 1997). 59. Thalia, “Sculpture.”

Bibliography Anon. “The Callery Collection: Picasso-Léger.” The Philadelphia Museum Bulletin 40, no. 204 ( January 1945): 35–48. Anon. “Stretched Statues.” LIFE 33, no. 20 (November 17, 1952): 143. Anon. L’œil d’un Sculpteur: Collection Mary Callery. Auction catalogue. Paris: Christie’s, 2009. Barr, Alfred, ed. Picasso—Forty Years of His Art. New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1939. Callery, Mary. “The Last Time I Saw Picasso.” ARTnews 41, no. 2 (March 1–14, 1942): 23, 36. Callery, Mary. “In a Way …” Design 47, no. 8 (April 1946): 5. Callery, Mary. “Notes on My Sculpture.” In Mary Callery. Exhibition catalogue. New York: Curt Valentin Gallery, 1955. Callery, Mary. Sculpture. New York: Wittenborn, 1961. Callery, Mary. Symbols. Exhibition catalogue. New York: M. Koedler & Co., 1961. Conaty, Siobhán. Art of This Century: The Women. Exhibition catalogue. East Hampton: Pollock-Krasner House, 1997. Curtis, Penelope. Patio and Pavilion: The Place of Sculpture in Modern Architecture. London: Ridinghouse, 2007. Drohojowska-Philp, Hunter. Full Bloom: The Art and Life of Georgia O’Keeffe. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2004. Gibson, Ann Eden. Abstract Expressionism: Other Politics. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997. Herskovic, Marika, ed. American Abstract Expressionism of the 1950s: An Illustrated Survey with Artists’ Statements, Artwork, and Biographies. New York: New York School Press, 2003. Keller, Marie T. Mary Callery. Exhibition catalogue. New York: Francis Naumann, 2018. Langa, Helen, and Paula Wisotzki, eds. American Women Artists, 1935–1970: Gender, Culture, and Politics. Abingdon: Ashgate, 2016. Lisle, Laurie. Portrait of an Artist: A Biography of Georgia O’Keeffe. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2010. Martin, Manuel. El Cadaqués de Peter Harnden i Lanfranco Bombelli. Girona: Col.legi d’Arquitectes Catalunya, 2003. McBride, Henry. “Anent Mary Callery.” In Mary Callery. Exhibition catalogue. New York: Curt Valentin Gallery, 1952. Schimmel, Paul, and Jenni Sorkin, eds. Revolution in the Making: Abstract Sculpture by Women, 1947–2016. Milan: Skira, 2016. Swinth, Kirsten. Painting Professionals: Women Artists  & the Development of Modern American Art, 1870–1930. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001. Varnelis, Kazys, ed. The Philip Johnson Tapes: Interviews by Robert A.M. Stern. New York: The Monacelli Press, 2008. Wayne, Kenneth, and Erik Neil, eds. Long Island Moderns: Art and Architecture on the North Shore and Beyond. Huntington: Heckscher Museum, 2009.

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17 KATHERINE MORROW FORD Designs for Living Katherine Kaford Papineau

Introduction Katherine Morrow Ford’s (1906–1959) obituary described her simply as “wife of architect” and “writer,” while her husband, architect Thomas H. Creighton, was given credit for many of his accomplishments instead.1 He was listed as the editor of Progressive Architecture magazine and given collaborative credit for three of the books co-written with Morrow Ford. Her short obituary omits much of her impressive resume and suggests that she was merely a figure on the fringes of the art world, when in fact, she was very involved. A closer look at her life and work reveals the true impact she made on the field of modern architecture in the 1930s, ’40s, and ’50s. This chapter critically analyzes Ford’s work and contributions to the field of modern architecture. As architectural correspondent for House & Garden magazine, columnist of “Designs for Living,” and author of several architectural books and domestic advice manuals, Ford remains one of the most instrumental female critics who promoted both modern architecture and modern architects in midtwentieth-century writing alongside other well-known architectural critics such as Esther McCoy (1904–1989) and Elizabeth Gordon (1906–2000). Like other female architectural critics of the twentieth century, she occupied a strategic position in the art world, navigating the male-centric world of architecture and design while taking a decidedly “feminine” approach by blending domestic advice column prose with architectural criticism found in professional journals. Her unique approach was not regional but focused on the all-encompassing heading of American modernism that included East, West, and Midwest designers and targeted both the female audience of homemakers and the male audience of architects. She was concerned with mediating the world of high modernist design for the American public in a relatable way. Her career also speaks to the larger disciplinary questions of gendered roles and the ability of women to achieve success while operating and negotiating the socially constructed views of mid-century America. Although her life was tragically cut short, she was quite prolific and had a successful career that lasted thirty years. Ford’s work spans two audiences and genres of literature—the larger historic context of domestic manuals written for women homemakers and architectural pattern books designed for the male-dominated field of architecture, design, and construction. Ford operated within the long trajectory of writing about domesticity that began with writers like Catharine Beecher (1800–1878) and Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–1896) in the mid-nineteenth century. Similar themes and concepts create spatial and temporal links between each writer, as many were concerned with morality and the role of women, while some simply covered aesthetics, and others

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focused on the practices of daily life. A careful glance at the table of contents of Ford’s publications reveals similar patterns of organization.

Domestic Manuals The American Woman’s Home, written by the Beecher sisters in 1869, approached homemaking with scientific vigor. One goal was to elevate the status of the woman to that of a professional, and to “render each department of woman’s true profession as much desired and respected as are the most honored professions of men.”2 An optimistic goal to be sure, Beecher included diagrams of lungs, blood cells, and capillaries and discussed the benefits of fresh air and exercise to emphasize the medical validity of her argument. Maintaining the health of the family was a serious job that required an educated professional. Such a position was not only important and worthy of professionalization, but domestic knowledge could be just as stimulating as math, “for which [women] will never have any practical use, while attention to this problem of home affairs will cultivate the intellect quite as much as the abstract reasonings of Algebra and Geometry.”3 After emphasizing the importance of the woman’s profession as a homemaker and discussing general tips for cleaning, decorating, and maintaining a home, the true role of the nineteenth-century woman is revealed: educating the children. Beecher’s ultimate goal was social reform. By encouraging women to take charge of their respective households, she hoped to correct embarrassing etiquette and to raise a generation of healthy, wellmannered citizens. Manuals like Edith Wharton and Ogden Codman’s The Decoration of Houses, published in 1889, discussed taste and the advantages of decorating a home with architectural details rather than ostentatious bric-a-brac and encouraged common sense and simplicity in materials. Although America lacked the aristocratic lineage of Europe, diligent planning could produce an American home in the tradition of the grand manor house, chateau, or villa. Elsie de Wolfe (1859–1950), an actress turned interior decorator, declared the home to be an “individual expression of ourselves, of the future we plan, of our dreams for our children.”4 The House in Good Taste, written in 1913 for a bourgeois audience, acknowledged the “new ideal” of the modern house defined by simplicity, proportion, and beauty. Christine Frederick’s 1915 treatise, “Household Engineering: Scientific Management in the Home,” focused on introducing a modern scientific approach into the debate. She viewed the home as a laboratory and applied scientific management concepts used to manage shops, offices, and factories to the home workspace. By standardizing daily cooking and cleaning schedules and shaving minutes off of each mundane task through careful analysis and time studies, the homemaker can attain the penultimate goal—leisure time. Manuals that covered how to build a house, how to live in a house, and how to politely operate in society were written parallel to each other and parallel to the development of the modern house in America. The small, single-family home in revolutionary America was run mostly by the nuclear family with few, if any, servants. Many families built their own homes and relied on pattern books written by architects for ideas and building plans. Some of the earliest of these types of manuals written were The Country Builder’s Assistant: The First American Architectural Handbook (1797) and The American Builder’s Companion (1806), written by Asher Benjamin, and A Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening, Adapted to North America (1841) and Cottage Residences (1842), written by Andrew Jackson Downing. The infamous Emily Post (1872–1960) began publishing Etiquette in Society, in Business, in Politics, and at Home in 1922, and nearly one hundred years later it is still published, now in its eighteenth edition. Ford’s work not only fits into the tradition of writing domestic manuals, household advice pamphlets, and shelter magazines, but closely echoes the ideas that Beecher and Stowe promoted nearly eighty-five years earlier. One particular space-saving tip from Ford’s column, “Designs for Living” 228

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resonates with Beecher’s homemaking advice—to allow ample play space in a small room, one youngster’s “electric-train set and toy village are attached to a gypsum hardboard shelf which pulls out on rails attached to the side walls of the room, or tucks neatly away under the storage cabinets.” She implied: Beneath this shelf is the bed, which also slides out for nighttime use, and pushes back out of sight during the day. Door pulls on the cabinets are low enough for a child to reach and operate easily. Advantages of this design idea are many; the shelf provides a permanent roadbed for the train, at good play height; both shelf and bed can slide out of sight, thus clearing floor space in a room of limited size.5 This clever notion explored a novel idea for the modern house of 1955. At a time when the small, single-family house in America fulfilled the stereotypical desire for 2.5 kids, a dog, a yard, and a Studebaker in the driveway, a.k.a. the American Dream, the smart, space-saving take like Ford’s was both popular and effective, especially when “the same design trick might be applied to many other uses, such as a sewing table, a work bench, a hobby center, a desk, or what have you.”6 However original Ford’s ideas may seem, they closely echoed household solutions from The American Woman’s Home. To make the most of a small cottage, measurements were given for a bed on wheels that could fit under a taller bed. By envisioning furniture on castors rolled around the room as often as necessary, Beecher and Stowe planted the approach to flexible spaces in the minds of nineteenth-century American homemakers.7 Beecher and Stowe’s “rolling” furniture was not limited exclusively to beds—wheels could be attached to a variety of pieces rationally adjusted to restricted interiors. A plan included in the handbook displayed two large rooms, one on either side of the staircase, unobstructed by interior walls. To create “rooms,” directions were given for the construction of a movable screen “shifted … from one part of the room to another” to organize spaces for multiple functions “of any desired size within the limits of the large room.”8 Ford also promoted the benefits of “flexible partitions between rooms.”9 Her newspaper columns and architectural manuals often featured examples of sliding panels, folding screens, and floor-to-ceiling curtains that both divided and created space, as well as a feeling of “openness.”10 Though writing nearly one hundred years apart, Beecher, Stowe, and Ford belong to the same tradition that defined the modern home as a site that welcomed new technology to make domestic labor faster and easier.

Defining American Modernism Katherine Morrow Ford’s work to a great extent appealed to the professional world of architects and builders. She happened to marry (coincidentally or not) two influential men who had already established careers in the architectural world. Her first husband, Dr. James Ford (1884–1944), was a professor of social ethics at Harvard University. He wrote extensively on better housing and slum clearance and served on several political housing committees including the Homes Registration and Information Division of the United States Housing Corporation, the Conference on Home Building and Home Ownership, and the Executive Committee on Hygienic Housing for the American Public Health Association. Katherine Morrow was working as an administrative assistant of the President’s Conference on Home Building and Home Ownership and as the secretary of its Committee on Standards and Objectives when they met.11 Later she served as the executive director of Better Homes in America and as an administrative assistant of the Research on Slums and Housing sponsored by the Phelps-Stokes Fund.12 Together, they published two books on housing and slums that stemmed from James’s research and two books on the modern house and modern interior that reflected Katherine’s interests.13 229

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The Modern House in America (1940) and Design of Modern Interiors (1942) were Katherine’s first real efforts in architectural publishing. Relying on historical precedent, their organization recalls the nineteenth-century pattern books of Downing and Benjamin. Each book presents a collection of single-family homes in America built in the “modern style.” Each entry has three or four photographs, at least one plan, and a “short factual analysis covering the clients, the site, the method of construction, and the cost.”14 The text and images work hand in hand to give a full picture of each house. The photographs describe spatial arrangement, the play of light and shadow achieved on the interior, the relationship between indoors and outdoors, and siting in the landscape. The captions fill in details covering interior decoration, materials, color, and texture. Each book has a short introduction and conclusion where the authors connected common threads between examples and suggested contemporary trends. While the intended audience was largely the architectural and building professions, the prose suggests that these volumes appealed to the general public as well. Philip Johnson and Henry-Russell Hitchcock’s 1932 MoMA exhibition, International Style, may have introduced European modernist design to the American public, but it predominantly highlighted European architects and a small handful of American designers. Ford’s publications represent one of the first attempts to recognize modernist architecture in America. Unfortunately, the Fords received a scathing review of their work. Reviewer John Coolidge acknowledged their attempt to showcase examples of significant modern architecture, but questioned their failure to critically predict modernism’s effect on the American domestic landscape. He also faulted their selection of houses because they were largely drawn from images of recently published or soon-to-be-published houses featured in architectural periodicals—asserting that many of the images featured were already in circulation or were easily accessible. The nature of such an anthology of images, however, allowed for easy comparison between various strains of modernist design and thus suggested regional styles. The Modern House in America promoted modernist designs by less known architects or those who were just beginning their careers, such as Harwell Hamilton Harris, Carl Koch, and William Lescaze, alongside more notable architects, that is, Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer, Richard Neutra, R.M. Schindler, and Gregory Ain. Coolidge even recognized the “unique collection of professional opinions on American architecture” found in the conclusion.15 Ford and Morrow Ford asked the architects whose designs they published to send brief statements “indicating at what points [sic] American work in modern design and construction departs from European methods and may be termed distinctively American.”16 Other similar publications rarely included such informal commentary directly from the designers themselves. More significantly, Morrow Ford identified a momentous change in the houses of 1938–1939 that were not designed in the: “international style,” but [represented] a new American architecture, cosmopolitan in spirit, but native both in form and detail—a genuine expression of American individuality … as distinguished from the plagiarism from European models apparent in a number of houses designed more than five years ago.17 European émigré architects and their students were producing the first examples of a style that could be termed American Modern. Reviewing examples for The Modern House in America and reading feedback from contributing architects must have prompted Ford to draw several of her own conclusions. Their use of “modern” and “modernist” somewhat interchangeably speaks to the larger dialogue and confusion surrounding both terms but probably appealed to a wider audience. Historically, “modernist” or “high modernism” refers to Bauhaus-style design, specifically the aesthetics of streamlined, undecorated surfaces, while “modern” generally distinguishes time periods and could be used to describe other houses 230

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designed contemporaneous to the modernist houses featured in Ford’s texts. In reference to Ford’s work, she identified architects who interpreted modernist design through the use of local materials, though she was not explicit about the definition in her work. In March 1941, she wrote “Modernism is Regional,” published by House & Garden magazine. Referencing Johnson and Hitchcock’s “International Style” definition of modern architecture, Morrow debunked the assumption of a “precise formula” and argued that “regional folk architecture” was “gradually being fused with the vitality of freed design.”18 Thus, a range of modern domestic architecture resulted from variations in climate, available building materials, and local craftmanship. Ford identified seven main regions in which American Modern flourished: New England, Pennsylvania, Florida, the Great Lakes, Arizona, the Northwest, and California, emphasizing the fact that such changes in architectural design were not simply localized trends, but swept the nation from coast to coast. While Ford did not define “freed design” explicitly, the featured images suggested smooth surfaces void of decoration, open plan volumes, and large expanses of glass where appropriate. Ultimately, the modernist style in America embodied the Zeitgeist of European Bauhausian principles, translated into a language that fit the materials, climate, and historic traditions of each distinct region.19 Ford’s article contributed to the growing debate surrounding changing architectural styles and launched a new definition of regional modernism that was appropriate to the American mindset. Rather than the all-encompassing heading of “International Style” architecture that refused to acknowledge individual style or climactic differences across an entire continent, “Regional Modernism” provided a theoretical framework for architects and designers working in all parts of the United States. Ford’s article also set the stage for the next twenty years of her work, as she continued to publish examples of modern American architecture and interiors and featured her own house as an example of good modern design. Katherine’s interest in architecture and James’s Harvard faculty appointment fostered friendships with Bauhaus architects Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer. Joseph Hudnut, dean of Harvard’s Graduate School of Architecture, invited them from Europe in 1937 to champion the new curriculum and introduce modernist design principles into Harvard’s graduate programs. Philanthropist Mrs. Helen Storrow (1864–1944) provided a section of her apple orchard in Lincoln, MA, for Gropius and Breuer to build their own houses, a stipulation in Gropius’s contract. The now-historic Woods End Road colony includes the Gropius House (1938), Breuer House I (1939), and the James Ford House (1938–1939). True to the mantra of modernist design aesthetics outlined in Morrow Ford’s own books, the Ford house was built using prefabricated 4 x 8 feet weldboard plywood paneling for all walls and ceilings, flat roofs, long ribbon windows, built-in storage spaces (i.e., bookshelves and cabinets), small writing desks, partitions or sliding screens to divide spaces, and a “non-standard” plan that was “developed after a close study of the family’s habits and interests.”20 American modernism took the individual needs of the family into account. The Ford House was designed for Mr. and Mrs. James Ford, one child, and a maid. Morrow Ford featured the designs for all three Gropius and Breuer houses in The Modern House in America (1940), where she defined the needs of a family as “privacy for work, economy of construction, ease of maintenance.”21 Although the house was framed in wood, rather than the steel column grid indicative of so many European modernist structures, the massing of the façade and placement of ribbon windows recalled the architects’ Bauhaus roots while also using local materials that referenced building traditions of the region. Gropius and Breuer used clapboard panels on the exterior, a mainstay of New England “saltbox” houses for nearly two hundred years. Instead of aligning them horizontally, the panels stretched vertically, suggesting height, rather than low horizontal lines that blended with the landscape, affirming her statement about Bauhausian principles being translated into American materials and traditions. 231

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Figure 17.1 James Ford and Katherine Morrow Ford Residence, Lincoln, MA, architects Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer, 1938–1939. Source: © President and Fellows of Harvard College. Accession No. BRGA.91.44. Credit: Harvard Art Museums / BuschReisinger Museum, Gift of Ise Gropius. © Walter Gropius / Arts Rights Society (ARS), New York, NY.

In 1945, Ford started working full-time for House & Garden magazine as the architectural consultant, using it as a platform to continue promoting modern domestic architecture. Following in the wake of the Case Study House Program, hosted by Arts & Architecture magazine editor John Entenza, House & Garden hosted its own small house competition in April 1948. As John Crosse has suggested, tracing Ford’s prolific use of her own home across publications and museum exhibitions suggests just how well connected she was with fellow female critics Catherine Bauer (1905–1964) and Elizabeth Bauer Kessler Mock (1911–1998) and the MoMA Architectural Department.22 In 1951, Ford submitted her letter of resignation to Albert Kornfield, editor-in-chief of House & Garden. She expressed her frustrations regarding the decidedly traditional turn the magazine had taken and the editor’s ultimatum. She penned: You have given me definite specific warning that I must bring into this magazine “traditional” houses rather than “modern” houses—or else. This is tantamount to telling me that I can no longer do the constructive job that I have been doing for six years, and that House & Garden is no longer interested in what is happening in the design of houses for today’s kind of living in the United States—because you know as well as I do that there are no “traditional” houses being designed at the present time which are worth the attention of any reasonably alert and intelligent person. A few architects are continuing to perpetrate 232

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Figure 17.2 James Ford and Katherine Morrow Ford Residence, Lincoln, MA, 1938–1939. North-facing elevation. Source: © President and Fellows of Harvard College. Accession No. BRGA.91.51. Credit: Harvard Art Museums / BuschReisinger Museum, Gift of Ise Gropius. © Walter Gropius / Arts Rights Society (ARS), New York, NY.

an imitation of good architecture of the past, without any recognition of the way life is lived today.23 She persisted, revealing with utter strength her position on the subject: I cannot believe that Conde Nast really wants to give space to pseudo-traditionalism in architecture any more than they would want to give prominent attention to imitation antiques in furniture. No architectural school in the country, for the past decade, has trained anyone to design such anomalies. None of the successful architects would accept such a commission. We are living in a new world and have a new way of life—any magazine that wants to do a real service for its readers and its advertisers must recognize that fact and do an editorial job on that basis.24 A staunch supporter of modernism throughout her career, she felt that Kornfield’s decision would undo the work of the entire editorial team. She cited surveys and records that proved House & Garden had become the leading shelter magazine and proponent of modern life, competing against House Beautiful, Better Homes & Gardens, and Ladies Home Journal for this title. After six years as the architectural consultant—or architectural editor, as she called it—Ford would not support the backwardthinking shift in content and tendered her resignation effective September 15, 1951. In a letter to Breuer dated October  10, 1951, she lamented that House  & Garden magazine would “no longer 233

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Figure 17.3 James Ford and Katherine Morrow Ford Residence, Lincoln, MA, 1938–1939. Wall dividing living and dining rooms. Source: © President and Fellows of Harvard College. Accession No. BRGA.91.40. Credit: Harvard Art Museums / BuschReisinger Museum, Gift of Walter Gropius. © Walter Gropius / Arts Rights Society (ARS), New York, NY.

be an instrument of modern architecture.”25 Kornfield must have sensed the changing tides toward modernist design. House Beautiful soon followed the anti-modernist trend when editor Elizabeth Gordon published her “Threat to Modern America” in April 1953 that claimed that International Style–architecture designed by Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe were too minimalist and thus anti-consumer and anti-American. After she left House & Garden, Ford took a new position as head of public relations for Knoll Associates, Inc. Hans and Florence Knoll promoted the modernist aesthetics of Bauhaus, and Cranbrook Academy faculty and students were responsible for manufacturing and promoting contemporary furniture and textiles. Florence (née Schust, 1917–2019) studied under Eero Saarinen at Cranbrook and worked alongside fellow students Charles Eames and Ralph Rapson. Her Cranbrook colleagues connected her with other Bauhaus designers: Mies van der Rohe, Marcel Breuer, Walter Gropius, and Anni Albers (1899–1994). Ultimately, these connections helped Knoll Associates become the largest manufacturer of Mies van der Rohe’s “Barcelona Chair” and Saarinen’s “Womb Chair.” Well suited for the position, Ford continued her work promoting contemporary interior design. Along with her home office in the Knoll New York City showroom, her territory included regional branches in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, and Dallas. Ford turned once again to writing domestic manuals. After James’s death in 1944, Morrow Ford married Thomas H. Creighton (1904–1984), architect and editor of Progressive Architecture magazine. Creighton received his BA from Harvard University in 1926 and then studied architecture at the 234

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Figure 17.4 Jury members for House  & Garden magazine’s Awards in Architecture, April  1948. From left: Marcel Breuer, unidentified, Eero Saarinen, Harwell Hamilton Harris, Katherine Morrow Ford, and Joseph Hudnut. Source: Miehlmann-Vogue Studios. Credit: Marcel Breuer Papers, Special Collections Research Center, Syracuse University Libraries.

Beaux-Arts Institute of Design in New York as well as the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He practiced as an architect until becoming editor of Progressive Architecture in 1946, and then resumed his practice in 1963 after leaving the magazine. Morrow Ford and Creighton effectively collaborated on four books, one published posthumously.26 As her work moved back to interior design and décor, her research for Designs for Living: 175 Examples of Quality Home Interiors (1955) provided material for a hardcover domestic manual, advice column, and locally broadcast television show. Ford’s column “Designs for Living,” published from 1955 to 1957 in the New York Herald Tribune, The Times magazine, the Sunday supplement of the Los Angeles Times, and on occasion the Baltimore Sun, was concerned with using modern spaces, furniture, and interiors, and was written in short, spunky prose that offered decorating tips and spacesaving hints for the small house. Aimed at a female audience of homemakers, the column covered domestic themes, for example, flower pot arrangements, that closely echoed nineteenth-century manuals. Ever pushing forward to reach new audiences, Ford’s work on interiors, titled “Living by Design,” was broadcast on local New York station WOR-TV Channel 9. As executive director, Ford organized panel discussions centered on topical architecture and design problems and how they affected everyday living. Hosted by Creighton, Ford invited architects and designers from her wellconnected past for the thirty-minute broadcast. Contemporary Houses Evaluated by Their Owners (1961), published twenty years after The Modern House in America, queried homeowners to evaluate their homes in reference to modern materials 235

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and technologies, open plans, and the use of glass. Her work, bookended by these two examples, was defined by the concept of the reception of modernism on the part of both architects and the American public, who were purchasing modernist homes. Unlike many architects, she was interested in the satisfaction of the client and showcased contemporary houses that provided all the comforts and conveniences of modern life. Sensing that architecture was again at the crossroads, Ford and Creighton emphasized that “it may be of use to architects and commentators on architecture to have some of the tenets and clichés of contemporary design examined from the point of view of the occupants, for whom the buildings have presumably been developed.”27 Each house was evaluated based on five concepts—open planning, openness to the outdoors, flexibility and use of spaces, finishes and materials chosen for their natural characteristics, and the elimination of architectural “ornament”—ideas that Ford consistently outlined throughout her work. More specifically, the questionnaire addressed the ways these principles worked in daily practice.28 Ford’s untimely death in 1959 brought this fresh approach to client-architect relationships to a grinding halt. She promoted American modernist design when it began in the 1930s and continued to identify and promote changing trends in architecture, specifically the growing interest in the role of the client. Few other writers followed suit after her death.

Conclusion Ford accomplished much during the short span of her thirty-year career as a writer and proponent of modern architecture. She aimed at modern design relatable to modern audiences; her body of work demonstrates her tireless efforts aspiring to define regional design, promote young architects and designers, and educate prospective home builders. She asserted her presence by skillfully navigating the socially appropriated female world of domesticity with the historically assigned male-dominated world of architecture; frequently writing for multiple audiences; navigating and creating professional and informal networks; and operating between architects, clients, designers, and decorators. She challenged the approximation of margins of American work in modern design and construction and addressed further inquiries on the ways domestic architecture departed from European methods and may be termed distinctively American. Though until recent she was recognized largely as “wife of architect,” her legacy, her remarkable contribution to the discipline, and the breadth of her work reveal broader vistas of her professional impact.

Notes 1. “Writer Found Dead,” The New York Times, June 27, 1959, 12. 2. Catharine Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe, The American Woman’s Home [1869] (New York: J. B. Ford & Co., 1975), 13. 3. Ibid., 70. 4. Elsie de Wolfe, The House in Good Taste (New York: The Century Company, 1913), 6. 5. Katherine Morrow Ford, “Tuckaway Train, Designs for Living,” Los Angeles Times, October  23, 1955, K36–37. 6. Ibid., K37. 7. Beecher and Stowe, The American Woman’s Home, 30. 8. Ibid., 27. 9. James Ford and Katherine Morrow Ford, Design of Modern Interiors (New York: Architectural Book Publishing Co., Inc., 1942), 9. 10. Ibid., 9–10. 11. KMF worked for the President’s Conference on Home Building in 1931–1935, an initiative of President Herbert Hoover. “Press Release,” Knoll Associates, Inc., October 1, 1951 (Marcel Breuer Collection). 12. Ibid.

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Katherine Morrow Ford 13. James Ford, in collaboration with Katherine Morrow and George N. Thompson, Slums and Housing, with Special Reference to New York City: History, Conditions, Policy (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1936); James Ford and Katherine Morrow Ford, The Abolition of Poverty (New York: Macmillan Co, 1937). 14. John Coolidge, “Review of The Modern House in America by James Ford and Katherine Morrow Ford,” The New England Quarterly 15, no. 1 (March 1942): 188–90, 189. 15. Ibid., 190. 16. James Ford and Katherine Morrow Ford, The Modern House in America (New York: Architectural Book Publishing Co., Inc., 1940), 123. 17. Ibid., 14. 18. Katherine Morrow Ford, “Modern is Regional,” House and Garden (March 1941): 35–37, 79. 19. Zeitgeist: the general intellectual, moral, and cultural climate of an era. Definition in Merriam-Webster Dictionary, from the German words  Zeit,  meaning “time,” and  Geist,  meaning “spirit” or “ghost,” used in the English language since at least 1835, accessed May 1, 2020, www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ zeitgeist. 20. Ford and Ford, The Modern House, 10; also Figure 1–2. 21. Ibid., 49. 22. John Crosse, “The Taliesin Class of 1924: A Case Study in Publicity and Fame,” published June 25, 2019, accessed May 1, 2020, https://socalarchhistory.blogspot.com. 23. Letter written to Douglas Haskell, with excerpted sections of Ford’s resignation letter written to Albert Kornfield dated August  20, 1951 (Box  29, Folder 14, Douglas Putnam Haskell Papers, Drawings and Archives, Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University). 24. Ibid. 25. Letter to Marcel Breuer dated October 10, 1951 (Marcel Breuer Papers, 1920–1986, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution). 26. The American House of Today: 85 Notable Examples (1951), Quality Budget Houses: A Treasury of 100 ArchitectDesigned Houses from $5,000 to $20,000 (1954), Designs for Living: 175 Examples of Quality Home Interiors (1955), and Contemporary Houses Evaluated by Their Owners (1961). 27. Katherine Morrow Ford and Thomas H. Creighton, Contemporary Houses Evaluated by Their Owners (New York: Reinhold, 1961), 7. 28. Ibid., 8.

Bibliography Beecher, Catharine, and Harriet Beecher Stowe. The American Woman’s Home. [1869]. New York: J. B. Ford & Co., 1975. Coolidge, John. “Review of The Modern House in America by James Ford and Katherine Morrow Ford.” The New England Quarterly 15, no. 1 (March 1942): 188–90. De Wolfe, Elsie. The House in Good Taste. New York: The Century Company, 1913. Ford, James, and Katherine Morrow Ford. The Abolition of Poverty. New York: Macmillan Co, 1937. Ford, James, and Katherine Morrow Ford. The Modern House in America. New York: Architectural Book Publishing Co., Inc., 1940. Ford, James, and Katherine Morrow Ford. Design of Modern Interiors. New York: Architectural Book Publishing Co., Inc., 1942. Ford, James, Katherine Morrow Ford, and George N. Thompson. Slums and Housing, with Special Reference to New York City: History, Conditions, Policy. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1936. Ford, Katherine Morrow. “Modern is Regional.” House and Garden (March 1941): 35–37, 79. Ford, Katherine Morrow. “Tuckaway Train.” Los Angeles Times, October 23, 1955, K36–K37. Ford, Katherine Morrow, and Thomas H. Creighton. The American House of Today: 85 Notable Examples. New York: Reinhold, 1951. Ford, Katherine Morrow, and Thomas Creighton. Quality Budget Houses: A Treasury of 100 Architect-Designed Houses from $5,000 to $20,000. New York: Reinhold Publishing Corporation, 1954. Ford, Katherine Morrow, and Thomas H. Creighton. Designs for Living: 175 Examples of Quality Home Interiors. New York: Reinhold, 1955. Ford, Katherine Morrow, and Thomas H. Creighton. Contemporary Houses Evaluated by Their Owners. New York: Reinhold, 1961. “Writer Found Dead.” The New York Times, June 27, 1959.

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18 ARCHITECT, BUILDER, CLIENT, SECRETARY The Women of the Sarasota School Christopher S. Wilson Introduction The “Sarasota School of Architecture”—better described as a movement—was a regional variation of modern American architecture that thrived in Sarasota and southwest Florida between approximately 1940 and 1970.1 Architects of what has become called the “Sarasota School” took their aesthetic cues from the modernist architecture that had developed during the 1920s and 1930s in Europe—geometric volumes, flat roofs, lack of applied decoration, limited color palette—and adapted those characteristics to the Florida climate, where the extremes of sunshine and rain can be architecturally controlled to provide year-round indoor/outdoor living. Architects Ralph Twitchell (1890–1978) and Paul Rudolph (1918–1997) are credited with starting the “Sarasota School.” Carl Abbott (b. 1935), Bert Brosmith (1928–2015), Joseph Farrell (b. 1932), Mark Hampton (1923–2015), Gene Leedy (1928–2018), Victor Lundy (b. 1923), William Rupp (1927–2002), Edward “Tim” Seibert (1927–2018), Frank Folsom Smith (b. 1931), and Jack West (1922–2010) were also prominent architects of the movement. All of these architects were men, and any contribution to the Sarasota School by women—in any form—has largely been unwritten, ignored, and/or dismissed. This chapter seeks to balance this disparity by narrating the involvement of a group of women whose influence on the Sarasota School was just as important.

The Registered Architect Elizabeth Boylston Waters (1926–2008), a fifth-generation Floridian, was the professional partner of Sarasota School architect Jack West between 1956 and 1960.2 This partnership is a concrete fact, easily confirmed by requesting Waters’s registration records from the American Institute of Architects.3 Despite this, the only mention of their professional arrangement in John Howey’s masterwork Sarasota School of Architecture can be found in the appendix biography of Jack West, which states: “1956—West and Waters, Architects, partnership formed.” Waters was West’s full partner, not just an employee or a draftsperson, who, regardless of gender, have also frequently suffered the fate of anonymity in the writing of architectural history.4 After Paul Rudolph broke off his professional relationship with Ralph Twitchell in 1952, Jack West became partners with Twitchell, then opened his own architectural office in 1954. By 1956, he was looking

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Figure 18.1 Elizabeth Boylston Waters, the first female architect registered with the Central Florida chapter of the American Institute of Architects in 1956. Photograph, 1952. Source: The Florida Memory Project, www.floridamemory.com. Credit: State Archives of Florida.

for a change. In his autobiography, The Lives of an Architect, West referred to his motivation behind partnering with Waters: The Boylston family was an old and prominent Sarasota family and in addition to liking and respecting Beth, I thought that such an association would produce the kind of architectural commissions which might be difficult for me to obtain on my own.5 In 1944, Elizabeth was studying sculpture at Stephens College, St. Louis, an all-female institution (still to this day), when she became interested in architecture. She went on to receive an architectural degree from Washington University in St. Louis in 1949. Returning to Sarasota, she worked as a draftsperson in the firm of Kannenberg & Hanebuth during 1949–1950 and then with the famous Twitchell  & Rudolph partnership between 1950 and 1952.6 In 1951, she married Gil Waters, a reporter for the local Sarasota Herald-Tribune, and took a break from practicing architecture until beginning her partnership with Jack West in 1956.7 By 1958, Waters was the first female architect to be registered with the Central Florida chapter of the American Institute of Architects.8 In his autobiography, Jack West addressed his partnership with Waters with enthusiasm— “Personally and professionally, Beth and I got along very well indeed”—and asserted that Waters’s interest in the partnership did not include design, which allowed him to continue “with a free hand.” He implied that her interest was in “how buildings go together” and that she “enjoyed producing

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working drawings and, in particular, solving detail problems.” He also gave emphasis to their collaboration as a “kind of dove-tailing of talents which produces a good partnership. … During our partnership, we worked together on some fascinating and frustrating projects.”9 These “fascinating and frustrating projects” were two elementary schools, an art studio, and a hotel that were actually built, and three residences that were never built. The two elementary schools were Englewood and Fruitville. In his autobiography, West boasted that Englewood Elementary School was “one of the first, if not the first [school], to be designed specifically for team teaching in a flexible ungraded curriculum.” He assessed classroom sizes as “varied to include both large and small teaching groups”; therefore, new movable partitions were installed to allow classes “to be combined to free teachers for other assignments.” Other innovative design elements included storage and furnishings, which “were on casters to facilitate the creation of special work settings,” while a covered “outside play area and patios … extended activities to low-cost exterior areas, practical because of Florida’s climate.”10 West did not refer to the Fruitville Elementary project in his autobiography, but a drawing in that publication indicates two new wings to the north and south of an existing building, providing a cafeteria, two kindergarten rooms, eight primary-level classrooms, and eleven intermediate-level classrooms, as well as an outdoor kindergarten play area. Regarding the art studio, West narrated: Hilton Leech and his wife Dorothy were each prominent local painters and they had for some years conducted a painting school from their home. In 1959, they acquired property on Phillippi Creek [Sarasota] and asked me to design a school building.11 The primary criteria the partnership had to take on included “cost … [which] was not to exceed $20,000.” He also successively outlined the preference toward “curvilinear forms and this seemed to be an opportunity to work with a cylinder” and stressed it was an efficient—minimum perimeter—shape and I  felt that with a reasonably large radius the masons could manage to lay their bricks with little or no premium over a straight wall. It turned out to be correct and the building came in on budget. In the early 2000s, this structure was turned into a residence and is now fondly known in Sarasota as “The Round House.” Keeping in mind West’s assessment on the character of his collaboration with Waters, it is quite likely that the unbuilt works mentioned by West did not see much of Waters’s hand, but nevertheless, she was a partner in the office at the time. The first unbuilt residence was for Eugene Knotts, with whom West had already designed and built a house while partnered with Ralph Twitchell in 1953. The second unbuilt residence was for a Mr. and Mrs. Hall, who rejected West’s spaceship-like design. Lastly, West designed a house for himself that also never materialized, and arguably, Waters had no part in that design. Not mentioned in West’s autobiography was Waters’s role with John Crowell and himself in the late 1950s in advising city officials on how to revitalize downtown Sarasota, as shopping malls began to lure both businesses and consumers away from Main Street. That panel’s eleven recommendations, several of which were implemented in the 1960s, included a waterfront park and marina (realized as Island Park and Marina Jack), a performing arts hall (realized as the Van Wezel Center), and a new city hall, which was later coincidentally designed by Jack West in 1966. Even the spate of recently built parking garages in Sarasota—at Palm Avenue and State Street—had been one of the panel’s many recommendations fifty years earlier. Lastly, in order to compensate for the new routing of the Tamiami Trail, which broke Sarasota’s connection to its waterfront, this advisory panel

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recommended a space-age-looking pedestrian overpass, which in 2013 was still being recommended by Waters’s ex-husband Gil Waters.12 A newspaper article published in April 1960 entitled “The Amazing Young Wives of Commonwealth Avenue” chronicled the creative women residing on this Sarasota street: artist Beth Arthur, author Lois Duncan, illustrator Suzanne Larsen, and architect Elizabeth Waters. The article’s author, Claire Lavin, was well informed on how these women were able to juggle both their motherly duties and their creative careers: A car winds down the road and pulls into the driveway of the last house on the street and an attractive woman in a tailored suit and heels (practically unheard of in daytime on Commonwealth Drive), climbs out and herds two children in for their naps.13 She addressed the daily schedule of a working female professional, stressing that “Elizabeth Waters, whose children are kindergarten age, is able to spend mornings at her office in town, but returns home to devote her afternoons to being housewife and mother.”14 As idyllic as this arrangement sounds (morning = architecture, and afternoon = motherhood), this was, after all, the early 1960s, and Waters’s professional arrangement with West soon ended. In his autobiography, Jack West concluded: While Beth’s husband was supportive of her architectural involvement, playing the roles of mother, wife and practicing architect did not create a satisfactory lifestyle for Beth. She left our partnership in 1960 and was never again active as a professional architect.15 Elizabeth and Gil Waters would divorce in 1982, at which point, at the age of fifty-six, she moved to Snowmass, Colorado, where two of her children were already living. Waters’s obituary confirmed this lack of architectural practice by only referring to her art exhibitions, volunteering, and other activities “for the Aspen Senior Center, library, thrift shop, animal shelter, various churches and schools, and the music association.”16 She was evidently “an avid skier, and enjoyed fly-fishing, hiking, astronomy and traveling to exotic places”; she also was apparently a gifted artist and realized her special interest in “sketching on the Greek Islands” while visiting her children living in Costa Rica. Waters actually designed other houses after her partnership with Jack West ended—for her brother Bill Boylston in the 1960s, for other relatives in the 1970s, and for her son in Costa Rica in the 1990s—but West was correct in his affirmative statement that, after the dissolution of their partnership, Waters never again took external professional commissions.

The Unregistered Architects While Waters was officially registered with the AIA, there were other women in Sarasota who received an architectural education but never officially practiced: Ruth Dierks (1920–2000) and Joan Warriner (1925–2005).17 Dierks studied architecture and engineering at Stanford University, as well as sculpture with Alexander Archipenko (1887–1962) in Chicago and painting with Thomas Hart Benton (1889– 1975) in Kansas City, Missouri, her hometown. In 1954, she and her husband, Charles Ewing Curry, moved to Sarasota and purchased a series of parcels at the very southern end of Siesta Key. Dierks then proceeded to design and build a series of small houses on this property. Enlisting the help of a local architect, Ralph Erikson (1924–2006), Dierks first built a house for herself and her family. The other three houses were done incrementally over the years, and they all blended with the local flora and scenery, used materials in their raw state, characteristically exposed structural

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elements, made use of cross breezes, and contained deep overhangs to protect full-height glass from the heat of the sun—efficiently integrating all major properties of the Sarasota School of Architecture.18 Dierks never officially practiced as an architect with an office, clients, and contracts. Instead, designing houses was a talent that she possessed and used whenever necessary, for herself and for family members, which is exactly what Elizabeth Boylston Waters did after leaving the professional architectural world in 1960. Joan Warriner practiced architecture with her husband, Ken Warriner (1925–2009), although neither were ever registered with the American Institute of Architects.19 In a 1961 Sarasota Herald-Tribune article, the couple were said to have “struck up their romance at the University of Florida” and were “of the firm Wyke & Warriner,” despite the fact that the 1956 and 1962 AIA directory entries for Sarasota architect Edward Wyke never mentioned the Warriners.20 Regardless, Joan Warriner has the distinction of being the only woman mentioned in John Howey’s Sarasota School of Architecture, even having her name listed on the book’s cover along with the other men, albeit in the typical husband-and-wife presentation as “Joan and Ken Warriner.” The Warriners were most famous for the design of their own house in the McClellan Park neighborhood south of downtown Sarasota. This project was published in Architectural Record “Houses of 1961” and was the subject of the newspaper article mentioned earlier. The Warriners also worked with Ralph Twitchell and were credited with the design of Lu Andrews House No. 3.21

Figure 18.2 Joan and Ken Warriner, as published in Sarasota Herald-Tribune, March 19, 1961, 26.

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The Builder Ruth S. Richmond (1912–2007) was born in Brooklyn and studied art and advertising in New York. By 1945, she was “working her way up in the fashion industry,” “designing sportswear for the New York market,” when she put her career on hold to start a family. Together with her husband Larry Richmond, their two sons, and two Dobermans, the family moved in 1950 to St. Petersburg, Florida, where Larry started a construction company. Finding Sarasota more hospitable to the building industry, the family resettled to Sarasota in 1954.22 When Larry was preparing to take the test to become a licensed general contractor in Florida, Ruth also decided to take the test. Their son, Roger, noted: “As a kid, I remember them sitting up late at night and she would quiz him, and she learned it all just by asking him the questions. What’s ironic is she got a higher score than he did.” This was around 1956, when they sold their first speculative two-bedroom, one-bath, concrete-block house for $7,995 (equal to about $73,500 in 2020). As it turned out, Richmond was the first woman in Florida to obtain a Class A contractor’s license.23 It is estimated that Richmond Homes built around twelve thousand single-family homes in southwest Florida between its founding in 1950 and closing in 1978. These homes, however, were not the “high-style” made famous in the Sarasota School by Ralph Twitchell, Paul Rudolph, and Jack West. Instead, they were much more modest structures that were, nonetheless, modernist in their styling, with open floor plans, floor-to-ceiling sliding glass doors, and—true to “Sarasota School” style—large overhangs to keep the Florida sun off the home. Sometimes labeled as ranch houses, these homes formed the vernacular of the 1960s and 1970s subdivisions of Sarasota. Richmond Homes was also responsible for several low-rise apartment buildings.24 Richmond began working with her husband as the interior designer of the houses that he would build. She added special features like recessed towel rails in bathrooms, his-and-hers sinks, kitchen and bath surfaces made with Formica (rather than being painted), and a special construction called a “greenhouse window.” Following Sarasota School tendencies, Ruth Richmond favored large sliding glass doors, which she often designed to slide out of the way behind walls, and screened-in areas to extend living outside. Richmond was credited with introducing the word “lanai” into Florida from Hawaii to describe such a space. Most famously, she always specified a particular type of Lucite doorknob and drawer pull produced by the Weiser company, which in the 2020s are coveted on various online auction sites.25 Richmond was known outside of Sarasota, but not for her accomplishments with the Sarasota School. In 1961, she was listed among interior designers invited to the White House by First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy to offer redecorating tips for the formal reception room. She received fourteen national design awards, and in 1970 she was presented with the “Woman of Achievement Award in Construction” in Washington, DC. In 1975, she also served on the Florida Governor’s Commission on the Status of Women, and in 1976, one of Richmond Homes’ models, the “Fantastic,” was cited in Newsweek magazine as one of the best home values in the country.26 While not officially an architect, Richmond’s undated portrait by renowned commercial photographer Joseph Janney Steinmetz (1905–1985) from the online resource Florida Memory: State Library and Archives of Florida is affirmatively titled Portrait of Sarasota architect Ruth Richmond.27

Architect Turned Client Mary Rockwell Hook (1877–1978) was already a pioneering female architect before visiting Sarasota in 1935 at the age of fifty-eight. Educated at Wellesley College as an undergraduate (1896–1900), Hook then received her architectural education at the Art Institute of Chicago (1903) and École des 243

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Figure 18.3 Ruth Richmond, builder, the first woman in Florida to obtain the Class A contractor’s license in 1954. Photograph, 1950s. Source: The Florida Memory Project, www.floridamemory.com. Credit: State Archives of Florida.

Beaux-Arts in Paris (1905). She was only the second American woman—after Julia Morgan—to attend the prestigious school. After studying in Paris, Hook returned to the United States and designed residences for family members and friends in Kansas City, MO; Santa Rosa, CA; and Wellesley, MA, in addition to a school in southeastern Kentucky. Hook then spent time in New York City, Colorado, Assisi (Italy), and Betancourt (France). In 1920, she married Kansas City lawyer Ingraham Hook and continued practicing architecture, maintaining an architectural partnership with Eric Douglas Remington in 1924–1929. The firm of Remington and Hook are credited with about a dozen residences in the Kansas City area.28 During Hook’s first visit to Sarasota in 1935, she purchased a fifty-five-acre property on the barrier island of Siesta Key and immediately built a hotel called “The Whispering Sands,” as well as other vacation houses, including one for her family shaped as an octagon.29 Hook even had visions of starting an architecture school at this location, but this would never happen.30 By the early 1950s, when Hook was in her seventies, she retired from designing architecture but began a new life in commissioning it. Her first venture into that new role in 1953 was to enlist the young cofounder of the Sarasota School of Architecture, Paul Rudolph (1918–1997). Rudolph designed and built a guest residence for her octagon house that was based on three plywood-arched linear elements, which would foreshadow his later works in Florida and elsewhere utilizing the typical Sarasota School characteristics of a close relationship with nature, open plan organization, and “honest” expression of materials. 244

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Figure 18.4 Mary Rockwell Hook, architect, after a successful career in Kansas City, retired to Sarasota and subsequently developed the Sandy Hook neighborhood, the location of many Sarasota School residences. Photograph, 1965. Source: Hook’s self-published autobiography, This and That, May 1965.

After commissioning this guesthouse from Rudolph, Hook began developing the land, which she dubbed “Sandy Hook,” by subdividing it and selling off the parcels.31 She would apparently recommend to purchasers that they use a local Sarasota architect. Buyers were obviously under no obligation to do so, but many did. Sandy Hook gradually evolved into an open-air museum, with houses by Sarasota School architects Paul Rudolph, Mark Hampton, James Holliday, Victor Lundy, William Rupp, Tim Seibert, Frank Folsom Smith, Ralph Twitchell, and Ralph’s nephew Tollyn Twitchell—a remarkable legacy of Mary Rockwell Hook, architect turned client.32

The Secretary Ludelle Hinaman Andrews (1904–2002), known as “Lu,” was the bookkeeper/secretary for Sarasota School cofounder Ralph Twitchell from 1936 to 1951. Andrews was an unusual character for Sarasota, not only because she was a single mother—almost unheard of at that time—but also because she was a member of the local flying club and could be seen speeding around town in her convertible with her hair “elegantly wrapped in a silk scarf.” According to Sarasota historian Robert Plunkett, Andrews was “the intellectual equal of the guys in the office. Her sophisticated, avant-garde tastes were totally in sync with theirs. … [She] served as co-worker, sounding board and den mother to the group of ambitious young architects.”33 Not much is known about Andrews before Sarasota except that she “put everything she owned in a U-Haul trailer”—including her one-year-old son—and “moved down here.”34 She was variously referred to as Ralph Twitchell’s secretary or his bookkeeper. Since Twitchell’s office was so small, only employing one or two other architects at a time, arguably she could have been both. Andrews 245

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was a talented painter, yet she was apparently unable to fully support herself and her son with just her artwork. Lu Andrews fits into the chronicle of the women of the Sarasota School because over the course of twenty years, Ralph Twitchell designed and built three different houses for her. House No. 1 was completed in 1939, House No. 2 in 1941, and House No. 3 in 1959.35 There is no evidence that Andrews actually paid for either the design or the construction of these houses, implying that they were given to her by Twitchell for her services to the company. Most likely, Twitchell provided the designs pro bono and then, through his construction company Associated Builders, supplied materials and labor at cost, rather than at a markup. Each house granted an opportunity for Twitchell to experiment with an architectural object of his interest. House No. 1 utilized “The Lamolithic Method,” a construction system invented by local builder John Lambie that employed reusable metal panels as formwork (rather than throwing away wood formwork). House No. 2 was Twitchell’s first foray into modernist architecture, with flat roofs, open spaces, and a lack of applied ornament. The arrival of new graduate, Paul Rudolph, in Twitchell’s office during the summer of 1941 hastened this aesthetic move and originated the mythical story of the Sarasota School. Lastly, House No. 3 was Twitchell’s perfection of this style—with Joan and Ken Warriner— in terms of stacked block work, exposed wood structural members, and large expanses of glass. Here, Lu Andrews, just like Mary Hook, was the client willing to live with and inside such experimental architecture, providing its promotion and subsequent acceptance, as seen by the construction of Jack West’s modern City Hall in 1966.

Conclusion The story of the women of the Sarasota School is not so much about how these women were excluded from the design and production of the cutting-edge new modern architecture that was taking place in Sarasota in the 1950s and 1960s, but how their contributions have not been represented in the writing of the history of the Sarasota School in the 1980s, 1990s, and beyond. On a daily basis, these women had a hand in the shaping of modern architecture in Sarasota, and yet the official chronicles have constantly omitted their presence in the history of the built environment by explicitly referring to Twitchell & Rudolph, Abbott, Brosmith, Farrell, Hampton, Leedy, Lundy, Rupp, Seibert, and Smith. Although there is much more work to be carried out on this topic, with this current study, the veil of obscurity for these women’s contributions begins to be lifted and recorded for posterity.

Notes 1. John Howey, author of The Sarasota School of Architecture (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1997), has proposed the dates 1941–1966, but in reality, the movement continued well into the 1970s with Jack West and into the 1980s with Tim Seibert. 2. West and Waters were not husband and wife, as is usually the case with male and female architect partners. 3. The author has retrieved Elizabeth Boylston Waters’s records from the AIA, which has been a tremendous help in outlining this narrative. 4. This is also the case with the Sarasota School, where many architects working in the offices of Twitchell, Rudolph, Lundy, Seibert, and others remain unacknowledged for their contributions. 5. Jack West, The Lives of an Architect (Sarasota, FL: Fauve Publishers, 1988), 49. According to Waters’s obituary, her father was a pharmacist who operated Badger Pharmacy in downtown Sarasota. Her brother, Bill Boylston, served in the Florida House of Representatives before becoming Sarasota County’s attorney in 1960. Additionally, one of her cousins was Circuit Judge Robert Boylston of Manatee County, FL. 6. Werner F. Kannenberg (1906–1994) and Edgar C. Hanebuth (1903–1978) were Sarasota architects but were not associated with the Sarasota School. Waters’s AIA records also reveal that she worked for Twitchell & Rudolph in the summer of 1948, one year before graduating from architecture school.

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Architect, Builder, Client, Secretary 7. Waters birthed two children during this time: Chris (b. 1954) and Robin (b. 1955). A third child, Michael (b. 1964) would be born later in Norfolk, Virginia. 8. Waters’s obituary states that she was the first AIA-registered female architect in Florida, which is incorrect. The first female architect to be registered in Florida was Henrietta C. Dozier, 1905–1928. In fact, Waters was the ninth female architect to be registered in Florida. The others, after Dozier and before Waters, were Agnes Ballard (1921), Ida Annah Ryan (1921), Marion I. Manley (1926), Olive Frances Tjaden ( Johnson) (1938), Emily Virginia Obst (1951), Olga Edith Petters (1955), and Diane Joy Milam (1956). 9. West, The Lives of an Architect, 49. 10. Ibid., 50. 11. Ibid., 58. 12. Billy Cox, “His Final Fight? Car-free Main Street; Overpass to Bayfront,” Sarasota Herald-Tribune, January 2, 2013. 13. This “last house” on Commonwealth Avenue was designed and built by Waters shortly before her partnership with West. 14. Claire Lavin, “The Amazing Young Wives of Commonwealth Avenue,” Ocala Star-Banner (all-Florida weekly magazine), April 10, 1960, 6–7. 15. West, The Lives of an Architect, 49. 16. Mark Zaloudek, “Architect Pioneer Had a Key Role in Sarasota’s Growth,” Sarasota Herald-Tribune, August 8, 2008. 17. Arguably, there were even more women with architectural training in Sarasota at the time, but considering that no archival data can substantiate this assumption, they remain nameless. 18. “Cottage Industry,” Sarasota Herald-Tribune, May 2, 2004. 19. This has been confirmed by author via AIA Headquarters in Washington, DC, and referenced in “Resident of Lido [Shores] Sues Philip Hiss on House Plan,” Sarasota News, July 25, 1961. 20. “Local Architect Trio Wins Honors,” Sarasota Herald-Tribune, March 19, 1961. 21. Robert Plunkett, “Home of the Month: School Spirit,” The Sarasota Observer, March 12, 2014. 22. Betty Jean Miller, “Story Behind Ruth Richmond,” St. Petersburg Independent, February 3, 1978, 3D. 23. Mark Zaloudek, “Obituary: Richmond Homes Owner Popularized Lanais,” Sarasota Herald-Tribune, February 8, 2007, BV8. 24. “Design Dominates Richmond Models,” Sarasota Herald-Tribune, November 15, 1960, 4. 25. Rob Plunkett, “Doorknobs by Sarasota Design Pioneer Ruth Richmond Are Hot Collectibles,” Sarasota Magazine, September 2016. 26. “Richmond Has Shown Rapid Rise,” Naples Daily News, October 27, 1977, 74. 27. Accessed January 26, 2020, www.floridamemory.com/items/show/246566. 28. For the complete story of the life of Mary Rockwell Hook, see her self-published autobiography entitled This and That, 1970. 29. This house, located at 172 Sandy Hook Road, was built in 1952 and designated as a local historic structure by the County of Sarasota in 2016. 30. Lee McCall, “Hooked on Architecture,” Sarasota Herald-Tribune (Florida West supplement), December 4, 1977, 3–4. 31. The Sandy Hook subdivision was officially platted on November 25, 1957. 32. Brooksie Bergen, “Mary Hook Brought Her Skill, Love to Siesta,” Sarasota Herald-Tribune (Community Journal Column), April 27, 1994, 7B. 33. Plunkett, “Home of the Month: School Spirit,” 35–37. 34. “Former Sarasotan Happy to Be Home,” Sarasota Herald-Tribune, October 9, 1936, 5. 35. Today, only Andrews House No. 3 is still preserved in its original form. House No. 1 was demolished sometime in the 1980s, and House No. 2 was substantially altered in 2009.

Bibliography Bergen, Brooksie. “Mary Hook Brought Her Skill, Love to Siesta.” Sarasota Herald-Tribune, April 27, 1994, 7B. “Cottage Industry.” Sarasota Herald-Tribune, May 2, 2004. Cox, Billy. “His Final Fight? Car-free Main Street: Overpass to Bayfront.” Sarasota Herald-Tribune, January 2, 2013. “Design Dominates Richmond Models.” Sarasota Herald-Tribune, November 15, 1960, 4. “Former Sarasotan Happy to Be Home.” Sarasota Herald-Tribune, October 9, 1936, 5. Hook, Mary Rockwell. This and That. An Autobiography. Kansas City, MO and Sarasota, FL: Mary Rockwell Hook, 1970.

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Christopher S. Wilson Howey, John. The Sarasota School of Architecture. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1997. Lavin, Claire. “The Amazing Young Wives of Commonwealth Avenue.” Ocala Star Banner (All Florida Weekly Magazine), April 10, 1960, 6–7. McCall, Lee. “Hooked on Architecture.” Sarasota Herald-Tribune (Florida West Supplement), December 4, 1977, 3–4. Miller, Betty Jean. “Story Behind Ruth Richmond.” St. Petersburg Independent, February 3, 1978, 3D. Plunkett, Robert. “Home of the Month: School Spirit.” Sarasota Observer, March 12, 2014, 35–37. Plunkett, Robert. “Doorknobs by Sarasota Design Pioneer Ruth Richmond are Hot Collectibles.” Sarasota Magazine, September 2016. “Richmond Has Shown Rapid Rise.” Naples Daily News, October 27, 1977, 74. West, Jack. The Lives of an Architect. Sarasota, FL: Fauve Publishers, 1988. Zaloudek, Mark. “Obituary: Richmond Homes Owner Popularized Lanais.” Sarasota Herald-Tribune, February 8, 2007, BV8. Zaloudek, Mark. “Architect Pioneer Had a Key Role in Sarasota’s Growth.” Sarasota Herald-Tribune, August 8, 2008.

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PART IV

Women in Architecture of the Late Twentieth Century Architectural Work and Urban Planning: Drawing, Building, Educating, Archiving In the late twentieth century the increasing complexities of political and socioeconomic processes across continents generated waves of change on an unprecedented scale. Women were entering the field in record numbers, their presence and leadership in architecture, design, urban planning, drawing, building, educating, criticism, and curating defied conservative agendas established by generations of their male predecessors. They moved into occupations within and beyond professional frameworks and brought with them important perspectives into the inner workings of the discipline. This growing presence of women as designers, teachers, and scholars has provided new critiques of traditional models based on previously available accounts. In light of such developments the narratives of late twentieth-century women architects and scholars are essential for our understanding of contemporary paradigms. Part IV provides an overview of learning and built environments intertwined, of professional cultures, philosophies, strategies, and methodologies influenced and created by women, with deeper historical roots in both Western and non-Western contexts. In Chapter  19, “Together Not Apart: Creating Constellations in Learning from an Archive,” author Donna W. Dunay, Professor and Chair of the International Archive of Women in Architecture Board of Advisors, introduces her methodological approach to academic studies, a combination of archival investigations and analysis of women’s architectural records. She discusses these records as a creative constellation and explains that her teaching concept is stimulated by “things in proximity.” She selects a metaphor as a resource for a comparative investigation: “While individual stars may be far away in space and time, reading how they are parts together, as a set and as a new whole, brings a constellation into being” and elaborates: “Drawings, placed together, advocate generative relationships. In comparison, patterns arise, provoking questions that illuminate particulars, all becoming more significant.” By applying this teaching/learning methodology, Dunay pairs and examines drawings held at the International Archive of Women in Architecture. She creates new synergies and dialogues that enable a deeper understanding of women’s contributions to the field. Through casually grouping drawings together, Dunay stimulates conversations around the opportunities for learning while promoting the women’s legacies preserved in archival collections. Marieke Gruwel in Chapter  20, “Women’s Contributions to Manitoba’s Built Environment: The Case of Green Blankstein Russell,” emphasizes how women architects, planners, and interior designers in Canada asserted themselves into the professional community and how their practices have made a significant impact on architecture in the capital of the Manitoba province. Through the examination of one of Canada’s most prominent architectural firms of the time, Green

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Blankstein Russell (GBR), this chapter aims to reconstruct historical justice by referring to the high number of women graduates from the University of Manitoba between 1920 and 1960. Many of these alumnae became registered architects, among them the GBR team. Indeed, GBR was one of the first firms in Western Canada to retain a woman interior designer on staff. Gruwel also addresses the leadership role of the architect and city planner Elizabeth Pilcher from Sydney, Australia, invited by principal Cecil Blankstein to head the Planning Department of the firm. Despite their important contribution to shaping the North American built environment, these architects have been largely left out of historical narratives, and the GBR case study highlights their remarkable achievements. By applying a “gender lens” to the career path of the Turkish architect Ayla Karacabey, Meral Ekincioglu, in Chapter  21, “Uncovering Her Archive: Ayla Karacabey in Postwar Architecture,” investigates and contrasts the vocabulary of professional readings in the United States, Europe, and the Republic of Turkey during the 1950s–1970s. The author follows Karacabey from her studies at American College for Girls in Istanbul, to Vassar College in the US, to receiving her Master in Architecture degree from Harvard University. Reflecting on the transformative processes developing in postwar architectural schools in the US, Karacabey’s designs raised awareness of the regionalist vocabulary and the pervasiveness of large-scale planning and urban design. Her interdisciplinary approach confronted the rigid principles of the International Style with idiosyncratic creativity, marking the course toward the aesthetic revision of building codes. A trailblazer in regional urban planning, she stood out as an early figure of a Turkish woman architect who sensibly considered architectural history in her designs and withstood the challenges of gender and exclusivity which dominated the field. The scholarship on the canonical starchitect Zaha Hadid (Dame Zaha Mohammad Hadid) is broad, centered around her renowned structures and practical achievements. Recognized worldwide as the first female architect awarded with the Pritzker Architecture Prize, Hadid is praised for her masterful ability to design architectural interventions. Nevertheless, in Chapter 22, “Restless: Drawn by Zaha Hadid,” Nerma Cridge skillfully renders a different portrait, with an emphasis on the challenges she met in the profession and the struggles she encountered in the contexts of 1970s England, as well as the influential bond she forged with the revolutionary Russian avant-garde. This writing is focused on the series of her early drawings and paintings; the projects examined include Malevich’s Tektonik on Hungerford Bridge in London, The Museum of the Nineteenth Century at Charing Cross Station, and exhibition designs from the initial stages of her career. The ideas stemming from Hadid’s interest in the Russian avant-garde, including the notions of weightlessness, gentle connection to the ground, and horizontal elevation, form the main argument: most of those drawings and paintings were never realized and exist as autonomous pieces of work. The chapter also builds on Hadid’s statement on the influence of computer drawing on architecture. She lamented the loss of “artistry in drawing” and reflected on the current status of architectural drawing, where the computer can be understood as liberating but can also suppress innovation and can serve as a tool for continuing or repeating the familiar. Chapter  23, “ ‘Something More Solid and Massive’: The Architecture of Lauretta Vinciarelli” by Rebecca Siefert, traces an architectural discourse in the 1970s and 1980s in the US and Italy. Italian-born architect, artist, teacher, and theorist Lauretta Vinciarelli occupies an important place in architectural history as the first woman to have drawings acquired by the Museum of Modern Art in NYC, the only woman granted a solo exhibition at Peter Eisenman’s Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies, and one of the first female professors teaching architecture studio courses at Columbia University. Vinciarelli is recognized for her collaboration with minimalist artist Donald Judd and her influence on his furniture design and printmaking. The author highlights examples of Vinciarelli’s work, including her oeuvre with Judd in Marfa, the competitions for San Leucio and Palmanova in Italy, and her watercolor paintings, and proves that Vinciarelli’s work illuminates a

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range of issues which are central today, from the ideological and social dimensions of architecture to transatlantic connections, artistic efforts, feminism, pedagogy, and practice. Part IV concludes with Chapter 24, “Flora Ruchat-Roncati and the ‘Will to Keep Working’ ” by Irina Davidovici and Katia Frey. The authors position the Swiss architect Flora Ruchat-Roncati, a remarkable teacher and practitioner, within a historical panorama of the 1980s to the early 2000s in Switzerland and consider the significance of her biographical circumstance in the country, where women gained the right to vote in federal elections only in 1971. The first woman to become a full Professor at ETH, Ruchat-Roncati’s academic recognition came on the basis of her built work, primarily in partnership. Her teaching put her in a public light, and her personality helped to open new perspectives in the curriculum, which has influenced generations of female students. Yet her legacy still remains amorphous, largely due to her preference for shared authorships and hybrid solutions tailored to her projects and her teaching approach. The chapter identifies the ambiguities defining this architect and aims to develop more inclusive assessment criteria in the study of women’s contributions to the field.

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19 TOGETHER NOT APART Creating Constellations in Learning from an Archive Donna W. Dunay

Introduction How do we best examine the time we live in? Philosopher Hannah Arendt (1906–1975) reminds readers of critical liminal “intervals” when she argues the following: Where by it would be of some relevance to notice that the appeal to thought arose in the odd in-between period which sometimes inserts itself into historical time when not only the later historians but the actors and the living witnesses themselves become aware of an interval in time which is altogether determined by things that are no longer and things not yet. In history those intervals have shown more than once that they may contain a moment of truth.1 Now is such an interval, an in-between space for attending to those “things that are no longer and things not yet.”2 By collecting and creating in an archive, we look ahead and imagine the new practices that an archive sponsors by looking back.3 The description for the Journal of the History of Collections, Oxford University Press, recognizes the importance of archival practice, as it states that: [F]or centuries, collecting has been the pursuit of princes and apothecaries, scholars and amateurs alike. Only recently, however, has the study of collections and their collectors become the subject of great multidisciplinary interest. The range of the Journal of the History of Collections embraces the contents of collections, the processes which initiated their formation, and the circumstances of the collectors themselves.4 However, the introduction to history and historiography of collections and collecting does not refer to active practices that utilize collections. Exhibitions are one, where placing individual archival pieces adjacent to each other determines the teaching-learning methodology of the display. While the process of selecting and grouping may seem obvious, there is a nuance to this innovative practice that is worth investigating. In narrating an installation from an archive, a great potential of constellation transpires where various methodologies interplay. The gift of constellation through the metaphor of recalling a day at the beach or time on a stream’s edge with the compulsion to collect shells or stones provides a vibrant comparison. The act 252

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of bringing a diversity of objects together presents new teaching-learning opportunities. In a collection, one realizes the tenderness and sensitivity in exhibited patterns, the primary and secondary choices, revealing coherency even in a seemingly miscellaneous pile. Composing tunes our perception as we read differences and grapple with how this collection became one integrated whole. Tensions and choices are reverberations that unify items brought together to deliver a multitude of creative messages. This chapter acknowledges the power of collections presenting an innovative methodology for learning and a research-based archival approach with a potential to revolutionize the narratives of practical architecture.5 In reading a constellation of gathered drawings, seven in this case, a new world of oneness combines the theoretical thesis of archival files selected through an academic application with teaching and learning about architecture. Each drawing, illuminated by the presence of others, gains a conceptual stature, a new stance. This methodological approach is aimed at developing a constellation from the drawings made by women in architecture to situate a rare, pioneering dialogue. The seven drawings selected for the examined constellation were opted as a critical take on endorsing overlooked objects. Some drawings have been less studied than they deserve to be—latent, just as a seashell or a pebble might be, and overlooked in a casual collection. Offering a new frame, an Italian author and curator Paola Antonelli has broadly elaborated on the delight and surprise occurring in the process of reevaluating objects of everyday life. In the introduction to her monograph, Humble Masterpieces, which accompanied the exhibition of the same title, Antonelli argued that “we take [everyday objects] for granted.”6 Far from the everday and grounded by the formality of an exhibition, Antonelli implied that “the moment we decide to become aquainted with [everyday objects], a whole new universe opens up.”7 Building on Antonelli’s ideas, in revaluing selected drawings, the practice of examining those drawings in the larger constellation provides a novel means of inquiry, garnering new perspectives on previously overlooked works. Architect and educator Milka Bliznakov (1927–2010) anticipated this innovative kind of research when she described an archive comprising items assembled like the colored stones of a mosaic.8 Bliznakov, founder of the International Archive of Women in Architecture (IAWA) at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, VA, addressed the difference of a lively, singular image that creates a unity through an homage to a comprehensive vision. She envisioned archival inquiry through a broad constellation of drawings: “[The] future looks brighter for those who are not reluctant to handle diversity. … Our pluralistic society asserts the recognition of diverse needs and values and demands a multitude of design responses.”9 Swiss designer, theorist, and Bauhaus teacher Johannes Itten (1888–1967), addressing students in 1918, projected future philosophies in anticipation of Antonelli’s valuing everyday objects and Bliznakov’s diverse archival mosaic. Itten’s inauguration speech to the first Bauhaus students’ exhibition cited the sixth-century BCE Chinese philosopher Lao-Tse: Thirty spokes meet in the hub, but the empty space between them is the essence of the wheel. Pots are formed from clay, But the empty space within it is the essence of the pot. Walls with windows and doors form the house, But the empty space within it is the essence of the House, and commanded the principle: Matter represents the usefulness Non-matter—the essence of things.10 253

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In his address, Itten valued Lao-Tse’s collections of spokes and essence, clay and space, and the formation of a building that amalgamates physicality and non-matter within it. Pairing differences, he honored the “tension in joining” with the importance of “the essence of things.”11 By acknowledging the complications of tension in a collection, American art critic Terry Smith in a 2012 interview refers to the beauty of curating, the aspiration of his book Thinking Contemporary Curating, to “give something back to curators.”12 He deliberated on the theoretical and practical significance of curatorial influence shaping the discipline: When you’re an art historian, you tend to search museum installations and exhibitions for fresh historical facts, for something that will help you interpret more deeply, or at least differently, a school of art or the work of an artist over a whole career.13 Regrettably, the critics who respond to the works in the exhibition “one by one or one compared to others” and initiate theoretical implications, as well as the historians and the general public, “don’t pay sufficient attention to the curatorial thought behind exhibitions.” Smith argued that “through the curation of exhibitions, materials are brought into the same orbit and situate us, placing us in relation to them.”14 As insight into the process of collecting and archiving, as well as composing an installation, this deeper examination locates a new trajectory for learning about architecture in an academic setting. This chapter aims to reflect the magic of arranging, the tension of curation, and the beauty found in a collection of “everyday objects.” The works of female architects, so often out of the spotlight, are given voice through an array of documents invited to make a constellation. Stimulating each piece as a proactive record with the “fixed” relationships in a constellation produces a vital identity. With individidual objects (stars) far away in time and space, an integrated reading produces new meaning. Placed together, generative correspondences result. This methodology brings out latent (untapped) historical data in archival drawings placed together by uncovering relationships. Generative correspondences result. Engendering questions, new theoretical and practical patterns illuminate a future for architectural education.

The Constellation: A Methodology of Language and Poetics The conceptual structure of a constellation positions selected drawings with an inspiration from language and poetics. In Poemcrazy: Freeing Your Life with Words, the Californian writer Susan G. Wooldridge uses Gary Snyder’s observation that “poetry has an interesting function. It helps people be where they are” as a reminder on the importance of place and experience.15 The constellation is a poetic association that places the debated works “where you are.” Continuously, the return to the constellation provides an association for the group and the constituent idea that has formed it. The philosopher Susanne Langer elaborated on the power of creative “conception” as a “particular asset” and addressed “the awareness of this power” as “an exciting sense of human strength. Nothing is more thrilling than the dawn of a new conception.”16 Only a generative collection produces this possibility, and the promise begins in answering the questions, “Why do you start an archive?” “What may be lost if these unique sets of work vanish?” With an archive, work is affirmed by building a mosaic of material records. The International Archive of Women in Architecture’s collection and physical space provide a response to the first question by offering experiences of works together that otherwise would never have been encountered together. As Langer noticed, “a subject which has emotional meaning” for the author, would “rivet attention.” Seeing “its form with a discerning active eye” and keeping that form current by magnifying an “excited imagination until its highest reaches of significance are evident” provides us with a new, meaningful understanding by stimulating a “deep and original conception of 254

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it” and the “aesthetic pleasure” of a true discovery. To grasp the underlying “idea in a work of art” is rather an effort of “having a new experience, than of entertaining a new proposition. … Artistic truth, which is all significance, expressiveness, and articulateness,” displays properties of definitive degrees; “therefore works of art, “good” or “bad,” each must be judged by our experience of its revelations.”17 The IAWA regards the drawings, designs, and collected architects’ works as art that Langer describes. In the archive, students, faculty, scholars, and architects are able to view those works and to ask “what did she do in this piece?” It enables viewers to notice the magic of associative proximity and juxtaposition. Placed together, drawings intertwine sensitivities and instill a perseptive dialogue. What is the probability of two selected works ever being compared or contrasted in a whole new reading? One example of the archive’s unique ability to put otherwise distant items in proximity is exemplified by a pairing of the work by Louise Blanchard Bethune (1856–1915), the first American woman who worked as a professional architect and designed over 150 buildings in the state of New York, with the work by Sarantstatsral Ochirpurev, a contemporary architect from Mongolia.18 One can be captivated by Bethune and her achievements in Buffalo, NY, and then, far away in time and in another country, by Ochirpurev as a student of architecture in her thesis project in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. In 1888, Bethune was voted the American Institute of Architects (AIA) first female Fellow.19 Her story prompted the AIA to develop the celebratory traveling exhibition That Exceptional One: Women in American Architecture 1888–1988 honoring the professional work of women. Being seen as “the exceptional one” of that time secured her position on the lead panel at the beginning of the exhibition.20 Almost one hundred years later, Ochirpurev’s student thesis proposed a new urban plan for the heart of Mongolia’s capital city with the creation of an area bringing the culture of her country close at hand. Her project institutes the idea of the yurt, the ger, the circular tent-like mobile dwelling and ancestral family home of the Mongolian nomadic culture as the real and emotive centerpiece in the nation’s capital, on par with the buildings of state, as the soul of home to Mongolians.21 At first glance, seemingly localized to their own context and time, these materials are extraordinary; and the IAWA secures the opportunity to investigate works exhibited together, which: so often prove women were important pioneers in architecture and forward looking in their work … often in a situation of being the only one or one of a few.22 Louise Bethune had challenged all women with the spectrum of their work: “women who are pioneers in any profession should be proficient in every department, and … now at least, women architects must be practical superintendents as well as designers and scientific constructors.”23 The IAWA provides the foundation to recognize Bethune’s statement in a new light and to study her work and the work of others as pioneering examples that despite unrelated appearances should be examined together.

Teaching-Learning Methodology: Pairing to Construct a Constellation In instituting a pairing, two archival works are needed in proximity: by taking seven works from the IAWA collection, two are paired at a time, with the one remaining paired with the initial work, providing closure. This methodology implies four pairs in all, a juxtaposition stimulating discovery. The First Pair: Anne Tyng (1920–2011) and Alison Smithson (1928–1993)—Two Structures Defined and Calibrated to Life. Let us first consider the work of Anne Tyng, American architect and Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, entitled Identity Threshold of the Large Meeting Place, Design Sketch in Ink.24 Two halves of this drawing—the more concrete plan and the ghost of a section stacked above it—demonstrate 255

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Figure 19.1 Anne Tyng, Identity Threshold of the Large Meeting Place. Design sketch in ink on paper. Source: IAWA, Ms2001–049, Special Collections and University Archives, University Libraries, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

Figure 19.2 Alison Smithson, Landscape Architecture Design Drawing, Parc de la Villette Competition, Paris, France, 1982. Source: IAWA, Ms2009–54, Special Collections and University Archives, University Libraries, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

the complexity of a structural idea. In the structure’s elevation, one sees a person standing, reaching out, occupying the space of one cell of many. In this frozen moment, a part situates the project: the basis of the structure has anthropomorphic properties referencing a human body. The honeycomb network defines the drawings—two fields joined at what is almost a baseline indicate this is about 256

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one thing—what Tyng calls the Identity Threshold of the Large Meeting Place with “3-Dimensional Flying Buttress.” The porosity of Tyng’s unique proposal makes the structure omnipresent. Corresponding to human dimensions, this open element scales from one to a group and then to an organization clearly identifiable in bringing about the larger structure. Next, we consider British architect Alison Smithson’s Landscape Architecture Design Drawing, Parc de la Villette Competition, Paris, France.25 Fifteen gateways organize a set of swings. Captured in a view from above, one gateway opens a length of elevated fencing. This axonometric drawing displays the intersecting network of fencing frames. The largest of the elements fractures the monumental presence of the field and asserts occupation, places pinned by human activity. The structure opens as the fence-line progresses. Here, Smithson introduces the swing element with a geometry of opposing triangles and a rotated square frame hovering, continuing the line. Geometry invites further definition for the tangle of roses to come. Fences float like nets above, intersect, buttress, and define interiors. Columnar trees challenge the setting. Repetition institutes the park as plane for strolling. To compare-contrast these two designs, we emphasize connections and discover how these works may link in thought—Two Structures Calibrate Life. The structures create networks opening to announce life. Tyng invites the being-in of the human body, occupying a space, together as an element. Aggregated, the elements produce a comprehensive structure while ascribing closeness with the space of haptic dimension. Allowing your arms to inscribe a structure or being drawn to a swing and swinging as Smithson forecasts expands a territory of being-in while grounding it. The Second Pair: Lilia Skala (1896–1994) and Eleanor K. Pettersen (1916–2003)—Presenting the Fact: Wholeness and Iconic Presence of an Autonomous Building. Lilia Skala, an Austrian-American actress, graduated in Architecture and Engineering from Dresden University of Technology in 1920 and was the first woman to join the Austrian Chamber of Engineers and Architects before her immigration to the US in 1938. We now consider her “Architectural Drawing, University of Dresden Student Portfolio.”26 An ink drawing on crumpled yellow tracing paper stands to attest time. Decisive vertical pen strokes reveal a construct: the perspective of a building. Here, Skala makes a drawing that holds determination with indeterminacy. The parallel pen strokes gather the shade of this stark, high-contrast perspective of an unknown place; the finial tops at the parapet finish the building, all being almost like squiggles or question marks, particularly

Figure 19.3 Lilia Sofer Skala, architectural drawing. Student Portfolio, University of Dresden, Germany. Source: IAWA, Ms2003–15, Special Collections and University Archives, University Libraries, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

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Figure 19.4 Eleanor Kendall Pettersen, initial barn drawing of record for what would become her residence and studio, Saddle River Road, NJ. Source: IAWA, Ms2003–18, Special Collections and University Archives, University Libraries, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

the first one. The indeterminacy persists in the windows of the front façade, which are more unlike windows than the ones depicted on the shady side. Challenging the upper portion of the blank front façade, the overall activity of the lines marching in columns reiterate a dance defined by the light that breaks, making a space, then filling it again. Eleanor Kendall Pettersen, an American architect, is the creator of the next work, “Initial barn drawing of record for what would become her residence and studio, Saddle River Road, NJ.”27 A pencil drawing on yellow, blue-lined office paper stacks two end elevations of a wood structure on a stone foundation. The lines of the paper assist in drawing the parallel construction members; the two drawings document this structure as a singular constructed space. Pettersen’s directness is important: individual wood members are indicated suggesting this wood skeleton will be covered in time. The drawing presents the necessity of documenting constituent parts. Dotted along the corner posts are sets of blackened rectangles, a kind of timber framing that does not require nails. While two systems frame each wall, the structure changes to allow a large end opening for a window or doorway, anticipating this with a post picking up the span in the lower structure.28 The Presence of an Autonomous Building—the singularity of a building gains the stature of architecture with wholeness produced by conditions that assert: everything belongs to the one. While Skala’s parallel pen strokes unite an edifice that both challenges and presents the order that creates a whole, Pettersen’s barn drawing delineates all the varied pieces as individuals to honor the notion of a humble oneness, many varied, becoming one; both aspiring to deliver an icon. 258

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The Third Pair: Han Schröder (1918–1992) and Hilde Weström (1912–2013)—The Field as the Primary Spatial Instance Holds Life and the Distribution of Elements. Han ( Johanna Erna Else) Schröder, Dutch architect and educator, brings us “Gaastra Houseplan drawing, Zeist, Netherlands.”29 With this sketch of a house plan, Schröder creates a field: elements dispersed like islands in a stream-crossing, varying degrees of openness in a broad landscape. Altogether, Schröder challenges “subdivision by function as a more typical means in the creation of

Figure 19.5 Han ( Johanna Erna Else) Schröder, Gaastra houseplan drawing, Zeist, Netherlands. Source: IAWA, Ms1987–064, Special Collections and University Archives, University Libraries, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

Figure 19.6 Hilde Weström, apartment house, Röntgenstrasse 13, Berlin, Germany. Floor plan. Source: IAWA, Ms1987–061, Special Collections and University Archives, University Libraries, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

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house plans.”30 Her lines and the blackened areas of wall define solids and voids and the interstitial space of between. Making two kinds of space places importance on destination and from “here” to “there.” In correspondence with Milka Bliznakov, she was always seeking “the demand for dynamic needs of the mind through the eye.”31 The eye on a dispersion of elements across the field gathers many journeys for the mind—through, around, to, within, beyond. German architect Hilde Weström’s “Röntgenstrasse 13”32 is a typical plan for a six-story street-wall building in Berlin that makes the limit of space known, continuing the pattern of the street. The plan indicates a façade that has a stepped-edge along the building front with two different apartment layouts. Each apartment has a frontside to the street and an opening to the courtyard. The plan shows one apartment where the master bedroom shares a balcony with the kitchen, and both apartments have street-side kitchens facing south. In the second apartment, one finds two children’s bedrooms on the street side. Here, the step-façade delivers something surprising: the two children’s bedrooms are granted corners with generous, wrapping windows opening to multidirectional views—a typical view across the street and a special long view of the city scene down the street. In such a special room, children may hold an experience and be caused to wonder if one is more in the city than in a private dwelling—or both. The Field as the Primary Spatial Instance—distinct from other parts, here space becomes a quality: new places intended, not programmed. Schröder’s and Weström’s designs produce a dynamic speaking through daily adventures, stimulating instances of place with the expectation of entering through the threshold of distance. While Schröder creates a house where expectation journeys to places, for example, the kitchen, Weström implies a walking about, a fractured journey, peering through, entering to view wider and understand new ways of living unveiled, where the dwelling places one on a threshold. It is important to note that seven pairings offer twenty-one other combinations. The pairing brings the work of women in architecture forward, both as individuals and in groups, and while there are seven drawings gathered, the final drawing would require a cycling back to create the fourth pair, which would allow the seventh drawing and the first one to make one additional association. The final pair, a duo of first and last, locates Kimiko Suzuki’s work with Anne Tyng’s and makes for an extension, opening into another realm by tying the group together, as a constellation. The Fourth Pair: Kimiko Suzuki (1929–1992) and Anne Tyng—The Room or Home Places Life at the Core. Kimiko Suzuki, Japanese architect, is author of the next design we consider in proximity: Architectural Drawing, Susume Abe Residence.33 This axonometric drawing of a house from above emerges from a background of vertical lines. Varying in weight, forceful graphite lines ruled in projection on tracing paper define the edge of the building. Some of these lines almost disappear. Defining the landscape and the life outside the house, Suzuki draws freehand beyond these planes. Two figures leaving the dwelling from a notched-out volume, apparently an entry porch; two vehicles depicted driving by, or emerging from, a carport; and another figure walking nearby enliven the scene. A few branching trees drawn in the front of the dwelling, the open courtyard with trees and vegetation centered, an open wall of glass on one side, and a stone wall extending above the roof soften the perception of the place. Perhaps most distinctive are the ten varied walled cells that Suzuki disperses across the roof: light wells to define spaces below. In Anne Tyng’s “Identity Threshold of the Large Meeting Place,” a part situates the project in a frozen moment: the basis of the structure has anthropomorphic properties referencing a human body.34 Life at the Core—Suzuki’s drawing depicts figures leaving a house, going out from an entryway; in Tyng’s drawing, it is one standing figure, occupying and defining. Planes from the house reach out like the lines of the drawing to punctuate space. The roof plane extends by covering only a part of the entry while framing the sky; the house wall offers enough tension to permit a doorway cut out from the side, while the entryway provides a spatial anchor to gather the attributes of place and human action. By emphasizing Suzuki’s position, we may elaborate through this same lens how Tyng’s small room or cell, through activity and joined materials, invites life to be centered. 260

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Figure 19.7 Kimiko Suzuki, Susume Abe Residence, 1967. Architectural drawing. Source: IAWA, Ms2013–089, Special Collections and University Archives, University Libraries, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

Figure 19.8 Anne Tyng, “Identity Threshold of the Large Meeting Place.” Design sketch in ink on paper. Source: IAWA, Ms2001–049, Special Collections and University Archives, University Libraries, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

The Next Seven: Forecasting a Constellation When a collection comes together, be it in an exhibition or through the placement of items on a desk, a conversation arises. Attributes located are charged with life conceived by the sound of several voices. Translating through this lens, narratives in the present make individual work 261

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public with a unique contrasting-comparing experience to gain new insights. Our extended gaze seeks an answer to the question: “When does evidence become knowledge?” In his essay “Ten Vermeers, but a Whole World of Dutch Art,” Philip Kennicott elaborates: “the exhibition lays out a web of connections, between the works on view and the artists who made them, as they invented what was then unprecedented new subject matter: the elegant side of everyday existence.”35 The constellation of work from seven women in architecture integrates such a “web of connections.” Anne Tyng, Alison Smithson, Lilia Skala, Eleanor Pettersen, Han Schröder, Hilde Weström, and Kimiko Suzuki speak beyond the line of representation and masterfully exhibit the highest range of ideas, craft, and professionalism. These works advance a much broader scope of processes envisioning and expanding the built environment. Looking to the future, there are many paths to take, yet securing a frame of reference fosters this journey in a significant way to situate the work ahead. The tangible conclusion of this pioneering teaching methodology implies forecasting another seven-in-progress, which probes locating another constellation among the many possible. A collection may include work from Nobuko Nakahara, one of Japan’s pioneering architects, and her house and garden; Brinda Somaya, a renowned architect from Mumbai, and her proposal for a one-room residence in India; Rosa Kliass, the mother of the profession of landscape architecture in Brazil, and her tennis court park project; Yasmeen Lari, the first licensed woman architect in Pakistan, and her preservation work; Solange d’ Herbez de la Tour, the founder of the Union International Femmes Architectes (UIFA) and recipient of the highest French order of the Legion of Honor, and one of four hundred apartments she designed; D. Tsevelmaa, the designer of the Mongolian National Wrestling Palace in Ulaanbataar; and Lois Gottlieb, the creator of the Val-Goeschen House in California and the thoughtful addition to the structure many years later.36 With endless opportunities for creating constellations, a realization would emerge supported by current methodology, implying new, broader, unbiased knowledge, furthering research that would reveal unlimited global connections, and, by association, uncovering and advocating the legacies preserved in archival collections.

Notes 1. Hannah Arendt, Between Past and Future: Eight Exercises in Political Thought (New York: Penguin Books, 2006), 9. 2. Ibid. 3. I wish to thank all the many who have generously contributed to the origination and ongoing formation of the International Archive of Women in Architecture (IAWA) since 1985, especially noting the founding of the IAWA as the idea and work of Dr. Milka T. Bliznakov. The IAWA has made this project possible. 4. Oxford University Press, Journal of the History of Collections ( J Hist Collect), ResearchGate, accessed May 2, 2020, www.researchgate.net/journal/0954-6650_Journal_of_the_History_of_Collections. 5. This methodology has a meaningful reflection in the author’s correspondence with Kayla Simpson, the student in foundation design studio, and her answer to a survey question, “How do two become one?” Simpson’s response, “When two become one there is tension. The hope is to create unity within that tension,” contained an explanation through the ambition and power of pairing, collecting, and examining the resulting constellation. Kayla Simpson, email message to author, June 6, 2019. 6. Paola Antonelli, Humble Masterpieces: 100 Everyday Marvels of Design (London: Thames  & Hudson, 2006), 1. 7. Ibid. 8. Milka Bliznakov, “A Decade of Commitment: The IAWA Board Members Assess the Past and the Future,” IAWA Newsletter 7 (1995): 1. 9. Ibid. 10. Reference in: Johannes Itten, Design and Form: The Basic Course at the Bauhaus and Later (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1975), 13–14. 11. Ibid., 14, also Note 4.

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Together Not Apart 12. Orit Gat, “Art Theorist Terry Smith on His New Tome, ‘Thinking Contemporary Curating’,” Modern Painters, October 2012. 13. Ibid. 14. Ibid. 15. Susan G. Woodridge, Poemcrazy: Freeing Your Life with Words (New York: Three Rivers Press, 1996), 27. Also, “Gary Snyder,” Poets.org, accessed May 2, 2020, https://poets.org/poet/gary-snyder. 16. Susanne Katherina Knauth Langer, Philosophy in a New Key: A Study in the Symbolism of Reason, Rite, and Art (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979), 151. 17. Ibid., 151, 260, 263. 18. “Louise Blanchard Bethune,” Encyclopedia Britannica, accessed February  22, 2020, www.britannica.com/ biography/Louise-Blanchard-Bethune. 19. A Woman of the Century: Fourteen Hundred-Seventy Biographical Sketches Accompanied by Portraits of Leading American Women in All Walks of Life, ed. Frances E. Willard and Mary A. Livermore (Buffalo: Charles Wells Moulton, 1893), 81. 20. Donna W. Dunay, “For the Future: Keynote Talk,” UIFA Japan Annual Meeting, University Innovations Center, Tokyo, Japan, June  2011; Donna W. Dunay, That Exceptional One: Women in American Architecture 1888–1988 (Exhibition, Washington, DC: The AIA Women in Architecture Committee and The American Architectural Foundation, American Institute of Architects, 1988), Ms1991–041 (IAWA, Special Collections, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA). Materials include exhibit panels and planning and research documents. 21. Sarantstatsral Ochirpurev, MA thesis, Masterplan of Gandan Hill, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, 1992. At the IAWA Annual Board of Advisors’ Meeting, 2010, Ochirpurev distributed copies of the thesis design and spoke about it with the author. 22. Dunay, “For the Future.” 23. American Institute of Architects, Women in Architecture Committee, and American Architectural Foundation, That Exceptional One: Women in American Architecture, 1888–1988 (Washington, DC: American Architectural Foundation, 1988). 24. “Identity Threshold of the Large Meeting Place.” Design sketch in ink. Anne Griswold Tyng Architectural Collection, Ms2001–049, Box 1 (Special Collections, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA). 25. “Landscape Architecture Design Sketch. Parc de la Villette Competition, 1982.” Alison Smithson, Ms2009–054, Box N/D, Oversize Folder 5 (IAWA Small Collections, Special Collections, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA). 26. “Ink Perspective Sketch, University of Dresden Student Portfolio.” Lilia Sofer Skala, Ms2003–015, Box N/A, Oversize Folder 11 (IAWA, Special Collections, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA). In Vienna Skala met film director Max Reinhardt, who gave her acting lessons, and from 1931 to 1936 she appeared in six German and Austrian films. After emigration, at about fifty years old, she emerged on Broadway and in Hollywood. “Lilia Skala-Sofer,” Sachsen und seine Akademikerinnen, accessed May 2, 2020, www.herstorysachsen.de/en-lilia-skala-sofer. 27. “Graphite Architectural Drawing, Barn Sketch.” Eleanor Pettersen Collection, Ms2003–018 (IAWA, Special Collections, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA). 28. It is known that Pettersen intentionally saved the drawing and bequeathed it with her collection, even though over her career she has produced projects, that is, the renovation of President Nixon’ residence after he left office. Apparently she was aware of the purposeful meaning of this drawing, implying that this barn would mark the initiation of what might have been the expression of her personal identity in a private setting. 29. “Gaastra House plan drawing.” Han Schröder, Ms1987–064 (IAWA, Special Collections, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA). 30. Laura H. Katz, “Han Schröder Donates Drawings, Papers to IAWA,” IAWA Newsletter 1 no. 1 (1989): 2–3. 31. Milka Bliznakov, “A Decade of Commitment,” IAWA Newsletter 1 no. 1 (1989): 1. 32. “Floor plan, Röntgenstrasse 13.” Hilde Weström Architectural Collection, Ms1987–061 (IAWA, Special Collections, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA). 33. Architectural drawing, Susume Abe Residence (#430328), 1967. Kimiko Suzuki Architectural Collection, Ms2013–019, Box 1, Folder N/A (IAWA, Special Collections, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA). 34. See Pair One: Tyng. 35. Philip Kennicott (2013 Pulitzer Prize winner for art criticism), “Ten Vermeers, But a Whole World of Dutch Art,” Washington Post, October 18, 2017. 36. IAWA Collections: Brinda Somaya, Rosa Kliass, Yasmeen Lari, Solange d’ Herbez de la Tour, D. Tsevelmaa, Lois Gottlieb (Special Collections, Virginia Tech University Library, Blacksburg, VA).

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Bibliography American Institute of Architects. Women in Architecture Committee, and American Architectural Foundation. That Exceptional One: Women in American Architecture, 1888–1988. Washington, DC: American Architectural Foundation, 1988. Antonelli, Paola. Humble Masterpieces: 100 Everyday Marvels of Design. London: Thames  & Hudson Ltd, 2006. Arendt, Hannah. Between Past and Future: Eight Exercises in Political Thought. New York: Penguin Books, 2006. Bliznakov, Milka. “A Decade of Commitment: The IAWA Board Members Assess the Past and the Future.” IAWA Newsletter 7 (1995): 1. Gat, Orit. “Art Theorist Terry Smith on His New Tome, ‘Thinking Contemporary Curating’.” Modern Painters, October 2012. Itten, Johannes. Design and Form: The Basic Course at the Bauhaus and Later. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1975. Journal of the History of Collections. ResearchGate: Oxford University Press. www.researchgate.net/ journal/0954-6650_Journal_of_the_History_of_Collections. Katz, Laura H. “Han Schroder Donates Drawings, Papers to IAWA.” IAWA Newsletter 1 (1989): 2–3. Kennicott, Philip. “Ten Vermeers, But a Whole World of Dutch Art.” Washington Post, October 18, 2017. Langer, Susanne Katherina Knauth. Philosophy in a New Key: A Study in the Symbolism of Reason, Rite, and Art. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979. Trilling, René R. “Ruins in the Realm of Thoughts: Reading as Constellation in Anglo-Saxon Poetry.” The Journal of English and Germanic Philology 108, no. 2 (2009): 141–67. A Woman of the Century: Fourteen Hundred-Seventy Biographical Sketches Accompanied by Portraits of Leading American Women in All Walks of Life. Edited by Willard, Frances E., and Mary A. Livermore. Buffalo: Charles Wells Moulton, 1893. Wooldridge, Susan G. Poemcrazy: Freeing Your Life with Words. New York: Three Rivers Press, 1996.

IAWA Holdings, Special Collections, University Libraries, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA Pettersen, Eleanor K. Architectural Collection Ms2003–018. Schröder, Han. Architectural Collection Ms1987–064. Smithson, Alison. 1982. Small Collections Ms2009–054. Skala, Lilia Sofer. Student Portfolio Ms2003–015. Suzuki, Kimiko. Architectural Collection Ms2013–019. Tyng, Anne Griswold. Architectural Collection Ms2001–049. Weström, Hilde. Architectural Collection Ms1987–061.

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20 WOMEN’S CONTRIBUTIONS TO MANITOBA’S BUILT ENVIRONMENT The Case of Green Blankstein Russell Marieke Gruwel Introduction On Saturday, January 26, 1946, the Winnipeg Free Press published an article titled “Winnipeg Girl Holds Unique Post as Interior Designer.” A photograph accompanying the article portrayed Marjorie Mutch (later Campbell, 1923–1996) sitting at a drafting table in the offices of one of the city’s most prominent architectural firms, Green Blankstein Russell (GBR).1 The article boasted Mutch as the “only woman interior designer in Western Canada.”2 Over a decade later, a series of photographs, held in the collection of the Winnipeg Architecture Foundation, documented architect and planner Elizabeth M. Pilcher (later Causwell, b. 1920) working at the GBR offices. Pilcher had been invited by Cecil Blankstein (1908–1989), a principal at GBR, to head the firm’s planning department, possibly the first person in the country to hold such a title at a private architectural firm.3 Pilcher accepted the position, relocating from her home in New South Wales, Australia, to the Canadian prairies. GBR was founded in 1932 by Blankstein and Lawrence Green (1899–1969), joined shortly thereafter by Leslie Russell (1901–1977)—all graduates from the University of Manitoba School of Architecture.4 The firm’s early years were challenging due to the Great Depression and World War II. Work improved significantly in the postwar period, with the economic boom resulting in an influx of new construction, generating several important commissions for the firm. By the 1950s, GBR had established itself as a leader in the development of modernist architecture in Canada. This was exemplified by the fact that the firm took first place in the 1953 National Gallery of Canada design competition.5 A few years later, GBR was once again the winner of a national design competition, this time for Winnipeg’s new city hall.6 Canadian architectural historian Jeffrey Thorsteinson argues that the designs produced by GBR in the postwar period are “comparable to many of the best international examples of modern architecture” and that the mark they have left on Winnipeg is significant.7 Only a small number of architects have been associated with GBR’s pioneering designs of the time, most notably Bernard Brown and David Thordarson. Yet in 1960, a leading architecture magazine in the country, Canadian Architect, reported that the firm was the largest on the prairies, indicative of the fact that there were several other key players on the team whose contributions have been overlooked. This essay continues the work of uncovering narratives of women in architecture by taking GBR as a case study. It examines the hiring of women interior designers and architects at the firm prior to focusing on 265

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Figure 20.1 Elizabeth Pilcher greeted by Cecil Blankstein at the Winnipeg Airport, Canada. Photograph, December 1958. Source: GBR Collection, Winnipeg Architecture Foundation.

Elizabeth Pilcher’s tenure with the company. In highlighting the contributions made by women like Mutch and Pilcher, I aim to demonstrate how GBR fostered a culture of collaboration that ultimately influenced the successes of the firm and their designs. This study is grounded in empirical evidence, gathered largely from the Winnipeg Architecture Foundation. The material includes newspaper articles, oral histories, drawings, photographs, and ephemera that is interpreted with a feminist lens, informed by the work of historians of the built environment. This inquiry is indebted to the work done by Canadian architecture historians Jeffrey Thorsteinson and Brennan Smith, who chronicled GBR’s history in Green Blankstein Russell: An Architectural Legacy, and the work done by the Winnipeg Architecture Foundation to preserve and promote architecture in the city.8 Noteworthy is also the text by Annmarie Adams and Peta Tancred, “Designing Women”: Gender and the Architectural Profession, which was the first, and remains the only, comprehensive study of its kind on Canadian women architects.9

Architecture in Winnipeg At the turn of the twentieth century, Winnipeg was one of the nation’s fastest growing cities. With this growth came an influx of new construction, standing as a testament to the city’s former title as Western Canada’s largest metropolitan area. The city’s development ended abruptly with the onset of World War I, the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike, and the subsequent depression of the 1930s; the city would never again regain its status as a major Canadian metropolitan center. However, with the postwar economic boom, Winnipeg’s cityscape would once again be altered by the development of a distinctively modernist architectural landscape. This regional modernism, according to the architectural historian Kelly Crossman, was not a generic replication of modernist ideals but was instead 266

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an architecture that “could connect with the culture and context of their own place.”10 As argued by the art historian Serena Keshavjee, the result left Winnipeg with “one of the richest stocks of Modernist architecture in Canada.”11 The School of Architecture at the University of Manitoba, the second of its kind in Canada and the first west of Toronto, played an important role in the developments of the city’s architectural landscape. The first director of the school, Arthur Stoughton, was an American, as were his successors Milton Osborne and John Russell. When Osborne came to the University of Manitoba, he brought with him a Beaux-Arts training that ultimately influenced the pedagogy of the school. However, Thorsteinson argued that Osborne had developed an interest in modernism during his tenure.12 By 1945, Russell had taken over as director, and his leadership has been identified as a turning point for the school.13 This shift resulted in a curriculum that embraced modernist architecture of the Bauhaus and the International Style. Russell encouraged his students to further their studies outside of Canada, and many graduates went on to enroll at the Illinois Institute of Technology under Ludwig Mies van der Rohe or at Harvard University under Walter Gropius before returning to Winnipeg to practice.14 That was arguably still a unique phenomenon in Canada, where, at the time, the alumnae of other architecture programs in the country were encouraged to enter the workforce.15 The School of Architecture at the University of Manitoba was remarkable for a very important historical reason—its women students. Between 1920 and 1960 the school produced the highest numbers of women graduates who took faculty positions or became registered architects, totaling one-third of the Canadian-educated women registrants of the time.16 In 1938, Joan Harland (1914–2016), a recent graduate of the program, was hired after she was unable to find employment at an architectural firm.17 She developed the first course of study and later the first diploma course in interior design at the school, trailblazing the new approach in the country.18 Despite these achievements, the architect Blanche Lemco van Ginkel (b. 1923) has argued that “women entered the profession of architecture in Canada very slowly and with great difficulty” and that the resistance to women’s employment in the field “was both overt and covert.”19 In 1960, women made up 1.2 percent of registered architects in the country, the number only climbing to 6.6  percent by 1980.20 It was only 1944 when Elizabeth M. Lord (born Crawford, 1918–1994) became the first woman to register as an architect in Manitoba.

The Women of GBR Easton Lexier, who worked as an engineer at GBR between 1947 and 1997, referred to the firm as a family and the workplace culture as “challenging and caring.”21 This caring attitude was reflected in GBR’s hiring practices. Brennan Smith noted that in the 1940s, several Jewish architects and engineers were employed by the firm. In the postwar period, GBR continued diverse hiring practices by employing professionals from around the world—from Eastern Europe, Australia, and Japan—who brought with them different experiences and new approaches to design.22 Another testament to diversity was informed by the number of women on staff and the positions they held at GBR. In the mid-1940s GBR hired interior designer Marjorie Mutch, who had graduated from the interior decorating program at the University of Manitoba in 1944 and, during her studies, was awarded the Hudson’s Bay and the Milton S. Osborne bursaries. When interviewed by the local press about her position at GBR, Mutch stated that her work was quite different from “decorating”: My work on a job just starts with measuring the premises, if it is to be a remodeling job, then making rough sketches for my plans and finally drawing up plans for the contractors when sketches are approved. I also choose the color schemes, materials and some furnishings and check the builders’ and painters’ work as the job progresses.23 267

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During her time at GBR, Mutch worked on a wide variety of projects, from theaters and beauty parlors to offices and private residences. She believed that modern designs “are the only truthful expression of our times,” a philosophy enthusiastically embraced by her colleagues at GBR.24 Retaining an interior designer on staff was not a one-off occurrence at GBR. In the early 1960s, the firm hired Margaret Stinson (b. 1939), another graduate of the University of Manitoba interior decorating program. Stinson was tasked with designing the interior furnishings for an important commission—the new Winnipeg Civic Centre. A few weeks before the building was set to open, the Winnipeg Free Press published an article revealing a detailed description of the interior. Stinson describes her work in progress and how she worked closely with the architects and designers to ensure the integrative nature of the interior structure and the decoration. The use of Tyndall stone, a material native to Manitoba, featured on both the building’s exterior and interior walls and complemented with wood paneling and terrazzo marble flooring, was illuminated as a positive critical feature. The efforts to source furnishings locally, including teak wood chairs upholstered in gold- and rust-toned plastic and ashtrays designed by the local artist Jack Sures, were further celebrated elements of the building’s interior. The article of the regional press concluded by evaluating the interior atmosphere as “timeless.”25 Over the years, GBR employed many interior designers, several of them women who, like Stinson, worked on some of the company’s most significant projects. This was notable for a firm so

Figure 20.2 Alderman’s Lounge, Winnipeg Civic Centre, Canada, 1964, architecture firm Green Blankstein Russell and Associates. Source: Henry Kalen, 1964. Credit: University of Manitoba Archives & Special Collections, Henry Kalen fonds (PC 219, A2005–100). Box 4, Folder 28, Item 3.

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deeply grounded in modernist ideals. British academic writer Penny Sparke argued: “The very concept of design, defined within modernism as a process determining the nature and forms of buildings and goods, grew out of [a] stereotypically masculine culture.”26 Taste, in sharp contrast with design, became inextricably linked with the “irrational” feminine and, by extension, with decoration and consumption.27 However, it was apparent that GBR greatly valued the work of women interior designers, acknowledging that their contributions were imperative to the overall design of a building.

Elizabeth M. Pilcher: “The Best Procurable” GBR had women architects on staff from the mid-1930s; one of the first of them was Evelyn Blankstein (1913–2001), the sister of one of the founders of the prominent office. She started working at GBR after obtaining her bachelor of architecture degree from the University of Manitoba in 1935.28 Another early professional woman employed by GBR was Patricia Kettner, who began working at the firm in 1948 after her graduation from the University of Manitoba. There were several other women who worked at GBR, and, similarly, the majority of them studied interior design or architecture locally. An exception was Elizabeth M. Pilcher, who was hired by GBR to head their planning department. Pilcher was born on August 29, 1920, to an affluent family in Australia and attended Frensham boarding school before beginning her studies at the University of Sydney in 1938. In 1942, Pilcher paused her studies as a result of being recruited as a draftsman by the United States government to the Army Service of Supply. Pilcher returned to the University of Sydney in 1944, ultimately graduating with a bachelor of architecture degree in 1945. A reference to Pilcher’s early career can be found in the archives of the oldest continuously published newspaper in Australia, the Sydney Morning Herald, which identified her as both an architect and an artist who was enlisted in 1946 to design and paint a mural on a wall of the HMS. Vindex in preparation for its farewell party. According to the newspaper’s critique, she completed the project “10 minutes before the party began.”29 Other work undertaken by Pilcher in New South Wales includes a two-and-a-half-year position with the Cumberland County Council—“the overall planning board for the metropolitan area of Sydney”—and her offering of planning expertise to municipalities that could not afford to retain their own planners.30 Pilcher is also documented to have worked for the Australian architectural office Stephenson & Turner, but the exact date of her tenure with the firm is unclear—she may have been practicing there before or after her studies abroad.31 On August 31, 1947, Pilcher took the flight from Sydney to San Francisco, eventually arriving in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to study architecture at Harvard University as a “special student” under professorship of Walter Gropius.32 Shortly thereafter, following brief employment in Boston and Montreal, she resettled to London, England, and worked at the London County Council on the design of the Festival Hall. She later moved to Edinburgh to complete a two-year graduate degree in town planning at the Edinburgh College of Art.33 Pilcher then worked and traveled before returning to Australia where she continued practicing architecture in Sydney, but she became frustrated when her gender “was constantly getting in the way” of securing an advanced position in town planning.34 It was reported by the Winnipeg Free Press that Pilcher received a call from Cecil Blankstein while she was writing a letter of inquiry to her friend David Buchanan about seeking employment in city planning.35 Pilcher accepted Blankstein’s offer of employment and arrived in Winnipeg in December 1958. Coinciding with Pilcher’s arrival, GBR released the first of several company newsletters. Of the eight-page document, an entire page was dedicated to the Australian architect. This report, titled Best Procurable, demonstrates that the principals of GBR were eager to have Pilcher as part of their team. The report introduces Pilcher as “quick moving, quick witted, [and] quick with an engaging smile,” but it is immediately clear that 269

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the firm was impressed with Pilcher’s education and experience, expressing satisfaction that she had trained and worked all over the world. The newsletter narrates that Pilcher has already become “one of the most active members of that teaming, hustling world which is GBR” and that “late evenings and Sundays will find her at her drawing board deep in calculation and bold plans.”36 At the time of her arrival, GBR had just started planning Winnipeg’s new International Air Terminal, and Pilcher was recruited to work on the high-profile project. The terminal, commissioned by the Canadian Department of Transportation, was one of eight major terminals being built in the country. The project, under the leadership of designers Bernard Brown and David Thordarson, included the construction of the main terminal, a power station, and a dispatch control complex. Brown declared that GBR aimed to create a “calm environment to counteract the rush of travel.”37 Pilcher worked in collaboration with engineers Skapti Borgford and Art Piercy on the “coordination of planning, drainage, engineering conception and town planning aspects.”38 The inauguration of the airport in 1963 was broadly illuminated by the press, including an article in the Winnipeg Tribune praising it as “a tonic for anyone who sweeps in across the prairie,” providing “an atmosphere of being built for people, an elementary concept often forgotten by those who plan public buildings.”39 An early 1958 drawing of the airport, developed by Brown, depicts a playful approach influenced by the organic designs of architect Frank Lloyd Wright.40 The final scheme, drawn by Brown in 1960, evidenced a radical change in both the planning and structural design of the airport, reflecting on the shift toward a minimalist, Miesian utilitarian agenda. As opposed to the sentient shapes of the earlier drawing, the ultimate design favored plain rectilinear forms. The three buildings were logistically laid out from left to right, from the arrival and departure lounges, to the concourse

Figure 20.3 Elizabeth Pilcher working at the GBR offices. Photograph, c. 1960. Source: GBR Collection, Winnipeg Architecture Foundation.

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edifice, and finally the administration building. This plan ensured smooth and easy passage between the structures. The lounges, separated by two courtyards, were connected through three walkways to the concourse building that, in turn, were connected to the administration building by a skywalk.41 Pilcher was tasked with designing the approach to the airport and had to ensure the heave of two thousand cars per hour.42 While Brown’s 1960 drawing depicted an attention to the overall planning of the airport, including vehicular traffic, Pilcher, as an architect and planner, was particularly concerned with “convenient, fast, and safe lines of communications between home and place of work” and was paying close attention to sustaining the easy flow of travelers.43 The Winnipeg International Air Terminal with its vast glass walls and exposed steel was a vivid articulation of the International Style. However, the architects’ agenda also included the integration of novel design into the prairie landscape and thus incorporated the local material Tyndall stone. The interior furnishings complemented the modernist structure; most notable were two large-scale pieces of public abstract art by Eli Bornstein and John Graham, titled Structuralist Relief in Fifteen Parts and Northern Lights, respectively. In 2007 Bernard Flaman described the Winnipeg International Air Terminal as “spacious, sophisticated, and modern,” arguing that “it fed the romantic expectations of air travel in the early days of the jet age.”44

Figure 20.4 Interior, Winnipeg International Airport, Canada, architecture firm Green Blankstein Russell and Associates, 1964 (demolished) Source: Henry Kalen, not dated. Credit: University of Manitoba Archives & Special Collections, Henry Kalen fonds (PC 219, A2005–100), Box 4, Folder 36, Item 4.

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While in Winnipeg, Pilcher worked on a number of high-profile designs. She was assigned to research cooperative housing projects and traveled to Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Washington, DC, to study examples in preparation for a similar proposal by GBR.45 Pilcher was also involved in the design of proposed transportation routes for a new international seaport in Duluth, Minnesota. In addition to her involvement in the planning and design of GBR’s projects, Pilcher represented the firm across the continent—she attended the annual convention of the Community Planning Association as well the annual convention of the American Society of Planning Officials and the International Federation of Housing and Planning in 1960.46 Pilcher left Winnipeg in the early 1960s, and in 1963 she moved to Chicago, where she worked as the assistant director of the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago and participated in the research and design of schools and Jewish community centers.47 A year later, Pilcher relocated to Kingston, Jamaica, with her new husband Joe Causwell and worked there as a city planner for the government until 1980. Her name was reported among six women architects practicing in Jamaica in 1974.48

Conclusion GBR, founded by Cecil Blankstein, Lawrence Green, and Leslie Russell in the early 1930s, embraced a diversity of voices at their offices. Evidence indicates that GBR took pride in the distinct office culture at the firm. In oral histories conducted and held by the Winnipeg Architecture Foundation, both men and women architects and interior designers reflected positively when asked about their time with the firm. The most successful and productive time for GBR, as proved by the researched chronicles, was the postwar era. To reiterate the statements generated by architectural historians Thorsteinson, Keshavjee, and Crossman, GBR has contributed to the exemplary stock of architecture in Winnipeg, leaving the city with some of the best examples of modernist architecture in Canada. Among the great variety of factors that influenced the designs produced by GBR were the collaborative efforts and talent of professional men and women in equal standing. The case of the Australian architect and city planner Elizabeth M. Pilcher, who headed the firm’s planning department during this critical postwar period, is only one example of such efforts. She made a lasting mark on the city of Winnipeg through her role at GBR, and her time at GBR speaks to the firm’s design philosophy that was far ahead of the time. GBR’s articulation of modernism embraced collaboration, significantly fostering and advancing the success of the firm and the historical recognition of the importance and values of their architectural practices, both nationally and globally.

Notes 1. This chapter is informed by my MA thesis, “The Elizabeths: Gender, Modernism, and Winnipeg’s Built Environment, 1945–1975” (2019). I would like to extend my deepest thanks to Dr. Cynthia Hammond, my supervisor, for her patient and thoughtful guidance, to Dr. Serena Keshavjee for her continued mentorship, and to Susan Algie for sparking my interest in architecture and supporting my work. 2. A correspondence written by Easton Lexier, who worked at GBR for fifty years as an engineer, describes Mutch as “the first interior designer to be retained on staff by an architectural firm (GBR) anywhere in the West and probably all of Canada”; see: “Marjorie Mutch,” Vertical Files, Winnipeg Architecture Foundation (Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada). However, an article published in 1947 reports that Mutch was the second woman to be hired by an architectural firm in Manitoba: “Professional Decorator’s Work Is Satisfying and Exciting—Says Miss Marjorie Mutch,” The Winnipeg Tribune, August 7, 1947. 3. Green Blankstein Russell Newsletter 1, no. 1 (1959).

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Women’s Contributions to Manitoba 4. Herbert Moody and Ralph Ham were also early partners of the firm; however, Ham died in 1942, and Moody departed to establish his own firm. Jeffrey Thorsteinson and Brennan Smith, Green Blankstein Russell: An Architectural Legacy (Winnipeg: Winnipeg Architecture Foundation, 2017). 5. Eric R. Arthur, “The National Gallery of Canada Competition,” Journal of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada 31, no. 4 (1954): 108. The project for a new National Gallery in Canada was never realized, however GBR was subsequently hired to design a temporary space for the gallery within a new office building. Thorsteinson and Smith, 86. 6. Report on the Competition: A City Hall for Winnipeg (1959). Vertical Files, Winnipeg Architecture Foundation. 7. Thorsteinson and Smith, Green Blankstein Russell, 1. 8. Ibid. 9. Annmarie Adams and Peta Tancred, “Designing Women”: Gender and the Architectural Profession (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000). 10. Kelly Crossman, “North by Northwest: Manitoba Modernism, c. 1950,” JSSAC 24, no. 2 (1991): 61–69. 11. Serena Keshavjee, “Modified Modernism,” in Winnipeg Modern: Architecture, 1945–1975, ed. Serena Keshavjee (Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 2006), 3–28. 12. Jeffrey Thorsteinson, “A Forgotten Figure: Milton S. Osborne and the History of Modern Architecture in Manitoba,” paper presented at the 45th Annual Conference of the Society for the Study of Architecture in Canada, Halifax, Canada, May 28–31, 2019. 13. Kelly Crossman, “The Meaning of White,” in Winnipeg Modern: Architecture, 1945–1975, ed. Serena Keshavjee (Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 2006), 131–52. 14. While several did return, some notable architects including Harry Seidler, one of Australia’s most celebrated modernists, who left Winnipeg, established successful practices elsewhere. 15. Crossman, “North by Northwest,” 62. 16. Adams and Tancred, “Designing Women,” 16. 17. Harland was told that her experience would make her a good secretary; see: Oral History Collection, Winnipeg Architecture Foundation. 18. Adams and Tancred, “Designing Women,” 18–19, 55. 19. Blanche Lemco van Ginkel, “Slowly and Surely (but Somewhat Painfully) More or Less the History of Women in Architecture in Canada,” SAAC Bulletin (March 1991): 6, 8. 20. Ibid., 10. 21. Thorsteinson and Smith, Green Blankstein Russell, vii. 22. Ibid., 15–23. 23. “Winnipeg Girl Holds Unique Post as Interior Designer,” Winnipeg Free Press, January 26, 1946. 24. Ibid. 25. “Warm and Dignity Too in City Hall Showpiece,” Winnipeg Free Press, September 22, 1964. 26. Penny Sparke, As Long as It’s Pink: The Sexual Politics of Taste (London: Pandora, 1994). 27. Penny Sparke, “Taste and the Interior Designer,” in After Taste: Expanded Practice in Interior Design, ed. Kent Klinman, Joana Merwood-Salisbury, and Lois Weinthal (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2012), 14–27. 28. Evelyn Blankstein worked at GBR only briefly before taking a position at Hobbs Glass. She was the second woman to graduate with a BArch from the University of Manitoba. The first was Sadie Ethelyn Wallace, who graduated in 1932. Brown and Gold Yearbooks collection, University of Manitoba Archives and Special Collections (Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada). 29. “Ship’s Officers Entertain,” Sydney Morning Herald, April 23, 1946. 30. “Architect Sees Scope for Planning,” Winnipeg Free Press, January 1, 1959. 31. Reference in Bronwyn J. Hanna, “Absence and Presence: A Historiography of Early Women Architects in New South Wales” (PhD diss., University of New South Wales, Kensington, Australia, 1999), 136, note 16. 32. Elizabeth Pilcher, Vertical Files, Winnipeg Architecture Foundation (Winnipeg, Manitoba). Also: “She Left Because She Was a Woman,” The Sun-Herald, October 23, 1962. 33. “Architect Likes Winnipeg Spaciousness,” The Winnipeg Tribune, February 6, 1959. 34. “She Left,” Sun-Herald. 35. “Architect Likes Winnipeg,” Winnipeg Tribune. 36. Green Blankstein Russell Newsletter 1, no. 1 (1959). 37. Thorsteinson and Smith, 115. 38. Green Blankstein Russell Newsletter 1. Eleanor Brown and Diana Chan, both architecture graduates from the University of Manitoba, also worked on this project. 39. “Most Exciting Building in Town,” The Winnipeg Tribune, November 21, 1963.

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Marieke Gruwel 40. Bernard Flaman, “The Winnipeg Airport: Modernism, Culture, and the Romance of Air Travel,” in Winnipeg Modern: Architecture, 1945–1975, ed. Serena Keshavjee (Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 2006), 183–200. 41. Incorporation of skywalks was relatively new in Winnipeg—in 1957 only the Eaton’s building designed by local architect John Woodman connected its parking garage to the inbuilt store with a skywalk. Office buildings in downtown Winnipeg did not use the skywalk approach until the late 1960s; the Winnipeg skywalk system was officially established in 1988. 42. “Architect Likes Winnipeg,” Winnipeg Tribune. 43. Green Blankstein Russell Newsletter 1. 44. Flaman, “The Winnipeg Airport,” 183. Despite its significance as an outstanding example of the International Style on the prairies, the structure was demolished in 2011. 45. “Social Notes,” The Winnipeg Tribune, May 28, 1960. 46. Ibid. 47. “She Left,” Sun-Herald. 48. “Personal Mentions: Female Architects,” The Daily Gleaner, May 31, 1974.

Bibliography Adams, Annmarie, and Peta Tancred. “Designing Women”: Gender and the Architectural Profession. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000. “Architect Likes Winnipeg Spaciousness.” The Winnipeg Tribune, February 6, 1959. “Architect Sees Scope for Planning.” Winnipeg Free Press, January 1, 1959. Arthur, Eric R. “The National Gallery of Canada Competition.” Journal of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada 31, no. 4 (1954): 104–17. Brown and Gold Yearbooks collection. University of Manitoba Archives and Special Collections. Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Crossman, Kelly. “North by Northwest: Manitoba Modernism, c. 1950.” JSSAC 24, no. 2 (1991): 61–69. Crossman, Kelly. “The Meaning of White.” In Winnipeg Modern: Architecture, 1945–1975, edited by Serena Keshavjee, 131–52. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 2006. “Elizabeth Pilcher.” Vertical Files. Winnipeg Architecture Foundation, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Flaman, Bernard. “The Winnipeg Airport: Modernism, Culture, and the Romance of Air Travel.” In Winnipeg Modern: Architecture, 1945–1975, edited by Serena Keshavjee, 183–200. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 2006. Ginkel, Blanche Lemco van. “Slowly and Surely (but Somewhat Painfully) More or Less the History of Women in Architecture in Canada.” SAAC Bulletin (March 1991): 5–11 “Green Blankstein Russell.” Canadian Architect 5, no. 6 (1960): 68–74. Green Blankstein Russell Newsletter. Green Blankstein Russell fonds. Winnipeg Architecture Foundation, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Hanna, Bronwyn J. “Absence and Presence: A  Historiography of Early Women Architects in New South Wales.” PhD diss., University of New South Wales, Kensington, Australia, 1999. Keshavjee, Serena. “Modified Modernism.” In Winnipeg Modern: Architecture, 1945–1975, edited by Serena Keshavjee, 3–28. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 2006. “Marjorie Mutch.” Vertical Files. Winnipeg Architecture Foundation, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. “Most Exciting Building in Town.” The Winnipeg Tribune, November 21, 1963. “Personal Mentions: Female Architects.” The Daily Gleaner, May 31, 1974. “Professional Decorator’s Work Is Satisfying and Exciting—Says Miss Marjorie Mutch.” The Winnipeg Tribune, August 7, 1947. Report on the Competition: A City Hall for Winnipeg. 1959. Vertical Files. Winnipeg Architecture Foundation, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. “She Left Because She Was a Woman.” The Sun-Herald, October 28, 1962. “Ship’s Officers Entertain.” Sydney Morning Herald, April 23, 1946. “Social Notes.” The Winnipeg Tribune, May 28, 1960. Sparke, Penny. As Long as It’s Pink: The Sexual Politics of Taste. London: Pandora, 1994. Sparke, Penny. “Taste and the Interior Designer.” In After Taste: Expanded Practice in Interior Design, edited by Penny Sparke, Kent Klinman, Joana Merwood-Salisbury, and Lois Weinthal, 14–27. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2012.

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Women’s Contributions to Manitoba Thorsteinson, Jeffrey. “A  Forgotten Figure: Milton S. Osborne and the History of Modern Architecture in Manitoba.” Paper presented at the 45th Annual Conference of the Society for the Study of Architecture in Canada, Halifax, Canada, May 28–31, 2019. Thorsteinson, Jeffrey, and Brennan Smith. Green Blankstein Russell: An Architectural Legacy. Winnipeg: Winnipeg Architecture Foundation, 2017. “Warm and Dignity Too in City Hall Showpiece.” Winnipeg Free Press, September 22, 1964. “Winnipeg Girl Holds Unique Post as Interior Designer.” Winnipeg Free Press, January 26, 1946.

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21 UNCOVERING HER ARCHIVE Ayla Karacabey in Postwar Architecture Meral Ekincioglu

Introduction Women architects from the Republic of Turkey began to challenge the conventional boundaries of nation-state ideology and to tear down gender-based barriers in their fields in the mid-twentieth century.1 However, architectural historians still concentrate on women’s careers in the national territory and focus on the areas considered acceptable for women architects, such as housing, interior design, and domestic architecture.2 As a secular state established under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in 1923, Turkey introduced modern ideas and transformed the status of women in one of the patriarchal and ­Muslim-majority societies in the Middle East. Such reforms provided a strong impetus for architecture students and women practitioners since the early 1930s, and in the 1940s an opportunity opened to pursue international careers abroad. The United States, in particular, was one of the primary destinations due to evolving economic and political relations between the two countries and the internationalization of Turkish architectural culture around those years. This international interaction  had an  impact on those women architects who aimed to overcome traditional gender politics. While most of the early Turkish professional women worked for governmental agencies, in the public sector, or as partners with their architect husbands under the patriarchy of the profession in their homeland, women emigrating from Turkey to the US integrated their backgrounds into the modern and highly competitive architecture world and pursued diverse career paths by pushing their personal and professional limits.

Ayla Karacabey: A Turkish Architect Beyond Nation-State Ideology Among prominent Turkish women architects who studied and worked in the United States in the postwar period, such as Celile Berk, Nezahat Suguder Arikoglu, Meral Iskir, Aliye Pekin Celik, Beyhan Karahan, Reyhan Tansal Larimer, and Nuray Anahtar, Ayla Karacabey (1939–2012) stands out as one of the key figures who succeeded in the architectural world of American mid-century modernism.3 She obtained her degree in Urban Design at Harvard Graduate School of Design, and in 1960s and 1970s she pursued a professional career, with international projects in the US, Europe, and Turkey.4 Karacabey received her Bachelor of Science degree with honors from the American College for Girls in Istanbul in 1954.5 She belongs to a generation of Turkish women who found educational 276

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Figure 21.1  Ayla Karacabey. Graduation photograph, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY, 1956. Source: Tuba Cerence Archive, Istanbul, Turkey.

opportunities with an international multicultural feminist consciousness challenging the dominant nation-oriented patriarchic tradition of the educational system in the country around those years. Reflecting on the long-lasting collaboration between the US and Turkey in education, the college curriculum granted Karacabey the opportunity to take courses in American literature, English composition, and German in addition to core Turkish courses on geography, physics, geology, mathematics, biology, economics, and sociology.6 These formative years seemed to encourage her to continue professional studies in America. With her expanded background, she received admittance to study at Vassar College, one of the oldest American liberal arts educational centers for women, and obtained her bachelor of arts degree in art history in 1956.7 In her early days in the US she apparently struggled with misconceptions about her home country and the modern status of Turkish women while trying to adapt to the new culture, ideas, educational system, and people. In her article, “Turkish Republic Bridges East, West: Near-East Country Is Strategic Ally” published in Vassar Miscellany News on October 6, 1954, Karacabey pushed back on stereotypes: I have answered various questions about the number of wives my father has, whether it was hard for me to change from Arabic characters to Latin characters, and whether I wore the same clothes in Turkey. … We finally succeeded in establishing a republic in 1923 in place of the sultan. … Women were allowed to cast off their cocoon, literally, and given the same rights as men. In today’s Turkey, polygamy is against the law although our religion, Islam, permits it. Turkish women can now vote, and there are several women deputies in our National Assembly. … I think you now see that we are not very different from you.8 The courses she took at Vassar College not only introduced her to architectural design and art history but also prepared her to take the next step in her education. After graduation, she enrolled 277

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at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design in 1956 and received her Master of Architecture in Urban Design degree in 1960. Gradually, her professional interests shifted away from the preferences of her contemporaries in Turkey. While she was developing a collaborative approach to architecture and city planning, a military coup of 1960 in her homeland marked a critical threshold which radically politicized the social atmosphere. As a result, the majority of Turkish architects and city planners had to deal with land speculations, squatter settlements on the outskirts of big cities, and the negative impact of the socioeconomic system on the politics of the built environment.9 The 1960s witnessed an increasing integration of American women into the traditionally maledominated architectural education system and a reorganization of educational patterns of the discipline. Within this changing environment, Karacabey became an active international students’ representative in debates around problems they encountered in the country. Her talk at the annual conference of the American Friends of the Middle East, “America and the Middle East: A Glimpse into the Future,” reveals the role she played in articulating critical experiences of ethnic minorities within the diverse context of American education in the 1950s. According to this organization’s 1956–1957 annual report, she was among three students’ representatives there who, in the presence of lead diplomats from eleven Middle East countries, discussed critical challenges of their practical integration into American society and the educational system.10 During her years at the Harvard University GSD, the school entrenched a new educational agenda of Dean Josep Lluis Sert (1953–1969), shifting toward a modernist focus on human habitat with an emphasis on collaborative teamwork. Following his criticism on the lack of amalgamation of architecture, landscape architecture, and city planning, in his lecture at the AIA Mid-Atlantic Regional Conference (October 23, 1953), the term “urban design” appeared for the first time in the Harvard GSD’s 1954–1955 curriculum, and the first urban design conference was held at the university in April 1957.11 Not surprisingly, Karacabey’s article, published by the Alumnae and Alumni of Vassar College Bulletin on September 10, 1961, reveals how his vision to connect architecture with urban design and urban planning affected her approach to her career: Teaching architectural history and design has provided me with one of the major challenges of my professional life. The complexities of a social fabric which form a base for my area of specialization, public housing, have always fascinated me. Being keenly aware of the lack of communication between the fields of urban design and urban planning, I went into the field of planning as an extra discipline, while working as an architect.12

Professional Life With her impressive educational background, Karacabey went on to work at Marcel Breuer Associates as a designer from 1960 to 1962, at Edward L. Barnes Associates as a project architect from 1962 to 1967, and at the Architects Design Group of New York as an associate architect from 1967 to 1968. In 1968 she established her own practice.13 In this chapter, by emphasizing three significant examples, I investigate her accomplishments in architecture, urban design, and planning in the United States, Turkey, and Europe. Marcel Breuer (1902–1981), a Hungarian-born architect, Bauhaus émigré, and teacher at the Harvard University GSD (1937–1946), can be seen as her role model. In particular, his high profile and international professional practice, along with his regional design vernacular with modernist vocabulary, influenced her development.14 Breuer’s work at Vassar was supported by Sarah Gibson, the college’s first woman president.15 Working with him, Karacabey’s vision began to mature as she absorbed regionalist ideas, European modernism, and a Bauhaus discipline as an antithesis to the reductivist paradigm and formalism. Based on her resume at the Archive of the American Institute of Architects, it appears that during her formative years, Flaine, a ski resort in Chamonix, France, 278

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designed by Marcel Breuer and Associates in 1962, was an early example that deepened her design thinking with regional values and local sensitivities. In this project Breuer integrated building blocks into the valley and secured transit arteries without crossing the paths of pedestrians and skiers.16 For Breuer, the natural surroundings and the topography of the mountain determined the balance between integration and functional solution; therefore, most of the tourist units were located in the upper terrace, whereas pedestrian shopping areas were located in the lower part of the site, preserving open views. While working at male-owned firms, many women architects of her generation lost their individual voices. Karacabey in her article “A  Few Thoughts on the Sixth Dimension” published in Robert College Bulletin in 1961, outlined her environmental and professional concerns and her future direction: In our world characterized by physical chaos under an industrial straight-jacket, it appears that very few people are willing to make the commitment of acting upon their environment. Therefore, the great gap in communication between the artist and the public becomes a greater detriment in the case of the architect.17 One of the early architectural projects designed by her own firm, the Student Union for the University of Florida, in 1968, reveals the approach to synthesis of functional aesthetic simplicity and community values. It provides evidence not only of her modernist thinking, but of the undeniable

Figure 21.2 Flaine, ski resort town, Chamonix, France, architect Marcel Breuer and Associates, 1962. Site plan. Source: IAWA, Special Collections, University Libraries, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

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influence of Marcel Breuer’s designs, in particular of his Ferry House designed for Vassar College (1950), with its bold rectilinear volumes pivoting from each other and thus creating communal spaces inside and outside the structure. Karacabey’s designs were based on the rational and simple functionality of the central courtyard, which unifies the upper spaces and extends into the semi-leveled terraces for communal ­activities. Her project included a cafeteria and a multipurpose room for lectures and social activities and was characterized by a repetitive pattern conveying modernist aesthetics.18 A compositionally fragmented façade vocabulary bares a clear articulation of planes and volumes. Windows and balconies were carefully positioned and designed according to visual discipline; the building’s surface exposes an expressive textural language through modular design. Openings allowed a controlled entry of light into interior spaces, and the roof garden ensured connections to landscape sensibly expressing environmental concerns. With this project, Karacabey demonstrated how her Harvard University background and her professional experience at Breuer’s office conditioned her work. In 1969, her participation in an international urban design and regional planning competition exemplified her ambition to apply education she obtained in the United States to urban design in a historically specific context of Turkey. This project also reveals how she operated within a male-dominated discipline. In collaboration with her male colleagues, Bulent Kastarlak (METU, MIT), Doruk Pamir (METU, MIT), Fahrettin Ayanlar (METU), and Nuri Akioglu (Pratt

Figure 21.3 The Student Union for the University of Florida, architect Ayla Karacabey, 1968. Floor plan. Source: IAWA, Special Collections, University Libraries, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

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Figure 21.4 Competition entry: new masterplan, side, Hellenistic town, Turkey, 1969, design team: Nuri ­Akioglu, Fahrettin Ayanlar, Ayla Karacabey, Bulent Kastarlak, and Doruk Pamir. Source: IAWA, Special Collections, University Libraries, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

University), she designed a new resort for twelve thousand people in Side, a Hellenistic town on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey. For the first time, the agenda of a design competition in Turkey was developed in collaboration with the International Union of Architects.19 Of the 171 projects that were submitted, the proposal designed by Karacabey with her colleagues was selected among the top ten prize winners. According to the statement issued by the competition jury, the architectural ideas and general structure of that project were considered vital to the success of the proposed design.20 Karacabey and her team proposed the notion of three separate villages designed to expand over time. Side, the town in Turkey founded in seventh-century BCE by Greek colonizers, is one of the important archaeological sites in the country. Now a modern tourist destination, the challenge was themed as “humanizing architecture and city planning” by considering history and tourism in a positive perspective, with care for the natural environment.21 The team retained modernist appeal without losing a connection to the culture and history of the site. Their design entry unveiled the idea of architecture inspired by the urban environment relevant to the human scale and showed their sensitivity to historical roots. Karacabey’s project—the 1973 “Esmeralda Resort Condominiums,” a resort village for an international client, located on thirty-five sloping acres in Marbella along the southern coast of Spain—demonstrates the synthesis of architecture and town planning principles derived from the ratio of topography, the modular system, and local vocabulary. This project was designed and developed by her own firm; as the chief planner and designer she worked in collaboration with Eugenio Vargas, associate architect, and engineering consultants Joseph Biren and Xavier Berger. The firm designed 250 units for an American-Spanish developer with real estate centers in four 281

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Figure 21.5 Esmeralda Resort Condominiums, Marbella, Spain, chief designer and planner Ayla Karacabey, associate architect Eugenio Vargas, 1973. Site plan. Source: IAWA, Special Collections, University Libraries, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

countries. As project drawings show, the painterly properties of the locale with Mediterranean views provided primary considerations for planning and design. The topography helped to determine the criteria of the project, planned with units set on top of each other, with the roof of one unit becoming the patio of the other, and with public areas as buffer zones, including parking lots and service roads on the flat part of the site. For the housing blocks, she developed a clearly defined modular rationale reflecting on the client’s commercial ambitions. With a variety of combinations, the building blocks were grouped in clusters, interwoven with green spaces, recreational areas, and pedestrian roads. Each cluster could be reduced, enlarged, and organized according to a predetermined pattern. Local construction methods and materials reflected on the identity of the region, including unskilled labor and a low construction budget. Under these circumstances, units were designed without elevators; types of tiled roofs stemmed from the local tradition of building a supporting thrust of the main beam over bedrooms and living and dining areas and corner fireplaces. Additional features—tiled patios, stuccoed walls, corner fireplaces, built-in furniture, arches, exterior staircases as gathering places, balconies, and outdoor grills of the lower level—fashioned attractive design elements of the project.22 Karacabey’s unique background, study at Harvard University led by Josep Lluis Sert, and her work in Breuer’s studio equipped her with the sense of modernism amalgamated by tradition and of urban planning relevant to local environment and the human scale.

Broader Historiographic Context The dominant mode of historical inquiry about Turkish architects has adhered closely to the stubborn mechanisms and networks of masculine power, and rarely does it incorporate debate on gender in reference to women as the producers of architectural ideas and practice. Moreover, the focus of historical and historiographic studies narrating Turkish architects of the postwar period secures multiple perspectives on their international practices. Yet Turkish women architects are still largely invisible in the extensive studies of post–World War II modernism.23 It is a challenging effort to dismantle 282

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masculine power mechanisms and complex networks organized around the traditional concept of male genius in architectural history writing and architectural design practice, yet gradually scholarly interests have shifted toward investigations into social context and collaborative understanding.24 For instance, the Tekeli–Sisa Architecture Partnership, a well-known architecture office in Istanbul, Turkey (1954–present), can be regarded as one of the remarkable examples of this dynamic: under the masculine authority of Dogan Tekeli, a founding partner of the office, until recently it has been impossible to hear the voices of other males and, in particular, of the woman partner in their practice.25 In the United States, due to growing diversity in recent times, there is an urgent need for a broader understanding of gender and its intersectionality with race, ethnicity, religion, and other categories of identity.26 Although a culture of equity, diversity, and inclusion within the profession is essential to the mission of the American Institute of Architects, according to the recent report, gender and race are still obstacles for career advancement, women still think that there is no gender equity in the profession, and they are less likely to be promoted to senior positions or receive job offers after graduating from architecture schools.27 In architectural history, inclusion is yet another big issue to address, and there is much to do to depose canonical values of the established Western perspective.28 While there is an apparent shift to promote scholarly inquiries on women and minorities, multicultural understanding is only focused on the inclusion of outstanding minorities into the historical canon.29

Conclusion Taking advantage of international opportunities during the postwar period in Turkey, Ayla Karacabey attained education and built a professional career of a new Turkish woman architect. Instead of following traditional masculine trajectories in education, or practicing architecture under the control of state bureaucrats who mostly propagated nationalism, she set sail to the US and situated her international career in architecture and urban design, inspired by pioneering professors and design practitioners. Rather than becoming absorbed by a male-dominated career environment, she challenged it in order to set ahead the tone of her design vocabulary, synthetic thinking, urban design, and town planning. Instead of becoming a woman architect to complement great men’s works, or contributing to the spheres of domesticity commonly assigned to women, Karacabey celebrated a new and independent direction for the next generation of women in Turkish architecture. Her story uncovers how an immigrant woman from postwar Turkey paved a productive career path in the USA. It is important to emphasize the immigrant narratives, in particular, of women architects from Muslim or Muslimmajority countries, and the ways they identified themselves at the center of a political debate. Thus, it becomes apparent why there is an urgent need for a revision of architectural history with an emphasis on cross-cultural encounters between the United States and the modern Middle East. The contemporary architectural world has been shaped by international links, movements, and migrations. The careers of women have become an inseparable part of these interconnected territories; architecture and its history cannot be comprehended unilaterally in a single exceptional perspective. Scholarly studies on women architects create broader connections within the global framework, and their histories become imperative, calling for the multitude of a context-specific differentiated analysis.

Notes 1. A project (MIT, 1946–1947) by Celile Berk, an early woman architect who challenged nation-state ideology in Turkish architecture: Celile Berk, “A  Tuberculosis Sanatorium for Istanbul Turkey” (MA thesis, MIT, Cambridge, MA, 1947). 2. Nilufer Baturayoglu  Yoney  and Burak  Asiliskender, “Two Women Architects and Eight People’s House Projects: Leman Tomsu and Munevver Belen, 1934–1938,” in Women’s Creativity since the Modern Movement

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Meral Ekincioglu (1918–2018). Toward a New Perception and Reception, ed. Helena Serazin, Caterina Franchini, and Emilia Garda (Ljubljana: Zalozba ZRC, 2018), 865–73; Neslihan Turkun Dostoglu and Ozlem Erkaslan, Leman Cevat Tomsu, Turk Mimarlıgında Bir Oncu, 1913–1988. Mimarlıga Emek Verenler Dizisi (Ankara: Mimarlar Odası Yayınları, 2013); Kivanc Kilinc, “Constructing Women for the Republic: The Spatial Politics of Gender, Class, and Domesticity in Ankara, 1928–1952” (PhD diss., State University of New York at Binghamton, Binghamton, New York, 2010). 3. This study is based on the research project “Historical Recognition of Turkish Women Architects of the Postwar Generation in the US,” conducted by the author with academic support provided by the MIT History, Theory and Criticism of Architecture Program, 2014–2016. 4. According to a digital copy of her resume sent to the author in an e-letter by Nancy Hadley, Manager, Archives and Records, the American Institute of Architects, June  8, 2015, Ayla received her Master of Architecture in Urban Design degree from Harvard University in 1960. Then, according to an e-letter to the author from the Columbia University Archives, July 16, 2015, she graduated from Columbia University with a Master of Philosophy degree in Architecture, Architectural Technology, and Urban Planning on October 24, 1973. The information on her projects in the US, Europe, and Turkey is based on her project worksheets sent to the author by Marc Brodsky, Public Services and Reference Archivist at Special Collections, University Libraries, Virginia Tech, July 30, 2015. 5. Information on this degree based on the digital copy of her resume: AIA e-letter to author, June 8, 2015. 6. According to an e-letter to the author by Kathleen Giblin, Associate Registrar at Vassar College, June 23, 2015. 7. Ibid. 8. Ayla Karacabey, “French Live to Learn, While Turkish Hope to Increase Population’s Literacy,” Vassar Chronicle, January 1954, 3. 9. Broader in Sibel Bozdogan, “Turkey’s Postwar Modernism: A  Retrospective Overview of Architecture, Urbanism, and Politics in the 1950s,” in Mid-Century Modernism in Turkey: Architecture Across Cultures in the 1950s and 1960s, ed. Meltem Gurel (London and New York: Routledge, 2015), 9–26. 10. American Friends of the Middle East, Inc., Annual Report 1956–1957, 12. 11. Josep Lluís Sert, foreword by Mohsen Mostafavi, Eric Mumford, ed., The Writings of Joseph Lluis Sert (New Haven: Yale University Press and Harvard University GSD, 2015), 33–38; in particular: Richard Marshall, “Josep Lluis Sert’s Urban Design Legacy,” Ibid., 133. 12. Ayla Karacabey, “A Few Thoughts on the Sixth Dimension,” Alumni Bulletin, Robert College, February 1961. A digital copy of this article was provided in Zeynep Torkak’s e-letter to the author, July 28, 2015. 13. Ibid. 14. Barry Bergdoll, “Encountering America: Marcel Breuer and the Discourses of the Vernacular from Budapest to Boston,” in Marcel Breuer Design and Architecture, ed. Alexander Von Vegesack and Mathias Remmele (Weil am Rhein, Germany: Vitra Design Museum, 2013), 260–307; Barry Bergdoll and Jonathan Massey, eds, Marcel Breuer: Building Global Institutions (Zürich: Lars Müller Publishers, 2018). 15. “Ferry House,” Vassar Encyclopedia, EAD 2005, accessed May 4, 2020, http://vcencyclopedia.vassar.edu/ buildings-grounds/buildings/ferry-house.html. 16. Robert Gatje, Marcel Breuer: A Memoir (New York: Monacelli Press, 2000), 123. 17. Karacabey, “A Few Thoughts.” 18. Brodsky, Worksheets. 19. Turkan Uzun, “Turkiye’de Duzenlenen Uluslararasi Mimarlik Yarismalari: Tartismalar, Skandallar, Oduller,” Mimar.ist 13 (Fall 2004): 32–37. 20. The Editorial, “Side Uluslararasi Turizm Planlama Yarismasinda Derece Alan Projeler,” Arkitekt 337, no. 1 (1970): 25. 21. Brodsky, Worksheets. 22. Ibid. 23. Meltem Gurel, ed., Mid-Century Modernism in Turkey, Architecture across Cultures in the 1950s and 1960s (London: Routledge, 2015); Sibel Bozdoğan and Esra Akcan, Turkey: Modern Architectures in History (London: Reaktion Books, 2012); Ela Kacel, “Intellectualism and Consumerism: Ideologies, Practices and Criticism of Common Sense Modernism in Postwar Turkey” (PhD diss., Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, 2009); Ozlem Erkaslan, “Turkish Women Architects in the Late Ottoman and Early Republican Era, 1908–1950,” Women’s History Review 16 (August 2007): 555–75. 24. Ela Kacel, “Intellectualism and Consumerism: Ideologies, Practices and Criticism of Common-Sense Modernism in Postwar Turkey” (PhD diss, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, 2009). 25. Meral Ekincioglu, “Tekeli-Sisa Architectural Practice from the 1960s to 2000: Construction of the Design Architect’s Professional Role in Modern Turkey” (PhD diss., Istanbul Technical University, Istanbul, Turkey,

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Uncovering Her Archive 2011). Although this dissertation aims to study contributions by all partners, it provides mostly with Dogan Tekeli’s perspective, lacking details on other partners: Sami Sisa, Nedim Sisa, Mehmet Emin Cakirkaya, and, especially, Dilgun Saklar, who worked at this office since 1979 and became the only woman partner in 2004. Dogan Tekeli, Mimarlik Zor Sanat (Istanbul: Yapi Kredi Yayinlari, 2012); also: http://tekelisisa.com/#ORTAKLAR. Accessed May 14, 2020. 26. A. A. Chaidez, “Female Faculty at GSD Sign Statement Against Sexual, Racial Misconduct,” Harvard Crimson, May  7, 2018, www.thecrimson.com/article/2018/5/7/gsd-female-faculty-statement; B. Willis and J. Donoho, “Beverly Willis on Sexual Misconduct in Architecture,” Architect ( June 11, 2018), www. architectmagazine.com/practice/beverly-willis-on-sexual-misconduct-in-architecture_o; for a report on growing diversity in the US architecture in 2017: National Council of Architectural Registration Boards, “NCARB by the Numbers,” www.ncarb.org/sites/default/files/2017-NCARB-by-the-Numbers.pdf. All sites accessed February 14, 2020. 27. “Diversity and Inclusion Statement” by AIA, approved December 2017 through December 31, 2020, www. aia.org/pages/15346-diversity-and-inclusion-statement; also: AIA, Diversity in the Profession of Architecture, Executive Summary, Report, Shugoll Research, 2016, 6–9, www.aia.org/resources/12416-examining-thestate-of-diversity. All sites accessed February 14, 2020. 28. Kenneth Frampton’s debate on the expansion of modern architecture history and inclusion at the Harvard University GSD, ChinaGSD Distinguished Lecture: Professor Kenneth Frampton, “Chinese Architecture,” accessed March 4, 2020, www.youtube.com/watch?v=8asbjkin-W0&t=3756s. 29. Charles Davis II, “Framing the Facts: Moving Beyond a Multicultural Survey of Architectural History” (March  7, 2013), accessed February  14, 2020, https://raceandarchitecture.com/2013/03/07/ framing-the-facts-moving-beyond-a-multicultural-survey-of-architectural-history/.

Bibliography “AIA Diversity and Inclusion Statement.” The American Institute of Architects. www.aia.org/pages/15346diversity-and-inclusion-statement. American Friends of the Middle East. Annual Report 1956–1957. Bergdoll, Barry. “Encountering America: Marcel Breuer and the Discourses of the Vernacular from Budapest to Boston.” In Marcel Breuer Design and Architecture, edited by Alexander Von Vegesack and Mathias Remmele, 260–307. Weil am Rhein, Germany: Vitra Design Museum, 2013. Bergdoll, Barry, and Jonathan Massey, eds. Marcel Breuer: Building Global Institutions. Zürich: Lars Müller Publishers, 2018. Berk, Celile. “A Tuberculosis Sanatorium for Istanbul Turkey.” MA thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, 1947. Bozdogan, Sibel. “Turkey’s Postwar Modernism: A Retrospective Overview of Architecture, Urbanism, and Politics in the 1950s.” In Mid-Century Modernism in Turkey, Architecture Across Cultures in the 1950s and 1960s, edited by Meltem Gurel, 9–26. New York and London: Routledge, 2015. Bozdogan, Sibel, and Esra Akcan. Turkey: Modern Architectures in History. London: Reaktion Books, 2012. Davis II, Charles L. “Framing the Facts: Moving Beyond a Multicultural Survey of Architectural History.” Proceedings for the 2012 ACSA International Conference. https://raceandarchitecture.com/2013/03/07/ framing-the-facts-moving-beyond-a-multicultural-survey-of-architectural-history/. “Diversity in the Profession of Architecture. Executive Summary 2016.” The American Institute of Architects. Report prepared by Shugoll Research. www.aia.org/resources/12416-examining-the-state-of-diversity. Dostoglu, Neslihan Turkun, and Ozlem Erkaslan. Leman Cevat Tomsu, Turk Mimarlıgında Bir Oncu, 1913–1988. Mimarlıga Emek Verenler Dizisi. Ankara: Mimarlar Odasi Yayinlari, 2013. Ekincioglu, Meral. “Tekeli—Sisa Architectural Practice from the 1960s to 2000: Construction of the Design. Architect’s Professional Role in Modern Turkey.” PhD diss., Istanbul Technical University, Turkey, 2011. Erdonmez, Ahmet. “A Success Story of a Turkish Woman from Bursa to the U.S. in the Republican Period [Cumhuriyet Döneminde Bursa’dan Amerika’ya bir Turk Kadininin Basari Oykusu].” Bursa City Museum, Bursa, Turkey, March—May 2016. Frampton, Kenneth. “Chinese Architecture.” Harvard University ChinaGSD Distinguished Lecture. September 23, 2016. www.youtube.com/watch?v=8asbjkin-W0&t=3756s. Gatje, Robert. Marcel Breuer: A Memoir. New York: Monacelli Press, 2000. Gurel, Meltem, ed. Mid-Century Modernism in Turkey: Architecture across Cultures in the 1950s and 1960s. New York and London: Routledge, 2015.

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Meral Ekincioglu Kacel, Ela. “Intellectualism and Consumerism: Ideologies, Practices and Criticism of Common-Sense Modernism in Postwar Turkey.” PhD diss., Cornell University, 2009. Karacabey, Ayla. “French Live to Learn, While Turkish Hope to Increase Population’s Literacy.” The Vassar Chronicle, January 1954, 3. Karacabey, Ayla. “A Few Thoughts on the Sixth Dimension.” Robert College Alumni Bulletin, February 1961. Kilinc, Kivanc. “Constructing Women for the Republic: The Spatial Politics of Gender, Class, and Domesticity in Ankara, 1928–1952.” PhD diss., State University of New York at Binghamton, 2010. Marshall, Richard. “Josep Lluis Sert’s Urban Design Legacy.” In The Writings of Joseph Llouis Sert, edited by Eric Mumford, 133. New Haven: Yale University Press, in association with the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, 2015. Mumford, Eric, ed. The Writings of Joseph Llouis Sert. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015. NCARB by the Numbers. National Council of Architectural Registration Boards, 2017. www.ncarb.org/sites/ default/files/2017-NCARB-by-the-Numbers.pdf. “Side Uluslararasi Turizm Planlama Yarismasinda Derece Alan Projeler.” The Editorial. Arkitekt 337, no. 1 (1970): 25. Tekeli, Dogan. Mimarlik Zor Sanat. Istanbul: Yapi Kredi Yayinlari, 2012. Uzun, Turkan. “Turkiye’de Duzenlenen Uluslararasi Mimarlik Yarismalari: Tartismalar, Skandallar, Oduller.” Mimar.ist 13 (Fall 2004): 32–37. Willis, Beverly, and Julia Donoho. “Beverly Willis on Sexual Misconduct in Architecture.” Architect ( June 11, 2018). www.architectmagazine.com/practice/beverly-willis-on-sexual-misconduct-in-architecture_o. Yoney, Nilufer Baturayoglu, and Burak Asiliskender. “Two Women Architects and Eight People’s House Projects: Leman Tomsu and Munevver Belen, 1934–1938.” In Women’s Creativity since the Modern Movement (1918–2018). Toward a New Perception and Reception, edited by Helena Serazin, Caterina Franchini, and Emilia Garda, 865–73. Ljubljana: Zalozba ZRC, 2018.

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22 RESTLESS Drawn by Zaha Hadid Nerma Cridge

Introduction Given Zaha Hadid’s love of twists and dynamic angles, it seems appropriate to start writing this at the end, with her premature death in 2016 and her legacy.1 The Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid (1950–2016) passed away suddenly at the age of sixty-five after a life in which, despite being the only female starchitect and even being made the Dame of the British Empire, she never felt full belonging. Hadid described her position as being on a boundary, never part of the establishment but remaining on the edge.2 Hadid died in Miami, only a short time after opening Peter Cook’s Drawing Studio in Bournemouth.3 Rumors were that she had a secret medical condition that even her family was unaware of. Hadid was not only the single female starchitect, but possibly one of the most famous women globally, yet she died surrounded by secrecy. Along with winning numerous building commissions and many awards—she won a major award every year since 2000—she was the first woman to be awarded the Pritzker and two RIBA Gold Medals, despite never officially qualifying as an architect.4 As the Dame of the British Empire, many buildings and even streets came to be named after her. She is regularly included as a role model in children’s books, especially for girls.5 All of this, however, seems to have come with a very high personal sacrifice.6 Admiration and accolades came closely followed by severe criticisms. Hadid’s sternest critics tended to dismiss her work as superficial appearance without much consideration for context, culture, or even function. Toward the end of her life she came to be criticized, even humiliated, in a way that no male starchitect was, especially in relation to her stadium design in Qatar.7 She was unjustly blamed for the treatment of construction workers on her projects and even accused of deaths that never actually occurred, most infamously by a critic in New York Review of Books.8 Her business partner and successor, Patrik Schumacher, in a keynote speech on October 4, 2016, at the World Architecture Festival in Berlin shortly after her passing, sparked a huge controversy—his presentation against social housing resulted in him being dubbed the “Donald Trump of architecture.”9 Her family and Zaha Hadid Foundation trustees distanced themselves from Schumacher, and in the 2020s, Hadid’s legacy was set to become even more controversial.10 Rather than focusing on her mega-famous persona of the latter years, the emphasis of this chapter will be on her early work, her hand drawings, relentlessly produced throughout her life, but especially so in the first part of her career. The term “restless” in the title refers to the energy and dynamics of her drawings, as arguably, no matter what happens with ZHA, Hadid’s early drawn output will continue to inspire and attract attention for many years to come.

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Figure 22.1 Sketch for Al-Wakrah Stadium, Qatar, architect Zaha Hadid, 2013. Source: Zaha Hadid Architects.

Writing about Hadid is challenging, with an added difficulty of how to refer to such a complex figure who, from her very beginnings at the Architectural Association in the 1970s, became known simply as Zaha.11 Perhaps already at that time she made a choice to stand out with her flamboyant clothes and strong personality, but most of all she wanted to be recognized because of her architecture. In this chapter Hadid is referred to by her surname out of respect and because Hadid—“Iron” in Arabic—appears incredibly fitting.

At Home Only Inside Her Sketchbook Hadid’s London flat, her personal living space, had allegedly been sold shortly after her death and can no longer be accessed. We are left with the images from a glossy magazine, with almost no traces of domesticity.12 In the Observer article entitled “Lynn Barber Meets Zaha Hadid” published on August 3, 2008, a reputable paper criticized Hadid personally instead of focusing on her work. Barber “felt sorry” for having to go back to that “cold apartment” and hesitated to describe Hadid as a role model for the matter of fact she had no family and was a workaholic. Instead of being reciprocated, Hadid’s generosity seems to have been thrown straight back at her. It is curious to ponder how different Barber’s piece could have been if Hadid did not invite her to her flat, or simply declined an interview.13 This relatively small flat close to her office was filled with furniture she designed. The only clutter within surprisingly white non-descript walls and no complex curvature was created by many hairbrushes and perfume bottles. Hadid in fact employed a male chef for a time; however, she eventually decided to remove the kitchen, preferring to eat out. Hadid enjoyed food and in the early days cooked for her employees and friends.14 There were no bookshelves or a working desk, and even the bedsheets were covered with her designs. Hadid described this apartment as “where she lived, but not her home.” It would be fair to imply that Hadid lived her life on the move, in comfortable but physically small spaces. Personal space mattered little to her, as though she always viewed the world from a distance, above the cloud, with cities merging and forming complex curvatures and multiplicities of lines. Rather than in that unremarkable London flat, she lived literally inside her drawings, always thinking ahead of a new project.

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There is a disconnect between the exterior of Hadid’s sketchbooks and the extraordinary, even futuristic drawings inside. A peculiar feature, noted first by Madelon Vriesendorp in The World of Madelon Vriesendorp in 2011 and then subsequently repeated elsewhere, was that the edges were burnt, giving the whole exterior antique look. Vriesendorp said that Hadid used to burn her sketchbooks on the outside and did the same even to some of her early drawings.15 Whatever the reason for their appearance, these notebooks embody another contradiction—very dynamic, futuristic drawings inside an old, damaged exterior. These physically small, beautiful objects recalled the notion of ruins of the future, or perhaps ruins in reverse, as though, instead of getting older they resisted decay and were becoming increasingly new. In or outside the sketchbook, Hadid’s best work not only seems to be outside time, but always points toward the future, as though her core ideas not only defy aging, but move in the opposite direction, becoming fresher. In many conventional architecture schools, students often are taught that they must not draw a single line which would not have a clear purpose and that architecture is about how buildings are put together. Yet imagining things beyond the ordinary and even the possible should also become an important part of architectural education. Precisely, here figures like Hadid are crucial: demonstrating that one can not only achieve global success with ambitious complex designs, but also be foreign and female. Liberating and inspiring, her work contains many surplus lines, with multiple buildings seen from many viewpoints, including imaginary and impossible perspectives. For someone who lived inside her drawings, it is no accident that the only private residence she ever built was a villa completed in 2018 on the outskirts of Moscow.16 Capital Hill Residence, located on the north hillside of Barvikha, a town west of the Russian capital, was designed for property developer Vladislav Doronin, an extraordinarily well-matched client Hadid dubbed “Russian James Bond,” and resembles a luxurious yacht. Its suspended living space floats twenty-two meters and offers an uninterrupted 360-degree view of the forest below. A large part of a forest had to be removed for this dynamic and alien lens to appear. Conceptually reminiscent of a horizontal skyscraper designed by El Lissitzky in the early twentieth century, the house is floating in the sky, almost appearing to fly above the trees. Its interior looks uniformed, cold even, and resembles the confined space of an airplane cabin. This juxtaposition of a small, smooth, clean interior space hovering above abstracted cityscape below can often be found in Hadid’s designs. The critics of her later projects have argued that she should have continued the kind of work produced at the beginning of her career, and that Hadid would have been better off by building fewer but better-crafted structures, with great attention to detail. However, this is not as straightforward as often implied, since architects have a responsibility to their employees. Hadid insisted that she would prefer to develop ideas for social housing, schools, or hospitals, but such projects were rarely offered to her. Instead, she was increasingly commissioned to design museums, offices, and airports, often in countries with low construction standards and poor human rights records. Together with the increase in the size and number of projects, technological and logistical challenges inevitably became overwhelming, and Hadid’s personal and unique approach would be diluted if not completely lost. The shift from painting and drawing to the production of increasingly large and complex buildings saw ZHA becoming a famous brand, but in some ways Hadid’s personal authorship would be considered reduced to signature.

Formative Years and the Origins of Hadid’s Architectural Language While revisiting the beginnings of Hadid’s education, the Soviet avant-garde influences over her work quickly become apparent. Hadid started her architectural education at the Architectural Association in London, after studying mathematics at Beirut and, allegedly, after being rejected by an architecture university in Baghdad.17 Before the AA, Hadid studied in an interior design course at

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Inchbald School of Design in 1972 but was somewhat reluctant to let this be known on her biographical accounts, skipping straight from mathematics to architecture.18 Most references provide evidence on Hadid’s difficult start at the AA. In her first year, taught by Jeremy Dixon and Chris Cross, she was referred to as a “semi-faithful rich Arab waltzing in her designs.”19 The AA chairman from 1971 to 1990, Alvin Boyarsky, recalled her formidable force standing out from the start.20 Early on, Hadid and her followers demanded to be taught how to draw buildings, and Boyarsky later remarked that “Zaha usually got her way.” The first archival records reveal her oddly disciplined drawings for a housing scheme produced in her third-year project, when she was taught by Leon Krier and John Corrigan.21 This early project seems to be completely devoid of the artistry that made her famous only a few years later. Krier described Hadid as “very unquiet,” claiming: “She couldn’t draw, really. She was all over the map.”22 Krier’s remark was repeated frequently throughout her studies, and many of her predominantly male teachers claimed they were the ones who “taught her how to draw.” Produced only few years later, in 1976–1977, Hadid’s drawings of The Museum of the Nineteenth Century in her Diploma Unit 9, with tutors Rem Koolhaas and Elia Zenghelis, resembled more closely the drawing vocabulary that made her famous.23 Although in her designs predominantly straight lines rather than angular ones were utilized, basic elements of Hadid’s architectural language are apparent. Long, stretched-out, thin volumes, superimposed onto each other as though colliding, emphasize diagonal movement and syncretic dynamics. Like Krier before him, Koolhaas alleged he was the one who taught Hadid to draw. He stated that he actually locked her in the studio, and she was not allowed to leave until she learned. The World of Madelon Vriesendorp provides another version, where Koolhaas apparently imprisoned his partner Vriesendorp so she would finish painting, and assumed that Hadid was also “locked.”24 Persistent

Figure 22.2 Housing Scheme in Swiss Cottage, third-year student project, Zaha Hadid, 1974–1975. Source: AA Archives.

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again is the notion of Hadid being told she could not draw, and of a male tutor “teaching her,” in this case, going as far as “imprisoning her.” Hadid only much later provided her own narrative of the events.

The Soviet Avant-Garde Connection, Suprematism, and the Architekton At the end of working on her AA diploma project, as her final fifth-year thesis Hadid produced an interpretation of Malevich’s seminal Architekton series, which she titled Horizontal Tektonik, designed as a hotel on the Thames on the Hungerford Bridge.25 Originally Malevich conceived his Architekton series as a sequence of solid plaster compositions, except a single collage of an Architekton as a tangible building, a vertical skyscraper pasted into the Manhattan skyline.26 Hadid never explained why she changed the term “Architekton” to “Tektonik” in her design, but it was probably for simplification. Hadid at times referred to “Tektoniks” in plural, emphasizing serial qualities of Malevich’s project. The form-building period, when the new communal society in Russia, in its combat with the agonizing past, strived to merge revolution with new futurist art and constructivist architecture, influenced many AA teachers, especially Koolhaas, who passed on this fascination to students including Hadid. One of the most persistent findings from my own research into the category of the unbuildable was that such works, drawings and paintings rather than buildings, were and still continue to be perceived to be permissible to copy.27 During her early career, Hadid produced many works that could be considered unbuildable. Her visual images—drawings, models, and paintings—were known only within a small group of followers. The notion of a drawing in its own right, an architectural drawing as its own entity, independent from the actual building process, is pertinent here. On first untrained glance, Hadid’s decision seemed very curious—why would a young architect in her diploma project aim to copy something produced fifty years earlier, call it a hotel, and drop it into the Thames? Hadid’s own odd description was characteristically flippant: “I was ill—I had bronchitis and I was in bed for three months. I don’t know why I decided to put it in the Thames.”28 She added that she worked intuitively, and her tutors Zenghelis and Koolhaas accepted and supported her. Under the strong influence of her teachers, who confirmed the remarkable impact of ideas of the Soviet avant-garde on their own work, there also was an element of defiance, presenting Hadid’s work as a succession of Malevich’s vision rather than a plain copy. Hadid’s design considerably changed Malevich’s original idea—the sculptural, predominantly vertical, solid object was now open, put into water, and inhabited from the inside. More renowned than the Architekton, Malevich’s legendary Black Square manifested the death of figurative painting. For Malevich, this move was justifying a new age, a new society, and new, liberated people. He employed the term “suprematism” as the supreme immaterial property of eternal life bared in color and light; the notion of weightlessness and the idea of a pure, liberated form were instantly relevant. A connection can be made to Hadid’s portfolio Planetary Architecture Two for the 1987 exhibition catalogue of the same name, affixed in a red square box. While there were at least four different versions known of the Black Square, less known was Malevich’s 1915 Red Square, also titled A Peasant Woman in Two Dimensions. According to color theory developed by Malevich, and considering the political context of the Soviet state, the color red was repeatedly declared the most proactive. In Hadid’s work however, color would become a variable, following broader advancements of construction technologies and materials. Yet overall, the reference to color as an impulse generated by the notion of weightlessness and dynamism, originated during early years of the Soviet avant-garde, remains traceable in her designs. Carrying on the legacy produced by early Soviet architectural thought, Hadid firmly believed that buildings have the potential of floating in space, and one of the consistent ideas of her designs presented a gentle connection of the material solid ground with suspended flying structures aspiring 291

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to defy gravity. Russian artist and curator Yuri Avvakumov described his sensation of awe upon seeing Hadid’s work.29 Rather than being dismissive, he remained affirmative that the Iraqi architect in London furthered Malevich’s suprematist idea, giving him in turn the new courage to develop his own work.30 Hadid’s design received an Honors Prize at the final report of her AA diploma thesis, in which Koolhaas famously described Hadid as a “planet in her own right.” Hadid disclosed that at first Koolhaas’s remarks were embarrassing, and she was concerned with how her parents would reflect on them. Yet later she admitted that Koolhaas was right, as he distinctly sensed the extraordinary trajectory of her professional future.31

Positioning: Early Career After graduation, Hadid worked for a short time at OMA—the Office for Metropolitan Architecture in Rotterdam, Netherlands, in 1975 cofounded by Rem Koolhaas, Elia Zenghelis, Madelon Vriesendorp, and Zoe Zenghelis—based in Koolhaas and Vriesendorp’s London flat.32 The actual circumstances of her employment at OMA have escaped factual evidence. Perhaps the uniqueness of Hadid’s character and her divergence from her OMA collaborators would be best illustrated when taking into account Koolhaas’s background in screen writing.33 According to Hadid she agreed to join OMA as an equal partner. However, on the now iconic image of the OMA Manifesto, Hadid would be easily overlooked. Younger than the others by almost the entire length of study for an architecture degree—seven years—Hadid smiles in the background of the snapshot, standing clearly apart, on her own. She branched out independently barely a year after by founding Zaha Hadid Architects. When asked if Madelon Vriesendorp and Zoe Zenghelis, the two female partners at OMA, had an influence on her, Hadid confirmed that although they did not teach her directly, their presence had a strong impact. This was especially the case for Vriesendorp’s iconic drawing Fragrant Delit, later published as the cover image of the seminal volume Delirious New York based on Koolhaas’s lecture series, followed in 1978 by the sparkling metropolis show at the S.R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. Relevant to the inquiry is a far less known “Zaha Soap” in a pink retro cover, which seems so unlikely to have been produced by Hadid. Hadid gifted that soap to Vriesendorp, perhaps as a response to Vriesendorp’s massive collections covered in dust. Annoyed that she was always described with prefixes such as “ethnic,” “Arab,” “Muslim,” and “female,” Hadid did not fit into any of the labels given and often stayed silent, allowing her work to speak for itself. Remarkably, after the launch of ZHA, Hadid’s fame rocketed into the sky.34 Hadid’s characteristic vocabulary and her urban, primarily abstract vision affirmed the legacy of those early days. The cities Hadid drew lacked vegetation or people, which were largely replaced by structures, a multitude of building forms visualized in multiple perspectives but not repetitive, nested within complex straight lines she titled “city forces.” Never positioned at the center of the composition as singled-out objects, her structures were entwining a different fabric of urban energy into the fantasy of dynamic knots.

Drawing the Unbuildable: Connections to the Avant-Garde, Gravity, and Weightlessness The notion of hand-drawing, currently endangered, and of drawing so distinct from design-build practices that it belongs to the category of the unbuildable are pertinent here. The Soviet avant-garde drawings, with reference to Kazimir Malevich (1879–1935) and El Lissitzky (1890–1941), especially the Lissitzky’s PROUN series, proved to have a great impact on Hadid’s work.35 Furthermore, Yakov Chernikhov (1889–1951) pushed the idea of a series to its limits, to the extreme.36 Although he tends to be classified as a constructivist, Chernikhov was so in a marginal way, as in his work the style 292

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Figure 22.3  The World (89 Degrees), Zaha Hadid, 1983. Acrylic on canvas, 837/8 x 72¹/16 inches. Source: Zaha Hadid Architects.

in its essence becomes a variant that can and should be changed. Following the range of ideas of the soviet avant-garde, while Hadid’s stylistic properties are more readable and consistent, over time her forms become less specific, elongated, angular, taking over a more complex curvature. Hadid’s painting The World was momentous for this entire period at AA, and scholars suggested that she should have carried on with this kind of work—if building at all, then building fewer but better-crafted and less formulaic projects.37 Rem Koolhaas remarked at her memorial service in St. Paul’s Cathedral: “Zaha took a 50-year-old substance—constructivism—and in a triumph of personal alchemy, turned it into the architectural language of the twenty-first century, smooth and contemporary, as if it came out of a spray can.”38 Perhaps we should not be surprised that Koolhaas lumped Malevich, the founder of suprematism, 293

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under the label of constructivism, whereas the conflict between the philosophical standpoints of Malevich and Lissitzky has been effectively addressed in late twentieth century scholarship.39 It is proven that with computers’ increasingly sophisticated capabilities, it generally became much easier not only to visualize but also to build complex geometries. Hence, the question whether Hadid did betray her own trajectory and turn into just another, albeit the only female, starchitect seems pointless. During Hadid’s OMA days, two portraits by Vriesendorp were significant. A preparatory sketch and a painting both portrayed Hadid in a relaxed pose, smiling and playing with her hair. In the sketch she was holding Malevich’s Architekton model. Pertinently, in a later, colored painting, Hadid was depicted with a New York skyscraper instead. Arguably, Vriesendorp wanted to convey the idea that Hadid grew closer to OMA and away from Malevich and to claim Hadid as their own.

From Drawing the Building to Building a Drawing In the shift toward building, starting with Vitra Fire Station in 1998, at least two significant breakthroughs commanded by Hadid earned worldwide recognition. Her first global victory commenced in the international design competition for the Hong Kong Peak Swimming Pool in 1982–1983. Despite that victory, the authorities had discarded Hadid’s design and built an unremarkable building instead by a local architect. The only human presence Hadid ever depicted were two divers jumping into the Peak Swimming Pool. Arguably, these two bodies have been left over from OMA’s hedonistic world, as Hadid never again returned to figurativeness in her drawings.40 The Peak also ensued a significant step toward buildability and departure from other influences. More than a decade later Hadid would make her mark, this time in the UK. Her work exploded on the British architectural scene in 1994, when she won the Cardiff Opera Bay competition. Hadid prevailed, not just in one but in three subsequent competitions, and yet again, her designs were discarded and a more conventional building was built instead. This was a weighty disappointment for Hadid that shook her confidence. The Cardiff design was never realized, and only many years later has a different opera been built in China by ZHA. Many scholars and critics have remarked that something important would be lost in the process of moving from mainly drawings and competitions onto practical building, in parallel to transition from manual to digital application. Since ZHA offices embraced digital technology and shifted toward working on an increasing number of commissions, Hadid herself drew less. While there were traits which could be described as digital in her early work produced by hand, some unique characteristics inevitably were lost in the rush toward ever larger buildings and grander commissions. Gradually, the actual building process started from 1990 to 1993, with the Vitra Fire Station in Weil am Rhein, Germany. Schumacher, who joined ZHA in 1988 when he was still a student and worked on Vitra and later on all ZHA built projects, addressed this very first structure as a manifesto, a declaration of what was to come. This first ZHA edifice attracted criticism and accolade in almost equal measure. In Vitra, the built reality closely resembled paintings. Hadid was accused of superficial form making and ignoring the building’s function. This claim extended to the announcement declaring Hadid’s design so impractical that it had to be converted into a museum. The fire station was actually decommissioned by the authorities as testified by its owner Rolf Fehlbaum. Another investigation illuminates one of Hadid’s little-known early built projects, a social housing scheme in Vienna, Austria, called Spittelau Viaducts, completed in 2006.41 According to Schumacher, this was a difficult location due to its proximity to the train station. This scheme eventually turned vacant due to a variety of reasons, yet the failure of the social idea again would be blamed on the competency of the architect. The original developer ultimately went bankrupt and the building was refurbished into luxury apartments.

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Figure 22.4 a, b  Portrait of Zaha Hadid by Madelon Vriesendorp, 1978. Sketch and painting. Source: Madelon Vriesendorp.

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Figure 22.5  The Peak Swimming Pool Divers. Competition entry for the Peak Leisure Club, Hong Kong, architect Zaha Hadid, 1982–1983. Painting. Source: AA Publications.

With the increase of the practical output, Hadid’s personal attention to detail and the overall quality of drawing deteriorated. Special and unique features of her work faded, and the notion emerged that ZHA should have remained working on a smaller scale and should have set an example by refusing ethically dubious commissions Hadid’s first building in the UK was built in 2001—the Maggie’s Centre in Fife, a modest-sized, 250-square-meter cancer care facility. Subsequently, the majority of ZHA designs were built outside the United Kingdom and have remained so until recent. While it is difficult to verify the actual number of commissions, it was estimated that Hadid has designed approximately one thousand buildings in forty-four countries, in addition to her furniture, craft, jewelry, and other projects. It also proved evident that with the increasing number of projects and the growing size of her office, her personal input would diminish. Arguably, the Rome Museum of Twenty-First Century Art, MAXXI, completed in 2010, should be considered a final project attributed to her personally. The MAXXI series of paintings, drawings, and models were readably connected to the conceptual stages of the working process on the building. Perhaps for the last time, Hadid’s paintings and drawings fundamentally shaped and impacted the process of implementation and production. The renderings for MAXXI are incredibly powerful. Plans address exterior city flows, informed by forces being condensed and drawn in, gathered into a graceful knot of the interior itself. Characteristically, without reference to the presence of people and nature, the interior spaces direct the

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flow of visitors through the masterplan and the exhibits and, in parallel, amalgamate and highlight the intensity of urban space. Superimposed elongated spaces would double up and twist, dynamically evolving from simple rectangular forms. The roof became the key element of the interior, comprising a complex mechanism of louvers, structurally and sculpturally controlling the flow of energy generated by the outside buildings. The ramp and walls are preserved visible and are guiding the flow of people. A roof ribbon reminds of the city behind the walls, extending the sense of interior far beyond the gallery confines. In subsequent years, handcrafted drawing gradually became less important and was almost fully superseded by computers in a rush toward practical building. In 2018, according to Schumacher, ZHA’s work comprised 70 percent designs initiated after she passed away.

Conclusion Hadid will be remembered as a truly unique figure in architecture, as a divisive figure who produced a vast amount of drawings and practical design-built projects. Many design features are evident in her initial drawings yet are too often ignored, needing to be separated from political scandals and judged based on their extraordinary architectural qualities. In the 2020s, when ZHA may be transformed and even stop existing as a single entity, we ought to look beyond purely commercial practices and toward Hadid’s trailblazing legacies. Above all, the power of inspiration and liberation that Hadid’s story brings to new architects dreaming of a better future should not be overlooked. Despite severe criticisms, Hadid retained her dignified stance, and her designs, drawings, and paintings need to be revealed and experienced but can never be fully explained. Hadid was insatiable in her pursuit of creative intuition and abstraction. Lines and color, rather than words, were essential elements of her vocabulary. While Schumacher has always been certain in proclaiming parametricism as the new movement. Hadid reluctantly embraced digital technology and was not always satisfied with the outcome. By letting others speak on her behalf, she never fully settled and continued searching. Hadid positioned herself using digital technology, teaching, and intuitive hand-drawing in order to open up empowering possibilities for the future. It seems appropriate to go back to our title and suggest that restless research of her tremendous creative output is required for new talented generations to emerge.

Notes 1. Acknowledgements for support and assistance are extended to Ed Frith, Mark Morris, Mark Cousins, Shumon Basar, Patrik Schumacher, Melodie Leung, Manon Janssens, Sam Hadrigham, Yuri Avvakumov, Yasmin Shariff, Alan Hughes, Diana Yakely, Theo Spyropoulos, Ryan Dillon, and Madelon Vriesendorp. 2. In February 2016, on BBC Radio 4’s “Desert Island Discs,” Hadid revealed: “I don’t really feel I’m part of the establishment. I’m not outside, I’m on the kind of edge, I’m dangling there. I quite like it. … I’m not against the establishment per se. I just do what I do and that’s it.” 3. Hadid opened Drawing Studio, designed by CRAB architects lead by Peter Cook, on March 3, 2016. She died on March 31, 2016. 4. Zaha Hadid never completed her Part III Exam, an essential requirement in the United Kingdom in order to obtain the right to practice as an architect. 5. Jeanette Winter, The World is Not a Rectangle: A Portrait of Zaha Hadid (San Diego: Beach Lane Books, 2017). 6. Hadid would repeatedly refute that she made a sacrifice, would insist marriage was not an option simply because she did not meet the right person, and that having children was incompatible with her busy careerdriven lifestyle.

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Nerma Cridge 7. Frank van der Hoeven, “The Powerless Starchitect: How Zaha Hadid Became the First Person Working on the Al-Wakrah Stadium that Actually Did Die,” project baikal 47–48 (May 2016): 170–78. 8. Hadid sued the paper, which officially apologized and retracted the statement, but the damage was done. In her defense, Frank van der Hoeven also remarked on Oliver Wainwright and Holly Baxter in the Guardian in 2013, which astonishingly published comparisons of Al-Wakrah Stadium’s design to female genitals. My argument in this regard is that the critics need to look at drawings more closely, for example, Hadid’s initial sketch showing a gentle connection to the ground and a prominent entrance canopy. Final visuals on which both Wainwright and Baxter focused completely miss the sense of arrival clearly suggested in the sketch. 9. Patrik Schumacher, “Keynote Speech” at World Architecture Festival Berlin, October 4, 2016. 10. In late 2019, legal proceedings have been started by Schumacher, Hadid’s successor and sole partner at ZHA, against the other trustees of Zaha Hadid Estate. It is rumored that as a result of the trial ZHA have already agreed to change their name to Zaha Hadid Architects World. It should also be noted that in the 2012 interview with Razia Iqbal, BBC, “Dream Builders: Zaha Hadid,” Hadid said that Schumacher “needs to commit himself ” before her practice is renamed Hadid Schumacher Architects. Therefore, Hadid clearly contemplated changing the name of the practice and acknowledging Schumacher as her equal partner as early as 2012. 11. It is little known that Hadid started her education at the AA wearing the Islamic veil. She quickly stopped covering her hair, however, because “it distinguished her in a way she didn’t want to be distinguished.” Margaret Rhodes, “Tracing the Legacy of Zaha Hadid, Architecture’s Esteemed Anomaly,” Wired Magazine, March 31, 2016. 12. May 2008 issue of Architectural Digest in Spanish, “Cuando la FARAONA nos mostró su casa,” written by Bettina Dubcovsky, photographs by Alberto Herras. 13. In her article for the Observer Lynn Barber described Hadid’s flat as “having all the intimacy of a car showroom.” 14. Mark Cousins, Hadid’s friend and teacher, recalled how one day when he arrived at her apartment, it appeared much bigger than before. Hadid mentioned that she “got rid of the kitchen as she never used it,” instead eating out all the time. Mark Cousins, conversation with the author, 2018. Liz Walder addressed the way Hadid removed it, as “she wanted to go out to meetings rather than slave over a hot stove”; however, previous to the disposal of the kitchen, Hadid had employed a male chef. Liz Walder, Going for Gold (Cardiff, UK: Wordcatcher Publishing, 2018). 15. The note about burnt edges was first made by Madelon Vriesendorp and then subsequently reported in other publications, that is, by Oliver Wainwright in the Guardian. In a conversation with the author, Vriesendorp confirmed that not only the sketchbooks, but also her AA drawings’ edges were burnt. She recalled how Koolhaas told Hadid to stop burning the edges but concentrate on what is at the center of the drawing. Schumacher claimed in a conversation with the author that Hadid did not burn the edges, but that they may have been damaged and become discolored, hence they just looked like they were burnt. As he joined ZHA in 1988, long after Hadid’s AA days, it is more likely that Vriesendorp’s recollection is correct. 16.“Capital Hill Residence,” both resources accessed January 29, 2020: ZHA website: www.zaha-hadid.com/ interior_design/capital-hill-residence/; and Vladislav Doronin site, “Introduction” by Patrik Schumacher: www.vladislavdoronin.com/zaha-hadid-the-capital-hill-residence. 17. Mark Cousins recalled meeting at the AA bar a retired professor from Baghdad University who alleged rejecting Hadid’s application and prompting her to move to London. 18. Alan Hughes, the current principal of Inchbald School of Design, London, verified this information to the author. 19. Hadid’s statement according to her later recollections. Chris Cross was also involved in building a model of Tatlin’s Tower for an exhibition at Hayward Gallery in London, 1980. 20. Irene Sunwoo, “Alvin Boyarsky: The Architectural Association, London, UK,” Radical Pedagogies, multiyear collaborative research project led by Beatriz Colomina, accessed May 9, 2020, https://radical-pedagogies.com/search-cases/e11-architectural-association. 21. In 1985 Leon Krier had written publications on Adolf Hitler’s architect, Albert Speer: Architecture 1932– 1942, and was involved in the master-planning of a controversial neo-classicist scheme by Prince Charles of the village of Poundbury in late 1980s. 22. She couldn’t draw, really. She was all over the map. She was always incredibly energetic and helpful around the class and she practically became my assistant. But she was really struggling and tempestuous.

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Restless I set her to do a project on Trafalgar Square. The idea was to shrink it down and make it into more of an Italian-style piazza. Well, that wasn’t her cup of tea at all. Cited in John Seabrook, “The Abstractionist, Zaha Hadid’s Unfettered Invention,” The New Yorker, January 21, 2009 23. “Museum of the Nineteenth Century,” 1976–1977, tutors: Rem Koolhaas, Elia Zenghelis, Thalis Argyropoulos, Demetri Porphyrios. 24. Hadid’s response was “Not Me. Rem Thought That He Locked Me in, But he Hadn’t. I Was in the Room Next to the Registrar’s Office, Which Had Another Door,” in The World of Madelon Vriesendorp: Paintings/ Postcards/Objects/Games, ed. Shumon Basar and Stephan Trüby (London: AA Publications, 2008), 69. 25. Horizontal Tektonik designed as a hotel on the Thames, on the Hungerford Bridge. 26. Postcard, “Architekton in Front of a Skyscraper,” Kazimir Malevich, 1924. 27. Nerma Cridge, Drawing the Unbuildable (London and New York: Routledge, 2015). 28. Hadid’s response was published in a passage titled “Alvin Boyarsky Interviews Zaha Hadid” in the preface of Zaha Hadid, Planetary Architecture Two (folio) (Architectural Association Publications, 1983). Hadid’s designs could be linked to another example of delirious drawings—G.B. Piranesi’s Carceri series, which he famously drew after a bout of fever. He was accused by his critics of not being capable of drawing “properly.” A. Hyatt Mayor, Giovanni Battista Piranesi (New York: H. Bittner and Co., 1952), 25. 29. Yuri Avvakumov, correspondence with the author, February 2018. 30. For more on the relationship between Paper Architecture and the Soviet avant-garde see Anna Sokolina, “Unbuilt: Paper Architecture and the Russian Utopia,” 50 ASEEES Annual Convention, Panel: Cultures of Soviet Dissent (Pres. transcr, Boston, MA, December 6–9, 2018). 31. Hadid’s Fifth Year Report written by Koolhaas in 1977 (AA Archives). 32. OMA official site, accessed May 9, 2020, https://oma.eu. 33. In 1969 Koolhaas coauthored and produced The White Slave, a Dutch film noir, and later developed an unfinished script for an American soft porn producer, Russ Meyer. 34. An anecdote she herself frequently circulated relates to her way of drawing for the seminal Planetary Architecture Two exhibition in 1983. She and her assistants used Perrier water bottles to transport tap water for renderings, and rumors were spread, followed by AA students mimicking Hadid and mixing actual Perrier sparkling water with acrylics, eager to imitate Hadid’s technique. 35. PROUN—an acronym (Russian) for Project for the Affirmation of the New—refers to the series of works titled Stations Between Architecture and Painting, produced by El Lissitzky in 1919–1921. 36. Chernikhov developed the series within series of imaginary architecture, where every property of design became variable. 37. Painting produced at the AA, “a single image which effectively summarises her seven-year journey into the ‘uncharted’ reaches of architecture while working at the Architectural Association.” ZHA website, accessed May 7, 2020, www.zaha-hadid.com. 38. Oliver Wainwright Guardian Memorial service was held in London, GB, at St. Paul’s Cathedral, October 2016. 39. In his 1927 book, The Non-Objective World, Malevich stated: “In the year 1913, trying desperately to free art from the dead weight of the real world, I took refuge in the form of the square,” and conceptually departed from practical constructivist designs. 40. This could also be attributed to Hadid’s Muslim background, where figuration is not allowed. 41. ZHA description of this 1994–2006 project reads, “Spittelau Viaducts was conceived to extend Vienna’s social housing provision and as a ‘beacon’ project to attract and inspire further developments in this area.” See: ZHA online.

Bibliography Barber, Lynn. “Zaha Hadid Interview.” The Observer, March 9, 2008. Fontana-Giusti, Gordana, and Patrik Schumacher, eds. Complete Works of Zaha Hadid. London: Thames and Hudson, 2004. Frearson, Amy. “Patrik Schumacher Calls for Social Housing and Public Space to Be Scrapped.” Dezeen, November 18, 2016. Hadid, Zaha. Planetary Architecture II (folio). London: Architectural Association Publications, 1983. Hadid, Zaha. MAXXI: Zaha Hadid Architects: Museum of XXI Century Arts. Skira: Rizzoli, 2010.

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Nerma Cridge Schumacher, Patrik. Digital Hadid. Berlin, Germany: Springer Science and Business Media, 2004. Seabrook, John. “The Abstractionist: Zaha Hadid’s Unfettered Invention.” The New Yorker, December 13, 2009. Van der Hoeven, Frank. “The Powerless Starchitect: How Zaha Hadid Became the First Person Working on the Al-Wakrah Stadium that Actually Did Die.” project baikal 47–48 (May 2016): 170–78. Wainwright, Oliver. “Zaha Hadid’s Sport Stadiums: ‘Too Big, Too Expensive, Too Much Like a Vagina’.” The Guardian, November 28, 2013. Zaha Hadid Architects: www.zaha-hadid.com.

Exhibitions Zaha Hadid Architects: Evolution. Bournemouth Arts University Gallery, 2018. Zaha Hadid: Early Paintings and Drawings. Serpentine Sackler Gallery, 2013.

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23 “SOMETHING MORE SOLID AND MASSIVE” The Architecture of Lauretta Vinciarelli Rebecca Siefert Introduction Lauretta Vinciarelli (1943–2011), an Italian-born architect, artist, teacher, and theorist, inhabited a world of “firsts”: she was the first woman to have drawings acquired by the Department of Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in 1974; she was among the first women to teach architecture studio courses at Columbia University, hired in 1978; and she was the first and only woman granted a solo exhibition at Peter Eisenman’s influential Institute of Architecture and Urban Studies (IAUS) in New York, also in 1978.1 Raised in central Italy and educated at the University of Rome (La Sapienza), during the tumultuous 1960s, Vinciarelli brought her sociopolitical consciousness to bear on her practice in New York, where she relocated in 1969.2 By 1976, she and minimalist artist Donald Judd (1928–1994) had become a romantic and professional pair, collaborating for over ten years on architecture, furniture design, and printmaking.3 She was acclaimed as “one of the leading architects of her generation,” exemplary of the sea changes that started to sweep through the discipline of architecture beginning in the late 1960s.4 Today she is remembered almost exclusively for the luminous watercolor paintings she created from 1986 until 2007. As Vinciarelli later explained, she was after “the simplest architecture as possible … something more solid and massive,” a characterization that defines not only her watercolors but also her earlier architectural drawings, projects, and teaching, in a career that spanned nearly four decades but was virtually unknown until recently.5

Early Works on Paper Vinciarelli’s drawings of the early to mid-1970s including the aforementioned series purchased by the MoMA, are architectonic, grid-based, and completely non-representational. These works aligned with and occupy a historic place in the resurgence of architectural drawing as an art form in the 1970s and 1980s, which was fostered by the MoMA and the Max Protetch Gallery in New York in particular. The trend of exhibiting architectural drawings as art, including “paper architecture,” visionary projects not intended to be built, coincided with a widespread theoretical turn in the architectural discourse; in the United States, this was likely a consequence of the economic recession of the mid- to late 1970s and a lack of opportunities to build. In postwar Europe, drawing was revived as a way to think of architecture as a mechanism for change. Like many of her colleagues, Vinciarelli was deeply dissatisfied with the hubris and ultimate shortcomings of high modernist planning,

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Figure 23.1 Lauretta Vinciarelli. Photograph, May 1980. Source: Judd Foundation. Lauretta Vinciarelli Archive, Judd Foundation Archives, Marfa, TX.

which had reached a climax by the late 1960s. She believed that artists and theorists needed to direct the discourse to counter the corrupting forces of developers and corporate practice. Emphasizing history, theory, and drawing were some of the ways to move architecture—and society—forward. The Homogeneous Grid drawings, begun circa 1973, are composed of two grids laid upon one another—one horizontal and vertical, the other rotated at a forty-five-degree angle—resulting in a surface evenly divided into triangular spaces. This was a starting point, Vinciarelli explained, composed of two sets of discourse: one was based on the “homogeneous” grid, which, as the name implies, divides the picture plane into equal parts. That was the “very basic means” to which she referred and which, she lamented, was “still the basis of architectural composition.”6 The other set of discourse centered on the two-dimensional (or what Vinciarelli termed the “bi-dimensional”) plane. In the related Non-Homogeneous Grid series, also begun in 1973, she divided the surface into unequal spaces. Based on a “generative system” within sets of varying grids, the resultant drawings were seemingly predetermined. The process consisted of several steps: first, a “catalog of spatial situations” was considered, “from frames and boxes progressing to multiple enclosures and walls,” which were transformed in plan via triangulation; next, the bi-dimensional grids were translated into “cubic modules”; and finally the initial spatial situations were juxtaposed with the modules, which “generates a series of rules for the composition”—this would eventually define the spatial fabric.7 Vinciarelli used the grid and the bi-dimensional plane to explore the notion of a spatial fabric in these works of the 1970s and later in her collaborations with Judd.

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Figure 23.2 Drawing from the Non-Homogeneous Grid series (detail), Lauretta Vinciarelli, c. 1973–1975. Tempera on board, 16 x 20 inches. Source: Archive of the author.

These drawings, Vinciarelli contended, “are purely generated by the grid themselves”; the only “intervention,” she stated, “was that of choosing colors.”8 The series is composed of sets in different pastel color palettes—some in pale canary yellow, some in light dusty rose—each paired with light gray on a white background. The soft pinks and yellows might relate to the unique Mediterranean light of Italy, or could be references to the hues she associated with local building materials, such as red tufa, a material she had proposed to use in her Puglia project, a collaboration with architect Leonardo Foderà begun in 1977. As she would explain in a 1978 lecture, using red tufa forged a connection to the land but also to Italian building culture: “the vaulted or domed parts of a church of a building were very often painted in red, sort of orange-red,” she said, citing the church of San Giovanni in Palermo.9 A competition held for a public park in the Puglia region of Italy, the project was envisioned as a typological study of gardens, resulting in a series of drawings that proposed variations on a micro-garden that together would form a spatial fabric. Axonometric drawings show the various components comprising the micro-garden, including a pergola, barrel-vaulted spaces and trees for shade, a shallow pool of water, and seating. Architectural and natural elements are reduced to a sparse, geometric vocabulary, and although not entirely abstract, the project is reminiscent of the Non-Homogeneous Grid in many ways: at the most basic level, both are based on the grid; in fact, the micro-gardens would be arranged on a linear axis, then laid upon one another in the shape of an octothorpe or a cross-hatch, implying that they could be part of a much larger, possibly endless, grid. Because of the linear grid arrangement, small courtyards resulted at the intersection of two axes, and larger courtyards are surrounded by micro gardens on all four sides.

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Figure 23.3 Lauretta Vinciarelli and Leonardo Foderà, drawing for Puglia Project, 1975–1977. Ink and colored pencil on Mylar, 171/4 x 223/4 inches. Source: Judd Foundation. Lauretta Vinciarelli Archive, Judd Foundation Archives, Marfa, TX.

Vinciarelli described her Puglia project and the Non-Homogeneous Grid series, which both relied on generative systems and sets of reusable elements, as based on a kind of “kit-of-parts.” Despite Vinciarelli’s interest in this “prefab” approach, she made it clear that: it was very important to us to try to cope with this productive tradition of architecture in this zone, something they could do instead of inventing some sort of smart set of pre-fab elements that nobody knew how to put together.10 Natural and familiar materials were proposed: besides red tufa, they also proposed using terracotta and locally made concrete. Most importantly, Vinciarelli aimed to elevate the experience of workers in the Puglia region of Southern Italy, considering their specific needs in a park—shade, respite, and a “place to enjoy their possessions.”11 304

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Theory and Pedagogy The growing dissatisfaction with modernist planning ideals, the destruction of the city, and the perceived failure of social housing encouraged many architects to turn to theoretical activities as alternatives to building in the 1970s. This theoretical turn was perhaps most pronounced in New York City thanks to the presence of the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies (IAUS). Founded by Peter Eisenman in 1967, the institute was a “think tank,” a school, and a site for public discourse. It was also an exhibition space, where Vinciarelli showed works from her Non-Homogenous Grid series. In 1981, Vinciarelli, along with colleagues Bernard Tschumi, Joan Ockman, and Mary McLeod, among others, organized under the auspices of the institute the ReVisions study group, which continued until 1988. Members of ReVisions discussed writings, hosted programs, and published volumes on overlooked topics such as the connections between architecture and political ideology. Vinciarelli was passionately involved in the group; she hosted meetings (in Donald Judd’s loft at 101 Spring Street), contributed to their publications (an essay on the agency of women in public space), and introduced authors like Galvano Della Volpe (1895–1968) and other primarily Italian Marxist theorists to the group. At this time Vinciarelli was also teaching at Columbia University in the housing studio, which was founded by Kenneth Frampton and Richard Plunz in 1974.12 In addition to being among the first women on the architecture faculty at Columbia when she was hired in 1978, Vinciarelli played a role in the development and application of the typological approach in the housing studio during those formative years. Plunz affirmed that Vinciarelli was “certainly a voice in devising the typological approach, which was fully implemented in that semester [when she began teaching].”13 The studio’s pedagogical strategies were, in part, adapted from contemporary Italian typological theories of figures like Aldo Rossi (1931–1997), as well as those lesser known in the United States such as Saverio Muratori (1910–1973) and Ludovico Quaroni (1911–1987). As a student of architecture in Rome during the late 1960s, Vinciarelli knew the typological approach well, and her insight was integral to the intellectual structure of the housing studio. Typology, or the classification of building types based on shared fundamental, unchanging architectural characteristics, had widespread appeal in the 1970s and early 1980s.14 For certain architects, that is, Peter Eisenman, such investigations stressed the autonomy of architecture, but for Vinciarelli and her Columbia colleagues who were concerned with public housing, connecting a building type to its site and function put social, urban, and physical concerns on equal footing. The typological approach aligned with Vinciarelli’s drawing practice at the time, which used serial variations on a “type” to search for solutions to particular architectural problems—a form of “drawing as research” that she incorporated into her teaching not only at Columbia but also at the City College of New York and the Pratt Institute. Vinciarelli’s colleague Donna Cohen, who collaborated with her and Judd on several projects, noted that Vinciarelli felt she “knew enough to make things new, but based on many a more timeless concept.”15 That being said, Vinciarelli did not want to simply—as she put it—“[repeat] the types banally,” since architectural types evolve as society continually evolves: “I’m more interested in the evolution of types, which is due to the change of cognitive levels that expresses in societies when they change … and I think this should be kept in mind.”16 Vinciarelli believed that building types were not fixed but rather malleable, adaptable to site and climate. Working within an established set of types offered a sense of familiarity, she explained: Architects are asking the question: “how can we do architecture that people can understand?” … And I intend [to ask] this question: “in which way can we do an architecture which is recognizable?” And it is my opinion that the adherence to the historical types can help.17 305

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Four different low-rise, high-density housing types were taught in the studio during the first year: mews or row housing, perimeter block, garden apartments, and carpet housing. Vinciarelli taught, and is credited with introducing, the carpet housing type to Columbia’s housing studio.18 As the name suggests, carpet or “mat” housing is an apartment type that resembles a textile when seen from above, not unlike Vinciarelli’s earlier grid-based drawings from the 1970s. With low-rise interlocking modular units, carpet housing provides an ideal mix of both private and communal courtyards, a form derived from centuries-old Mediterranean villages.19 This type endured but had a particular appeal in postwar Europe for its ability to be multiplied and form an entire urban fabric, similar to Vinciarelli’s approach to carpet housing, which was based on a generative system and the ways architects could adjust that system to suit human habitability.20 Her elaboration of court house– based types, especially carpet housing, formed an integral part of the school’s emphasis on low-rise building types and historical prototypes, and it informed her concurrent research on typology for projects in Marfa, Texas.

Collaborations With Donald Judd Donald Judd is primarily known as a minimalist artist, a label he and others vehemently rejected. His large-scale objects, whose actual fabrication was typically outsourced, were often created in metal, Plexiglas, or plywood, and typically left unpainted. He and Vinciarelli met in 1976, and by the late 1970s he was working increasingly in the areas of architecture and design. By 1978 Vinciarelli was living with Judd and working on projects in Marfa. As she mused, “I  speak of [the] late ’70s, early ’80s. Then I was very much involved in Marfa, in terms of something that he was building.”21 Judd’s former fabricator, Peter Ballantine, also acknowledged that “the Lauretta influence in Marfa is huge.”22 Moreover, in a 1986 article published in Architectural Digest, Judd scholar William C. Agee stated that Judd and Vinciarelli were “starting a firm.”23 As late as September 1987 Judd made a remarkable reference to their firm in his response to an invitation for a competition at the North Carolina Museum of Art, noting that they should be referred to as “Vinciarelli, Judd + [Claude] Armstrong.”24 During their time together from the late 1970s to the late 1980s, Vinciarelli collaborated with Judd on some of his most well-known architectural projects, including those for Marfa; Providence, Rhode Island; and Cleveland, Ohio. This collaborative work calls into question the sole authorship of Judd’s architecture, even if the question of attribution is especially problematic considering his characteristic use of delegated fabrication for his art objects. Vinciarelli explored the various possibilities for interventions in Marfa in a series of drawings throughout the late 1970s and early 1980s. In a 1980 statement on her “Marfa 2a” proposal, which she described as “part of a research project concerning the problems of transformation of existing urban fabrics,” she explained how the shortcomings of the Modern movement in architecture were used as a starting point for her research: “this study attempts to break and enlarge the limited formal referents of the modern tradition,” she wrote, while allowing that her interest in “issues of a social and economic order and a concern for rational explanations of architectural facts” were preserved as part of “the inheritance of the Modern Movement.”25 Marfa was chosen as the site for this case study, she explained, because of: its small size of less than 3,000 inhabitants, for its location in a beautiful mountainous desert which relates to the architecture and the layout of the town, and for the clarity of its architectural tradition which contraposes pitch-roofed houses to Mexican court-houses and domestic buildings to industrial hangars.26 In fact, in her drawings for a hangar and open and enclosed court houses, dated 1980, she mixed these different types (airplane hangar, enclosed court house, open court house) in various combinations, 306

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pushing each type beyond its normal definition. Implicit in her architectural statement was the connection between building types and their ability to form a spatial fabric, a synthesis that was vital to the project. Marfa was also chosen for its sense of “permanence,” she argued, in which “is inherent a tie of necessity with the place and its richness,” emphasizing the relationship to context, which was so central to her concurrent projects and teaching.27 Besides her Hangar and Courtyard and Marfa series of drawings, Vinciarelli investigated the courtyard type in Marfa in two sets of perspective drawings from the late 1970s and early 1980s: The Seven Courtyards and Courtyard Building for Donald Judd, published together in Arts + Architecture in 1981. As she explained in Arts + Architecture magazine, “These seven drawings [The Seven Courtyards], part of my ongoing research on the architectural theme of the courtyard, occupy territory between finished architectural projects and pure architectural statements.”28 This published statement also offers an insight into Judd’s role as a client: Donald Judd’s requirements for the installations were very simple: he wanted four rooms, 50 ft. by 50 ft. symmetrical along one axis, with natural light coming in from the roof. … The requirements were fulfilled literally, and four rooms were provided.

Figure 23.4 Drawing for The Seven Courtyards series, Lauretta Vinciarelli, 1981. Pastel, graphite, and ink on vellum, 20 x 32 inches. Source: Judd Foundation. Lauretta Vinciarelli Archive, Judd Foundation Archives, Marfa, TX.

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This proposal for a building to house Judd’s plywood boxes, as she stated, developed out of her studies for The Seven Courtyards. A central, uncovered courtyard would generate the plan and unite the four peripheral rooms containing Judd’s work. However, it would have been far from a typical art museum, she debated: “This building is not a museum; it poses questions about the nature of the making of art that museums by definition cannot do.”29 Instead, it was meant to be “a statement against consumerism and the commercialization of art,” she argued, something both she and Judd felt strongly about.30 Yet her thinking process and decisions were based on those initial requirements as they related to her own work on courtyards, as well as her understanding of the role and function of art, the spaces that contain them, and the surrounding natural landscape. The courtyard building type correlated with the pergola and the so-called hortus conclusus (Latin for “enclosed garden”), some of Vinciarelli’s preoccupations at the time. Like a courtyard, it offers shade and respite from the heat by incorporating elements of water and greenery. As Vinciarelli outlined, “these sorts of archetypes and types were very much studied in Italy.”31 The pergola is also at the heart of Vinciarelli’s aforementioned Puglia project. A typological study of gardens, the Puglia project consists of a series of transformations of a given space; each “micro-garden,” or “garden of delights,” as she called them, would contain areas of shade, water, vegetation, and architectural elements.32 In dry areas, like Puglia or Marfa, water is a rare, “exceptional” element. For that reason, Vinciarelli explained, it was more appropriate to design a narrow channel of water—like a horse’s trough, as she described it—in a basin painted blue, in order to give the illusion of deeper water; the water gathered in the channel could then be recycled.33 Vinciarelli’s description neatly corresponds to the pools on Judd’s properties in Marfa and on his ranches, and her preoccupation with the courtyard type, spatial fabric, site, local culture, and ecology all contributed to what is now understood as Judd’s Marfa. In fact, Judd purchased her Puglia Project series of thirteen ink-and-Prismacolor drawings on Mylar in 1977, and Vinciarelli recalled that she was “extremely honored that he bought it, because he bought it because he loved it. … And I think that these drawings influenced him.”34 Vinciarelli and Judd also collaborated on two unrealized projects for Providence (1984) and Cleveland (1986), working with Vinciarelli’s former student Claude Armstrong and his partner Donna Cohen, who had lived and worked with them in Marfa.35 As Armstrong emphasizes, “Lauretta was consistently helping Don translate his ideas of space, form, and number into architectural and landscape scale.”36 Their proposal for Providence was envisioned as a group of architectural objects—concentric circles in concrete, each with a different function. The largest circle would serve as a platform for residents of the city, in an attempt to initiate a dialogue with city hall, the stairs of which would act as the “stage” for public discussion.37 Whereas the Providence project translated art objects into architectural scale, the Cleveland project was imagined as a spatial fabric that would merge with the site. The location of the project would be a bluff on the shore of Lake Erie, next to a set of railroad tracks and the Cleveland Browns stadium.38 Vinciarelli described their proposal as an attempt to “bring the city … toward the lake.”39 Since the site was long and narrow, they devised a plan for what would resemble a skyscraper lying on its side, so as not to obscure the city or the lake view.40 Although neither project was ultimately realized, their proposals represented a shared interest in site specificity and were made possible by Vinciarelli’s architectural experience and know-how.

Watercolors Vinciarelli’s architectural watercolors are by far the most visually striking and deeply personal works of her career. Early examples, from 1986 to the mid-1990s, consist of representational spaces that are largely autobiographical, recalling her time spent in Italy, New York, and Texas; in fact, she explicitly described them as “a form of biography,”41 a kind of visual “diary.”42 The Water Enclosure series (1987–1990) and Texas Remembered (1988), for example, are especially laden with memories of the architecture and landscapes of the places she lived. Despite the centrality of the artist’s own biography 308

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and perspective, the viewer is also implicated and drawn into Vinciarelli’s watercolors. This is due in part to her use of linear perspective and lack of human presence, as K. Michael Hays observed: the paintings engage the viewer “through their almost haunting sense of impending occupation, or alternatively, through our desire to occupy them.”43 Although Vinciarelli once laughed at the notion that her work was influenced by phenomenology, her watercolors speak volumes to this kind of thinking: lacking a human presence, the viewer is implicated as the source of perspective.44 Calling the spaces depicted in Vinciarelli’s watercolors “almost theater-like,” Hays implies that not only are we implicated as the source of that perspective, we are interpolated into the piece as an actor.45 Both Hays and Francesco Moschini, founder and director of the Arte e Architettura Moderne gallery in Rome, compared Vinciarelli’s works to the scenography of modernist theatrical innovator Aldophe Appia, who pioneered an approach to theater that emphasized unity between actor, scenography, and lighting. The theatrical aspect that draws us in to “act” is also part of the phenomenological reading, thanks to her use of linear perspective, which creates, as Hays noted, “the space of pointing, the space of ‘you, here,’ ‘there you are,’ ‘you exist’.”46 Perspective also establishes composition, where symmetry played an important role in her work as it had in Judd’s. Vinciarelli’s watercolors employ a lateral symmetry which, Hays argued, is “rather deadpan,” or “economical,” according to Vinciarelli; “it’s not an issue; it’s just what results when composition is refused.”47

Figure 23.5  Atrium in Red, Lauretta Vinciarelli, 1990. Watercolor on paper, 293/4 x 221/2 inches. Source: Collection TOTAH, New York. Credit: David Totah.

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Conclusion By the late 1990s, her representational work had slowly transformed into floating rectilinear planes of electric color, vibrating against absolute darkness, presenting a nebulous space in which figure and ground are virtually indistinguishable. Light and color merge with architecture, dissolving the boundaries between solid/void, permanent/ephemeral, inside/outside. Titles like Icy Water (2004– 2007) and Orange Incandescence (1997) suggest extremes in temperature, while Orange Sound (1999) and Silence in Red (2000) render auditory phenomena visible. Vinciarelli likened the individual paintings of her Orange Sound series to the notes of a musical scale, explaining that they were not bound to any specific order but could instead be arranged based on feeling.48 Through the fundamental elements of art and architecture—color, line, composition, wall, floor, ceiling—Vinciarelli engaged sight, space, and sound in order to capture “a mood.”49 When her Study for Luminous Void, Volume of Light (2001) was included in the 2002 Whitney Biennial, it appeared somewhat out of place. Not only was she among the first architects ever invited to exhibit in a Whitney Biennial, but her relatively small watercolors might have seemed restrained or even quaint among the mostly experimental video and installation-based work. As fellow IAUS member Frederiecke Taylor asserted at the time, Vinciarelli’s watercolors were part of a strain that was “very beautiful, but not cutting edge.”50 Biennial curator Lawrence Rinder defended his decision, explaining that when the watercolors were brought to his attention they struck him as uniquely “fresh and inspired” and served as a reminder that “the boundaries of art and architecture are so permeable” in the contemporary art world.51 Context is important, as well: considering this was the first post-9/11 Whitney Biennial, perhaps Vinciarelli’s “volume of light”—space that was elemental yet immaterial, seemingly inhabitable yet indestructible, much like the two massive beams of light of Tribute in Light, installed just south of Ground Zero in early 2002—resonated in a city that had just experienced utter devastation. No doubt, Vinciarelli felt connected to her adopted home of New York; however, the “eternal city” of Rome, which she also witnessed rebuild after destruction, was an ongoing source of inspiration throughout her life: “Rome is indelibly present in my heart,” Vinciarelli declared in 1997, “for its uniquely magnificent spaces, like the Pantheon and the Early Christian churches, which have magic light and simple, powerful shapes.”52 Indeed, the memories and history of Rome held powerful sway over her architectural imagination throughout her career. Vinciarelli’s range of work, from her watercolors to her architectural proposals and teaching, reminds us of the close ties between memory, our physical bodies, our experience in this world, and the constructed spaces we design and inhabit. Above all, her work represents an ongoing search for an architecture that endures—something “more solid and massive.”

Notes 1. Matilda McQuaid and Terence Riley, eds,  Envisioning Architecture: Drawings from the Museum of Modern Art (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2002), 37, endnote reference 36. Lilly Reich also had work acquired that year, including a lacquered screen. It was not until 1994 that Reich’s drawings were researched and catalogued by Matilda McQuaid and Pierre Adler. Charlotte Perriand (1903–1999) had furniture acquired by MoMA as early as 1934, but that work was jointly attributed to Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret. Information retrieved from MoMA’s online collections, accessed July 21, 2017, www.moma.org/ collection/, and Terry Riley, “Preface,” in Matilda McQuaid, Lilly Reich: Designer and Architect (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1996), 7. 2. “With more than 700  years of history and 145,000 students, La Sapienza is the largest university in Europe, and the second largest in the world.” JSTOR, accessed May 2, 2020, www.jstor.org/publisher/ uniromasapienza.

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“Something More Solid and Massive” 3. The author would like to acknowledge Peter Rowe, who has gone above and beyond in order to provide access to Lauretta’s work, photographs, and personal papers. She would also like to thank the staff at Judd Foundation and David Totah of TOTAH, New York. 4. Martin Filler, “Harbingers: Ten Architects,” Art in America (Summer 1981): 122. 5. Lauretta Vinciarelli, Lecture at the Spitzer School of Architecture, City College of New York, March 5, 2009, DVD (Archive of the Spitzer School of Architecture at the City College of New York). 6. Susana Torre, ed., Women in American Architecture: A Historic and Contemporary Perspective (New York: Whitney Library of Design, 1977), 176. 7. Lauretta Vinciarelli, Lecture at the Spitzer School of Architecture, City College of New York. 8. “Lecture: Lauretta Vinciarelli” (1978), Giuseppe Zambonini papers; Open Atelier of Design Lecture Series (New School Archives and Special Collections Digital Archive), accessed February  12, 2010, http://digitalarchives.library.newschool.edu/index.php/Detail/objects/KA0130_OA_14. 9. Ibid. 10. Ibid. 11. Leonardo Foderà and Lauretta Vinciarelli, “Giardini E Spazio: A Series of Typologies to Define Spaces,” Domus 584 ( July 1978): 44. 12. For more on the history Columbia’s architecture department during the 1970s, see Richard Oliver, ed., The Making of an Architect: 1881–1981 (New York: Rizzoli International, 1981). 13. Richard Plunz, email to the author, November 2, 2017. 14. See, for example: Anthony Vidler, “The Third Typology,” Oppositions 7 (Winter 1977): 1–3; Rafael Moneo, “On Typology,” Oppositions 13 (1978): 23–45; Aldo Rossi, Architecture of the City, trans. Diane Ghirardo and Joan Ockman (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1982). 15. Claude Armstrong and Donna Cohen, interview by the author via Skype, April 21, 2013. 16. “Lauretta Vinciarelli,” Zambonini papers. 17. Ibid. 18. Mary McLeod, “The End of Innocence: From Political Activism to Postmodernism,” in Architecture School: Three Centuries of Educating Architects in North America, ed. Joan Ockman (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2012), 190. 19. Ruth Rutholtz and Diana Ming Sung, “Carpet Housing,” Heresies: A Feminist Publication on Art and Politics, Issue 11: Making Room: Women and Architecture 3, no. 3 (1981): 23. 20. Marta Gutman and Eugene Sparling, interview by author, New York, March 30, 2013. 21. Lauretta Vinciarelli, interview by Rainer Judd and Barbara Hunt McLanahan, February 25, 2008, New York, transcript (Oral History Project, Judd Foundation, Marfa, TX). 22. Peter Ballantine, e-mail message to the author, March 31, 2012. 23. William C. Agee, “Artist’s Dialogue: Donald Judd, The Language of Space,” Architectural Digest (August 1986): 44. 24. Donna Cohen, email to the author, May 24, 2017. Cohen noted that it was telling that Judd listed Vinciarelli’s name first. 25. Lauretta Vinciarelli, “Marfa 2a,” Précis 2, Tradition: Radical and Conservative (1980), 53. 26. Ibid. 27. Ibid. 28. Lauretta Vinciarelli, “Courtyard Building for Donald Judd Installations,” Arts + Architecture 28 (1981): 36. 29. Ibid., 37. 30. Ibid. The town of Marfa has since been irrevocably transformed from a small ranching town into an international art center, with ritzy and quirky hotels and restaurants that cater to tourists. 31. Vinciarelli, interview by Judd and McLanahan. 32. Foderà and Vinciarelli, 44. 33. “Lecture: Lauretta Vinciarelli,” Zambonini papers. 34. Vinciarelli, interview. 35. Donald Judd, “Providence,” and “Cleveland,” in Donald Judd, Architektur, 100–13. 36. Armstrong and Cohen, interview by the author via Skype, April 21, 2013. 37. Vinciarelli, interview. 38. Armstrong and Cohen, interview. 39. Vinciarelli, interview. 40. Judd, “Cleveland,” 110. 41. Lauretta Vinciarelli, “Red Rooms, Water Enclosures and Other Unfolding Spaces,” Oz 17 (1995): 27. 42. Vinciarelli, lecture at the Spitzer School.

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Rebecca Siefert 43. K. Michael Hays, “A Note on Lauretta Vinciarelli’s Watercolors,” in Not Architecture but Evidence That It Exists: Lauretta Vinciarelli Watercolors, ed. Brooke Hodge (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1999), 123. 44. Vinciarelli, lecture at the Spitzer School. 45. Hays, “A Note on Lauretta Vinciarelli’s Watercolors,” 123. 46. Ibid., 124. 47. Ibid., 122. 48. Peter Reed, “Lauretta Vinciarelli,” in Envisioning Architecture: Drawings from the Museum of Modern Art, ed. Matilda McQuaid and Terence Riley (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2002), 248. 49. Lawrence Rinder et al., 2002 Biennial Exhibition (New York: The Whitney Museum of American Art, 2002), 220. 50. Frederieke Taylor, quoted in Julie V. Iovine, “The Whitney Biennial Invites Architecture In,” New York Times, February 21, 2002, accessed May 2, 2020, www.nytimes.com/2002/02/21/garden/the-whitneybiennial-invites-architecture-in.html. The other architects included in the 2002 Whitney Biennial were Lebbeus Woods, Rural Studio, and Javier Cambre. 51. Lawrence Rinder, email to the author, August 17, 2016; and Iovine, “The Whitney.” 52. Lauretta Vinciarelli, interview by Hyun Suk Yu, June 10, 1997, transcript (Lauretta Vinciarelli personal papers, New York).

Bibliography Allen, Gerald, ed. Emerging Voices: A  New Generation of Architects in America. New York: The Architectural League of New York, 1986. Colomina, Beatriz, and Joan Ockman, eds. Architectu(re)production. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1988. Filler, Martin. “Harbingers: Ten architects.” Art in America (Summer 1981): 114–23. Filler, Martin. “Building with Paper and Water.” Design Quarterly 157 (Fall 1992): 15–21. Foderà, Leonardo. “Puglia Project.” Architectural Design. May/June 1977. Foderà, Leonardo, and Lauretta Vinciarelli. “Giardini E Spazio: A Series of Typologies to Define Spaces.” Domus 584 ( July 1978): 44–45. Hays, K. Michael. “Not Architecture but Evidence That It Exists: A Note on Lauretta Vinciarelli’s Watercolors.” Assemblage 38 (April 1999): 48–57. Hodge, Brooke, ed. Not Architecture but Evidence That It Exists: Lauretta Vinciarelli Watercolors. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1999. McQuaid, Matilda, and Terence Riley, eds. Envisioning Architecture: Drawings from the Museum of Modern Art. New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2002. Parks, Janet. Contemporary Architectural Drawings: Donations to the Avery Library Centennial Drawings Archive. San Francisco: Pomegranate Artbooks, 1991. Plunz, Richard. “San Leucio: Cinque Proposte per un territorio.” Casabella 505 (September 1984): 4–25. Ranalli, George, Camille Farey, Ida Panicelli, et  al. Clear Light: The Architecture of Lauretta Vinciarelli. Hong Kong: Oscar Riera Ojeda Publishers Limited, 2015. Siefert, Rebecca. “Lauretta Vinciarelli, Illuminated.” AA Files 75 (2017): 71–85. Siefert, Rebecca. “Lauretta Vinciarelli, Into the Light: Her Collaborations with Donald Judd.” Woman’s Art Journal 38, no. 1 (Spring–Summer 2017): 20–27. Torre, Susana, ed. Women in American Architecture: A Historic and Contemporary Perspective. New York: Whitney Library of Design, 1977. Vinciarelli, Lauretta. “Marfa 2a.” Precis: The Journal of the Graduate School of Architecture and Planning, Columbia University 2, Tradition: Radical and Conservative (1980): 53–55. Vinciarelli, Lauretta. “Courtyard Building for Donald Judd Installations.” Arts + Architecture 28, 1981. Vinciarelli, Lauretta. “Statement on My Work.” In Emerging Voices: A New Generation of Architects in America, edited by Gerald Allen, 36. New York: The Architectural League of New York, 1986. Vinciarelli, Lauretta. “On Croset’s Idea of Narration.” In Architectu(re)production, eds Beatriz Colomina and Joan Ockman, 244–45. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1988. Vinciarelli, Lauretta. “Red Rooms, Water Enclosures and Other Unfolding Spaces.” Oz 17 (1995): 26–31. Vinciarelli, Lauretta. “ ‘Women Internet’ vs. the ‘Space of Tyranny’: Reply to Esther da Costa Meyer.” In The Sex of Architecture, edited by Diana Agrest, Patricia Conway, and Leslie Weisman, 157–60. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1996. Woods, Lebbeus. “Lauretta Vinciarelli: The Architecture of Light.” A&U 261 ( June 1992): 5–11.

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24 FLORA RUCHAT-RONCATI AND THE “WILL TO KEEP WORKING” Irina Davidovici and Katia Frey

Introduction As an architect and educator, Flora Ruchat-Roncati (1937–2012) was no prolific writer.1 Yet her texts are often disarmingly personal and revealing, such as this biographical note found at the end of a group exhibition catalogue: Sometimes I get the urge to leave, a fear of suffocation. I went twice to America: south, Brazil; north, the US. I learned a lot from these trips, but above all I learned to love my country. Now I leave again, perhaps for longer, but not for good. I leave behind the beautiful house in Ticino with its arches, the courtyard and garden, my friends and the piano. With me, I take the kids and a will to keep working—keep doing.2 The exhibition Tendenzen: Neuere Architektur in Tessin, shown in Zürich in 1975, would prove to be momentous in the history of late modern Swiss architecture, transformative to the careers of most of those involved. Ruchat-Roncati’s catalogue entry in the biographies section stands out, not only as the sole text by a woman in the group of exhibitors, but also as the only reflective statement among pages of vitae and lists of resounding names, projects, and publications. The short, elliptical text offers little context or concrete information. Ruchat-Roncati wrote it as she was preparing to move to Rome, leaving behind her house in Riva San Vitale, in Ticino, a household inhabited by an informal collective of artists and architects.3 Without distinguishing between the professional and the personal, her statement focuses on what mattered in her life: family and architecture in one amalgamated package. A narrative of Swiss architect Flora Ruchat-Roncati’s should consider, besides her prominence as teacher and practitioner, how her biographical circumstances permeated every area of her professional activities. Having become first a wife and mother, then a widow in her early twenties, her way of practice thereafter integrated work with family life. Her circumstances allowed her to fuse her social and professional connections into a singular, instrumental network that helped shape her remarkable career.4 Ruchat-Roncati’s professional trajectory was firmly embedded in the discipline of architectural design. She was, above all, a practicing architect who first established her reputation in the successful partnership with Aurelio Galfetti and Ivo Trümpy (1961–1970). The buildings of the Public Baths in Bellinzona (1970) and the educational complex composed of a school, a kindergarten, and a gym in

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Riva San Vitale (1962–1969) projected them to the forefront of the acclaimed Ticinese architecture. After this partnership dissolved, Ruchat-Roncati’s practice continued to develop at a range of scales, from designing furniture and domestic interiors to collective housing projects, university buildings, and motorway infrastructures. Ruchat-Roncati approached most of this work collaboratively in formal or informal partnerships with, among others, Dolf Schnebli, Tobias Amman, and Renato Salvi. Although first and foremost established as a practitioner, Ruchat-Roncati’s historical legacy is closely connected to architectural teaching. She was the first woman ever to become a full professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zürich, in 1985. This distinction was all the more significant since she was a leftist thinker from Ticino and an outsider to the German-Swiss establishment. The prestigious ETH professorship, which she held from 1985 to 2002, put RuchatRoncati  in a more public view as a visible role model. Her strong personality and approach to architectural education helped to open new perspectives in the curriculum. An example is the then innovative elective diploma module “Women in the History of Architecture,” which influenced an entire generation of female students. Ruchat-Roncati’s academic recognition was, nevertheless, dependent on her built projects—a legacy that remains curiously amorphous. Her preference for shared authorships led to a formally heterogeneous built oeuvre, which eschewed a recognizable signature style in favor of hybrid solutions tailored to each project. This approach extended to her fluid studio teaching, which bridged between the more doctrinaire methodologies of some of her male colleagues and is harder to define than most. This chapter identifies and discusses the ambiguities posed by this remarkable protagonist of Swiss architecture. It argues, at the same time, for the necessity to develop appropriate methodologies and assessment criteria in the study of women’s contributions to the profession in order to account for the hybrid, often partial inputs that reflect on the status of gender in society and in the profession.

Biography The life of Flora Ruchat-Roncati tells the story of an exceptional individual and pioneer in the profession.5 Born in Mendrisio, Ticino, the Italian-speaking canton in southern Switzerland, she proudly reminisced that her grandfather was a mason. Her father, Giuseppe Roncati, was a municipal civil engineer, and her mother, Angela Bertola, was related to the Chiattone, an Italo-Ticinese family of architects, sculptors, and artists. After graduating in 1956 from high school in Lugano with extended classes in science, Flora resettled to Zürich to study architecture. The intellectual environment at ETH set up the basis for Ruchat-Roncati’s conceptual thinking and working, and helped determine her professional language. Her teachers and long-term mentors Rino Tami, Alfred Roth, and Paul Waltenspühl were advocates of modernism in Switzerland.6 Through their tutelage, Ruchat-Roncati positioned herself as a successor to the primarily male lineage of the Modern movement. Her calling was to a great extent inherited from and supported by her family—Flora’s father introduced her to the building trade by taking her to construction sites, encouraging her to study architecture and later assigning practical contracts to her.7 During her studies, in collaboration with her father, she developed her first designs, such as the Boathouse in Brusino and House Medici in Mendrisio (1959–1960). While still a student, Ruchat-Roncati married her high school boyfriend André Ruchat, an engineering student at ETH. Their daughter, Anna, was born in 1959. Tragically, shortly before her graduation, her husband died in a plane crash during a military training flight in the Swiss Alps. In mourning, she delayed her diploma and sought refuge in work by submitting design entries to a number of architectural competitions.8 After graduating in 1961, with the support of her family, she

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set up a studio in Bedano, in collaboration with her close friend Aurelio Galfetti and her colleague Ivo Trümpy. This partnership was positioned in the modernist legacy of Ticino architecture, the partners sharing a particular enthusiasm for the work of Le Corbusier. Like the majority of the 1960s generation, Ruchat-Roncati and Galfetti had both graduated from ETH Zurich, while Trümpy had received local training as an architectural practitioner. Their projects signaled the emergence of an original synthesis of modernist leitmotifs, with newer concerns with typology, history, urbanity, and above all, an engagement with territory, tinged with political overtones.9 This agenda was particularly perceptible in their design for the Public Baths in Bellinzona, a commission secured through a competition in 1967 and completed in 1970. In the late 1960s, during the final stages of this collaboration, Ruchat-Roncati acquired an old property with a large garden in the historical center of Riva San Vitale, converting it to apartments and studios. In 1970, she moved into an apartment in a partially rebuilt wing facing the garden. By lending the remainder of the property to friends, she set up an ad hoc community of artists and architects. While not programmatically conceived as a communal household, this family-like setting created a network of support for the single mother and her daughter for the next five years. Having

Figure 24.1 Flora Ruchat-Roncati with the model of the Bellinzona Municipal Baths, 1968. Source: Fondo Flora Ruchat-Roncati, Fondazione Archivio del Moderno, Balerna, image provided for publication in 2020 with support by Fondazione Archivio del Moderno.

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found a new partner in Leo Zanier, an Italian poet and trade unionist, after the birth of her second daughter, Elisa, Ruchat-Roncati retreated to the more conventional setting of a nuclear family. Seeking new professional opportunities, in 1975 Ruchat-Roncati settled in Rome with her partner and daughters. Operating as an advisor to the Italian national cooperative housing association, she built, among other projects, the large social housing complex La Colasiderta in Taranto, Puglia (1978–1982).10 She also pursued an academic career, gaining teaching experience as a visiting critic and lecturer at several architectural schools in Europe and the United States.11

Ruchat-Roncati’s Built Works It is a peculiarity of Ruchat-Roncati’s career—and partly the reason for being cast in the shadow of various male partners—that she rarely designed on her own. This was hardly surprising, since collaborations were enshrined, at the time of her formation, in the Ticinese architectural culture. Her teachers and older colleagues, such as Rino Tami, Peppo Brivio, and Tita Carloni, provided a crucial influence for her way of working. As Paolo Fumagalli noted, “Flora is not a Robinson Crusoe on an island, she has fathers and brothers.”12 Her connection to other Ticinese architects, consolidated while studying at ETH, continued beyond her first official partnership with Galfetti and Trümpy between 1961 and 1970. Ruchat-Roncati also took part in competition entries and short-term collaborations on specific projects, as attested by the group entry for the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale Campus in Lausanne (1970) with Tita Carloni, Mario Botta, Aurelio Galfetti, Ivano Gianola, and Luigi Snozzi. Some of these projects led to long-term partnerships, such as those formalized with Dolf Schnebli and Tobias Ammann (1990–1997) and with Renato Salvi for the infrastructural works of the Transjurane motorway (1989–1998). Like other Ticinese contemporaries, Ruchat-Roncati’s trajectory linked the traditional modernism with the methodology and architectural references of the Italian Tendenza. This interplay is visible throughout her built work, emerging from the permeable and slender concrete frames of the school in Riva San Vitale to the monumentality of the La Colasiderta housing complex; from the emphatic texture of Béton brut used in the Ruchat House in Morbio Inferiore to the expressive sculptural forms of the technical installations, the bridges, tunnel portals, and ventilation systems of the Transjurane Highway. This array of activities relied on a remarkably fluid operational model, based on dynamic networks of people as well as the overlap of professional and social connections.

First Woman Professor at ETH Zurich The turning point in Ruchat-Roncati’s already successful career was her nomination to the position of professor at the ETH Department of Architecture. Her academic curriculum highlights the pioneering aspects of her career when compared to other women architects of the time in Switzerland.13 In 1979, she became the first woman to serve as a Visiting Lecturer, and in 1985, she was the first woman to hold a Chair, not only within the Architecture Department but within the whole ETH. The full extent of this nomination can be grasped in relation to the particular significance of the ETH—founded in 1855, it became the first federal institution of higher education in science and technology.14 It retained its male-dominated environment, reflecting on a Swiss society where women did not gain suffrage until 1971. It took 130 years for the first woman to become a Professor at ETH in 1985.15 In 1979, the magazine for building and economics Aktuelles Bauen published a special issue on “Woman and Architecture” with interviews of four architects: Trix Haussmann, Lisbeth Sachs, Beate Schnitter, and Flora Ruchat-Roncati.16 Ruchat-Roncati’s appointment represented a milestone within the history of the institution as well as women’s history in Switzerland.17 Her position as the first and only female professor thus 316

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Figure 24.2 School complex, Riva San Vitale, architects Aurelio Galfetti, Flora Ruchat-Roncati, and Ivo Trümpy, 1962–1969. Source: Irina Davidovici, 2019.

placed Ruchat-Roncati in the public light and imposed on her a professorial role model. When Ruchat-Roncati was a Visiting Lecturer in 1979, students had taken her course specifically because they expected new directions from her perspective as a woman.18 Still, these expectations also presented Ruchat-Roncati with an array of clichés born of an eagerness to merge personal, domestic, and professional spheres. Her long-term teaching colleague and collaborator in practice, Dolf Schnebli, coined her the “Mamma mediterranea” at the opening of the exhibition dedicated to her work.19 This maternal association would be repeated in obituary articles, placing alongside references to her roles as architect and professor those of cook and hostess.

Teaching Approach At ETH, Flora Ruchat-Roncati introduced a holistic approach, decisively opening up a range of innovative topics, of which the gender one is the most evident. In contrast to the well-documented teaching tracks of male professors at ETH—Bernard Hoesli’s Grundkurs, Aldo Rossi’s typological studio, Fabio Reinhart and Miroslav Šik’s Analogue Architecture Studio—Ruchat-Roncati did not develop an explicit studio methodology. Instead, she relied on the traditional method of studio teaching based upon intense engagement with the demands of each project, the reaction to student proposals, and the oral transmission of knowledge through lectures and tutorials. From her appointment in 1985 until 1993, Ruchat-Roncati was co-teaching in the undergraduate curriculum. At ETH, these large studios could have up to one hundred students, and teaching within this setting relies on teaching assistants as fundamental mediators between the students and 317

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Figure 24.3 Flora Ruchat-Roncati. Photograph, c. 1985. Source: Fondo Flora Ruchat-Roncati, Fondazione Archivio del Moderno, Balerna, image provided for publication in 2020 with support by Fondazione Archivio del Moderno.

the professor. Assistants are, generally, young practitioners, often ETH graduates, who can draw upon their own experiences of the teaching culture at ETH while simultaneously reconstituting it anew. Past students have remarked on Ruchat-Roncati’s great skill at assembling and managing a team of excellent assistants—Dieter Geissbühler, Petra Stojanik, Fredi Ehrat, Laurie Hunziker, and others—with whom they had maintained more frequent one-on-one contact than with the professor herself. As Ruchat-Roncati’s student in 1985, Harry Gugger, a full Professor at EPFL Lausanne in 2020, recalled how she convinced him to stay in the course and thus “saved him for architecture.”20 After a soullessly technical first-year experience, he was inspired by her teaching in his second year. RuchatRoncati provided a “new and challenging dimension to architecture,” pertaining to a broader cultural sphere and setting the art of building primarily as an intellectual, philosophical enterprise. According to Gugger, she projected an impressive image as the head of a brilliant team of assistants; this tightly knit group came across as a “family.”21 Ruchat-Roncati’s lectures were focused on the city, and this approach also permeated her choice of studio topics and responses to the students’ proposals. During studio time restricted to design reviews, these talks became an essential interface with the students. Gugger found them “both confusing and refreshing,” spontaneous and inspiring, due to Ruchat-Roncati’s abundant blackboard drawings. Her lectures provided a general introduction to architecture; as conveyed in notes taken by her assistant Fredi Ehrat in 1987, she emphasized the interplay between structure and place, for 318

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Figure 24.4 Notes at Ruchat-Roncati lectures by assistant Fredi Ehrat, spring semester 1987. Source: Fondo Flora Ruchat-Roncati, Fondazione Archivio del Moderno, Balerna, image provided for publication with support by Fondazione Archivio del Moderno.

example, positioning of designs in the context of landscape and in relation to the solar path, or outlining the role of topography as the “precondition” for the modernist “fenêtre en longueur.” One of Ruchat-Roncati’s lectures was focused on the “Frage der Technik,” with a special emphasis on architectural structure and geometry.22 The references deployed various examples, from the tectonic archetype of the Parthenon to the restrained classicism of Adolf Loos; from the mannerism of Luigi Moretti, to the modernism of contemporary Ticinese architecture.23 A later series from the early 1990s drew on the fundamental topoi of Place, Function, Type, and Geometry.24 From 1987, Ruchat-Roncati took over the supervision of diploma theses, and in 1994, her teaching activities shifted to third- and fourth-year studio. The greater complexity of assignments 319

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did not alter the program of the studio but was manifested in the emphasis placed on the urban aspects of architectural interventions in Zürich, Lugano, Basel, and Rome. In 1995–1997, with Felix Wettstein as her assistant, Ruchat-Roncati organized a postgraduate course on the “constructed landscape,” which focused on the design of infrastructural terrain interventions, the architectural dimension of civil engineering structures such as motorways.25 Ruchat-Roncati’s teaching at ETH from the mid-1980s and until 2002 became an institution in itself and a strong influence for several generations of Swiss architects. She offered a deeply personal, charismatic contribution to teaching culture. Her focus on the identity of place, landscape, and construction illustrated her unabating belief in the social responsibility of architecture.

Promoting Women in Architectural Academia Ruchat-Roncati’s colleagues, assistants, and students have repeatedly referred to her as a powerful role model.26 This was apparent also in respect to Ruchat-Roncati’s statement on new gender policy: “Objectively, it was very important that, finally, women had also been appointed to high-level positions.”27 She was aware that women were expected to work harder to reach the positions routinely taken by men.28 Therefore, Ruchat-Roncati always supported women’s professional advancement—in 1992, she recommended Inès Lamunière for the position of an adjunct professor and later endorsed the application of her former assistant, Petra Stojanik, for a position of assistant professor at ETH.29 Her ties with Inès Lamunière, who was seventeen years her junior, were particularly important. Having first met at the Swiss Institute in Rome in 1981, Lamunière has referred to Ruchat-Roncati as her “mère de l’architecture.”30 Lamunière received a teaching position at ETH (1992–1993), which constituted a critical achievement leading directly to her permanent appointment as the first female professor of architecture at the EPFL Lausanne in 1994.

SAFFA 1928, 1958, … 1988? Und Heute Flora Ruchat-Roncati’s active engagement in the discourse on women’s position in architecture was broadened through her participation in the exhibition SAFFA 1928, 1958, … 1988? Und Heute: ein Projekt von Inès Lamunière, Flora Ruchat-Roncati, Beate Schnitter at the Architecture Museum in Basel, 1989.31 The director of the museum, Ulrike Jehle-Schulte Strathaus, initiated in 1988 this project highlighting the chronicles of women’s professional engagement. The event was intended to continue the line-up of historical displays of SAFFA (Schweizerische Ausstellung für Frauenarbeit)—Swiss Exhibition of Women’s Work—in Bern (1928) and in Zürich (1958). The earlier SAFFAs presented an active political agenda of an overview of Swiss women’s professional contribution to a diverse variety of industries, education, and healthcare. For architects, that national panorama of twentieth-century Switzerland had provided a great opportunity to display their records. The “commemorative” retrospective in Basel was the collaboration of three architects who represented three generations and three cultural regions: Flora Ruchat-Roncati; Beate Schnitter, the niece of Lux Guyer, the first Swiss women architect and an emblematic figure in German-speaking Switzerland; and Inès Lamunière, a young architect starting her own studio in French-speaking Geneva. These architects developed a concept presented thematically across three levels of the museum, with the core idea of depicting the path of a female professional from the early stages to achieved recognition. The first floor was dedicated to women’s multiple roles in society, the second put emphasis on professional women, and the third presented the contradictions between women’s new mobility and private life. 320

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Figure 24.5 Exhibition SAFFA 1928, 1958, … 1988? Und Heute, Swiss Architecture Museum, Basel. Photograph, 1989. Source: S AM Archive, Basel, image provided for publication in 2020 with support by Elena Fuchs.

SAFFA inspired Flora Ruchat-Roncati’s reflection on gender issues in architecture and the importance of education and sociopolitical standing in women’s lives. Her 1989 notebook was dedicated to Eileen Gray, a designer at the time still overlooked in history books.

First Gendered Research and Teaching at D-Arch In teaching, Ruchat-Roncati’s personality and innovative spirit provided a new perspective, informed by the course Women in the History of Building.32 This gender-related curricular effort, the first of its kind at the ETH Architecture Department, was established during the summer semester of 1994. Inaugurated while Ruchat-Roncati was the Dean of the department, it was taught as an elective, in collaboration with Assistant Professor Petra Stojanik. Aiming to rediscover the names of women architects, the course focused on pioneering figures, ranging from the 1920s idea of a “new woman,” to domestic spaces and new forms of housing, to exhibition design. With the input of experts from other disciplines such as art history, literature, and film studies, the curriculum presented a theoretically and practically contextualized way of thinking, highlighting the social, economic, and cultural background of architectural work. Stojanik argued that the course was intended to “unveil spaces for thought, and change the perspectives.”33 After her appointment as Assistant Professor ended in 1996, Petra Stojanik taught the course for one more semester; later, the endeavor was taken up by Astrid Staufer, another assistant of Flora Ruchat-Roncati.34 From 1998 to 2001, architect Anja Maissen (1964–2013) served as the last lecturer for this rare course; it was removed from the curriculum when Ruchat-Roncati retired in 2002. The course represented a significant step in the evolution of ETH’s institutional culture—it empowered a new generation of students, primarily female, and instilled a groundbreaking interest 321

Irina Davidovici and Katia Frey

in the historically neglected topic.35 It also generated a variety of research activities, leading to the publication of three volumes of lectures, edited by Petra Stojanik, and a paper by Anja Maissen addressing the role of women architects in their “private” and “public” domains.36

Blurred Networks: By Way of Conclusion Ruchat-Roncati’s trailblazing contribution to teaching and practice is critical, yet it presents a challenge in terms of direct evaluation of her spontaneous and fluid mode of research. Her built production is similarly heterogeneous, avoiding a recognizable signature style in favor of hybrid, adaptable solutions. The work covered a great variety of scales, from furniture design to territorial infrastructures. While in practice she operated by means of professional partnerships, in her teaching she held a more singular role, as accorded by the academic hierarchy at ETH Zürich. Over the years, her preoccupation with gender issues became more pronounced: aspects of this passion visibly emerged in her collaborations with a gender-balanced team of teaching assistants; she was strongly supportive of her female students.37 Raised in a Latin cultural setting that placed great emphasis on friends and family, RuchatRoncati was a social person who combined the networks of her personal life, teaching, and practicing career.38 Swiss scholar Eliana Perotti has argued that the juxtaposition of social and professional circles in the architect’s life was placed under the sign of conviviality, and her cultivated hospitality paved the way to her professional achievements.39 Indeed, Ruchat-Roncati’s approach combined a rigorous work ethic with a fluid modus operandi, gathering people around the work desk and the kitchen table alike. This approach sustained her expanding network of colleagues, friends, and collaborators upon which she relied as a woman, a teacher, and a practical architect. The cultural identity of this mutually beneficial way of working, which she navigated during the various stages of her career between the Italian-speaking Ticino, Zürich, and Italy, remains deeply relevant. Her network shaped Ruchat-Roncati’s role as a catalyst in transcending cultural boundaries—both between Switzerland and Italy, and within Switzerland itself.

Notes 1. This study, with many thanks to Fondazione Archivio del Moderno, Balerna, and Schweizerisches Architekturmuseum S AM Archive, Basel, is based on the research “Flora Ruchat-Roncati at ETH 1985–2002. Professor, Planner, Theoretician,” conducted from 2017 to 2018, funded by the Swiss National Research Foundation and hosted by the Department of Architecture of the ETH Zürich. Site accessed May 2, 2020, www.flora-ruchat-roncati-snf.ch. Eliana Perotti  was the principal investigator, and the team comprised Katrin Albrecht, Helene Bihlmaier, Julia Hämmerling, and the authors of this chapter. A monograph based on this research: Flora Ruchat-Roncati an der ETH Zürich 1985–2002. Professorin, Architektin, Theoretikerin, ed. Eliana Perotti, Katrin Albrecht, Helene Bihlmaier, Irina Davidovici, Katia Frey, and Julia Hemmerling (Zürich: gta, 2021). 2. Flora Ruchat-Roncati quote translated by the authors from German. “Flora Ruchat-Roncati, Riva San Vitale,” in Tendenzen. Neuere Architektur in Tessin, ed. Martin Steinmann and Thomas Boga (Zürich: Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich, 1975), 124. 3. See Irina Davidovici and Eliana Perotti, “Cortile and Stöckli—Flora Ruchat-Roncati’s Home in Riva San Vitale, Switzerland,” in Activism at Home: Architects’ Own Dwellings as Sites of Resistance, ed. Isabelle Doucet and Janina Gosseye (Leipzig: Spector Books, 2021). 4. Katrin Albrecht and Irina Davidovici, “Konzept Convivium,” Flora Ruchat-Roncati. Architektur als Netzwerk, a monographic issue of Werk, Bauen + Wohnen 12 (2017): 8–13. 5. Helene Bihlmaier, Katia Frey, and Eliana Perotti, “Leben, lernen und lehren,” Flora Ruchat-Roncati. Architektur als Netzwerk, a monographic issue of Werk, Bauen + Wohnen 12 (2017): 20–24. 6. Professor Rino Tami, who supervised her diploma, graduated from the Bauhaus; she often cited Alfred Roth, who had practiced at the office of Le Corbusier, and Paul Waltenspühl, who participated in the 1953 CIAM Congress in Aix-en-Provence.

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Flora Ruchat-Roncati 7. Alida Airaghi, “Fare architettura fra Lugano, Roma e Zurigo,” Agorà 19 (1989): 34–35; Charlotte Rey and Katharina Wanner, “Das Poly blieb eine Männerburg. Interview mit Flora Ruchat und Beate Schnitter,” Aktuelles Bauen 16 (1980): 21–27. 8. She won a competition for a kindergarten in Chiasso, which she would be able to build under the condition that she finished her diploma. 9. Nicola Navone and Bruno Reichlin eds, Il bagno di Bellinzona di Aurelio Galfetti, Flora Ruchat-Roncati, Ivo Trümpy (Mendrisio: Mendrisio Academy Press, 2010). 10. Flora Ruchat-Roncati, “Stadtmauer zum Wohnen,” Sozialer Wohnungsbau, 224 (1981); Flora Ruchat-Roncati, “Genossenschaftswohnungen in Taranto,” Werk, Bauen + Wohnen 12 (1981): 9–13. 11. She was teaching at the University of Reggio Calabria; at Syracuse University in Syracuse, NY; in Florence, Italy; at Harvard University; at Università degli Studi La Sapienza in Rome; and at the Akademie van Bouwkunst in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. 12. Paolo Fumagalli, Speech at the opening of Flora Ruchat-Roncati’s retrospective exhibition at ETH Zürich (December 1997, Archive gta / ETH Zürich, bequest 246 gta Exhibitions). 13. Beate Schnitter, Lisbeth Sachs, and Trix Hausmann. See Charlotte Rey and Katharina Wanner, “Man muss einfach besser sein als die Männer. Gespräche mit Schweizer Architektinnen. Trix Haussmann-Högl, Lisbeth Sachs, Beate Schnitter, Flora Ruchat,” Aktuelles Bauen 16 (1980): 9–17; Ibid., Rey and Wanner, “Interview Flora Ruchat und Beate Schnitter,” 21–27; Ibid. “Weiblichkeit als Handicap?” 35. 14. ETH Zürich had been the only institution of this kind in Switzerland until 1969, when the École Polytechnique Fédérale in Lausanne (EPFL) was established on the basis of the Engineering School of Lausanne. 15. Among others, Susana Torre’s exhibition Women in American Architecture, A Historic and Contemporary Perspective (1977), Dolores Hayden’s study The Grand Domestic Revolution (1980), or in Germany, Ulla Terlinden’s and Kerstin Dörhöfer’s work in Frauen, Räume, Architektur, Umwelt (1980). 16. Rey and Wanner, “Gespräche,” 9–17; Rey and Wanner, “Interview,” 21–27; Rey and Wanner, “Weiblichkeit,” 35. 17. “Erste ordentliche ETH-Professorin. Letzte Männerbastion gefallen,” Zürcher Student, May  21, 1985; “ETH: Die erste ordentliche Professorin,” Tagblatt der Stadt Zürich, May 9, 1985; “Neue an der ETH. Flora Ruchat-Roncati,” Neue Zürcher Zeitung, April 2, 1986, 49; “ETH Zürich. Flora Ruchat-Roncati, ordentliche Professorin für Architektur,” Schweizer Ingenieur und Architekt 15 (1986): 342. 18. Attilio D’Andrea and Annegret Diethelm, “Eine Annäherung an eine Tessiner Architektin,” Tessiner Zeitung, October 7, 2016, 19. 19. Dolf Schnebli, “Laudatio,” in Flora Ruchat-Roncati, ed. Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich (Zurich: gta, 1998), 33; Sascha Menz, “Gemeinschaftssinn und Humanismus,” Neue Zürcher Zeitung, January 19, 2013, 63; and: Albrecht and Davidovici, “Konzept,” 8–13. 20. Harry Gugger, interview with Katrin Albrecht and Irina Davidovici, October 25, 2017. 21. Ibid. 22. Frage der Technik (German)—title of the lecture, in translation, Inquiry on Technical Issues. 23. Notes taken by Fredi Ehrat in 1987, photocopied and bound in a booklet gifted to Ruchat-Roncati in November 1995. 24. ETH Zürich Lehrstuhl Prof. Flora Ruchat-Roncati, Material zu den Vorlesungen. SS 1993, ed. Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich et al. (Zurich: gta, 1993), 2. 25. Felix Wettstein, interview with Irina Davidovici, August 25, 2018. 26. Petra Stojanik stated, “Wenn man sie gesehen hat, hat man sich gesagt, ja so möchte ich sein.” (If you would have seen her, you would believe, you want to become like her.) Petra Stojanik, interview with Helene Bihlmaier and Katia Frey, September 9, 2017. 27. “Objektiv gesehen war es sehr wichtig, dass endlich auch Frauen an höhere Positionen berufen wurden.” See: “Flora Ruchat-Roncati. Ordentliche Professorin für Architektur und Entwerfen,” in Wege in die Wissenschaft. Professorinnen an der ETH. 16 Portraits, ed. Stelle für Chancengleichheit für Mann und Frau an der ETH Zürich (Zurich: Stelle für Chancengleichheit für Mann und Frau an der ETH Zürich, 1997), 33. 28. Stojanik, Interview. 29. Inès Lamunière, Interview with Irina Davidovici and Katia Frey, September 1, 2017. 30. Ibid. 31. On display at the Domus House from April 1 to June 25, in collaboration with the curator and art historian Dorothee Huber. On May 17, 2017, the project team in cooperation with the women’s association Creatrices arranged at the Domus House a commemorative evening “Drei Generationen. Erinnerungen an SAFFA 1928, 1958, … 1988? Und Heute.” 32. Translated from German by the authors (Frauen in der Geschichte des Bauens). 33. “Um Denkräume zu eröffnen und Blickwechsel zu ermöglichen,” in Die 20er Jahre, Stojanik, 5–6.

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Irina Davidovici and Katia Frey 34. Astrid Staufer is currently a professor of architecture and construction at Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZAHW) in Winterthur. 35. In 2001, Marjana Jurjovec and Andrea Gyger investigated the career paths of male and female ETH graduates in the period 1987–1994; they compiled a survey under supervision and with funding obtained by Ruchat-Roncati: Marjana Jurjovec and Andrea Gyger, Karriereplanung und Laufbahnen von ETH Architektinnen und Architekten, supervision by Anja Maissen, methodological input by Christina Schumacher (Zürich: ETH, 2001), accessed March 2, 2020, www.laufplan.ethz.ch. 36. Anja Maissen, “Frauen in der Geschichte des Bauens: zwischen Privatem und Öffentlichem,” HeimatschutzPatrimoine 97 (2002): 2–4. 37. According to statements in interviews with former students, Harry Gugger, Felix Wettstein, and Francesco Buzzi. 38. Albrecht and Davidovici, “Konzept,” 8–13; Eliana Perotti and Irina Davidovici, “Cortile and Stöckli—Flora Ruchat-Roncati’s Home in Riva San Vitale, Switzerland,” conference paper (“Activism at Home. Architects’ Own Homes as Sites of Resistance,” University of Manchester, UK, January 15–16, 2018). 39. Albrecht and Davidovici, “Konzept,” 8–13.

Bibliography Airaghi, Alida. “Fare architettura fra Lugano, Roma e Zurigo.” Agorà 19 (1989): 34–35. Albrecht, Katrin, and Irina Davidovici. “Konzept Konvivium.” Flora Ruchat-Roncati. Architektur als Netzwerk. Monographic issue of Werk, Bauen + Wohnen 12 (2017): 8–13. Baglione, Chiara, and Mercedes Daguerre, eds. “Odile Decq, Zaha Hadid, Carme Pinòs, Elsa Prochazka, Flora Ruchat, Annabelle Selldorf: Tavola Rotunda.” Casabella 69 (2005): 12–15. Bihlmaier, Helene, Katia Frey, and Eliana Perotti. “Leben, Lernen und Lehren.” Architektur als Netzwerk. Monographic issue of Werk, Bauen + Wohnen 12 (2017): 20–24. D’Andrea, Attilio, and Annegret Diethelm. “Eine Annäherung an eine Tessiner Architektin.” Tessiner Zeitung 7 (2016): 19. ETH Zürich Lehrstuhl Prof. Flora Ruchat-Roncati. Material zu den Vorlesungen. SS 1993. Zürich: gta, 1993. “Flora Ruchat-Roncati. Ordentliche Professorin für Architektur und Entwerfen.” In Wege in die Wissenschaft. Professorinnen an der ETH. 16 Portraits, 32–33. Zürich: Stelle für Chancengleichheit für Mann und Frau an der ETH Zürich, 1997. Flora Ruchat-Roncati. Exhibition catalog, ed. Institut für Geschichte und Theorie der Architektur and Professur Flora Ruchat-Roncati. ETH Zürich. Zürich: gta, 1998. Frey, Katia. “Masterplan of SAFFA 1928. Louise (Lux) Guyer.” In MoMoWo. 100 Works in 100 Years. European Women in Architecture and Design, 1918–2018, edited by Ana Fernández García, Caterina Franchini, et al., 42–43. Ljubljana, Turin: France Stele Institute of Art History and Založba, 2016. Frey, Katia, and Eliana Perotti. “Flora Ruchat-Roncati, First Woman Professor at ETH Zurich. Introducing Women’s Standpoint in Architectural Pedagogy.” In Women’s Creativity since the Modern Movement (1918–2018). Toward a New Perception and Reception, edited by Helena Serain, Caterina Franchini, and Emilia Garda, 58–66. Ljubljana: France Stele Institute of Art History, Založba ZRC, 2018. Hubacher, Annemarie, and Lisbeth Sachs. “SAFFA 1958 in Zürich. 2. Ausstellung ‘Die Schweizerfrau, ihr Leben, ihre Arbeit’.” Werk 45 (1958): 354–63. Jehle-Schulte Strathaus, Ulrike and Dorothee Huber, eds. SAFFA 1928, 1958, … 1988? Und Heute: ein Projekt von Inès Lamunière, Flora Ruchat-Roncati, Beate Schnitter. Basel: Architekturmuseum, 1989. Joanelly, Tibor. “Erfahrung und Zufall. Gespräch mit Flora Ruchat-Roncati, der einzigen, nun scheidenden ordentlichen Professorin des Departements Architektur der ETH Zürich.” Tec21 128 (2002): 6–10. Maissen, Anja. “Frauen in der Geschichte des Bauens: zwischen Privatem und Öffentlichem.” HeimatschutzPatrimoine 97 (2002): 2–4. Menz, Sascha. “Gemeinschaftssinn und Humanismus.” Neue Zürcher Zeitung, January 19, 2013, 63. Navone, Nicola, and Bruno Reichlin, eds. Il bagno di Bellinzona di Aurelio Galfetti, Flora Ruchat-Roncati, Ivo Trümpy. Mendrisio: Mendrisio Academy Press, 2010. Perotti, Eliana. “SAFFA 1958. Annemarie Constam Hubacher.” In MoMoWo. 100 Works in 100 Years. European Women in Architecture and Design, 1918–2018, edited by Ana Fernández García et  al., 102–3. Ljubljana, Turin: France Stele Institute of Art History and Založba, 2016. Rey, Charlotte, and Katharina Wanner. “Das Poly blieb eine Männerburg. Interview mit Flora Ruchat und Beate Schnitter.” Aktuelles Bauen 16 (1980): 21–27.

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Flora Ruchat-Roncati Rey, Charlotte, and Katharina Wanner. “Man muss einfach besser sein als die Männer. Gespräche mit Schweizer Architektinnen. Trix Haussmann-Högl, Lisbeth Sachs, Beate Schnitter, Flora Ruchat.” Aktuelles Bauen 16 (1980): 9–17. Rey, Charlotte, and Katharina Wanner. “Weiblichkeit als Handicap?” Aktuelles Bauen 16 (1980): 35. Ruchat-Roncati, Flora. “Flora Ruchat-Roncati, Riva San Vitale.” In Tendenzen. Neuere Architektur in Tessin. Exhibition Catalogue, edited by Martin Steinmann and Thomas Boga, 124. Zürich: Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich, 1975. Ruchat-Roncati, Flora. “ ‘Stadtmauer zum Wohnen.’ Sozialer Wohnungsbau: 224 Genossenschaftswohnungen in Taranto.” Wohnbau in der Stadt, Thematic Issue of Werk, Bauen + Wohnen 12 (1981): 9–13. SAFFA. Offizieller Führer mit Ausstellerverzeichnis und Orientierungsplan. 2. Ausstellung. Die Schweizer Frau, ihr Leben, ihre Arbeit, Zurich 17.7.—15.9.1958. Zürich: Schweizerische Ausstellung für Frauenarbeit, 1958. SAFFA. Schlussbericht der SAFFA. Schweizerische Ausstellung für Frauenarbeit. Bern: Francke, 1928. SAFFA. 2. Ausstellung: Die Schweizerfrau, ihr Leben, ihre Arbeit. In Zürich, 17. Juli—15. September 1958. Schlussbericht. Zürich, Bern: 1960. Schnebli, Dolf. “Laudatio.” In Flora Ruchat-Roncati, edied by Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich, 33. Zürich: gta, 1998. Schnitter, Beate. “Pandora’s Box. La pomme d’Eve. Sviluppo perpetuo.” Faces 51 (2002): 88–90. Steinmann, Martin, and Thomas Boga, eds. Tendenzen. Neuere Architektur in Tessin. Exhibition Catalogue. Zürich: Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich, 1975. Stojanik, Petra, ed. Beiträge zum Diplomwahlfach ‘Frauen in der Geschichte des Bauens’: vol. 1: Die 20er Jahre und die ‘Neue Frau’; vol. 2: Wohnräume, Wohnformen: Zuweisungen und Aneignungen; vol. 3: Ausstellungen—Darstellungen. Zürich: ETH, Professur Flora Ruchat-Roncati, 1996.

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PART V

Women in Architecture: From the 1960s to the Present Breaking the Glass Ceiling

The age of industrial revolution and rapid advancement of digital technologies in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries brought with it a need for new intelligent assessments and professional competencies to effectively navigate the emerging landscapes without borders as a manifestation of global transitions. It also provided new means with respect to the implications of both politics and technology and their impact on society, and to grander vistas of possibilities for massive numbers of women entering the discipline of architecture. Many groundbreaking figures emerged who gained inner freedom and self-reliance in order to overtly break the “glass ceiling” of patriarchal templates across the industry. This new leadership impacted and stimulated even weightier change within and beyond the broad variety of professional frameworks, generations, geographic borders, and ways in which new environments shaped by women would come to redefine the identity of the era in the effort to command new frontiers. In-depth investigations of the history of women entering the architecture profession feature these individuals as agents of change and conveners of a future civilization. This part starts with Chapter 25, “Expanding the Legacy: The International Archive of Women in Architecture” by Paola Zellner, offering an overview of the world’s largest thematic archive and uncovering fascinating narratives in the IAWA collection by means of a multistory digital exhibit, titled 30 x 30, as a novel methodological tool. The international nature of the collection founded in 1985 at Virginia Tech University Library became crucial to balancing history. The author addresses select archival records as necessary fragments that spark the imagination of the researcher and fuel the process of history writing, and she emphasizes how 30 x 30 provides an immersive space of contemplation and reflection by inviting viewers to a visual experience of the work of women from the archive. Aspiring to promote women’s achievements, foster research, and broadcast the IAWA as a repository for original papers and artifacts, Zellner brings to light unknown records of the practice of women and contributes to expanding their legacy. Chapter 26, “Breaking the Silence: Women in Russian Architecture” by Anna Sokolina, reconstructs and reframes latent legacies from the early twentieth century to the present, delves into the reasons behind the prevalence of women in Russian architecture, and investigates the ways in which their work has been downplayed in the Soviet and Russian contexts. The inquiry is rooted in history informed by the 1917 October Revolution that secured transformative gains for women by putting into place civil laws, in theory declaring gender equality motivated by the vision of social liberation. Creative portfolios are highlighted of four largely unknown caryatids of Russian architecture: Lydia Komarova, architect of major university centers, noted scholar, and an avant-garde designer

Women in Architecture: From the 1960s to the Present

of the spiral skyscraper; Tamara Kovalevskaya, architect of primary public structures in the Russian North, educator, and public official; Nina Aleshina, head of the Design Department of the entire metropolitan transit system and architect of nineteen metro stations in Moscow; and Galina Balashova, first architect of spaceship interiors for the Soviet Space Program and design genius never officially celebrated by the Russian authorities. The emphasis is placed on professional leadership of these remarkable women. This work aims to break the silence around notable female designers: role models who defined built environments across borders. In Chapter  27, “Leaving a Lasting Legacy. Beverly Willis: Groundbreaking Architect, Artist, Designer, Filmmaker, and Philanthropist,” Kathryn H. Anthony and Shailee Dave illuminate the legacy of Beverly Willis, a noted leader in American architecture of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. She received her architectural license in 1966; within a decade, while in her mid-thirties, she was the only woman in San Francisco, CA, with her own architectural firm, Willis and Associates, Inc. Architects. By the time her practice reached its peak, she had several large-scale civic projects underway. The authors follow her career of over seventy years, and introduce select designs from her portfolio of over eight hundred projects. Diane Elliott Gayer in Chapter 28, “Reflections: Creating an Architectural Practice,” provides unique insight into her own life and career across continents and elaborates on the state of mind of women practicing and teaching architecture. Gayer addresses the decade of the 1970s as the time of change—when young architects were following Paolo Soleri’s work and Buckminster Fuller’s ideas; when Design-Build was an experimental field outside academia; when community-based, not-forprofit design was happening in countries other than the US; and when women, in particular, were championing historic preservation in American cities. These active elements played a vital role in the formation of women in architecture who came of age during the days of the environmental and women’s movements, Vietnam backlash, and Black Power, yet their names are rarely found in the readings on real-life design practices. The chapter explores the input of women’s organizations such as the UIFA, the impact of Gayer’s teachers and colleagues, and key places—Denver, CO; Philadelphia, PA; Geneva, Switzerland; South Africa; and Rwanda—that influenced the development of her work in Colorado, where her environmentally based and community-engaged practice was established with an emphasis on “learning from place,” as well as in Vermont, where she was the director of the non-profit Vermont Design Institute and taught at the University of Vermont. Part V concludes with Chapter 29, “Collaborations: The Architecture and Art of Sigrid Miller Pollin.” Margaret Birney Vickery puts at the heart of her analysis strategies and practices of an American architect, artist, and educator as the means to address sustainability, career equality, and the legacy of past traditions deployed to develop spaces, specifically in New England, from the early twenty-first century to the present. Miller Pollin has spent her career shifting the professional paradigm, and while the majority of talented women in architecture still do not enjoy broad attention and advocacy, her 1290 Residence and Studio in Amherst, MA, is singled out by the author as a pioneering statement. Vickery pays special attention to the educational atmosphere of the Department of Architecture at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst and to the teaching philosophy cultivated there. Comprising a faculty of eleven women and three men, it has been built up from 1998 by Miller Pollin and her colleagues Kathleen Lugosch and Ray Kinoshita Mann into a program of academic rigor, architectural exploration, and equity, thus upending the educational status quo by devising courses of study that would work for all students, using the natural environment as a classroom. Sigrid Miller Pollin’s credo, as represented in her Residence and Studio and her teaching career at UMass, exemplifies her nuanced and deep understanding of the issues of gender in architecture and offers an inspirational insight into contemporary challenges of the discipline.

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25 EXPANDING THE LEGACY The International Archive of Women in Architecture Paola Zellner

Introduction: The Origins and the Founder of the IAWA The International Archive of Women in Architecture (IAWA) emerged as a response to the need for a balanced history of the discipline. By collecting and preserving the original papers of women in architecture, the archive has facilitated and sponsored research aimed at giving visibility to the diverse contributions that women have made to the design practices and the built environment. The IAWA was founded in 1985 by Professor Milka Tcherneva Bliznakov (1927–2010) as a joint effort between the College of Architecture and Urban Studies, where she was part of the faculty, and the University Libraries at Virginia Tech, Blacksburg campus in the United States, where the collections are preserved. Born in Varna, Bulgaria, Bliznakov earned a master’s degree in architecture from the State Polytechnic University of Sofia, Bulgaria, in 1951 and practiced architecture for almost a decade before escaping the communist regime by fleeing to France. The legend portrays her swimming in the Black Sea across the international border to a ship that took her to France. A visit to the archive while searching to validate the story uncovered within the papers in Bliznakov’s collection a newspaper article dated May 12, 1985, where she declares, “I was quite a swimmer. I used to think that would be a way I could escape, by swimming to Turkey—it’s about 50 miles.” Ultimately, she instead paid someone to secretly allow “her aboard a boat taking vacationers on a Mediterranean cruise” and jumped ship in France in the early morning.1 Two years later, in 1961, Bliznakov arrived in the United States knowing very little English. Nevertheless, she immediately found work in architecture designing an addition to a synagogue. While practicing architecture she was also a full-time student, furthering her studies on Soviet architecture and receiving her PhD in architectural history from Columbia University in New York City in 1971. Bliznakov’s academic career began in 1972 at the University of Texas, Austin, where she also contributed to the founding of the Institute of Modern Russian Culture (1979), and continued two years later at Virginia Tech, where she was a member of the faculty of the College of Architecture and Urban Studies for over two decades until her retirement.2 Growing up in Bulgaria, Bliznakov was raised among professional women: her mother was a doctor, her aunt was a dentist, and her godmother was an eye surgeon.3 Years later, as an avid researcher of Soviet architecture and the avant-garde, Bliznakov was clearly aware that women in Eastern Europe and Russia had enrolled in architecture courses as early as 1904 and that “during times of war, revolution and uprising,” women had played the vital role of builders, rebuilding, for

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example, “the towns of Germany and Russia almost singlehandedly” after World War II.4 Moreover, Bliznakov celebrated the force of these European women who “flocked to the universities after the war,” for, beyond responding to the opportunities opened up to them by the historical context, they proactively shifted the discipline. In her view, these women “began to change the architectural profession from a gentle­man’s aesthetic preoccupation of stylistic concerns to a social commitment for public welfare.”5 It was therefore only from the perspective of the educator in the US in the late 1970s that the absence of women precedents in the history of the discipline became strikingly apparent to Bliznakov. While women had been enrolling in architecture programs, there was “little if any information about their past to claim and relate to, not enough known history to define their professional roots and developments, and very few professional models to follow.”6 Bliznakov promptly resolved to counteract these exclusions by establishing an archive. She declared that “the omission of women’s contributions, neglected for so long, needs immediate rectification” and identified one of the factors that had played an important role in the omission, as she asserted that “above all, since most women were and still are reluctant to promote and publish their accomplishments, their archives must become available for future generations to evaluate.”7 Perhaps more remarkable than women’s reluctance to promote their work is the realization that the media coverage had given, until relatively recent times, little to no credit to the work of women. This fact ultimately shaped the mission of the IAWA as envisioned by Bliznakov, who recognized that “since women’s work was seldom mentioned by the press, the archive of the designer herself becomes the only source of information,” further emphasizing the importance and urgency of preserving the original papers of women’s work.8 Bliznakov envisioned the archive containing “executed or project works of independent practitioners, of employees in architectural firms, of teams with women participants and any related archival material” and, as such, becoming “a unique source for assessing the development of architecture in the twentieth century.”9 While acknowledging the magnitude of the open-ended and lengthy process required to collect the works of women architects around the world, Bliznakov, with unfazed determination, concluded that with the archive, “a most important step will have been made toward the creation of a permanent record of women’s contributions to architecture.”10

The Goals of the IAWA In 1983, two years prior to the founding of the archive, Bliznakov began contacting women architects throughout the United States and Europe by sending over one thousand personal letters and traveling to several countries. In the template letter preserved in the archive, dated July 9, 1985, Bliznakov underlined: The scope of the archives will be international and will include work from the beginning of women’s involvement in architecture in any capacity up to the present time.11 Women had not always been permitted to attend college, apprentice, obtain the professional license, or practice. Many had, nevertheless, contributed to the built environment for centuries in different capacities and were owed due credit for their contribution. For this reason, the archive was named the International Archive of Women in Architecture, rather than International Archive of Women Architects. The template letter lists the three goals of the IAWA: 1. Search for archives of those of our women colleagues who are no longer living and whose works will be dispersed if not collected immediately. 2. Appeal to retired women colleagues to donate their drawings, letters, photos, and anything else connected with their work from both professional and private life. 330

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3. Appeal to active women colleagues to donate their earlier work and to bequeath the rest of their archives to the International Archive of Women in Architecture at the College of Architecture, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (VPI&SU). This letter acted as an invitation and was, at the time, the only dissemination tool. Later, in the fall of 1989, the first issue of the IAWA Newsletter was printed, broadcasting the IAWA to a larger audience. The newsletter lists the major goals similarly. However, the first goal is notably edited to read, “To find and preserve the records of the pioneer generation of women architects.” Also referred to as “the first generation,” the term “pioneer” described the women who lived and worked in the early twentieth century and alluded not only to the particular work they had produced but also to the impact that their practices have had on expanding the arena for women in the profession and the discipline. Anna Wagner Keichline (1889–1943), an American architect and inventor, serves as an example. An active women’s suffrage advocate photographed leading a march in 1913 and a special agent in the Military Intelligence Division of the Army in Washington, DC, in 1918 during World War I, Keichline was the fifth woman to receive an architecture degree from Cornell University in 1911 and the first woman architect in Pennsylvania to register in 1920. Her patented inventions include, among others, a space-saving sink designed for apartment kitchens, 1912; an inbuilt bed for apartments, 1929; and the versatile “K” brick, 1927, in addition to thirteen known architectural projects and as many requiring verification and documentation.12 Another extraordinary woman, Yasmeen Lari, also belongs in the pioneering category, becoming the first registered woman architect in Pakistan, as late as in 1963.13 The initial newsletter lists two additional major goals for the archive: “To serve as a clearinghouse of information on all women architects, past and present” and “to encourage research on the history of women in architecture through seminars, exhibits and publications.” Both goals indicate an expanded clarity of the scope and the potential of the IAWA beyond acquiring and preserving the work of women toward an increasingly generative role of fostering research and broadening the dissemination of the contributions of women to the discipline and design-related fields. By 1987, two years after its establishment, the IAWA had received the works of twenty-eight women, and by 1989, the archive held the records of ninety-eight women and organizations, including, among others: Han Schröder from the Netherlands, “who grew up in the famous RietveldSchröder House … and worked in Rietveld’s office before establishing her own practice,” and Gae Aulenti, an architect and interior designer from Milan, Italy—the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, France, being one of her major architectural projects.14 On its thirtieth anniversary the IAWA held over four hundred collections. Although a sizable and unique archive of its kind, the acquiring rate of the early years has lessened. The process for acquiring collections is lengthy and complex, yet the urgency increases as women of the past century pass away, requiring that efforts be redoubled to collect “whatever records still remain.”15

Exploring the Archive: Fragments and Gaps The archive holds collections for women, organizations, associations, and exhibits under a broad definition of architecture that includes interior design, landscape architecture, industrial design, graphic design, urban design, and urban planning. Within the growing collections, over 345 belong to women, representing more than forty-seven countries. One hundred of these collections comprise the complete works of the practice of the women architects. Some include the totality of their professional correspondence and contracts with clients and contractors, such as the collection of Elsa Leviseur, born in South Africa in 1932.16 Others maintain, in addition, personal papers, professional stamps, drafting tools, and lettering sets, as found in the collection of Jane Hastings, born in Seattle in 1928.17 331

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The remaining collections fall in the category of “small collections,” some holding as little as a single item. The collection of Louise Blanchard Bethune (1856–1915), for example, holds only one postcard dated 1907 featuring Bethune’s Lafayette Hotel in Buffalo, NY.18 Another notable example is the collection of Eleanor Coade, from London, born in 1733. Coade’s collection holds only her trade card for her business, which she ran from 1769 until her death in 1821. Her business manufactured artificial stone, referred to as “Coade stone.” The stone was used, among other projects, in the refurbishment of Buckingham Palace in the 1820s. At present, Coade’s trade card is the oldest item in the IAWA archives, estimated to have been printed in the mid-1780s.19

The Path from Archive to History In her book Privacy and Publicity, architectural historian Beatriz Colomina compares the contrasting attitudes of Le Corbusier and Adolf Loos toward the archiving of their work. Le Corbusier, while building his legacy, preserved excessively, whereas “Loos ordered all the documents in his office to be destroyed as he leaves Vienna” in 1922.20 Addressing the process that Burkhardt Rukschcio and Roland Schachel underwent when writing the monograph Adolf Loos, Leben und Werk, Colomina argues that “their book with all its gaps is the Adolf Loos archive,”

Figure 25.1 Lithodipyra or Artificial Manufactory Trade Card of Eleanor Coade (1733–1821), who started a business manufacturing artificial stone in London in 1769. Source: IAWA, Special Collections and University Archives, University Libraries, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA.

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underlining how much the gaps in Loos’s painstakingly reconstructed archive reveal about Loos and his practice.21 Similarly, the gaps in the IAWA reveal much about the discipline as a whole. Although resulting from very different circumstances, the gaps bear witness to the paths both allowed and disallowed for women, as well as those adopted or opened by women around the world. While the items and artifacts in the collections provide evidence and affirmation of the work of women, the gaps in the archive, marked by the absence of collections or by the blank spaces between fragments in a collection, can also become productive voids that spark the imagination and foster curiosity and inquiry. The historian Alice Yaeger Kaplan implies in a similar manner the value that gaps in the archive possess: “for the archive to be … there must also be pieces missing, something left to find.”22 Archive and history are not the same, as emphasized by Colomina: “the archive is private, history is public.”23 Once history is written, “the messy space of the archive is sealed off” by it. However, in the space between archives and history lie the stories, inspired by the fragments, scribbles, memories, and informal conversations—and the gaps. As Kaplan transcribes, “these stories, too, are fragile but necessary contingent ingredients of archival work, they are the private process that is erased as soon as it succeeds in producing a bit of truth,” a bit of history. Kaplan refers to the stories produced by the imagination of the archivist/researcher while exploring the archive. She continues, “if there are values to be protected in the archives, they belong to this realm of passion, where intuition and coincidence turn random documents into results,” to be acknowledged by and incorporated into history.24 It is precisely the inevitable incomplete nature of the archive, “along with this exhilarating sense of mystery and chance,” that trigger the curiosity necessary for history to be written.25 As suggested by the fragments and gaps in the collections, there are four examples out of the many fascinating yet latent stories in the archives that await to become history. Story 1. The Elevated In-Town Heliport: a graphite architectural drawing of the proposed structure showing two floor plans and one elevation on trace paper, at 1 inch = 20 ft. scale. The drawing does not provide the name of the client commissioning the project, nor does it specify the project’s location. The proposal for this unusual project type was designed by Melita Rodeck (1914–2011) in 1960.26 Born to Austrian parents in Milan, Italy, Rodeck studied architecture from 1932 to 1937. She recalled: [m]any years ago I was a student [of] architecture at the Technical University of Vienna before coming to the United States. In my class, there were only three women among 90+ men.27 Two years after graduating, Rodeck immigrated to the United States, where she had a prolific professional career producing over 120 projects, including churches, community projects, commercial, residential, and government commissions, as well as urban planning. Rodeck worked for the US Federal Government, started her private practice in Washington, DC, in 1958, and established the Regina Institute of Sacred Art in 1960s. In a handwritten letter to Bliznakov dated April 4, 1992, Rodeck recollected: Dear Milka: Thanks for your kind letter and invitation of April 14. I enjoyed reading the list of your collection and recognized 2: Liane Zimbler for whom I worked one or two summers while a student, and Helene (Koller)-Buckwieser who studied with me (she was not married yet). There was a third girl among over 100 men, Helene Alexander, but I don’t know anything about her.28 333

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Figure 25.2 Elevated In-Town Heliport, architect Melita Rodeck, 1960. Architectural drawing: platform plan, plan at ground level, elevation. Source: IAWA, Special Collections and University Archives, University Libraries, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA.

This particular fragment serves as a vivid example of the promise of truth to be found not only within this individual collection, but also within the coincidental lateral connections to other existing collections in the archive, if we were to compare and contrast the collections of Rodeck, Zimbler, and Koller-Buckwieser together. Yet it could be argued that the most important piece offered by Rodeck in this letter is Alexander’s name. Invisible until named, this clue opens a door to the potential uncovering of Alexander’s practice and life. Story 2. A telegram dated July 1920 that reads, “Am convinced of your countless successes with your examinations at Dresden Technical University and joyfully greet you as Madame Engineer!”29 The telegram was received by Lilia Skala, Lilia Sofer at the time, upon earning her architectural degree from the University of Dresden. Born in Vienna in 1896, Skala became the first female member of the Austrian Association of Engineers and Architects. Returning to Vienna with her diploma, Skala chose first to work “as a masonry apprentice on a construction project” and later worked for two years “in various studios trying to overcome the sexist hindrances that followed her.”30 Skala escaped Germany in 1939 with her husband and two sons, carrying from her practice only her student portfolio, currently preserved in the IAWA, filled with papers exhibiting technical rigor, the beauty and precision of her architectural renderings, the softness of sketches of the female form, and photographs, among other papers. A mounted, small, black-and-white photograph presenting an elegant, rendered perspective of an ornate building is captioned by two words handwritten by Skala on the left, bottom corner: “my

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design.” Nothing else is revealed about the building, the design, or the questions and desires prompting it into existence, imbuing this alluring photograph with productive curiosity.31 In the United States, Skala finally concentrated on her acting career, being nominated by the Academy in the category of Best Actress in a Supporting Role for her performance as Mother Maria in the film Lilies of the Field opposite Sidney Poitier. Story 3. The personal diaries of Judith “Dita” Roque-Gourary, in which she writes alternating between several languages every few pages with the desire to become proficient in them. Hidden within pages written in German and French is an entry in English: And now I have to stop. I simply must work. [And] all these beautiful thoughts of mine have to remain unfinished…. I never shall be known and famous, I  shall unfortunately continue to live unknown like before, a little girl amid persons who misunderstand her vocation. And still I stop. March, 31, 40.32 A few months later, on a page dated July  13, 1940, Roque-Gourary writes, “I  should work now. My plans are bad I’m not at all satisfied with them…. [I’m] terribly afraid of my first teacher.” She continues, “if I think of Architecture I like it, but if I have to work I try to omit it.”33 However, Roque-Gourary’s impressive professional accomplishments and prolific career unfolded in stark

Figure 25.3

Mounted photograph of a rendering by Lilia (Sofer) Skala, no date.

Source: IAWA, Special Collections and University Archives, University Libraries, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA.

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contrast with the vulnerability present in her personal notes written in English. One is naturally drawn to wonder about how that polarity was ultimately bridged. Born in 1915 in St. Petersburg, Russia, Roque-Gourary studied in Germany and Austria and moved to Belgium in 1938 when Germany annexed Austria. She founded the Union of Women Architects in Belgium in 1978, acting as its president until 1983. “She was an outspoken advocate for women in the profession and a noted speaker for the International Union of Women Architects (UIFA).”34 Story 4. The beautiful graphite drawings by Kimiko Suzuki for the Susumu Abe Residence (1963–1966).35 The collection holds only three sets of original drawings on trace paper. Suzuki was the first graduate in the housing studies program at Japan Women’s University. Not being able to find work in architecture offices due to the economic conditions of Japan following World War II, “she instead joined a publishing company because she was promised the same salary as a man.”36 Suzuki eventually practiced architecture as corroborated by the presence of these sets of drawings. The work shows, in its thoroughness and detail, Suzuki’s outmost care for the practice. The sheets composing two of these sets present reinforced edges, folded in approximately one-quarter-inches and hand-stitched down the length of the page, allowing the pages to endure the handling and counteracting the fragility of the trace paper as it ages. In the personal space of the drawings the pressure of the lead against the paper can be felt. The art of precision pervades her work, including the exquisitely hand-drawn Japanese characters and all other elements auxiliary to the design, an example of which is the front view of a car drawn on the reverse of an elevation of the residence, meticulously detailed as far as to show the range of motion of the windshield wipers. The car is approximately one inch tall. Inside the box that holds Suzuki’s modest collection lies a file preserving the pages extracted from a Japanese architecture magazine that published the Susumu Abe Residence, built. Several of the published photographs bear great resemblance, and some even a strict correspondence, with Suzuki’s interior perspectival drawings. This raises questions about the nature of her participation in the publishing process, or perhaps about the extent to which she was able to contribute to or direct the photographic recording of her work. Although answers to these and many other questions have not yet surfaced, the depth of her professionalism and care can still be intuited, indicating that the Susumu Abe Residence was not her sole architectural project. All collections are calling for researchers to explore them and give them visibility in the form of history. Stories generously pour out as soon as the lid is removed from a box or a folder is opened: stories told by every exposed fragment of work and every missing bit, stories told by the women about themselves and about other women. In many cases, that is all there is—a tenuous memory, a brief comment, an autographed program, an unmarked photograph, all fertile and pulsating particles. As Kaplan concludes, “the gold is all in the dust.”37

Celebrating 30: A New Vision In the summer of 2015, reflecting on the first thirty years of the IAWA, a new vision began to emerge and evolve, articulating and imagining the following thirty years and the overall future of the IAWA. The goals and the mission as defined by Bliznakov are clear and have not changed; they remain unquestionably necessary. However, the means of dissemination and publication require substantial upgrading and development to extend the reach and global exposure of the IAWA, continue to promote its growth, and advance historical research. Digitizing the physical collections has therefore become essential to the expanded vision, a task driving two projects: the digital exhibits 30 x 30 and the Visual Archive Project. Engaging the contemporary digital landscape, the Visual Archive Project is a portal to the digitized collections allowing users to remotely access high-resolution images of the holdings rather than 336

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Figure 25.4  Digital immersive exhibit 30 x 30. Viewing during the 2016 IAWA Symposium, March 2016. Source: Jim Bassett. Archive of the author.

accessing only the listings. Using the portal does in no way replace the richness of the experience of the physical interaction with the original work, yet it aids researchers away from Blacksburg in advancing their research while, at the same time, publicizing the IAWA. The exhibits in 30 x 30 employ the digital content differently, as a means to showcase the archive and raise the awareness of its mission, while encouraging a broader, international audience to join in and proactively contribute to its growth. Conceived not as an art piece but as an invitation to explore the archive, 30 x 30 becomes a demonstration of the role that fragments and gaps have in manifesting latent stories of architecture. As it uncovers treasures within the collections, 30 x 30 seeks to foster research by fueling the passion for discovery that could yield truth. Resonating with the archive’s fragmental nature, the totality of the images selected for the piece have been deliberately cropped, framing small areas of specific content, guiding the viewer to read into them and extract essential, yet at times ephemeral, bits of information about the architects, like the tone on a personal letter, the character of a trace, or the thoughts captured in a spontaneous scribble on a margin—bits that engender further inquiry. The exhibit premiered during the 18th L’Union Internationale des Femmes Architectes (UIFA) Congress, hosted by the IAWA in Washington, DC, and Blacksburg, VA, in July 2015, themed Contributing to the Constellation. Installed in the black box theater at the Moss Arts Center, the multistory, dual-projection piece communicated, spatially, the less tangible aspects of the archive and of the practices of women, as well as the gaps in the archive—its incomplete state that continues to confirm the relevance of its mission. To this end, one of the most important considerations for the exhibit was the incorporation of scale. 30 x 30 distinguished itself from traditional exhibits of this content, typically in the form of printed panels, by creating instead an immersive space of contemplation and reflection. The size of the screens allowed images to be cast at architectural scale, projecting the viewers into the space 337

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of the images and inviting them to have architectural experiences of the selected photographs and drawings. The space, dimly lit by the luminous surfaces of the projections, together with the ambient soundtrack invited visitors to slow down and, while immersed in the work, reflect on the diversity of contributions women have made to the disciplines. Introducing thirty women from the archive, the nonlinear yet looping structure of the exhibit makes use of a script platform that allows for variation each time the presentation completes a cycle. Milka Bliznakov, being the founder of the IAWA, appears first on every cycle, yet the order of the remaining architects is randomized to express that all collections, large and small, are relevant and equally precious. A digital folder for each architect is created to store the images of her collection. The program arbitrarily selects the next architect to showcase and randomly retrieves images from her file to display, following the designed storyboard. With this scripted structure, the original thirty folders can, without difficulty, be exchanged for new ones as collections become digitized, allowing for the production of different and multiple exhibits with greater ease. Furthermore, the storage of the digitized material in the virtual cloud allows for the display of simultaneous exhibits at different locations that can, in addition, be operated and customized remotely and in real time.

Conclusion There is currently an increasing number of internet sites, groups, and organizations around the world striving for the visibility of women’s contributions to the built environment and for

Figure 25.5  30 x 30 showcasing the work of architects Jean and Clayton Young. Viewing during the 2016 IAWA Symposium, March 2016. Source: Jim Bassett. Archive of the author.

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professional equality, such as Women in Architecture, Parlour, ArchiteXX, Un Día / Una Arquitecta, and the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation, to list a few. The IAWA, while sharing this critical mission, is the institution preserving the “dust,” the physical records that evidence the work of women that can support research. In addition to encouraging studies on the history of women in architecture and educating through seminars, exhibits, and publications, according to the founding vision as declared in the first 1989 IAWA Newsletter, the 30 x 30 exhibits seek to inspire individuals to contribute to the constellation, to donate the substance without which history cannot be written. Shown after the 18th UIFA Congress in a smaller format, in Spanish, at the XV Bienal Internacional de Arquitectura de Buenos Aires, Argentina, as well as during the AIARG2016 Annual Conference in Cork, Ireland; the AIA National Headquarters in Washington, DC; and the Kibell Gallery at the University of Maryland, College Park, School of Architecture, Planning & Preservation, among other venues, 30 x 30 has been greatly successful in raising the awareness of the existence of the IAWA to a broader audience, in expanding the collaborative network, in acquiring new items for the collections, and in activating multiple paths for future acquisitions. Manifesting the vision of the IAWA, 30 x 30 is an enduring reminder that the work must continue to be uncovered and acquired for preservation before it is forever dispersed.

Notes 1. Debbie Meade, “Liberated: VA Tech Professor from Bulgaria Doesn’t Take This Country’s Freedom for Granted,” New River Roanoke Times  & World-News, May  12, 1985, 1 (Milka T. Bliznakov Architectural Collection, Ms1991–025, Box 5, Folder 18. Special Collections, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA). 2. Bliznakov’s timeline based on the essay by Anna Sokolina, “Milka Bliznakov, 1927–2010,” Slavic Review 70, no. 2 (Summer 2011): 498. 3. Debbie Meade, “Her Goal is to Record Women’s Accomplishments in Architecture,” New River Roanoke Times & World-News, December 28, 1986, 1 (Milka T. Bliznakov Architectural Collection, Ms1991–025, Box 5, Folder 18. Special Collections, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA). 4. Milka T. Bliznakov, “Women Architects,” Structurist 25 (1985): 124. 5. Ibid. 6. Ibid., 122. 7. “Professor Milka Bliznakov Leads Efforts to Establish Archive,” IAWA Newsletter 1, no. 1 (Fall 1989): 1. 8. Ibid., 2. 9. Bliznakov, “Women Architects,” 127, note 30. 10. Ibid., 127. 11. Template letter authored by Milka T. Bliznakov (IAWA Records, Ms1985–021, Box  3, Folder entitled “Collection Development—Mailings—Typical Letter, English, 1985.” Special Collections, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA). 12. IAWA Small Collections (Ms2009–054, Box  18. Special Collections, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA). 13. Ibid., Box 6. 14. IAWA Newsletter 1, no. 1, 2–3. 15. Bliznakov, “Women Architects,” 127. 16. Elsa Leviseur Architectural Collection (Ms1990–07. Special Collections, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA). Her collection holds 13.2 cu. ft. of work, including sixty projects, and spans four decades of practice. The majority of the projects were executed in California, with a few others in Wales, South Africa, and Oregon. 17. L. Jane Hastings Architectural Papers (Ms2004–004. Special Collections, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA). Her collection holds 10.5 cu. ft. of work, including 273 projects, and spans forty-seven years of practice. The vast majority of the projects were executed in the state of Washington. 18. IAWA Small Collections (Ms2009–054, Box  20. Special Collections, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA). Bethune is considered the country’s first professional architect and was the first female member of the American Institute of Architects. With over 140 projects attributed to her,

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Paola Zellner it is asserted that her drawings, correspondence, and other personal papers have been destroyed. Sarah Allaback, The First American Women Architects (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2008), 45–53. 19. Coade’s Lithodipyra or Artificial Manufactory Trade Card (Ms2015–045, Folder 1. Special Collections, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA). 20. Beatriz Colomina, Privacy and Publicity: Modern Architecture as Mass Media (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1994), 1. 21. Ibid., 3. 22. Alice Yaeger Kaplan, “Working in the Archives,” in Yale French Studies. Reading the Archive: On Texts and Institutions, vol. 77 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990), 103. 23. Colomina, Privacy and Publicity 9. 24. Kaplan, “Working in the Archives,” 115. 25. Ibid., 113. 26. Melita Rodeck Architectural Collection (Ms1992–028, Map case: 15, Drawer 2, Folder 13. Special Collections, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA). 27. Ibid., Box 1, Folder 1. 28. Ibid., Box 1, Folder 3. Liane Zimbler’s papers were donated to the IAWA in two installments: 1988 and 1994 (Ms1988–005). The 4.0 cu. ft. of material include correspondence; drawings; photographs; slides and transparencies; manuscripts of essays, articles, and speeches; and a stereo viewing device. Helene KollerBuckwieser’s papers were donated to the IAWA in October 1995 (Ms1995–020). The 16 cu. ft. of material include c. 3,100 architectural drawings, 240 photographs, and newspaper clippings, among other items. 29. Lilia Sofer Skala Student Portfolio (Ms2003–015, Box-Folder 7. Special Collections, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA). 30. Ibid., Box-Folder 4. English translation of the article in Die Frau Mutter, “From Influential Women: Engineer Lilia Pollack-Sofer,” dated April 1927. 31. Ibid., Box-Folder 9. 32. Judith (Dita) Roque-Gourary (Ms2011–074, Box 1, Folder 2. Special Collections, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA). 33. Ibid., Box 1, Folder 5. 34. Biographical Note, Virginia Heritage Finding Aid, A Guide to the Judith (Dita) Roque-Gourary Architectural Collection, 1926–1981, accessed March 1, 2020, http://ead.lib.virginia.edu/vivaxtf/view?docId=vt/ viblbv00948.xml. 35. Kimiko Suzuki Architectural Collection (Ms2013–089, Box 1. Special Collections, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA). Her collection also includes the Suzuki Family Tree, drawn by IAWA board member and architect Junko Matsukawa-Tsuchida, 2013. 36. “Biographical Note,” Virginia Heritage Finding Aid, A Guide to the Kimiko Suzuki Architectural Collection, 1963–1967, 2013, accessed January 31, 2020, http://ead.lib.virginia.edu/vivaxtf/view?docId=vt/ viblbv01203.xml. 37. Kaplan, “Working in the Archives,” 116.

Bibliography Bliznakov, Milka T. “Women Architects.” Structurist 25 (1985): 121–27. Colomina, Beatriz. Privacy and Publicity: Modern Architecture as Mass Media. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1994. Kaplan, Alice Yaeger. “Working in the Archives.” In Yale French Studies. Reading the Archive: On Texts and Institutions, vol. 77, 103–16 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990). Meade, Debbie. “Liberated: VA Professor from Bulgaria Doesn’t Take This Country’s Freedom for Granted.” New River Roanoke Times & World News, May 12, 1985. Meade, Debbie. “Her Goal Is to Record Women’s Accomplishments in Architecture.” New River Roanoke Times & World-News, December 28, 1986. “Professor Milka Bliznakov Leads Efforts to Establish Archive.” IAWA Newsletter 1, no. 1 (Fall 1989): 1–4. Sokolina, Anna P. “Milka Bliznakov, 1927–2010.” Slavic Review 70, no. 2 (Summer 2011): 498–99.

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26 BREAKING THE SILENCE Women in Russian Architecture Anna Sokolina

Introduction: Chronologies Across Borders Leaving behind two decades of the twenty-first century, in the midst of the tragedy of the world pandemic, in the United States women still make up less than a quarter of licensed architects in the field and account for 17 percent of partners or principals in architectural firms, despite the fact that nearly half of architecture school graduates in the country are female.1 In Russia, on the contrary, women represent the majority of the professional force in the discipline. This chapter delves into the reasons behind the prevalence of women in Russian architecture and also investigates the ways in which their work has been downplayed in the Soviet and Russian contexts. This inquiry is rooted in history, informed by the 1917 October Revolution that, in theory, secured transformative gains for women and gave them independence and power by instituting civil laws to ensure gender equity. The socialist revolution in Russia sought to remove the legal barriers to equality, and early Soviet decrees addressed the emancipation of women and drew women into the construction of new society. In abridged terms, for Marxists, the oppression of women originates in the class society itself and can only be removed with the destruction of private property. This standpoint differs centrally from the feminist approach to the question of primary division in society. According to the introductory definition as signaled in a key feminist text, it is the civil inequality and discrimination of human rights based on gender, justified through men’s patriarchal claim for primary entitlement for sociopolitical, cultural, ethical, and other privilege over women’s societal status. For Marxism, however, the liberation of women is the task of unification of the working class as an integrated force, rooted in the communal paradigm constructed on shared experiences across the proletarian masses.2 At the First All-Russian Congress of Working Women (1918), the leader of the Bolshevik government, Vladimir Lenin declared: “The experience of all liberation movements has shown that the success of a revolution depends on the extent of active participation of women.”3 The Resolution of the 8th Congress of Soviets (1920) featured women as equal participants in the construction of a new society, and manifested that “implementing the proposed unified economic plan is only possible by involving all female labor power” and encouraged “women workers to support with their initiative and activity the reforms of … construction.”4 Zhenotdel—a Women’s Department of the socialist government—was established in 1919 by political activists Inessa Armand (1874–1920), Alexandra Kollontai (1872–1952), Nadezhda Krupskaya (1869–1939), among others.5 American historian Wendy Goldman in her volume Women, the State

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and Revolution emphasized three Family Codes—of 1918, 1926, and 1936—marking the turning points of the state emancipation program.6 Women conducted conferences, circulated their own journals in numbers of almost half a million, and promoted education by organizing over twenty-five thousand literacy schools and female recruitment centers.7 Congresses brought women together in great diversity, motivated by a burst of optimism and expectations for a liberated society. However, the 1927 Congress of Women Deputies to the Soviets was the last meeting witnessing the massive recognition of women’s empowerment.8 Women and men were required to enter the workforce, yet the state lacked the resources to substantially support equality. In 1930, the government announced that social equity had been achieved, Zhenotdel was abolished, and the propaganda trajectories were altered.9 Nevertheless, the social agenda ensured the largest improvement in women’s status the country and, at that time, the entire world had ever seen. Women’s social and professional mobility in the Soviet Union was critical: they ultimately constituted the majority of the Soviet population due to the loss of great numbers of men to combat, particularly during World War II. At the time, women in the United States and Russia were encouraged to take wartime jobs as an affirmation of patriotism. Period posters show striking similarities in images of women, recognizing the kinship of visual communication between American and Russian culture.10 When the war ended, American industries pressured women to release their skilled jobs to returning veterans; that, however, was not the case across Europe and Russia, where the male population was wiped out by warfare on their own terrain—in Russia, the total number of casualties exceeded 25 million individuals officially documented, and the rebuilding to a vast extent relied on women. By 2020, built environments in Russia to a great degree have been shaped by women. The majority of architecture professionals in the country were women, yet only a few grew to senior positions, and the names of caryatids of Russian architecture remained absent in written chronicles.11 In this chapter I  illuminate the narratives of four magnificent women. Three of them were recipients of one of the highest professional designations in Russia awarded by the socialist state: the Distinguished Architect of the Russian Federation.12 Lydia Komarova (1902–2002) was an architect of major university centers, designer of the first spiral skyscraper (1929), and a noted architectural historian. Tamara Kovalevskaya (1923–1986) was an architect of prime public structures in the Russian North, a recognized modernist, lifelong university professor, and public official. Nina Aleshina (1924–2012) headed the Design Department of the entire metropolitan transit system, Metrogiprotrans, and was a lead architect of nineteen underground metro stations in Moscow. Galina Balashova (born 1931), a design genius and the first architect of spaceship interiors for the Soviet Space Program, whose trailblazing innovations, when uncovered, have been admired by the world, was never celebrated by the Russian authorities. In highlighting the contributions of these remarkable women, the emphasis is placed on their professional leadership in the field, largely omitted in written histories. In this work I aim to reconstruct and reframe latent dossiers and legacies and seek to break the silence around notable female designers: role models who defined built environments across borders.

Lydia Komarova Lydia Konstantinovna Komarova was born in Ivanovo-Voznesensk, a provincial town of the Russian Empire where she spent her childhood and early youth over a timespan marked by the social unrests of 1905, World War I, the political revolts of 1917, and the tragedies of the Russian Civil War. In 1919 Komarova started her professional studies at the avant-garde Free State Art Studios in Moscow.13 In 1920 she transferred to the Department of Architecture at VKHUTEMAS and studied at the United Left Studios headed by Professor Nikolai Alexandrovich Ladovsky, the legendary architect and educator.14 Komarova’s 1929 graduate design project, “The Comintern Palace,”

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Figure 26.1 a, b The Comintern Palace, graduate design project by Lydia Komarova, 1929. Frontal view of the spiral skyscraper, and perspective drawing of the site. Source: Un Día / Una Arquitecta.

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envisioned as the world’s first spiral skyscraper, was inspired by her studies in the class of Professor Alexander Vesnin and Ladovsky’s teachings on new geometries of public space.15 Her drawings were included in the archive of best designs at VKHUTEMAS—VKHUTEIN (now Metfond MARKHI) and published in the foremost periodical Contemporary Architecture (Sovremennaia Arkhitektura, SA), founded by OSA in 1926 as the voice of socialist modernism.16 SA brought to the Soviet Union the ideas of Le Corbusier and the Bauhaus and featured the avant-garde art by Aleksei Gan, Alexander Rodchenko, and others. Until its closure in 1930, alongside built structures SA introduced students’ experimental designs, such as Komarova’s Comintern Palace and Ivan Leonidov’s project for the Lenin Institute and Library in Moscow. For Leonidov, SA gained him a display spot at the Moscow Exhibition of Contemporary Architecture, a teaching career at VKHUTEIN, and international acclaim. For Komarova, it only brought a professional network. Komarova was the only woman among architecture graduates whose designs were published in SA and abroad. They were later compared as a predecessor and a model to Frank Lloyd Wright’s designs for the Guggenheim Museum in NYC (1959).17 Yet while Tatlin’s Monument to the Third International (1920) or Leonidov’s Lenin Institute (1927) were broadly acknowledged as the iconic statements of the era, Komarova’s powerful ideas were considered a scholarly exercise produced by an exceptional female student. In the late 1930s, under the autocratic rule that favored socialist realism, the rationalist agenda was banned. Nevertheless, architectural historian Vladimir Paperny argues, the transition from avantgarde to socialist realism was not forced on the profession, and a similar approach has been embraced by the Soviet scholar Alexander Ryabushin.18 Intimate political control over architecture was made possible there by the mid-1930s, when all independent associations were terminated and the Union of Soviet Architects was established as a sole power player. The access to information from abroad was restricted, and history was rewritten through the prism of ideology.19 Simultaneously, in the West, the totalitarian doctrine prevailed, and Komarova’s avant-garde designs did not find endorsement across political rims. Only at the turn of the 1960s did a comparable philosophy fuel the vision of a “living environment” by the NER group (diploma thesis 1957, publication 1966) and stir theoretical constructs of Constantinos Doxiadis.20 Until 1937, Komarova studied for a PhD and practiced architecture at the state design institutes Mosproject and Giprogor in Moscow. By the time of the German invasion in 1941, she had produced several competition entries, for example, the Palace of Soviets in 1932, and designs for practical restoration of the Museum Pavilion and Palace Theater of the historical Arkhangelskoye State Museum; later she joined the massive efforts of postwar rebuilding. From 1947, Komarova advanced her career at the State Design Institute for Facilities of Higher Education (Giprovuz). Her first large-scale assignment, launched in 1949, was as a lead architect of the central building of N. Bauman Moscow State Technical University (MSTU).21 The structure was commissioned by the government to adhere to the traditions of neoclassical revival. According to spatial concept developed by Komarova, the edifice was composed of two parts joined through hallways on three upper levels. The old part—“The Palace”—the original Slobodskoy Palace in Lefortovo, was a remodeled eighteenth-century landmark, where Komarova’s new designs were informed by her prewar proficiencies.22 The new part—“The High-Rise”—a twelve-story building overseeing the Lefortovskaya Embankment of the Yauza River and housing four schools, the Hall of the Palace of Culture, and the University Museum, was erected by designs of Komarova in 1956 and opened in 1960. The High-Rise consists of the north and south wings, built consecutively; it also facilitates the offices of the Provost and all major academic departments, including Admissions, Human Resources, Public Affairs, and the Academic Registrar. The laboratories and administrative divisions are accommodated along the circular hallways of the first floor; on the fifth floor the hallways steer to the areas of tech services supporting the structure and utilities. In 1995, the building was awarded the status of a Cultural Heritage Landmark of Russia.23 344

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Figure 26.2 N. Bauman Moscow State Technical University, Moscow, Russia, lead architect Lydia Komarova, 1956–1960. Frontal view from the Yauza River. Photograph, c. 2010. Source: www.alfakom.uz/partners/baum.php.

Other large-scale designs by Komarova include primary university ensembles of the Mining Institute in Kemerovo, Russia, and the Polytechnic Institute in Karaganda, Kazakhstan. Karaganda Polytech—initially Karaganda Mining Institute, now Karaganda State Technical University—was founded in 1953 in collaboration with the Karaganda Steel Mill.24 In 1958, the massive reform of the institute in response to the accelerated industrial expansion of the region and a rapidly growing demand for innovative engineering transformed it into the first national Polytech, empowered the construction of the new educational center, and marked the essential threshold in the political and economic history of the Kazakh Republic. The new structure was built in the 1960s on designs of Komarova, with commanding spaces for twenty departments, twenty-five educational laboratories, and seven special classrooms.25 Lydia Komarova left an extraordinary built and visionary legacy, yet her archives are largely inaccessible, and though she was also a scholar with research interests in the history of constructivism, her writings are not publicly available.

Tamara Kovalevskaya Tamara Vladimirovna Kovalevskaya, the architect of major modernist public structures in the Russian North, educator, and public official, was born in Elisavetgrad, Ukraine.26 Available records of her life, studies, and work are fragmentary, and a few resources identify scattered data readable through the opaque prism of rewritten histories, stretching from the years of Stalinism, World War II, and postwar reconstruction to the late socialist era. In 1947, Kovalevskaya graduated from the Moscow Institute of Architecture (MARKHI) and, according to socialist regulations, was assigned a three-year entry-level position in Krasnoyarsk, 345

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Siberia.27 She returned to Moscow in 1952 to study in the Continuing Education Program at MARKHI and in 1953 was affirmed as the member of the Union of Architects of the USSR, the foremost professional society of architects in the Soviet Union. After graduation in 1954, she was ordered an appointment far from Moscow, in Petrozavodsk, where she practiced architecture at the state design institute Karelproject until her retirement in 1981. Kovalevskaya joined a group of sixteen architects, men and women, empowered by the mission of creating anew the entire environment of the capital of the Republic Karelia in the Russian North. Petrozavodsk—a wooden city stretching between the Baltic and White Seas along the shore of Lake Onega, famous for its spectacular islands such as Kizhi, with historical ensembles of wooden structures now under protection of UNESCO—was completely destroyed during World War II, and the new vision encompassed a new masterplan as a modern hub to be reborn in stone.28 The Union of Architects of Karelia was a small-scale unit responding with enthusiasm to the demanding challenges of the time and exploring pioneering ideas and novel technologies.29 During Khrushchev’s thaw the modernist agenda was reincarnated as the standard for speedy rebuilding modeled on industrial paradigms. The slogan “Less Is More,” adopted in 1947 by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe from Robert Browning’s poem Andrea Del Sarto (1855), generated an enormous influence over the global course of architecture, fueled the schemes of urban renewal in the West, and from the mid-1960s was utterly embraced by socialist regimes. Six major buildings were erected in Petrozavodsk on the designs of Kovalevskaya, starting in 1969 with the State Philharmonics of Karelia, which was awarded with the First-Rank Diploma of the Ministry of Construction of the Russian Federation.30 In 1970, two new structures designed by Kovalevskaya were built, the Central Market building on Antikainen Street and the Book Depository

Figure 26.3 The Palace of Youth and Creativity, Petrozavodsk, Russia, lead architect Tamara Kovalevskaya, 1985. Photograph, 1987. Frontal view. Source: “The Sailing Palace” [Dvorets pod parusami]. Published December 15, 2009, accessed March 20, 2021, www. gazeta-licey.ru/projects/architecturepetrozavodsk/1295-dvorec-pod-parusami.

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on Shotman Street, followed in 1978 by the movie theater “Kalevala” with a built-in restaurant and in 1982 by the headquarters of the Federal Treasury of the Republic Karelia. The Palace of Youth and Creativity, the largest public building in Petrozavodsk, was envisioned as a “tall ship” by the architect Elvina Adaleva (1935–1976). Collaboratively designed and built in 1980–1985 under the new leadership of Kovalevskaya, the palace advanced the complex notion of a synthesis of the arts by integrating into a “living ensemble” adjacent, functionally diversified volumes of auditoriums, halls, athletic facilities, and the tower of an observatory. Exteriors and interiors of reinforced concrete enhanced with cladding of colorful panels, mosaic walls, and ribbons of glass were contrasted by open structural elements and staircases crafted in local dark wood. In 1987, the all-women team of architects of the palace— Tamara Kovalevskaya, Elvina Adaleva, and Lalia Munasypova—was commended with the highest republican merit of honor, the State Prize of Karelia.31 Kovalevskaya aligned her primary career with professorship and taught the architecture studio and the diploma thesis courses (1954–1981) at Petrozavodsk State University and Petrozavodsk Technical School of Construction.32 She also coauthored with Adaleva the emblem of the city of Petrozavodsk (in use 1973–1993). Tamara Kovalevskaya was repeatedly elected Board President of the Union of Architects of Karelia, served on the Board of the Union of Architects of the USSR, and was awarded the Order of the Badge of Honor and the title “Distinguished Architect of the Russian Federation” (1980), yet her name is latent in primary writings on architectural history.33

Nina Aleshina Nina Alexandrovna Aleshina, the architect of nineteen innovative metro stations in Moscow, head of the Design Department of the Metropolitan Institute of Transportation (Metrogiprotrans), and recipient of multiple highest state awards and the designation “Distinguished Architect of the Russian Federation” (1985), was one of the most celebrated women in the discipline.34 Aleshina was born in Moscow to a family of remarkable intellectuals.35 In 1941, by the time of German invasion of Russia, she graduated from a musical school, majoring in piano. Believing that after the war the need for the rebuilding of the country would dominate the economy, she applied and was accepted to the Moscow Institute of Architecture. There, among her role models, was her teacher Boris Mezentsev (1911–1970), future Chair of the Design Department of the Palace of Sovi­ ets; first director of the Central Experimental Design Institute of Objects of Sports and Entertainment that now carries his name; and designer of central railway terminals, other key structures, and masterplans across Russia.36 After graduating in 1950, Aleshina was appointed at the studio of Alexey Dushkin (1904–1977), much admired for his pioneering achievements in the architecture of early metro stations and designs of transportation hubs in Moscow.37 Her first assignment was aligned to the renovation of the Novoslobodskaya metro station and included detailed drawings of thirty-two illuminated stained glass panels edged and trimmed with steel and gilded brass moldings as well as the design of the imposing vestibule.38 The Moscow Metro project, launched in 1931, was envisioned as an interconnected, artistically crafted transit system that would not only provide efficiency but establish the new cultural aesthetics of the state by creating airy spaces full of light and architectural visions of a glorious tomorrow, where artworks by the best masters and structures dressed in natural minerals and metals would challenge the sense of being deep underground. Starting in 1958, the concept was modified, rebranded by reinforced concrete, prefabricated elements, and composite materials.39 Due to accelerated urban growth and the urgent expansion of public transportation, the majority of new stations built in the 1960s and 1970s employed mass-produced molds with two rows of columns and ribbed-beam 347

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ceilings over the central aisle. Aleshina conformed to the budget yet developed identifiable, original designs and had a reputation as a perfectionist. Among her frequent female collaborators was architect Natalia Konstantinovna Samoilova; together with Aleshina she was awarded the prestigious State Prize of the Council of Ministers of the USSR for the design of Kuznetsky Most station (1977). From 1981 to 1991, Aleshina headed the Design Department of the entire underground transit network for approximately eleven million Moscow residents at the state institute Metrogiprotrans, while also producing her own designs and supervising construction sites. I  outline four of those nineteen stations built on Aleshina’s designs to recognize the empowering legacy of this remarkable leader.40 Kuznetsky Most (1975) was built 122 feet deep in the historical heart of the Russian capital by the joint designs of architects Aleshina and Samoilova and artist Mikhail Alekseev. The station structurally employs the rows of arched columns dressed in blue-gray marble, the walls are decorated with inlays of wrought aluminum, and fluorescent light fixtures illuminate the walkways. Chertanovskaya (1983), Aleshina’s solo project, is a postmodern homage to architect Alexey Dushkin. It was constructed in precast reinforced concrete and features twenty-six pairs of shallow columns with a star-shaped footprint illuminated by crystal chandeliers. The columns and walls with metallic inlays are finished with white marble; red and black granite is used for flooring. The mosaic wall themed “Construction of the New Moscow” by artists M. Alekseev and L. Novikova is installed in the south hall. The theme of the Mendeleyevskaya station, designed by Aleshina and Samoilova (1988), is Dmitri Mendeleev’s scientific discovery of a periodic table, and a bas-relief portrait of Mendeleev is featured at the end of the central hallway. Artwork inserts on the walls by artist L. Kremnevoy depict

Figure 26.4  Moscow Metro station Chertanovskaya, architect Nina Aleshina, 1983. Photograph: Alexey Narodizkiy, 2016. Perspective of central aisle. Source: Alexey Narodizkiy, www.narodizkiy.com/metro#/chertanovskaya.

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nuclear and molecular structures, chandeliers resemble a molecular lattice, the arcade is dressed up in white marble, the walls along the tracks are overlaid with gray marble with reddish veining, and the floor is paved with gray granite. Chkalovskaya (1995), at the depth of 167 feet, by architects Nina Aleshina, Leonid Borzenkov, and Aleksandr Vigdorov and named after the hero pilot Valery Chkalov, is dedicated to aviation. The hallway showcases welded elements resembling aircraft; arches and pylons are shaped after airplane wings coated with blue-gray marble reminiscent of the sky; ceramic panels designed by artists Alekseev and Novikova depict clouds; and gray, red, and black granite is used for pavement. In her later years, Aleshina was commissioned by the municipal Heritage Committee to create an archive of the Moscow Metro.41 By giving particular attention to unique designs, she secured the National Historic Landmark status of seventeen stations. In addition to multiple state awards recognizing her work, she was the recipient of the Medal for Labor Valor (1980) and the Knight of the Order of the Badge of Honor, and yet her name is omitted in history books.42

Galina Balashova During the space race in the 1950s–1980s, the design of the appearance of the Soviet shuttles, stations, and engineering equipment flying into space was completed by one architect—Galina Andreevna Balashova. She brought the harmonizing principles of sustainable design into the cosmic realm and invented a world of architecture where gravity was replaced by weightlessness. Until recently, Balashova has not been noted in surveys on built environments and aeronautics, and to emphasize new findings, I showcase groundbreaking inventions by this beautiful mind. Galina Balashova was born in Kolomna, Russia, to a family of former local nobility; under socialism her father worked as a landscape engineer and her uncle was an architect.43 In 1955 Balashova graduated from Moscow Institute of Architecture and, due to her non-proletarian background, was ordered to start her career in Kuybyshev (now Samara), a city away from primary cultural centers. The late 1950s was the time of a major shift in Soviet architecture from classicist revival toward utilitarian modernism and technological innovations, and her assignment was to strip designs by architects of the older generation of decorative embellishments. In 1956, Balashova married and accompanied her husband, an airspace engineer, to Kaliningrad (now Korolev), a closed town known for rocket manufacturing for the Soviet Space Program. There, by fate and talent, Balashova entered the world of aeronautics and worked at the classified OKB-1 as an architect in the Design Department and, from 1963 until retirement, in the Engineering Department chaired by the cosmonaut Konstantin Feoktistov (1926–2009).44 By education, she was the only architect in the entire town. In the absolute absence of prototypes and predecessors, she invented and designed spaceship interiors and did all technical calculations herself. Balashova drafted the first designs for the Soyuz science module when it was added to the service module of the craft due to the longer time of orbital flights.45 Not permitted to enter classified areas of the plant, she developed renderings at home and submitted them to Feoktistov in the hallway. Her conceptual drawings were approved by Chief Engineer Sergei Korolev (1907–1966), and in February 1964, her third set of design drawings was ratified and was in use for Soyuz 1 to Soyuz 40 rockets (1967–1981). Balashova conducted ergonomic and color studies on minimum space requirements and invented folding furniture pieces and lighting fixtures resembling conventional household products, securing physical and emotional comfort for astronauts (i.e., the couch, bookcase, hutch with cabinets, ventilation mesh, and drinking water).46 Balashova was employed as an engineer and conducted both architecture and engineering assignments. She reasoned that being an “all-in-one” proved positive for her projects, avoiding common arguments between architects and engineers. On that account, 349

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Balashova was able to expand her work as the designer of Salyut 6 Space Station (1977) and as a consultant for the Buran Program (1978) and the Baikal Space Shuttle. Her work responded to the geopolitical conditions of the Cold War—in particular, of the Soviet– American space race—and contributed to the historical collaboration between NASA and the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. The Apollo–Soyuz Test Project (ASTP) conducted in July 1975 was the first joint US–Soviet space flight, a symbol of the policy of cooperation that the two superpowers were pursuing at the time.47 It involved the docking of an Apollo Command/Service Module with the Soyuz 19, where Balashova’s designs were employed. The lapel pin she authored turned into an emblem of international collaboration. The Mir Space Station was the largest space vessel of its day and the first continuously inhabited outpost in human history; it orbited from 1986 to 2001 and had 137 visitors over its lifetime.48 Becky Ferreira, a contributor to Motherboard VICE, stressed, “It was a pivotal stepping stone in human spaceflight, a technological and geopolitical bridge between millennia, and an enduring symbol of peace on Earth and off it.”49 Though Balashova designed and consulted all Mir Station interiors during the 1976–1986 decade, official references to her work are nonextant. In the high-tech survival realm, Balashova’s inventions defined interiors for space stations and carriers, and yet her genius turned from classified to obscured by totalitarian power structures. In her response to the message from D.J. Pangburn, contributing editor at Motherboard VICE, Balashova revealed her professional credo: The interior of a spaceship is also architecture…. The purpose of architecture is the organization of space, and interior design is one of the architecture’s objectives…. I have never dreamed about outer space, and I have never felt that I changed my profession.50 Balashova evidently experienced the entwined connectivities of the world by the means of design, and she posited, “When I was a little girl, I loved crafting small houses in clay, and my grandmother said, ‘You should become an architect,’ and I did.”51

Figure 26.5

Mir Space Station, architect Galina Balashova, design 1976–1986. Section.

Source: Galina Balashova Archive online, accessed October 2, 2017, http://space-architect.com.

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Balashova’s immense work was discovered by serendipity, and in 2000, a small display was organized at the Central House of Architects: forty landscape watercolors, Balashova’s own master copies of works she painted and installed in shuttles between illuminators and on rails, aiming to humanize space travel for astronauts. Flying onboard orbital carriers, her artwork was routinely destined to burn to dust along with disposable equipment when returning through the terrestrial atmosphere. At the Moscow exhibit Balashova was introduced as a struggling artist in need of support. Only in 2015 did the German Architecture Museum (DAM) in Frankfurt-am-Main arrange the first largescale exhibition of her work, where skillful renderings and working drafts of spacecraft architecture from her personal archive were openly featured. They addressed the issue of gravity; defined a new lifestyle; and provided emotional harmony, spatial consistency, and engineering beauty. Her display took over the entire space of the first floor of the museum. It started with her ergonomic studies for small spaces at the Mir Space Station 1980 and the actual model of a bucket seat designed for the Command Center of the Soyuz Space Shuttle (1970–74), which is still in use. The museum published a book reflecting on her “unique collection of designs for Soviet cosmonautics. These include plans and engineering drawings for Soyuz capsules and the space stations Salyut and Mir” and “the Buran Program, the Soviet counterpart to the American Space Shuttle” and addressed the extraordinary historical significance of Balashova’s professional contribution: The architect strikes an emotional chord in the world of  … survival equipment. It is therefore due to Balashova’s talent that a unique chapter has been added to … architectural history: Architecture for Cosmonautics.52 Never before was Balashova officially recognized as the architect who authored the entire conception of actual interiors for travel and work in outer space. The trailblazing prototypes she developed were employed by the Soviet Space Program since her first professional encounters; they evidently uncovered her humane genius and magnified the importance of practical designs of flying architecture for astronauts. Balashova, with great empathy, aggregated the superior legacy of early twentieth-century Russian avant-garde architecture with the new modernity by conceiving and developing breakthrough pioneering ideas of green, sustainable design wed to novel engineering technologies.

Conclusion To challenge the narrative of architecture as a predominantly masculine field, in this chapter the evidence of remarkable contributions of women to the discipline is championed. By situating the accomplishments of women in Russian contexts, I seek to illuminate their professional records and influence that have been consistently downplayed and obscured in written histories. The remarkable entry of women into the workforce at the beginning of the twentieth century, particularly in Russia, opened the way to emancipation. In planning for collective living, architecture was targeted by the socialist government as the most effective tool for radical transformation, and the position at the point of production gave women political power alongside their male coworkers, yet the portrayal of a woman on the construction site raised the discourse regarding the masculine idea of women’s liberation. Everyday life under socialism morphed into a routine where women were educated, well trained, and practiced extensively and creatively across the industry yet were commonly demoted against men while climbing a professional ladder, and the promise of a secure employment involved spiraling issues of control. The commitment to revealing the unbiased truth is changing the skylines of written chronicles at our unprecedented period in world history. Past and present perforations need to be filled based on the reconstructive approach to knowledge and historical justice. By uncovering latent narratives 351

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of four outstanding Russian architects, we aim to break the silence around the professional standing of women in the discipline, in Russia and beyond. Now more than ever there is a need to provide access to edifying historical practices. The original case studies reveal vivid examples of the remarkable dedication and achievement of women across and above Russia and prove the significance of their legacy. Their empowering records and inventions forever impact the histories of architecture and humanity.

Notes 1. Equity by Design Committee, AIA San Francisco, “Early Findings Report: Equity in Architecture Survey 2018,” February  4, 2019, accessed April  2, 2020, https://issuu.com/annelisepitts/docs/eqia_2018_ early_findings. 2. “The Russian Revolution and the Emancipation of Women,” Spartacist 59 (Spring 2006), accessed May 1, 2020, https://spartacist.org/print/english/esp/59/emancipation.html; Serguei Oushakine, ed., “Symposium: ‘Landscapes of Socialism: Romantic Alternatives to Soviet Enlightenment’,” Rethinking Marxism 29, no. 1 (2017): 42. 3. “Speech at the First All-Russia Congress of Working Women,” in V. I. Lenin, Collected Works Online, accessed March 9, 2020, www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/nov/19.htm. 4. V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, 4th English edn, vol. 31 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1965), 461–534. 5. Zhenotdel (Russian) (Zhenskyi otdel tsentral’nogo komiteta Kommunisticheskoi partii)—The Women’s Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (1919–1930); Encyclopedia.com, accessed May  2, 2020, www.encyclopedia.com/history/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/zhenotdel; also: Richard Stites, “Zhenotdel: Bolshevism and Russian Women, 1917–1930,” Russian History 3, no. 2 (1976): 174–93. 6. Wendy Goldman, Women, the State and Revolution: Soviet Family Policy and Social Life, 1917–1936 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993). 7. Data resource site accessed May 1, 2020, http://markinbookreview.blogspot.com; Jonathan D. Smele, The Russian Revolution and Civil War 1917–1921: An Annotated Bibliography (London and New York: Continuum, 2003). 8. Richard Stites, The Women’s Liberation Movement in Russia: Feminism, Nihilism, and Bolshevism, 1860–1930 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978); Carol Eubanks Hayden, “Feminism and Bolshevism: The Zhenotdel and the Politics of Women’s Emancipation in Russia, 1917–1930” (PhD diss., University of California, Berkeley, CA, 1979). 9. Propaganda posters provide striking evidence of this ideological mutation; for example, the poster Long Live the Emancipated Woman of the USSR by Natalia Pinkus and Marina Volkova (1938) depicted women as now liberated, educated, and hardworking members of the new society. 10. A stunning example of intertwined communication is the American poster “We Can Do It,” produced by J. Howard Miller, 1943 for Westinghouse Electric, and the Russian poster “We Defended Leningrad. We Will Rebuild It!” by V.A. Serov, 1944, printed after the 900-day nazi bombing and blockade of the city was broken, counting over one-and-a-half million people dead, among them my grandfather Jefim Sokolin. 11. The term “caryatids” in reference to women in Russian architecture was pioneered by the author in talks: Anna P. Sokolina, “Russian Caryatids: Segments from Television Series City by a Woman,” 27th Annual IAWA Board Meeting, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, October 29, 2011, and: “Expanding the Archive: Caryatids of Russian Architecture,” IAWA Symposium “Expanding the ‘Archive.’ Latent Connections: Evidence and Speculation,” Virginia Tech, March 20–22 (21), 2019. 12. (Zasluzhennyi Arkhitektor RSFSR). A higher-rank title—People’s Architect of Russia (Narodnyi Arkhitektor RSFSR)—was awarded to only one woman: Irina Nikolayevna Benua (1912–2004). The highest title in Soviet architecture—People’s Architect of the USSR (Narodnyi Arkhitektor SSSR)—has never been awarded to a woman. 13. (Svobodnyie gosudarstvennyie khudozhestvennyie masterskiie SGKHM), in the art studio of Abram Arkhipov (1862–1930); she later took classes led by Petr Konchalovsky (1876–1956), Nadezhda Udaltsova (1886–1961), and Alexander Drevin (1869–1938). Larisa I. Ivanova-Vaen, “Komarova Lydia Constantinovna,” in The Encyclopedia of the Russian Avant-Garde: Fine Art. Architecture, vol. 1: Biographies, A—K, ed. Vasily Rakitin and Andrei Sarabianov (London: RA, Global Expert & Service Team, 2013), 432. 14. VKHUTEMAS (Vysshiye Khudozhestvenno-Tekhnicheskiye Masterskiye)—Higher Art and Technical Studios; OBMAS (Ob’edinennyie Levyie Masterskiye)—United Left Studios. The leader of the Rationalist movement and the founder of ASNOVA (1923) and ARU (1928), Ladovsky introduced a cognitive anthropocentric

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Breaking the Silence approach to the structural formation of shapes and spaces in opposition to the primary ideas of both, the utilitarian constructivism and the stylistic revivalism, and developed an alternative concept of a “growing city” (1929). Broader: Selim O. Khan-Magomedov, Nikolai Ladovsky (Moscow: Arkhitektura-C, 2007). 15. Figure 1098, in Selim O. Khan-Magomedov, Pioneers of Soviet Architecture (New York: Rizzoli, 1987), 417; Catherine Cooke, Russian Avant-Garde (London: DA, Academy Editions, 1995), 174; Heidy González Gómez, “Lydia Konstantinovna Komarova 1902–2002,” Un Día / Una Arquitecta, publ. December 25, 2016, accessed May  7, 2020, https://undiaunaarquitecta2.wordpress.com/2016/12/25/lydia-konstantinovnakomarova-1902–2002. 16. “Lydia Komarova,” LiveJournal, Section “Women in History,” June 11, 2011, accessed May 7, 2020, https:// viromiro.livejournal.com/396587.html. 17. Alberto Sartoris, Encyclopédie de l’Architecture Nouvelle (Milán: U. Hoepli, 1948), 113. Note (1) reads: Wright a en effet prévu une coupole translucide dans son projet de Musée de la collection Solomon R. Guggenheim, à New-York (1945–1946), dont on ne peut manquer de faire un rapprochement plastique avec le project de la Maison des Kominterns, à Moscou, dressé par L. Komarowa [sic] en 1928 (Figures 47, 48). Resourced with thanks to Inés Moisset, PhD, Editor, Un Día / Una Arquitecta. 18. Vladimir Paperny, Architecture in the Age of Stalin: Culture Two, trans. John Hill and Roann Barris (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002); Alexander V. Ryabushin, Novye gorizonty arhitekturnogo tvorchestva, 1970–1980-e gody (Moscow: Stroyizdat, 1990); Alexander Ryabushin, Nadia Smolina, Landmarks of Soviet Architecture 1917–1991 (Berlin: Ernst & Sohn Verlag, 1992). 19. Anna Sokolina, “Architecture and the State: Moscow Urban Concepts After Socialism,” Anthropology of East Europe Review 20, no. 2 (2002): 91–101. 20. Andrei Baburov, Alexei Gutnov, et al., Novyi Element Rasselenia. Na Puti k Novomu Gorodu (Moscow: Stroyizdat, 1966); Peter Cook, “The NER Group,” Architectural Design 38, no. 10 (1968): 481. NER (Novyi Element Rasselenia)—“a transliteration of Russian acronym for New Element of Settlement, the title of the future city diagram that is also used as a name of the group,” in Daria Bocharnikova, “The NER Project: A Vision of Post-industrial Urbanity from Post-Stalin Russia,” The Journal of Architecture 24, no. 5 (2019): 631–54. Also: Constantinos A. Doxiadis, Emergence and Growth of an Urban Region: The Developing Urban Detroit Area (Detroit: Detroit Edison, 1966); and Constantinos A. Doxiadis, Ekistics: An Introduction to the Science of Human Settlements (New York: Oxford University Press, 1968). 21. “Bauman University” (Moskovskiy Vyshii Tekhnicheskiy Universitet imeni N. Baumana, MVTU). 22. Rebuilt 1826–1832 to the classicist designs by Domenico Gilliardi. 23. The State Register of the Cultural Heritage Landmarks of the People of the Russian Federation (Gosudarstvennyi svod osobo tsennykh ob’ektov kulturnogo naslediia narodov Rossiiskoy Federatsii), accessed May 2, 2020, http://mkrf.ru/upload/mkrf/mkdoc2010/19_11_2010_1.doc. 24. Karaganda Polytech, accessed May 2, 2020, www.kstu.kz/istoriya-universiteta. 25. Ibid. 26. City government site, accessed March 2, 2020, www.kr-rada.gov.ua. 27. MARKHI, http://marhi-international.ru; “Siberian Federal Region,” http://sibfo.ru; and “Krasnoyarsk,” https://web.archive.org/web/20140706185302/http://gorsovet.admkrsk.ru. All sites accessed March 2, 2020. 28. “14th Session of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, Banff, Canada, 7–12 December  1990,” accessed March 2, 2020, http://whc.unesco.org/en/sessions/14COM. 29. Elena Itsikson, “The City Rebuilt” [Vozrodivshiie Gorod], Internet-zhurnal “Litsey” 11 (November 23, 2009), accessed May 2, 2020, https://gazeta-licey.ru/projects/architecturepetrozavodsk/1246-vozrodivshie-gorod. 30. (Diplom Pervoy Stepeni, Gosstroy RSFSR). 31. (Gosudarstvennaya Premiia KASSR)—all posthumously. E. E. Itsikson, “Kovalevskaya Tamara,” Petrozavodsk Broadcast [Petrozavodsk Govorit], https://ptzgovorit.ru/encyclopedia/kk/kovalevskaya-tamara; and Elena Itsikson, “The Sailing Palace” [Dvorets pod parusami], Internet-zhurnal “Litsey” 12 (December 15, 2009), https:// gazeta-licey.ru/projects/architecturepetrozavodsk/1295-dvorec-pod-parusami. All sites accessed May 1, 2020. 32. “Petrozavodsk State University,” accessed March 2, 2020, https://petrsu.ru/en. 33. (Orden Znak Pochiota.) Karelia: Encyclopedia, vol. 2: K—P, ed. A. F. Titov (Petrozavodsk: ID “PetroPress,” 2009), 68. 34. The author wishes to express sincere gratitude to photographer Alexey Naroditzkiy and his studio Narodizkiy, www.narodizkiy.com, for generously providing this publication with the superb quality photograph of the Moscow metro station Chertanovskaya: www.narodizkiy.com/metro. All sites accessed March 2, 2020. 35. Aleshina’s grandfather—Nikolai Uspensky, the Archpriest (Protoiereus) of the Church of the Resurrection of Christ in Tarusa; accessed March 2, 2020, http://tarusa.cerkov.ru/protoierej-nikolaj-uspenskij. In 1930 under atheistic dictatorship, the church was “liquidated” and the Archpriest incarcerated; he passed away shortly after his release.

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Anna Sokolina 36. (Upravleniie po proektrovaniyu Ddvortsa Sovetov), renamed (Tsentralny nauchno-issledovatel’ski institut eksperimental’nogo proiektirovaniia zrelishchnykh i sportivnykh sooruzhenii). In 1974, the institute was named after Mezentsev. “Mezentsev, Boris Sergeyevich,” Grand Soviet Encyclopedia [Bol’shaia Sovietskaiia Entsyclopediia] 30 vols, ed. A. M. Prokhorov, 3rd edn (Moscow: Sovetskaya Encyclopedia, 1969). 37. Alexey Dushkin, “My Architectural Credo” [Moyo arkhitekturnoiie kredo], Metro.ru Library (1988), accessed May  2, 2020, https://web.archive.org/web/20010522003854/www.metro.ru/library/architec ture/dushkin.html. 38. Dmitry Goncharuk, “Architect Who Designed 19 Stations of the Moscow Metro” [Arkhitektor sproiektirovavshaya 19 stantsii moskovskogo metro], Vecherniaya Moskva, May 15, 2012. 39. Denis Esakov and Denis Romodin, “Hallways of the Moscow Metro: Soviet Modernism,” ArchiRu, March  1, 2016, accessed May  3, 2020, https://archi.ru/russia/67947/vestibyuli-moskovskogo-metrosovetskogo-modernizma. 40. Metro stations she collaboratively authored: 1962—Leninsky Prospect, Oktyabrskaya, Profsoyuznaya; 1966—Ryazansky Prospect, Taganskaya; 1969—Varshavskaya; 1972—Oktyabrskoye Pole; 1975— Kuznetsky Most, Lubyanka, Shchukinskaya; 1978—Medvedkovo; 1979—Marksistskaya, Perovo; 1983— Chertanovskaya, Serpukhovskaya; 1985—Domodedovskaya; 1988—Mendeleyevskaya; 1990—Uliysa Podbelskogo; 1995—Chkalovskaya. 41. Berta Bukharina, Anniversary. Her Age—Our Wealth! [Yubilei. Yeio gody—nashe bogatstvo] (Moscow: OAO Metrogiprotrans, 2010), accessed May 3, 2020, www.arhmetro.ru/home/publications/0/202. 42. (Za trudovuyu doblest’): “Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, July 18, 1980, no. 2523-X,” Legal Library of the USSR, accessed May 3, 2020, www.libussr.ru/doc_ussr/usr_10402.htm. 43. References retrieved from papers: Anna P. Sokolina, “The Secret Star of the Outer Space Program: Galina Balashova, First Architect of Spaceship Interiors,” International Archive of Women in Architecture IAWA Symposium “Women Inventors in Architecture 1700–2000,” Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, March 28–30, 2018; and “Galina Balashova: First Architect of Soviet Spacecraft Interiors,” 39 NESEEES Conference, NYU Jordan Center, April 7, 2018. Data obtained by the author in May–August 2017 from Balashova’s personal website, accessed August 1, 2017, http://space-architect.com. 44. OKB—transliteration of initials (Opytnoye Konstruktorskoye Buro), meaning Experimental Design Bureau. Classified institutions working on design and prototyping of advanced technology, OKBs were identified by assigned number and the name of lead designer: OKB-1 was led by Sergei Korolev and is known as the OKB of Korolev. 45. The term Soyuz (Russian) means “union.” 46. Sourced from http://space-architect.com, accessed August 1, 2017. 47. “Mir Space Station,” History NASA online, accessed May 1, 2020, https://history.nasa.gov/SP-4225/mir/ mir.htm. 48. The term Mir (Russian) means “peace, world, and community.” Frank L. Culbertson, Jr., Director, ShuttleMir (Phase 1) Program, “What’s in a Name?” Paper, 10th Congress of the Association of Space Explorers, October 3, 1996, accessed May 1, 2020, https://history.nasa.gov/SP-4225/documentation/mirmeanings/ meanings.htm. 49. Becky Ferreira, “The Mir Space Station Was a Marvel, a Clusterfuck, and an Underdog Hero,” Motherboard VICE, February 19, 2016, accessed May 2, 2020, https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/bmvn44/ the-mir-space-station-was-a-marvel-a-clusterfuck-and-an-underdog-hero. 50. Translation rephrased by the author, from: D. J. Pangburn, “The Soviet Architect Who Drafted the Space Race,” Motherboard VICE, August 18, 2015, accessed May 2, 2020, https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/ article/ae3beg/the-soviet-architect-who-drafted-the-space-race. 51. Ibid. 52. Philipp Meuser, Galina Balashova. Architect of the Soviet Space Programme (DOM Publishers, 2015). Also, Balashova, interviews online, accessed May 2, 2020, www.vice.com/en_us/article/ae3beg/the-soviet-architect-whodrafted-the-space-race.

Bibliography Alpern-Engel, Barbara. Women in Russian History: From the Tenth to the Twentieth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Brown, Lory A. Feminist Practices: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Women in Architecture. Ashgate Publishing, 2011. Brown, Lori A., and Karen Burns, eds. The Bloomsbury Global Encyclopedia of Women in Architecture 1960–2015. New York and London: Bloomsbury (forthcoming).

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Breaking the Silence Buckley, Mary. Women and Ideology in the Soviet Union. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1989. Bukharina, Berta. “Anniversary. Her Age—Our Wealth!” [Yubilei. Yeio gody—nashe bogatstvo]. OAO Metrogiprotrans, 2010. www.arhmetro.ru/home/publications/0/202. Clements, Barbara Evans. A History of Women in Russia: From Earliest Times to the Present. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2012. Equity by Design Committee, AIA San Francisco. “Early Findings Report: Equity in Architecture Survey 2018.” February 4, 2019. https://issuu.com/annelisepitts/docs/eqia_2018_early_findings. Esakov, Denis, and Denis Romodin. “Hallways of the Moscow Metro: Soviet Modernism.” ArchiRu, March 10, 2016. https://archi.ru/russia/67947/vestibyuli-moskovskogo-metro-sovetskogo-modernizma. Figes, Orlando. Natasha’s Dance: A Cultural History of Russia. New York: Picador, 2002. Goldman, Wendy Z. Women at the Gates: Gender and Industry in Stalin’s Russia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Goldman, Wendy. Women, the State and Revolution: Soviet Family Policy and Social Life, 1917–1936. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Goncharuk, Dmitry. “Architect Who Designed 19 Stations of the Moscow Metro [Arkhitektor sproiektirovavshaya 19 stantsii moskovskogo metro].” Vecherniaya Moskva, May 15, 2012. Hayden, Carol Eubanks. “Feminism and Bolshevism: The Zhenotdel and the Politics of Women’s Emancipation in Russia, 1917–1930.” PhD diss., University of California, Berkeley, CA, 1979. Ilič, Melanie. Women in the Stalin Era. Houndmills, Basingstoke and Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001. Itsikson, Elena. “Kovalevskaya Tamara.” Petrozavodsk Broadcast [Petrozavodsk Govorit]. https://ptzgovorit.ru/ encyclopedia/kk/kovalevskaya-tamara. Itsikson, Elena. “The Sailing Palace.” [Dvorets pod parusami.] Internet-zhurnal “Litsey” 12, December 15, 2009. https://gazeta-licey.ru/projects/architecturepetrozavodsk/1295-dvorec-pod-parusami. Ivanova-Vaen, Larisa I. “Komarova Lydia Constantinovna.” In The Encyclopedia of the Russian Avant-Garde: Fine Art. Architecture, in 3 volumes, vol. 1: Biographies. A—K, edited by Vasily Rakitin and Andrei Sarabianov, 432. London: RA, Global Expert & Service Team, 2013. Khan-Magomedov, Selim O. Pioneers of Soviet Architecture: The Search for New Solutions in the 1920s and 1930s. New York: Rizzoli, 1987. Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich. “Speech at the First All-Russia Congress of Working Women.” In Collected Works online. www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/nov/19.htm. Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich. Collected Works, 4th English edn, vol. 31. Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1965. Meuser, Philipp. Galina Balashova. Architect of the Soviet Space Programme. Berlin: DOM Publishers, 2015. “Mir Space Station.” History NASA. https://history.nasa.gov/SP-4225/mir/mir.htm. Muravyeva, Marianna, and Natalia Novikova, eds. Women’s History in Russia: (Re)Establishing the Field. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2014. National Council of Architectural Registration Boards. NCARB Report 2019. www.ncarb.org/nbtn2017/ demographics. Rule, Wilma, and Norma C. Noonan, eds. Russian Women in Politics and Society. Westport, CT, and London: Praeger, 1996. Smele, Jonathan D. The Russian Revolution and Civil War 1917–1921: An Annotated Bibliography. London and New York: Continuum, 2003. Sokolina, Anna. “Architecture and the State: Moscow Urban Concepts after Socialism.” Anthropology of East Europe Review 20, no. 2 (2002): 91–101. Sokolina, Anna P. “Expanding the Archive: Caryatids of Russian Architecture.” Paper, IAWA Symposium “Expanding the ‘Archive.’ Latent Connections: Evidence and Speculation,” Virginia Tech, March 20–22, 2019. https://archdesign.caus.vt.edu/events/iawa-symposium-2019. Sokolina, Anna P. “Galina Balashova: First Architect of Soviet Spacecraft Interiors.” Paper, 39 NESEEES Conference, NYU Jordan Center, NYC, April 7, 2018. Sokolina, Anna P. Milka Bliznakov Scholar Report. Life to Architecture: Milka Bliznakov Academic Papers and Records of Women in Russian Architecture at IAWA. Alternative Spaces, 2019. www.academia.edu/39140431/ Milka_Bliznakov_Scholar_Report. Sokolina, Anna P. “Russian Caryatids: Segments from I.M. Korobina TV Series City by a Woman.” Pres. transcr. 27th IAWA Annual Board Meeting, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, October 29, 2011. Sokolina, Anna P. “The Secret Star of the Outer Space Program: Galina Balashova, First Architect of Spaceship Interiors.” Paper, IAWA Symposium “Women Inventors in Architecture 1700–2000,” Virginia Tech, March 28–30, 2018. Stites, Richard. The Women’s Liberation Movement in Russia: Feminism, Nihilism, and Bolshevism, 1860–1930. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978.

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Anna Sokolina Tether, Bruce. “How Architecture Cheats Women: Results of the 2017 Women in Architecture Survey Revealed.” The Architectural Review (February 27, 2017). www.architectural-review.com/10017497.article. Tether, Bruce. “Results of the 2016 Women in Architecture Survey Revealed.” The Architectural Review (February 26, 2016). www.architectural-review.com/essays/results-of-the-2016-women-in-architecture-surveyrevealed/10003314.article. “The Russian Revolution and the Emancipation of Women.” Spartacist 59. English edn online (Spring 2006). https://spartacist.org/print/english/esp/59/emancipation.html. Titov, A. F., ed. Karelia: Encyclopedia, in 3 vols, vol. 2: K—P. Petrozavodsk: ID “PetroPress,” 2009.

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27 LEAVING A LASTING LEGACY Beverly Willis: Groundbreaking Architect, Artist, Designer, Filmmaker, and Philanthropist Kathryn H. Anthony and Shailee Dave

Introduction In a profession dominated by men wearing black, she wears white, manifesting her credo, “It’s a personal fashion statement. It’s also a statement about who I am. Professionals wear black. I am not someone that goes with the mob. I want to be seen as an individual.”1 She is proud to describe herself as a “contrarian,” promoting the idea of “humane architecture.”2 Throughout her lengthy career practicing architecture for over fifty-five years, she amassed a portfolio of over eight hundred projects. Beverly Willis stated, “Architecture is how the design appears to the eye and feels to the mind and the touch of the body.”3 She forged new paths as an architect, designer, planner, artist, author, filmmaker, curator, and philanthropist. Her litany of firsts paved the way for women, and her many wide-ranging contributions leave a lasting legacy. Willis’s pioneering career has earned her a place in history as one of the most influential American women architects of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. In this respect, she joins the ranks of titans in the profession along with her predecessor, Julia Morgan (1872–1957), whose prolific career spanning over seven hundred projects earned her the 2014 Gold Medal from the American Institute of Architects (AIA). Morgan has the dubious distinction as the first woman ever to receive this prestigious prize, yet it was awarded over fifty years after her death. Beverly Willis was invited to deliver an acceptance of the Gold Medal speech at the AIA awards ceremony, reflecting upon Morgan’s life and career, and she professed the magnitude of the event: It is a great honor and a historic moment to be here speaking on behalf of Julia Morgan. In 1978, as President-Elect of the California Council, I stood before this august body to present a motion and argue successfully that the AIA must support the Equal Rights Amendment, saying in part, and I quote, “I believe that architecture is concerned about people, as well as concrete and steel.”4 Willis declared that “architects are committed to the concept of human service and to the social improvement of this nation” and maintained that “the AIA should reaffirm its moral commitment as architects to the goals and ideals of architecture and humanity,” stating that the event of awarding the Gold Medal to Julia Morgan stands out as “a huge step towards this goal. And from my heart, and as a woman, I thank you. Change does not come easily or quickly.”5

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Figure 27.1 Beverly Willis. Photograph at a construction site, 1982. Source: Beverly Willis, FAIA.

Both Morgan and Willis produced portfolios of hundreds of notable award-winning projects. Both paved the path not just for women architects, but for all women, and for all architects. Both had extraordinarily successful careers and outstanding professional accomplishments; and both of their work is especially significant in light of their historical context. Well before the women’s liberation movement in the US of the 1960s and 1970s, Willis hung out her shingle as an architect, established her own practice, overcame many obstacles in the male-dominated profession, and designed a broad range of work, always successfully. Beverly Willis (b. 1928) opened her San Francisco architectural office in 1958, a year after Morgan passed away. By the time she reached her mid-thirties, she was the only woman in San Francisco running her own architectural firm and remained so for about fifteen years. She was one of only a handful of women in the US to run her own architectural firm. By the time her practice reached its peak, she still led one of the few woman-owned firms without a male partner. She had made a 358

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breakthrough in the retail industry by designing one of America’s famous retail storefronts, had built an estate for herself in the Napa Valley, and had several large-scale civic projects underway. In 1966, she received her architectural license, and by 1980 became a fellow of the American Institute of Architects and the recipient of numerous awards.

Design Philosophy—A Humanistic Approach Willis considered that “the most successful people are good designers, even though they may not be in art or architecture.”6 Her career as a designer was inspired by the greatest artists of all time, as she revealed: “My models have always been Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo. They sat down with the Medicis, with admirals, generals, and popes. … In addition to being designers, architects should also be involved in their community—as citizen architects.”7 Her designs were concerned with a humanistic approach as a “philosophical concept that emphasizes the value and agency of human beings, individually and collectively, and generally prefers critical thinking and evidence (rationalism, empiricism) over established doctrine or faith (fideism).”8 She stressed the importance of “the architectural use of form, function, space, proportion, texture, and color” for appropriation in design of humanistic influence which “communicate directly to human senses.” Willis practiced architecture in the modernist era, focused on the concept “form follows function” and guided by a set of mandatory rules such as the use of a flat roof, white color, horizontal windows, and stucco surfaces, resulting in designs often visually mimicking each other. Yet, her individual approach involved the properties of sensation—an input from the physical world received by our sensory receptors—and perception—the process by which the brain selects, organizes, and interprets sensations. She elaborated on sensory information the brain absorbs through vision, taste, touch, smell, and sound, along with a sixth sense—extrasensory perception—a psychic sense that, Willis believed, plays a powerful role in one’s ability to “humanist design.” The synthesis of sensation and perception is fundamental to Willis’s design approach, while she provides an example of: the experience of nature’s seasonal changes. These sensory changes affect the eyes, skin, smell, hearing and have a profound effect on the body. Architectural design affects the senses through space, light—shadow, sight—form, feel (material—touch), hearing—decibel levels, color, psychic—instinct.9 Willis’s goal is to create designs that send “clues to the senses,” causing positive feelings in those who experience her work and taking inspiration from these natural occurrences, as well as through readings and observations.

Early Childhood Born a rebel—as Willis herself admits—in Tulsa, Oklahoma, to Margaret Porter Willis, a nurse, and Ralph William Willis, an agriculturalist and oil industry entrepreneur whose company sold equipment for derricks, she had a challenging life. Her childhood was spent growing up on the countryside limited to what she described as unappealing topography. A free spirit, she had a predilection to experiment and to explore exciting contexts. She argued, “I’m a great believer that adversity helps make you who you are.”10 Her parents divorced during the Great Depression; Beverly and her younger brother, Ralph Gerald Willis, were placed in an orphanage where they lived from age six to twelve. Beverly recollected: I didn’t like what I call the institutional life … But during that time, I read a lot. I would raid the library and found myself a cloak room where I could just hide away and read—and I would read book after book after book.11 359

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One particular children’s book, Gene Stratton-Porter’s A Girl of the Limberlost (1909), portrayed a young girl who started to make her own living by selling butterflies to pay for her clothes. This book inspired Beverly’s independence; she detailed, “I just became determined never to have to work for anybody, and I have never worked for anybody in my life.”12 During the World War II era, at fifteen, she spent a summer with her father in Illinois, where she learned welding in his shop and used the wages she earned as payment for her first flying lessons. She trained to crash-land a plane from an elevation of two thousand feet, and with this skill, she became one of the few women flying a single-engine propeller plane and was part of the Civil Air Patrol. In her late teens in Portland, OR, she studied survival skills for self-defense, wiring, and building a radio set—these lessons gave her an introduction to the world of construction.

Education As Willis was growing up, her sole ambition in life was to become independent. She graduated from high school in Portland and studied aeronautical engineering at Oregon State University (1946– 1948). American women were discouraged from pursuing engineering as a profession, and she was one of a few enrolled in engineering at that time and was thus competing with men aged twentythree to fifty-five. She also had taken journalism classes and wrote articles for the Portland Oregonian. Eventually, she dropped out after two years and started working for a Portland printing plant, Bushong Lithography, where she learned two-dimensional design: this was her first introduction to the world of artists and graphic designers. She later reflected, “I don’t have an architectural degree to begin with. I have a degree in art. I only learned about architecture by hiring architects.”13 Her love for drawings and paintings drew her to San Francisco; there she enrolled in night school at the San Francisco Art Institute. During a one-person show of her watercolors, colleagues told her that exhibited artwork looked Oriental. This inspired her to move to Honolulu to study international history and art at the University of Hawaii, and she graduated with honors with a bachelor of fine arts degree in 1954. Willis had strong mentors from whom she learned professional and social skills, discipline and manners, and, in particular, history, Oriental art, and philosophy (from Gustav Ecke) and fresco painting (from Jean Charlot).

Early Work as Artist, Sculptor, Designer After graduating, Willis opened her own studio, Willis Atelier, in Waikiki with a focus on mural and fresco work. Among her earliest artistic compositions is a fresco, Descending Dove, painted for the United Church of Christ in Honolulu. The dove symbolizes the promise of everlasting life, shown bathed in shafts of light. Willis noted, “I attempt to create works that transcend the boundaries of aesthetic theory or formal manipulation and that invite multiple interpretations.”14 She was commissioned to create a 10 x 15 ft. mural for the new building of the United Chinese Society and two projects for United Airlines: a sculpture of a tiki god for their Kalakaua Avenue ticket office and multimedia wood panels for their Aloha Room of the San Francisco Airport.15 Her tiki sculpture, “The Ki’i,” a three-hundred-pound koa-wood carving signifying a protective talisman for travelers, portrayed ki’i, human figures as symbols of spirits, and was inspired by ancient Hawaiian culture.16 Honolulu’s hotels were providing breakthrough opportunities for artists—Willis was appointed to paint five colossal 10 x 15 ft. canvasses for the walls of the ballroom at the luxurious Royal Hawaiian, one of Honolulu’s legendary hotels.17 Two critical points instilled Willis’s drift toward architecture. The first was the collaboration with Henry Kaiser, a recognized American industrialist of that era, on the Hawaiian Village Hotel. She was commissioned to design what later became known as the Shell Bar, gaining fame as the backdrop for the long-running television show Hawaii Five-O. She designed a twenty-ton, 5 x 20 ft., 360

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sand-casted mural for the back bar, as well as furniture for the hotel restaurant and inserts for the countertop. In addition, Kaiser hired her to design new landscaping around the Shell Bar and the dining room.18 The second turning point was the design commission for the offices of Admiral Felix Stump, who, in 1953, was a five-star commander of the Pacific Fleet. Willis had met him through her friend, a wife of the British naval attaché, and was hired to redevelop officers’ clubs, where she oversaw construction, furnishing, and interior design.19 She designed and selected artwork and hired architects to complete structural assignments. Her architectural career started to gain traction when she was recommended for further renovations of a series of officers’ clubs. Working with architects strengthened Willis’s interest in becoming an architect herself. Willis believed in maintaining good relationships with her friends and coworkers. Many affluent patrons came by recommendation of her personal and professional networks, for instance, the client for her design of Athena’s Chaise (1987) where Willis transformed an ordinary object into a sacred space by incorporating geometric proportions and expanding its scale, reflecting on the dualities of the utilitarian and the ceremonial, object and context, the physical and the infinite worlds. The 52 ft. wide x 33 in. deep x 101 in. high piece made of 2 sq. in. steel tubing welded with a wire mesh seat and edged with a 3/8 in. diameter steel rod has a stainless-steel screen with roll-up curtains. It was exhibited in the garden of the Cooper-Hewitt Design Museum in New York City and became a popular seating spot.20

Pioneering Technology in Architecture In 1958, Willis opened a design office in San Francisco, CA. She insisted, “To succeed as an architect, you need a basket of skills, including resilience and confidence.”21 In the 1970s, Willis’s architecture firm landed a massive project in Honolulu, the Aliamanu Valley Community for military families. It called for the design of approximately 525 units for twelve thousand residents located in the crater of an inactive volcano.22 While many developers had been bulldozing hillside sites, often causing mudslides or severe flooding, surveying sites of large acreage ensued a challenge. Willis’s firm took an unconventional, technologically driven approach to large-scale land planning. During World War

Figure 27.2 Aliamanu Valley Community for military family housing, Honolulu, HI, architect Beverly Willis, 1974–1978. Drawing with view of buildings nestled on the crater floor. Source: Beverly Willis, FAIA.

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II, the government had developed a software that highlighted regions that enabled the air fighters to accurately locate bombing sites. Using a similar concept, her firm designed CARLA (Computerized Approach to Residential Land Analysis), an automated system examining the detailed topography of expanded areas and minimizing cutting and filling on site. She used CARLA to program the density and siting for what she called “ecologically scientific” designs. In 1971, well before it became the norm, Willis with her associate Jochen Eigen wrote a series of CARLA computer programs, testing the compatibility of proposed floor plans with site conditions. In conjunction with plotting programs, CARLA was a tool allowing architects to better understand the ecology, grading, and drainage, and to evaluate potential areas of significant environmental impact and eco-sensitivity of various proposed plans. It was the first tool applied in the field—according to Willis, almost fifteen years ahead of the widespread adoption of computers into the profession and before the founding of Microsoft and the invention of the desktop computer.23 Willis also used CARLA to devise a site plan that maximized views while positioning apartments on the bluff’s slope of Pacific Point Condominiums—the first project designed and built using CARLA. Located in Pacifica, CA, the complex of eight building blocks includes ninety-eight apartments for moderate-income residents. Stepped terraces cascade along the side with sweeping 270-degree views of the ocean; diagonally placed interior walls slide through the elevations, directing the eye to the Pacific.24 As CARLA was one of the first software programs used in large-scale project planning, Beverly Willis’s practice became prominent as an innovative and technologically driven firm. CARLA captured national attention and was soon used across the country, and from 1960s to 1970s, Willis and Associates Architects grew to a thirty-five-person organization.

Creating the Concept of Adaptive Reuse Victorian architecture did not always enjoy the popularity it does today. By the mid-twentieth century in cities and towns across the US, thousands of residential and commercial buildings constructed in the elaborate Victorian style were either bulldozed or threatened with demolition, as was the case in San Francisco historic neighborhoods. Beverly Willis stated, “My unconventional background imbued me with an unconventional way of looking at things—which produced change. I like to see myself as ‘citizen architect’.”25 Willis was one of the first designers to recognize their potential by giving these Victorians a new life, thus saving them from the chopping block. She revealed, When I did the work back in the 1960s, Union Street did not have retail stores, just a couple of antique stores. Builders were buying old houses and building three-story apartments. … At the time, there was no such thing as adaptive reuse.26 Rather than razing three abandoned, deteriorated houses as their owners had originally planned and replacing them with a new commercial retail building, Willis renovated and transformed them into San Francisco’s Union Street Shops, a retail complex of seven stores and two restaurants. She elevated the existing buildings by half a level, allowing additional retail street frontage below and creating a more versatile entry sequence. The three buildings in the original Queen Anne style with their gingerbread cornices and fish-scale clapboards were restored, and wrought-iron fencing and gaslights were added to recreate the image of San Francisco’s romantic past.27 Willis’s prototypic design had a catalytic effect: it attracted many investors, and Union Street soon became a premier neighborhood shopping area. Willis cofounded the Union Street Merchant Association, providing design assistance to nearby store owners. The commercial success of this landmark project (completed in 1965), paved the way for adaptive reuse of other historic architecture along Union Street, throughout the Bay Area, and across the nation. In 1967, Willis’s Union Street Shops 362

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development received the AIA Bay Area Award as well as the Governor of California Award for Exceptional Distinction in Environmental Design.

Residential and Stage Designs In 1973, Willis’s design for San Francisco’s Vine Terrace Apartments (now Nob Hill Court Condominiums) addressed the challenge of a busy, traffic-intense site and was inspired by impenetrable rock cliffs and canyons; the vernacular brown-wood shingled style of Bay Area arts and crafts typically found in single-family residences was incorporated into multifamily housing. The place designed by Willis reflected on her organicist philosophy enlivened through approach to time transforming the shells of architecture: Nature and time etch the wood surface’s crevices just as they turn the smooth surface of tree trunks into rough bark. As leaves and blades of grass shrink and wither brown with age, wood shingles turn gray in salt-laden sea air or dark black-brown in fog.28 The architect revealed her creative vision: “I saw this building clad in shingles, imagining its character changing as time etched its crevices, aging it like a beautiful face.” The design features floorto-ceiling glass windows and a landscaped brick courtyard. The private open space serves as a quiet haven from the rest of the city, showcasing an upward view of the historic Mark Hopkins Hotel.

Figure 27.3 Vine Terrace Apartments (now Nob Hill Court Condominiums), San Francisco, CA, architect Beverly Willis, 1973. Two-story entry lobby with circular stair from the parking garage to the first floor with private courtyard. Photograph, 1974. Source: Beverly Willis, FAIA.

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Vine Terrace Apartments received an AIA Award of Merit for the 1976 Homes for Better Living Award Program. The rough bark of cedar shakes, natural materials, and weathered textures envelop the exterior of River Run, a 4,000 sq. ft. manor farmhouse of a working vineyard of Chardonnay grapes located in California’s Napa Valley wine country. Willis’s design juxtaposes the two with formal geometry and detail, suggesting an enlightened romanization, as the yin-yang of a rustic farmhouse and a Palladian villa. It emerges from a tree-covered plateau with mountains in the backdrop. A large portico is reminiscent of old Tuscany; the arched, ribbed shape of the seashell with alternating semicircular rings in variegated colors inspired a large window that dominates one of the façades.29

Figure 27.4 San Francisco Ballet Building, Civic Center, San Francisco, CA, architect Beverly Willis, 1978– 1983. The glass and polish-chrome entry at the corner of the building facing the design axis of the Civic Center. Photograph, 1984. Source: Beverly Willis, FAIA.

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A comparable category—unity (and struggle) of opposites—has been showcased in Willis’s renowned work, the San Francisco Ballet Building (1984). This building, the first in the US designed and constructed exclusively for a major ballet institution, is located on a prominent site of Van Ness Avenue directly across from the neoclassical San Francisco Opera House, where ballet dancers perform throughout the year. The architect addressed the dialectical approach that enlivens her design: The monumentality of the mass is softened by transparent layers that reveal an inner space of creative possibility, awaiting the birth of the dance. The two aspects intertwine, each a part of the other in an endless choreography of female and male, point and counterpoint, movement and rest.30 The new Ballet Building changed the face of San Francisco’s Civic Center and continues to serve as a prototype for ballet buildings across the globe. The 65,500 sq. ft., 96 ft. tall building includes a school for five hundred students.31 Willis’s design for the San Francisco Ballet integrates the theory of yin and yang, with properties of solid and void, curve and plane, in shifting light and shadow. The curves of the balconies and reflections of the glass walls are juxtaposed against the rectilinear columns on the façade, a reference to leafy canopies of Northern California’s redwood trees. The eight-story building hidden behind a four-story elevation features a truss system between floors to support large, column-free spans for dance studios. When opened, it contained eight

Figure 27.5 San Francisco Ballet Building, architect Beverly Willis. The lobby as seen from the entry doors and glass wall of the drive-through entry. Photograph, 1984. Source: Beverly Willis, FAIA.

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rehearsal and classroom studios, each fifteen feet high and an average size of 56 x 40 ft., which can be combined for a large 60 x 80 ft. rehearsal space, along with administrative offices, physical therapy and workout rooms, a library, multipurpose rooms for conferences and academic study, prop and shoe-storage rooms, separate lounges, shower and locker facilities, a computer room, a ballet shop, and a ground-floor studio for community groups. The expandable space was an unusual feature at that time.32 Of all works, this project gives Willis the greatest pride. As she explained, “The San Francisco Ballet Building is the first major building ever built for a major ballet company in the USA. There is a little bit of the San Francisco Ballet Building in every ballet building that is built.”33

Author, Curator, Filmmaker, Philanthropist Beverly Willis reveals, “My work explores the invisible images that are both precursors and progeny of observed forms. As an architect, artist, sculptor, writer, and urbanist, I seek the communicative power of these images and their related forms.”34 Aspiring to “discover the power of a specific shape,” she would examine in her work the image in “two-dimensional abstract geometries, in poetic sketches, in three-dimensional architectonics, or in a combination of media.” From one project to the next, “her images’ essential characteristics carry over.”35 Her book, Invisible Images: The Silent Language of Architecture and the Selected Works of Beverly Willis (1997) was informed by her practice and research conducted for the 1992 Montgomery Fellowship lecture at Dartmouth College, entitled “Mixed Messages: The Nonverbal Language of Art and Architecture.” This volume, published by the National Building Museum, featured her multifaceted work. Interspersed with the richly illustrated text are quotations from architects, philosophers, and leaders who inspired Willis’s designs, along with her own statements. She boldly maintained, “I looked around  … and I  saw women struggling,  … We needed to reach out to provide knowledge and research that would help the young women of today fit into what was really a profession organized around men.”36 Thus, in 2002 at age seventy-five, Willis founded the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation (BWAF), a philanthropic organization seeking to challenge the profession’s long-standing patriarchal culture by promoting the work of women in architecture.37 BWAF advocates for gender equity in leadership and recognition in the architecture industries through primary research, exhibitions, websites, media, and educational programs.38 BWAF was launched as a grant-giving foundation supporting research on women’s contributions to twentieth-century American architecture and restoring the historical records. It has since expanded to embrace issues specific to women currently working in the building industry, commissioning and curating research within all fields of practice.39 In 2004, one of the BWAF founders’ meetings included a visit to the raw pit of the World Trade Center in New York City, destroyed by the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, before new construction had taken place.40 In 2009, Willis commenced another career, as a filmmaker, with the BWAF production of A Girl is a Fellow Here: 100 Women Architects in the Studio of Frank Lloyd Wright—the documentary featuring designers who worked closely with the master architect and later embarked on successful careers of their own. Willis become the subject of two short films produced by BWAF, The Artist: Beverly Willis. Honolulu and San Francisco Years. 1948–1968 (2013), and The Architect: Beverly Willis. San Francisco and New York Years. 1958–1995 (2013). Her design for the San Francisco Ballet was documented in another production, Built for Ballet: An American Original (2013). California Senator Dianne Feinstein termed the film “an insider’s look at the creation of the San Francisco Ballet Building—the first building in the United States designed solely for ballet.”41 The mayor of San Francisco at the time, she worked with Beverly Willis “in creating this timeless monument to the arts” and promoted this film as “a must-watch for San Franciscans and ballet lovers alike.”

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In 2017 BWAF launched a website, Pioneering Women of American Architecture, edited by Mary McLeod and Victoria Rosner, a collection of profiles of fifty women born before 1940 who made important contributions to American architecture.42 Piloted also in 2017, BWAF’s Emerging Leaders Program offers professional development opportunities for women five to ten years out of school, where twenty participants engage with noted women in architecture, real estate, law, and financial services to advance their career goals, share common experience, and trade personal strategies for success.43 Earlier, BWAF produced the exhibition Built by Women, held at the National Building Museum in Washington, DC, in 2016, the first in a series of exhibitions continued elsewhere. In conjunction with the 2018 American Institute of Architects National Convention held in New York City, BWAF produced another documentary, Unknown New York: The City That Women Built. As Beverly highlighted, “the film … shows the fantastic projects that women have designed in Manhattan, which again are completely unknown to  … not only the general public, but in the profession itself.”44 The foundation published a map, “Built by Women. 2018 Manhattan,” a curated collection of buildings and spaces representing women’s leadership as architects, engineers, and developers in a diverse array of historic and contemporary projects. A total of fifteen thousand copies of this map was distributed to all AIA Convention attendees. The map gets frequent updates, creating an archive of contemporary women’s professional achievements.45 In a similar vein, BWAF produced the map “Built by Women. Los Angeles 2020,” the result of a juried competition, in conjunction with the 2020 AIA Convention to have been held in LA (postponed due to COVID-19). Exhibitions, programming, and tours were organized to feature selected projects, and over fifty projects were to be exhibited at the Architecture + Design Museum. A session on “Personal Exposures: Women, Architecture & Journalism,” held in 2019, featured a conversation with Eva Hagberg, author, educator, writer, and media strategist, and Cathleen McGuigan, editor in chief of Architectural Record.46

Conclusion: Leadership in the Profession Willis considered that “to succeed as an architect, you need a basket of skills, including resilience and confidence.”47 Her service to the architectural profession included leadership roles that have been widely recognized: in 1976 Willis served as a US Government Delegate to “Habitat,” the United Nations Conference on Human Settlements; beginning in 1976, she was a founder of the National Building Museum in Washington, DC, and in 2008 she was honored with the inauguration of that museum’s Beverly Willis Library. In 1978 she also served on the board of directors of the San Francisco chapter of the AIA, and she served the California Council of the American Institute of Architects (CCAIA) as vice president in 1978 and president in 1979, the first woman to do so. She also chaired the Federal Construction Council of the National Academy of Sciences. From 1981 to 1982 Willis served as president of the Golden State chapter of the Lamda Alpha Society, a global land economics society, and was founder and president of the Architecture Research Institute (ARI). For her outstanding contribution to the improvement of the built environment and to the profession of architecture in California, in 2017 CCAIA recognized Willis with the Lifetime Achievement Award, and in 2018 Willis and BWAF received the New York City Visionary Award at the Heritage Ball, an annual benefit to support the Center for Architecture. From her early work as artist, sculptor, and designer, and with a lengthy practice of more than fifty-five years, Beverly Willis has accomplished a lifetime of outstanding achievements. She broke new ground by pioneering adaptive reuse and computer-assisted design. Her humanistic approach, paying exceptional attention to how people sensed, perceived, and experienced her designs, earned her a wide array of high-profile clients and helped her to amass a portfolio of approximately eight hundred projects.

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Throughout Willis’s career, advocacy has been central to her life’s work. Always a strong believer in equal rights in the work environment, decades ago she traveled to Washington, DC, to seek the support of the AIA for the Equal Rights Amendment. Her role as a founder of the National Building Museum affirmed public debate on the value of the built environment. And the creation of BWAF provides enduring support for the equal opportunity and recognition of women in architecture and related professions. At the J.K. Javits Center, site of the 2018 AIA Convention in NYC, she raised awareness on equality and inclusivity in architecture by emerging in her signature white outfit with a group of one hundred professionals in a “Voices of Plurality Flash Mob.”48 Finally, as we reflect upon her prolific personality, Willis deserves special recognition: she had neither a spouse nor a partner to sustain her career and propelled herself—by herself—to succeed where few women had gone before. When the history of women in architecture throughout centuries is written, Beverly Willis stands out as one of its beacons, leaving a lasting legacy and an inspiration for future generations.

Notes 1. Beverly Willis, telephone interview by Shailee Dave, June 27, 2019. 2. “Insights: Beverly Willis, FAIA,” American Institute of Architects, California Chapter, December 5, 2017, accessed June 29, 2019, https://aecknowledge.com/presentations/27. 3. Beverly Willis, Invisible Images: The Silent Language of Architecture and the Selected Works of Beverly Willis (Washington, DC: National Building Museum, 1997), 31. 4. “Celebrating Julia Morgan, FAIA, 2014 AIA Gold Medal Recipient in Chicago,” AIANational, published July 25, 2014, accessed June 29, 2019, www.youtube.com/watch?v=78LG42LNxWY. 5. Ibid. 6. Beverly Willis, Twenty Over Eighty: Conversations on a Lifetime in Architecture and Design (Princeton Architectural Press, 2016), 205. 7. Beverly Willis, interview by Kathryn Anthony, New York, May 21, 2019; and Willis interview with Dave. 8. Beverly Willis Archive, accessed March 20, 2020, https://beverlywillis.com/about/. 9. Ibid. 10. Frances Anderton, “Beverly Willis, Plucky Advocate for Women Architects, to Be Honored in Monterey,”KCRW. com, October 11, 2017, accessed June 29, 2019, www.kcrw.com/culture/shows/design-and-architecture/ beverly-willis-plucky-advocate-for-women-architects-to-be-honored-in-monterey. 11. Ibid. 12. Ibid. 13. Ibid. 14. Willis, Invisible, 8. 15. “Beverly Willis: A Life in Architecture,” Beverly Willis Interview by Victor Geraci (Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, CA, 2008), 11, accessed June 27, 2019, http://digitalassets.lib.berkeley.edu/roho/ucb/text/willis_beverly.pdf. 16. Willis, Invisible, 26–27. 17. Willis interview by Geraci, 11. 18. Ibid., 11–12. 19. Ibid., 15. 20. Willis, Invisible, 28–29. 21. Anderton, “Willis.” 22. Willis, Invisible, 103. 23. “Insights,” AIA CA Chapter. 24. Willis, Invisible, 77. 25. Willis, interview by Anthony. 26. Willis, interview by Dave. 27. Willis, Invisible, 51. 28. Ibid., 59. 29. Ibid., 73. 30. Ibid., 15.

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Leaving a Lasting Legacy 31. Ibid., 109; also: Jennifer Dunning, “San Francisco Ballet Opens New Headquarters,” New York Times, December  17, 1983, accessed May  7, 2020, www.nytimes.com/1983/12/17/arts/san-francisco-balletopens-new-headquarters.html. 32. Dunning, “San Francisco Ballet.” 33. Willis, interview by Dave. 34. Willis, Invisible, 8. 35. Ibid. 36. “Insights,” AIA CA Chapter. 37. Wanda Bubriski, Founding Director of BWAF, significantly contributed to the project. 38. Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation, accessed June 29, 2019, www.bwaf.org. 39. “Our Mission,” BWAF, accessed June 29, 2019, www.bwaf.org/about/. 40. Willis, interview by Anthony. 41. “Beverly Willis: The Artist  & the Architect,” BWAF, accessed June  29, 2019, www.bwaf.org/ beverly-willis-the-artist-the-architect/. 42. “Pioneering Women of American Architecture,” BWAF, accessed June  29, 2019, https://pioneeringwomen.bwaf.org/introduction/. 43. “Nice Networking Negotiating. Emerging Leaders Program, Finance Fulfillment Family. Emerging Leaders Program 2018 Brochure,” BWAF, accessed June 29, 2019, www.bwaf.org. 44. “Insights,” AIA CA Chapter. 45. “Built by Women. 2018 Manhattan,” BWAF, accessed June 29, 2019, www.bwaf.org. 46. “Personal Exposures. Women, Architecture  & Journalism,” Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation, May  15, 2019, accessed June  29, 2019, https://calendar.aiany.org/2019/04/26/ personal-exposures-women-architecture-and-journalism/. 47. Anderton, “Willis.” 48. Heather Corcoran, “Voices of Plurality Flash Mob Gathers at 2018 AIA Conference,” Architectural Record, June  23, 2018, accessed May  7, 2020, www.architecturalrecord.com/articles/13509-voices-of-pluralityflash-mob-gathers-at-2018-aia-conference.

Bibliography Anderton, Frances. “Beverly Willis, Plucky Advocate for Women Architects, To Be Honored in Monterey.”KCRW. com, October  11, 2017. www.kcrw.com/culture/shows/design-and-architecture/beverly-willis-pluckyadvocate-for-women-architects-to-be-honored-in-monterey. Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation. www.bwaf.org. Beverly Willis Archive. https://beverlywillis.com. “Beverly Willis: A  Life in Architecture.” Beverly Willis Interview by Victor Geraci. Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, CA, 2008. http://digitalassets.lib.berkeley. edu/roho/ucb/text/willis_beverly.pdf. Bubriski, Wanda. “Beverly Ann Willis.” In Pioneering Women in American Architecture, BWAF, edited by Mary McLeod and Victoria Rosner. https://pioneeringwomen.bwaf.org/beverly-ann-willis/. “Celebrating Julia Morgan, FAIA, 2014 AIA Gold Medal Recipient in Chicago.” AIANational, July 25, 2014. www.youtube.com/watch?v=78LG42LNxWY. Corcoran, Heather. “Voices of Plurality Flash Mob Gathers at 2018 AIA Conference.” Architectural Record ( June  23, 2018). www.architecturalrecord.com/articles/13509-voices-of-plurality-flash-mob-gathersat-2018-aia-conference. “Insights: Beverly Willis, FAIA.” American Institute of Architects, California Chapter, December  5, 2017. https://aecknowledge.com/presentations/27. Willis, Beverly. Invisible Images: The Silent Language of Architecture and the Selected Works of Beverly Willis. Washington, DC: National Building Museum, 1997. Willis, Beverly. Twenty Over Eighty: Conversations on a Lifetime in Architecture and Design. Princeton Architectural Press, 2016.

Interviews Beverly Willis, interview by Kathryn Anthony, New York, May 21, 2019. Beverly Willis, telephone interview by Shailee Dave, June 27, 2019.

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28 REFLECTIONS Creating an Architectural Practice Diane Elliott Gayer

Introduction: Finding a Place Architecture has always been about more than the sheer physicality of shelter—it is fundamentally about making a place amid layers of relationships with nature, society, and the universe. Regardless of belief systems and geopolitical power, economics and agriculture, history and technology, the identity of architects is not separate from the personal sense of life, not innocent of the need for community, nor clear of the foundational spiritual and ideological beliefs. Humans have been engaged in place-making since the early days of painting on cave walls and interacting with climate or altering environmental conditions from as far back as the Central Asian structures, called kanats, were built to bring water down to the arid plains from the mountains.1 Today’s experiments in reengineering realities—whether virtual or environmental—are a continuation of this impulse. Arguably, an architectural practice, and the many decades that it encompasses, apprehends the worldviews, the influences, and the built and unbuilt materia of personal evolution. In this chapter, Diane Elliott Gayer’s architectural practice is revealed as a chronicle that reflects on the shape and color of an individual’s work seen through the lens of place and time as she discovered the interface between her tangible designs and the more intangible spiritual meaning of environment. Her search included work within a traditional practice as a university architect, a director of a non-profit design center, and the owner of an art gallery. Her experiments with sustainable building materials and technologies through observation and hands-on work; her travels across Asia, Europe, Africa, and North America; and her projects in Colorado, Vermont, and Rwanda contributed to an understanding of the importance of being a collaborator in the design process, a leader within a team, and a believer in the spirit of place.

Early Years—Geneva, Switzerland Growing up in Europe in the 1950s, Diane Elliott Gayer (born November 27, 1952) was introduced to American culture through comic books. Her early education in French and her childhood in Geneva, Switzerland, home of the United Nations, transpired as an immersion in an international stronghold of blended realities. Her thinking and self-awareness were formed by the diversity of languages, ethnicities, races, and national politics around her. She experienced the mix of people, not just in the classroom, but also at home and in her neighborhood. The Gayer family lived in a little urban oasis—a parkland of remnant trees surrounded by apartment buildings, a parcel of green space set aside by the municipality in its long-term planning for 370

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the adjacent school, a place where children ran wild climbing and jumping out of trees and biking up and down a hill until the building concierge came out with her broom to shoo them away. Memories that were formed from the texture, sound, and smell of a place were embedded with the particular, the specific: her childhood home was a place of imagination. Hidden in the woods was a subterranean earthen shelter that only she knew about—a quiet space with an earth-bermed structure covered in moss, a glassine window in the door, a sky-lit opening overhead for light, and a dream rooted in the magic of a genius loci that shaped her relationship to the world.2 Gayer’s exposure to architectural thinking started in high school with a course called History Through Architecture, based on the ideas of Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925).3 His concept of

Figure 28.1  Hidden Hollow, Jess Gardner, 2017. The poster is based on paired interviews between architects and homeless persons about their ideal habitations. The group exhibit was shown at the Fletcher Free Library, Burlington, VT. Source: Jess Gardner.

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architecture as a set of nested spheres—personal, community, and cosmic space—has inspired and permeated Gayer’s environmental thinking and her search for meaning within the framework of architecture. By 1971 Gayer’s family had relocated to Colorado for personal and business reasons, but for her it was just the beginning of discovering the world through architecture.

Coming Into Architecture: Influences of the Environmental Movement—Colorado In 1975 Diane Elliott Gayer graduated with an undergraduate degree in German Studies from the University of Colorado, Boulder. After two winters of teaching skiing and three part-time jobs, she entered a newly formed Masters in Architecture (MArch) Program at the University of Colorado, Denver, earning a three-year terminal degree (1976–1979). The graduate program was alive, intense, and provided students with a sense of belonging to a community through the shared studio experience. There she discovered a new language, the vocabulary and concepts of architecture and planning, a grounding structure; the physicality of drawing, making, and building; and a shared worldview, a common vision of engagement in place-making and empowerment through the use of design as a tool for community action. The 1970s in Colorado revolutionized architecture with experiments in building passive solar houses, earth-bermed commercial buildings, and foamed structures. This environmental experimentation was the design culture in which she found herself: the environmental movement, the burgeoning historic preservation movement, and the community work of John F.C. Turner.4 Yet at the same time, within the School of Architecture and Planning, the work of innovators like Paolo Soleri was ignored, Turner’s community housing in the Caribbean was invisible, and the designs of British architects Peter Cook and the UK collective Archigram, known for their “Plug-In City,” were seen as too foreign to be relevant.5 Despite the graduate school’s focus on utilitarian modernism adapted to contemporary commercial development, Gayer in her projects persisted in experimenting with an environmental approach to site restorations, design-build projects, historic preservation, community engagement, and solar applications. Her 1979 thesis project presented a mixed-use hospital complex that included residential suites, healing gardens, passive solar roof over the parking garage, and a central community meeting space with a green “living” roof. While still a student, she and Geoff Kampe, her business partner and future husband, purchased a dilapidated property and over a three-year period turned it into a livable home. The work of rehabilitating an old house and participating in the revitalization of a run-down neighborhood put her architectural concepts into practice and taught her how to build within a nonexistent budget. After graduating, Diane took an entry-level job at Marvin E. Knedler & Associates, where she was tasked with engineering the critical aluminum cladding joint details of a twin-tower high-rise for downtown Denver, as well as designing the podium roof landscaping.6 This conscientious effort quickly led to work in other architectural offices, including Duff, Reck, and Lehman, Architects and Associates, P.C., where as a project manager she oversaw the design package for a marble-clad prototype house in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (1983–1984), and for the Community Church of the Rockies, Estes Park, CO (1981–1983).7 The church building was innovative in its use of a large skylight over the sanctuary, a Trombe wall built to absorb and release solar heat for passive solar heating in the Fellowship Hall, an earth-bermed classroom building, and local stone as a building material. Unique for the times was the protection of the fragile prairie meadow that surrounded the new church, safeguarded through strict contractual site construction controls critical to the ecology of the prairie. The landscape design criteria became an early application of ecological thinking through the persistence of an elderly landscape architect serving on the building committee. 372

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Developing a Practice—Colorado After Gayer passed her licensing exam, she and Kampe opened an architectural practice, Artemis Designs, Inc., and registered it as a woman-owned business enterprise (WBE) with the City of Denver. Concurrently she was invited to contribute on the city’s Compliance Committee for WBE and minority-owned business enterprise (MBE) allocations, as during the 1980s the City of Denver had an active WBE and MBE inclusion program for the renovations of and concessions at the Denver International Airport. From 1983 to 1987, Diane represented WBE architects on the Compliance Committee, which set the participation goals for both design and construction percentages. As architectural work in the 1980s slowed with the growing economic downturn, and as many offices were struggling, the setting of appropriate WBE and MBE participation on municipal work became critical. In the years 1983–1988, Gayer and Kampe co-designed the Left Bank Townhouses in Lakewood, CO; Gayer oversaw the siting and permitting process, and Kampe managed the construction. The townhouses were an infill project on land reclaimed from a municipal dumpsite of waste concrete and asphalt along a river channel in a suburban setting. The team spent three years on the engineering and permitting for the streambed in order to safeguard the stream flow and ensure the geomorphology of the waterway. The building design focused on passive solar orientation, healthy building envelope, state-of-the-art mechanical systems, elegant use of simple materials, and neighborhood connection. These twelve three-bedroom passive solar residential units were contained within an older residential neighborhood with mature landscaping and street access via a bridge. The townhouses were clustered around a common upper green space and faced the mountain views to the west. Another direction taken during that slowing economic time was Gayer’s semester as an architect in residence for the Colorado Arts Council, a six-month experience of working in a junior high

Figure 28.2 The Left Bank Townhouses, Lakewood, CO, architect Diane Gayer, 1980–1983. Source: Diane Elliott Gayer.

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school, resulting in the development of similar ongoing programs for the Denver area schools as an outreach and educational effort of the Women in Architecture (WIA) organization that operated from 1976 to 1990, under Gayer’s leadership as president from 1982 to 1988. By 1987, when the economic downturn bent even deeper, Diane Elliott Gayer with Victoria Jacobson, AIA, and Carla McConnell, ASLA, developed a competition entry for the Women’s Rights National Park in Seneca Falls, envisioned as an open-air plaza with an interpretive wall and information kiosks. That design initiative secured subsequent commissions for each of them.

Finding Home: “How Will You Change the World?”—Vermont In 1988, Gayer relocated to Vermont to join the newly formed office of Architectural and Engineering Services at the University of Vermont (UVM), hired to oversee major architecture and construction projects as well as contracts and staff on the historic campus.8 The UVM architect Robert Holdridge asserted, “You either go into architecture because you want to build a house or because you want to change the world.” Diane’s desire to “change the world” took the shape of establishing sustainable design practices for the university office. From 1990 to 1998, Gayer developed a large-scale restoration project of the Old Mill and its linked renovations to the Lafayette Classroom Building at the University of Vermont, Burlington. The Old Mill, a ninety-thousand-square-foot restored historic edifice, included renovated classroom spaces with two large lecture halls and a connector building providing a new entry and additional office space to the complex. The new entry acted as a unifying structure between the 200-year-old historic building and the more utilitarian 1950s classroom building. The connector also created two courtyards facing north and south, designed as open arms to collect student traffic. The restoration of the Old Mill, the oldest original building on the UVM green listed on the National Register of Historic Places, was undertaken to commemorate the Bicentennial of UVM.9 In 1995, Gayer left UVM to direct the nonprofit Vermont Design Institute (VDI) that had launched in 1993 out of an outreach effort by the Vermont Council on the Arts and became a stand-alone organization under Diane Elliott Gayer’s guidance until 2016. The team of professionals, with expertise in architecture, historic preservation, landscape architecture, transportation and regional planning, natural resource protection, ecological economics, and land conservation, focused on inclusive engagement of all community members, achieved through community-based design charrettes. The range of projects included affordable housing, town greens, land conservation, and ecosystems protection in rural Vermont. Over time, these hands-on design practices were expanded and incorporated not only into Gayer’s teaching, but also into her work with nontraditional clients in places across the globe, that is, drawing up plans for a school for children living below the poverty level in Sikkim, Northeast India, or designing community gardens and learning playgrounds for children in informal settlement camps in Johannesburg, South Africa. To balance the design work, Gayer taught architecture, community planning, and ecological design under the umbrellas of Community Development and Applied Economics (CDAE), Rubenstein School of Natural Resources (RSNR), and Plant and Soil Sciences (PSS). In her courses, non-architecture students, exposed to design as a problem-solving tool, were developing ecological solutions of community inquiries through team projects. Over a period of two decades, Gayer developed new courses: Elements of Architecture, Sketch and Illustration, Community Planning and Design, and Landscape Design, as well as new programs: Environmental Design, a three-year Living-Learning Program, and, with lecturer Gary Flomenhoft, a Green Design minor for Community Development and Applied Economics (CDAE) at the University of Vermont, Burlington. In 2003, Gayer started co-teaching ecological design studio courses with Dr. John Todd, became a Fellow in the Gund Institute for Ecological Economics and Ecological Design, and created the 374

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Figure 28.3 The Old Mill and Lafayette, Burlington, VT, architect Diane Elliott Gayer. Site plan drawing, 1985. Source: Diane Elliott Gayer.

Certificate of Graduate Studies in Ecological Design program for the Gund Institute as a parallel program to the Certificate of Graduate Studies in Ecological Economics that she had developed with Dr. Robert Costanza and Todd in 2001.10 Through her work with Costanza, Gayer learned the relevance of balancing “the Four Capitals”—Natural, Social, Human, and Built—as a means of assessing critical environmental design decisions.11 They created a studio course based on the Four Capitals Model with a design charrette component to promote ecological housing models at UVM. When the Gund Institute was hired by a Los Angeles film producer to explore “disaster planning scenarios for Washington D.C.,” Costanza and Gayer cohosted a Design Charrette Workshop for the filming. The ecological design and community planning courses that Gayer taught with Todd addressed regional, social, and economic design problems using ecosystems as foundational models for problem-solving and bringing ecological design principles into the service of human needs.12

Spirit of the Land and Yestermorrow Design/Build School—Vermont Gayer’s participation in the “design-build” movement, known for its team-oriented, nontheoretical practice informed by trial and error and the eye of the designer, evolved when she was introduced by her former intern Son Vuong, AIA, Seattle, WA, to John Connell and the Yestermorrow Design/ Build School in Waitsfield, VT.13 375

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Connell’s objective in starting the school was, in essence, a democratization of architecture, a teaching of home building empowered by personal skill and knowledge.14 Gayer’s co-teaching at Yestermorrow with architectural designer Paul Hanke layered several scales of teaching from general to specific: overview of ecological design, application of sustainable practices in site design, and implementation of place through students’ own projects. One of Gayer’s projects, the house she bought on Hemlock Hill, taught her how to walk a piece of land, discover its energetic lines, identify slope to the sun, and read the landscape. The interface between land, spirit, and building is more than academic; spirit in architecture may be found in the Chinese notion of feng shui—a scientific system of studying the physical conditions of place to interpolate their various aspects and manipulate them to achieve a more advantageous set of environmental and social aspects.15 Learning to interpret natural systems, design environments to meet climatic needs, and see holistic patterns, whether through feng shui or other intuitive means, could help us navigate a more comprehensive approach to these inquiries. Evolving social expectations and environmental and climatic changes present dynamic conditions that require both a creative hand and a sensitive connection to nature. In this vein, Gayer’s architecture, whether developed in Vermont or Rwanda, was grounded in place with the focus on applying a sustainable design practice and a more healing relationship to natural systems. The Solow Residence in Hinesburg, VT, 1998–1999, was another case study for “walking more softly on Earth.” Gayer, the architect, and Gary Solow, the homeowner and builder, worked together closely to develop an innovative and energy-conscious contemporary home, which used insulated concrete forms not only for the foundation walls but also for the main structure of the house—a practice known in Canada at the time, yet unusual for Vermont. The house was designed to blend in with the site by maximizing views while preserving the trees; emphasis was also placed on ease of construction, energy-efficiency, beauty, and construction cost. The collaboration resulted in a 1,200-square-foot, highly energy-efficient three-bedroom house on a windy, exposed bluff. Still after decades of working in Vermont, Gayer’s desire to work internationally remained unfulfilled. Ultimately, a project came about through a combination of her design teaching, Gund affiliation, and membership in UIFA.

Beyond Home: International Work—Rwanda The Rwanda Family House originated as a design course at UVM, team-taught by Gayer and PhD student Anthony McGinnis, along with Anna Behm Masozera and Michel Masozera from Rwanda. The Masozeras, both foresters, worked at UVM and the Gund Institute. The course was set up as a design studio focused on Rwanda: the ancient kingdom, its natural geography, its cultural arts, and the 1994 genocide. Critical discussions ensued on appropriate design responses to reclaiming one’s country. The course exposed students to the creative process in general and to conditions in Rwanda specifically; it also resulted in a design project for Gayer. The property to be developed above Lake Kivu was situated in the western part of the country along a fault line that transects from the Lake Victoria region to the Nile Basin.16 The design took on this alignment in a formal way, while working with vernacular materials and construction practices, recognizing limited access to infrastructure, protecting sensitive site conditions, and meeting regional expectations for ecotourism and economic infusion. The articulation of beauty through the use of native materials and hand labor by the Rwandan architect Vedaste Ngarambe influenced Gayer’s expectations of the design and construction possibilities. She visited his early projects—a reception hall at a national park, a hand-cut lava rock pathway into the jungle to access the sacred ritual site for early kings, and an “eco-village” that rose up from Lake Kivu as a series of hand-cut stone cottages eased into the hillside and a large open-air community hall with massive woven thatch roof. 376

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Figure 28.4 Masozera House, Lake Kivu, Rwanda, architect Diane Gayer, 2007. North elevation. Source: Diane Elliott Gayer.

The Masozera Family House in Rwanda (2010–2017), designed by Diane Gayer, overlooked Lake Kivu and was built into the hillside. The site line cut through the length of the house, separating it into three horizontal levels: entry foyer, public living, and private bedrooms. A clerestory lighted and vented a two-story hallway showcasing Rwandan art. All materials and building components were made on site as little was commercially available from the distant capital. The walls were made of square-cut local stone and site-made bricks, the floors were flat stone and colored concrete, and the use of wood was minimized to custom-made windows and doors, as trees are protected in the country. Also installed were solar panels for electricity, a water harvesting system, and an inground septic system. It took a village to build a house, and Michel Masozera received recognition from the town for his efforts in supporting both the local men and women artisans. While working on the Masozera House, Gayer received a query from an agency working under a USAID contract to provide a proposal for an existing conditions survey and a masterplan for the Nyungwe Forest National Park. Phase One of the 2010 masterplan was an overall site analysis for the environmental restoration of abused lands and park support services with small, tourist-based enterprises at the park gateways. Gayer identified degraded sites of the park that had four key entry points, each with differing needs and opportunities, and prioritized these into zones to protect, rehabilitate, or develop. The masterplan was developed as a report with attached site drawings, photographs, budgets, and bilingual briefs in English and French.17 Phase Two was a further identification and build-out of three specific entry sites and recommendations for local economic development. Gayer’s talents and skills came together in Rwanda. Her work with rural towns across Vermont and her teaching through the CDAE department served as good training for working with local clients and government partners. Her architectural facility with metric measuring and drawing, ability to speak more than one language, background in design-build, and expertise in reading a landscape were of course also critical to the success of these Rwandan projects. 377

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Hopes and Dreams Unbuilt—South Africa Diane Elliott Gayer’s practice also included unbuilt pro bono work in South Africa. One of these, in Diepsloot, an informal settlement of over two hundred thousand people with little infrastructure located between Pretoria and Johannesburg, came as a result of a 2003 trip to Johannesburg for the United Nations Summit on Sustainable Development, where Gayer was part of the Vermont delegation invited to present the Earth Charter and the Ark of Hope and its Temenos Books.18 The team organized Youth Workshops in Diepsloot to unpack the meaning and relevance of the Earth Charter and to invite them to present their findings at the Summit.19 The following year Gayer returned to Johannesburg to design a community center for a school, a crèche, a safe play area, a garden space for growing vegetables, and a room for business startups. Unfortunately, the nongovernmental organization (NGO) associated with this project did not last. The other NGO project in South Africa was for Out of the Box, a job skills training center started by Nina Venjakob in 2005.20 Gayer met Venjakob as a result of the UN Summit visit and was invited onto the Board to teach workshops at the center. Her project of a large tensile structure connecting several existing utilitarian structures to an open-air gallery with rainwater harvesting and community gardens for the school was yet to be built.

Conclusion: Full Circle In 2016, Diane Elliott Gayer invested in a community building, a 200-year-old structure in the Lake Champlain islands built in 1823 as a general store and converted sixty years later to a Catholic church. Her concern for the derelict structure and its presence in the heart of the village convinced

Figure 28.5 Diane Elliott Gayer. Photograph, 2009. Source: Mary Twitchell. Archive Diane Elliott Gayer.

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her to act, and in buying and rehabilitating it, she added to the physical strength of the village core and brought new work and energy to a rural lakeside town. The building, renamed GreenTARA Space, in North Hero, Vermont, provided a studio space for workshops, an art venue, a video temple, and a coffee bar for community dialogue.21 The physicality that buildings hold and the transformations brought on by human engagement brought Gayer full circle back to an awareness of the original sacredness of space: I walked a piece of land in Montana. … I followed a trail away from the household, went out beyond the paddock, and slowly up into the hills into a natural bowl invaded by sky. The energy channeled down into the bowl from between three draws in the hills. There I was, standing, wondering what had taken place in this ancient volume. … But, to walk into that place and feel its power and history was beyond anything I had been trained for in architecture. That was a conversation she initiated in her 1993 writing, Groundswell.22 As an architect and as a woman in a male-dominated profession, Gayer, contrary to the presumed narrative, found an easy place. Perhaps due to an early childhood of nonconformity, she found a way to “belong” while not fitting in; she learned to rely on herself even as she gained support from others. In this way, Gayer’s membership in professional architectural organizations was an important thread in her personal development of organizational skills. Gayer found meaningful participation when her leadership skills were needed on community outreach projects, such as the “Brush Up” seminars run by Women In Architecture (WIA) in the 1990s to help young professionals study for the licensing exams and, decades later, the Archistream, a mobile design center developed by the Vermont chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA). In both projects, she was instrumental from inception to implementation. Also a longtime member of Union Internationale des Femmes Architectes (UIFA), Gayer attended the 1993 congress “Societies in Transition” in Cape Town, South Africa, and was invited to stay in Soweto outside of Johannesburg with Mrs. Busisiwe Ndebele, an elder of the African National Congress (ANC) who helped Gayer in grasping the geopolitical nature and often invisible layers of place identity.23 This exposure to the history of apartheid and politics of place infused Gayer’s physical grasp of conditions in South Africa and later Rwanda. Gayer’s engagement in international work was not different from her work in the United States— it was always about finding a community-based practice grounded in local, ecological, and historical relevance; inhabiting the world with a consciousness of space and place-making; and advocating community leadership and an enlightened personal worldview. While studying the importance of ecosystems and the rehabilitation of community through architecture were important to the understanding of place and to having a philosophical framework from which to stand, the emotional risks and financial commitments of taking on a specific project were the counterpoint for Diane Elliott Gayer: they provided her a confidence in action that was rooted in place and, ultimately, a grounding salve for global concerns. Gayer’s professional exposure to the environmental influences of the 1970s in Colorado, her work with the Yestermorrow Design/Build School and the growth of design-build as an accepted methodology within architecture in the 1990s, her teaching of environmental awareness and the application of ecological design systems on planning projects, and her strong belief in engaging the voices of others in the design process have formed her architecture.

Notes 1. Referenced after: Gregory Curtis, The Cave Painters: Probing the Mysteries of the World’s First Artists (New York: Knopf, 2006), 9, 12–13, 78, 237–38; also: Ella Maillart, The Cruel Way: Switzerland to Afghanistan in a Ford, 1939 (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2013), 96.

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Diane Elliott Gayer 2. “Genius loci”—(Latin etymology) the pervading spirit of a place, or a guardian, tutelary deity of a place, see: Merriam Webster Dictionary, www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/genius%20loci; “Earth-berms” are earthen structures meant to shelter a building from the elements of weather by backfilling earth around walls or over roofs, see: “Underground Architecture,” www.malcolmwells.com. Both sites accessed February 27, 2020. 3. Rudolf Steiner, Austrian philosopher and educator, stressed the awareness of a personal relationship to the environment, a curiosity about the origins of materials and forms, the healing qualities of buildings, and the development of free human beings who of themselves are able to impart purpose and direction to their lives. He defined three foci of education as the need for imagination, a sense of truth, and a feeling of responsibility. Rudolf Steiner Web, accessed February 27, 2020, www.rudolfsteinerweb.com. 4. John F. C. Turner—editor with Robert Fichter of Freedom to Build: Dweller Control of the Housing Project (New York: MacMillan, 1972), and author of Housing by People: Towards Autonomy in Building Environment (New York: Pantheon Books, 1976)—pioneered an alternative architectural theory and practice informed by organic communities and grassroots housing. 5. Italian-born American architect Paolo Soleri (1919–2013) developed in 1969 the term “arcology,” a word blended from architecture and ecology, to identify his work in Arizona. He was creating both conceptual and built examples of highly integrated and compact three-dimensional urban forms in opposition to urban sprawl’s inherently wasteful consumption of land, energy resources, and time, and its tendency to isolate people from each other and the wider community. “Paolo Soleri—Arcosanti,” accessed February 27, 2020, https://arcosanti.org/project/paolo-soleri. In 1993 Diane Elliott Gayer traveled to Soleri’s Arcosanti site outside of Phoenix, Arizona. “The UK collective Archigram, headed by the British architect Peter Cook, emerged around 1963–64 and was active until 1975,” quoted in: Andrea Lo, “How the 1960s and 1970s Inspired Radical Architecture,” CNN 2019 Cable News Network, May 16, 2018, accessed February 27, 2020, www.cnn.com/style/ article/radical-architecture/index.html. 6. One Denver Place, Denver, Colorado, 1981, developed by Devco Property Inc.; architect of record is Marvin E. Knedler & Assoc. Architects, P.C. The twin towers include a South Tower at 416 feet with 34 floors, a North Tower at 285 feet with 23 floors, and a four-story podium connector building. 7. The project in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, was developed for an unnamed client, a “returning university student” in Boulder, Colorado. 8. “How Will You Change the World?”—Community Development and Applied Economics department motto, the University of Vermont, Burlington. 9. The original structure was built in 1823, changes were made over intervening years, and in 1881 John Purple Howard changed the Federal-style building into Victorian Gothic. The restoration returned the exterior to the 1882 appearance, complete with dormers and chimneys and the original paint scheme; architect: Smith Alvarez Sienkiewycz Architects. Referenced after: Tom Visser, “UVM Historic Preservation Program,” the University of Vermont, Burlington, accessed February 27, 2020, www.uvm.edu. 10. John Todd founded John Todd Ecological Design in 1988 to develop ecologically based alternative technologies for treating wastewater and to reconnect people to the nutrient and hydrological cycles within their communities; reference accessed February 27, 2020, www.toddecological.com. 11. Robert Costanza, director, 1989–2010, brought the Gund Institute for Ecological Economics to the University of Vermont from the University of Maryland in 2002. Ecological economics as a transdisciplinary field of study broadly examines the relationships between ecological and economic systems. 12. Marcello Hernández-Blanco and Robert Costanza, Natural Capital and Ecosystem Services. The Routledge Handbook of Agricultural Economics, ed. Gail L. Cramer et al., Section 2, Chapter 15 (New York: Routledge, 2018). 13. Yestermorrow Design/Build School, Waitsfield, VT, accessed February 27, 2020, https://yestermorrow.org. 14. John Connell, Homing Instinct: Using your Lifestyle to Design & Build Your Home (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1998). 15. Man-Ho Kwok and Joanne O’Brien, “Introduction,” in The Elements of Feng Shui (New York: Barnes and Noble Books, 1991, 1997). 16. Augustin Munykazi and Johnson Fuga Ntagaramba, eds, Atlas du Rwanda (Malaysia: Macmillan-Africa, 2006). 17. Diane Elliott Gayer, Nyungwe Nziza—Nyungwe National Park Final Report (Kigali, Rwanda: Rwanda Development Board, 2014). 18. The Earth Charter: The Ark of Hope is a wooden chest created in 2001 by artist Sally Linder to house the Earth Charter document, accessed February 27, 2020, http://earthcharter.org/. 19. Thomas Hasel, “A Glimpse Inside Johannesburg’s Diepsloot Slum,” Deutsche Welle, June 19, 2014, accessed February 27, 2020, www.dw.com/en/a-glimpse-inside-johannesburgs-diepsloot-slum/a-17720678.

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Reflections 20. Nina Venjakob, Founder and Director, Out of the Box, Germistan, SA, “Build a Future—Out of The Box,” accessed February 27, 2020, https://outofthebox.org.za. 21. Design-build renovations by Diane Elliott Gayer with the help of Rob Rose Construction, 2016–2017; formation of the nonprofit Friends of GreenTARA Space, Inc., accessed February 27, 2020, www.greentaraspace.org. 22. Diane Elliott Gayer, Groundswell (Burlington, VT: Vermont Design Institute, 1993). 23. Soweto, South West Township, a suburb of Johannesburg, South Africa. L’Union Internationale des Femmes Architectes (UIFA) was started in 1963 by French architect Solange d’Herbez de la Tour (b. 1924) to offset the exclusion of women in the original formation of l’Union Internationale d’Architects (UIA), Paris. The organization aims to promote women in the profession by increasing public awareness of contributions made to the field by women and by creating an international collegial network. In 1993 South Africa, apartheid was not officially over, Nelson Mandela had not yet been voted into office, there was a boycott by Northern European members, and there were no translators for the francophone and Latina members.

Bibliography Abram, David. The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World. New York: Vintage Books and Random House Inc., 1997. Connell, John. Homing Instinct: Using your Lifestyle to Design & Build Your Home. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1998. Curtis, Gregory. The Cave Painters: Probing the Mysteries of the World’s First Artists. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Borzoi Books and Random House Inc., 2006. Day, Christopher. Places of the Soul: Architecture and Environmental Design as a Healing Art. London: The Aquarian Press and Harper-Collins, 1990. Gayer, Diane Elliott. Groundswell. Burlington, VT: Vermont Design Institute, 1993. Hernández-Blanc, Marcello, and Robert Costanza. “Natural Capital and Ecosystem Services.” In The Routledge Handbook of Agricultural Economics, edited by Gail L. Cramer et al., 254–68. New York: Routledge, 2018. Kwok, Man-Ho, and Joanne O’Brien. The Elements of Feng Shui. New York: Barnes and Noble Books and Element Book Limited, 1991, 1997. Maillart, Ella. The Cruel Way: Switzerland to Afghanistan in a Ford, 1939. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2013.

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29 COLLABORATIONS The Architecture and Art of Sigrid Miller Pollin Margaret Birney Vickery

Introduction What does it mean to be a woman architect in the early twenty-first century? Zaha Hadid (1950– 2016) and Jeanne Gang (b. 1964) have entered the mainstream world of the “starchitect,” designing large-scale projects with international acclaim.1 American architect Sigrid Miller Pollin (b. 1949) is a very different sort of leader in the world of women and architecture. Recipient of the Women in Design Award of Excellence in 2017 from the Boston Society of Architects, Miller Pollin is an architect and educator who has navigated glass ceilings and motherhood while producing inventive buildings of dramatic volumes and color. Her architecture and teaching reflect her deep commitment to advancing women in the field and understanding the complexities they face when juggling career and family. Her pioneering career trajectory and her residence and studio are the focus of this chapter. Miller Pollin’s concern for and encouragement of women in the field of architecture is explored through the prism of her home and studio in Amherst, MA, and through the development of the Department of Architecture at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, where she taught for over twenty years. Together with her colleagues Kathleen Lugosh and Ray Kinoshita Mann, Miller Pollin built up a small department of Interior Design at the University of Massachusetts into a thriving architecture program in which women dramatically outnumber men on the faculty. When they began working together, they envisioned a program of creative innovation, intellectual rigor, and constructive critiques led by faculty who upset the narrow stereotype of the white male architect. As the department has grown, the largely female faculty provide inspiring role models for all their students through their creativity, professionalism, and example, and their work grapples with and addresses Despina Stratigakos’s still timely question, “Where Are the Women Architects?”2

House: Site + Context At a rise in a rural road in South Amherst, MA, a driveway of white pebbles framed by gray cobblestones lies open. Turning into the drive two white volumes emerge, one large and dramatic, with a roofline that stands tall at the eastern end, swoops down in the center, and rises gracefully up to the west. A seemingly smaller volume sits quietly to the south of its flamboyant neighbor, a low-slung box whose roofline is angled in a nod to its sibling.

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Figure 29.1 1290 Residence and Studio, Amherst, MA, architect Sigrid Miller Pollin, 2007. Exterior view. Source: Tom Bonner Photography. Courtesy: Sigrid Miller Pollin.

This is the house and studio of Miller Pollin, FAIA, who was born in Trenton, New Jersey, but grew up in Rhode Island near the sea. Miller Pollin first began to think about the built environment when her family lived briefly in a house outside of Toyko, Japan. Her travels across Europe as a young woman solidified her ambitions. After four years of undergraduate study at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, NY (BA art history 1971), Miller Pollin studied at the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP) in New York City and received her master of architecture degree in 1975. As a graduate student interning for a small firm in Manhattan, she was told by a senior architect that she was likely to marry and have children but never practice. Such a comment intensified her determination to design and teach. Her first job out of school was at Mitchell Giurgola Associates, a New York–based architecture firm that supported design team equality among women and men, a partnership of professionals with “a unique background and skill set to contribute to our collective thinking.”3 Her professional beginnings and encounters greatly informed and shaped her career over the years to come. Between 1985 and 1998 Miller Pollin lived and worked in California and taught architecture at the College of Environmental Design at California Polytechnic. She uprooted to Amherst to teach at the University of Massachusetts in 1998 and after several years designed and built a house and studio for herself and her family in 2007. Visitors are given a choice when they arrive at 1290 Residence and Studio. The volume oriented to the street houses the studio, its entrance tucked behind tall plantings. The varied colors and textures of the trees and flowers set off the smooth whites and grays of the house and studio. A path leads to the low horizontal volume that defines the entry of the house. The two volumes form a sheltered ell, a transitional, courtyard space between the interior and exterior whose rich and colorful landscaping reflect Miller Pollin’s painterly interest in the natural world. A bank of vertical windows with a cantilevered roof articulates a small entryway. The slanted clapboard eaves of the sloping

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Figure 29.2 Sigrid Miller Pollin in her studio, with the model of 1290 Residence and Studio, 2019. Source: Ruth Pollin-Galay. Courtesy: Sigrid Miller Pollin.

roof shelter the windows to the south of the entrance, while a small band of vertical bargeboards rests above the windows to the north. The cladding of these areas is a purposeful nod to traditional exterior cladding patterns and materials of the region coupled here with contemporary materials and forms. The swooping curve of the roof mirrors the nearby hills while funneling rainwater to an underground cistern which provides irrigation for the landscape in dry periods. In the entry a relatively low cedar ceiling, tall narrow windows, and a wooden bench define the compact space. There are echoes of the spatial and material language of Frank Lloyd Wright and Alvar Aalto, two masters of twentieth-century architecture whose work has been inspirational for Miller Pollin. Wright created intimate entries with relatively low ceilings that lead to an adjacent burst of volumetric space. That concept is deeply rooted in Wright’s organicism and his inherent awareness and esoteric perception of the contrasting organic geometries of light in nature, as well as in sacred structures of early civilizations. Miller Pollin’s interest in this concept of compression and expansion is palpable here. Entering the living/dining area with its high sloping white cedar ceiling, the eye is drawn diagonally through the space to an exterior deck and the meadow and hills beyond—a spatial orchestration much like Wright’s. Both Wright and Aalto celebrated the materiality of wood, emphasizing its warmth, texture, and hues to great effect. In the iconic Villa Mairea, Aalto set wooden details against modernism’s white planar walls, uniting an industrial aesthetic with the warmth of natural matter. Both Aalto and 384

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Wright use wood in their houses as a means of intertwining interiors with exteriors while creating a tectonic dialogue with twentieth-century industrial materials. It is this idea of pairing new materials with craftsmanship that forms the basis of much of Miller Pollin’s work. In the entry, the handles for the closet doors are bundles of three dark wooden dowels, clasped together by square blocks: an interpretation of the bundled reeds deployed in vernacular and indigenous building. Miller Pollin absorbed Aalto’s lessons in detail and materiality and Wright’s sequencing of spaces. Yet through careful site, program, and materials studies, color and sculptural forms yield an architectural expression that is characteristically Miller Pollin. The site of the house slopes down sharply toward eastern fields and hills. Inside this easterly incline becomes apparent in the living/dining area. This space is dramatized by an angled volume that expands up to the east and is enclosed by full-height glazing. The eye is immediately drawn to the trees and meadows beyond. The sloped ceiling of this public space has small, recessed accent lights inserted into the western edge and ambient lighting set deep within blue/gray polygonal light boxes carved into the canopy. The light boxes diminish in size as the ceiling volume becomes thinner, detailing a subtle relationship between plan and section. This sculptural treatment articulates the surface, eschewing the expected planar ceiling in favor of patterned depth. The public area of the home implies an open melding of living and dining with a focus on the changing colors and shifting skies of the landscape. It is defined not only by Miller Pollin’s spatial manipulation and the connection with the outdoors; colors and materials are also at work, as seen in the fireplace with its local Ashfield schist hearth hovering above the floor, its rough natural finish contrasting with the polished, factory-made, ground-face concrete blocks. The warm, soft yellows of the walls take inspiration from the yellow maples of the New England autumn. In her words, “This space is central to our daily lives unlike in my parents’ New England house in which the living

Figure 29.3 1290 Residence and Studio. Interior. Source: Tom Bonner Photography. Courtesy: Sigrid Miller Pollin.

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room was reserved for special occasions even though we were a family of eight in a relatively small house.”4 Looking north toward the kitchen, the expansive living space contracts to accommodate the everyday demands of food preparation and dishwashing. The ceiling drops several feet, and its slope runs in an opposite direction indicating a change in function on the interior. Day-to-day dining is in an alcove adjacent to the kitchen, a space defined by yet an even lower ceiling; mossy, olive-green walls; and a step up to the table and banquette seating, also designed by Miller Pollin. Visible from the expansive living room, the alcove’s low, intimate quality creates a more private space reserved for family or close friends to linger over coffee and the newspaper. The mottled green concrete tabletop is angled, curved, and paired ergonomically with soft-edged wood seating to allow diners easy access. Miller Pollin explains, “My goals are to offer views both intimate and expansive,

Figure 29.4 Interior with kitchen and breakfast alcove. Source: Tom Bonner Photography. Courtesy: Sigrid Miller Pollin.

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consider the intangibles of spatial drama and delight, while addressing the details of spaces to define and enhance their functions.”5 Such spatial control references Miller Pollin’s interest in the Raum Plan, a concept articulated by Adolf Loos and explored by Rudolf Schindler in his California houses. Loos expressed the idea of the Raum Plan in the following: Each room requires a particular height, the dining room a different one from the larder. … Rooms must then be connected in such a way as to make the transition imperceptible, and to effect it in a natural and efficient fashion.6 Schindler explored a similar use of “intersecting rather than singular volumes,” which was a marked departure from modernists such as Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier who were interested in a “free plan” of interior spaces within single volumes with wall partitions inserted according to the program.7 On this main floor of 1290, Miller Pollin creates the sense of an open plan, yet by varying the ceiling heights to define different programmatic requirements, she enhances personal and varied spatial experiences. Clerestory windows light the short corridor to her husband Robert Pollin’s office and the staircase. The stairs branch upward to the master suite or down toward the ground-floor rooms. Echoes of Aalto’s staircase in the Villa Mairea are found in the treads that appear to float above each other as the stairs rise. Miller Pollin uses rectangular columns that levitate within the central stair stack and create a tension between the sense of enclosure of the tall, slim verticals and the open spaces between them. She arrests the verticality with horizontal dowels forming an abstract rail, thickening the walllike effect in the central core and opening to a single layer of railing/wall surface as one ascends to the master bedroom area. This transition is subtle yet powerful. The denser inner core of the staircase gives way to the lighter open space of the top landing; the architectural details recognize the shift upward toward the private realm. Miller Pollin reflects: Stairs are an endless source of design possibilities in any project. They have demanding function and code restraints. At the same time, there are infinite possibilities for how you can shape and assemble the basic components of riser, tread, stringer, guard rail and handrail. In this stair there were two goals; comfort under foot in socks or bare feet in the horizontal treads and musical rhythm of the vertical members.8 A landing and short hallway lead to the master bedroom. From the exterior, this room is articulated by its own volume that cantilevers out from the body of the house, with a picturesque variety that expresses interior functions honestly on the exterior. Inside, the bedroom is sparsely furnished. One large window has asymmetrical mullions arranged in the manner of a Mondrian painting, yet here the exterior views replace his solid color blocks. Like an enormous landscape painting, the view eastward with its ever-changing sky and clouds activate the space. There is an overwhelming sense of calm, the uncluttered space crafted to reduce distractions. This bedroom is designed for its purpose: as you climb the stairs to bed, the light or stars glimpsed through the skylight physically draw you up, the surfaces quiet and the isolated bed invites, symbolic of the process of leaving the demands of the day behind On the ground floor is the library, where square “view portals” allow a sight line through the stacks to a lit niche at the far end. The view portals are repeated in subsequent bookshelves and, like a Renaissance perspective drawing, focus the eye on the final box, which is top lit and houses a variety of pieces—a colorful glass vase or a small sculpture. Miller Pollin sees historical phenomena as a rich source for contemporary interpretation and experimentation, drawing on centuries-old traditions of architectural perspective to lead the eye into a space, much as Brunelleschi did in San 387

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Figure 29.5  1290 Residence and Studio. East elevation. Source: Tom Bonner Photography.

Lorenzo, Florence. Referencing this tradition, she breaks up the visual solidity of bookshelves to create a memorable motif. Stacks of shelves project into the room, while a sofa faces out toward the landscape. Miller Pollin created a space grounded by books of literature, art, architecture, philosophy, and economics that expands outward into the garden and meadows. This is a pivotal space in which the visitor is offered escape into the world of reading or contemporary media or the physical balm of nature—a place of connection between thought and the senses, nature, and intellect.

Home: Work + Family 1290 Residence is not a large house. With the exception of a small square window beside the foyer, all western windows are clerestories protecting a private familial realm. The domestic sphere accommodates family and friends with an expansive ease. Family is and has been extremely important to Miller Pollin. Once her children were born, she and her husband juggled their careers to be with their daughters; now grandchildren come to stay. Acknowledging the ebb and flow of family, knowing that the house must expand and contract along with special occasions and visits, Miller Pollin designed the lower-level rooms lining the hallway to serve multiple functions. Miller Pollin asserts: What happens to bedrooms when children grow up and move away? It seems important to recognize that bedrooms left vacant when children move should continue to be active parts of the home. It feels right to interpret these spaces as flexible; as spaces that are reflective of the changing nature of family life.9

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In her book, Discrimination by Design: A Feminist Critique of the Man-Made Environment, American architecture educator Leslie Weisman echoes Miller Pollin, arguing that “our housing will have to become spatially flexible, changeable over time according to household size and composition. Spatial variety is essential for supporting household diversity.”10 She calls for spaces that expand and contract to accommodate changing circumstances. More recently, Avi Friedman detailed the need for adaptability, suggesting houses be built with familial evolution in mind.11 Without changing the footprint of the house, Miller Pollin has accounted for such evolution and built in a flexibility for the family home. Miller Pollin is a practicing architect with a steady flow of projects across her drawing board. She is an artist, and her many pieces line the walls of her home. Visually, the studio she designed for herself seems connected to the house.12 Approaching down the drive, the white volume housing the studio juts up from the ground, rising to its full height to the west and sloping down toward the house to the east. The two volumes are bridged by a vine-covered trellis linking these two distinct functions: one for living and family and one for work. Inside the studio, evidence of a bustling creative life is strewn about; models rest on shelves and one long desk lines the southern wall piled with material samples, drawings, and computers. The studio is a space where Miller Pollin disengages from family/home and focuses on work. 1290 Residence and Studio is an artful articulation of a recognized need to separate the two. Virginia Woolf argued for women artists and writers to have a room of their own, a separate space such as men were accustomed to in order to live up to their full potential. Feminist writers in the 1970s and 1980s continued to highlight the lack of women’s private spaces in the domestic sphere, wherein, if fiscally possible, men had a study, but women did not.13 Miller Pollin has spoken of the need for a transitional space between family and work, arguing that the ritual of closing the door to the home and walking to work, even a few short yards away, helps her mentally disengage from the concerns of family life and re-engage in the work-related questions of the day. That physical process of disconnecting helps her step back into the professional sphere. In her essay “Outgrowing the Kitchen Table,” Ghislaine Hermanuz references philosopher Hannah Arendt’s three aspects of work: labor, work, and action. “ ‘Home’ as the private realm, becomes the place of choice for labor, whereas the ‘production space,’ as the place of work, and the ‘community’ as the place for action, form the public realm.”14 Both Arendt and Hermanuz see these spheres overlapping in everyday life, but the triad exists, and the psychological separations are important, especially for women in the workforce. The studio is the public face of Miller Pollin’s practice. For her, the physical separation between home and work is key to her concentration and focus and is part of a broader recognition of difficulties women face when working from home; physically stepping out from those concerns into her own space has a liberating effect.

Classroom: Women + Architecture 1290 Residence and Studio is a physical manifestation of Miller Pollin’s architectural influences and attitudes toward home and work. Flowing within this project runs a consistent stream of collaborations: with clients, engineers, and contractors on a work site; with her husband sharing family duties; and with the site itself to understand the natural conditions that will ultimately determine the planning of the structure. Such collaboration extends to her teaching life in a department with like-minded faculty whose architectural foci are consistently collaborative. When placed within a historical context, these efforts take on a profound societal significance. When Miller Pollin entered the architecture program at Columbia University in 1972, women made up only 3 percent of practicing architects in the United States; by 2014 it had risen to almost 20 percent.15 The result of these dire numbers meant that role models for women were rare, yet

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many biographical writings stress their importance. The Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation (BWAF) stresses the value of personal examples in their publications.16 The architecture program at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, is the only such program at a state university in New England, providing an affordable opportunity for students to learn design. In 1972 Professor Arnold Friedman arrived at UMass from the Pratt Institute in New York City. When he began teaching, interior design courses were taught in the Home Economics Department. Trained in the ideals of the Bauhaus, Friedman understood interior design as an art form and moved the program into the Studio Art Department. He built up a well-respected course of study and played a significant, national role in recognizing the field as an academic discipline. In the many tributes to Friedman at his passing in February 2017, his warmth and supportive teaching style were often mentioned.17 But equally significant was his understanding of the interdisciplinary, holistic nature of architecture and design. He recognized the value of collaboration across disciplines; indeed, he was an adjunct lecturer for the Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning Department at UMass for five years. The interior design program floundered briefly after his retirement in 1990 until the hiring of three new faculty members in 1995. Kathleen Lugosch, Ray Kinoshita Mann, and Linda Gatter were all registered architects with their own architectural practices who began as part time lecturers in 1995. The goal was to build up the interior design program. By 1998 when Miller Pollin arrived, the idea of an architecture program was in the air, and by 2005 it was a reality. The evolution of this program is significant both in the life and work of Miller Pollin but also in the wider scope of architectural education and the profession. The idea was spearheaded by three highly educated women, graduates of Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation and Harvard Graduate School of Design, who saw an opportunity to fashion a new educational paradigm. Lugosch moved to the area in 1986. A graduate of Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, she worked in Graham Gund’s office in Boston before moving west and starting her own practice. She taught sporadically at UMass till 1995 when she was hired full-time. Lugosch has discussed her philosophy of teaching, referring to her graduate school experience that included critiques that she viewed as needlessly destructive. She remembers thinking that perhaps there was a different way, wherein critiques could offer constructive observations that taught students to learn from their mistakes. She worked to create a classroom ethos focused on teaching, encouraging students to find their voice rather than have a voice imposed on them.18 Ray Kinoshita Mann moved to the area in the early 1990s while finishing work on the Women’s Rights Project in Seneca Falls, a competition she won with Ann Wills Marshall in 1987 while the two were still students at Harvard. In her teaching and practice she “never downplay[s] the engineering aspect of architecture” because building concerns “the material reality and the forces of nature,” yet it is art, “it is creating a kind of living sculpture that people inhabit.”19 Mann believes in the power and importance of collaborations, the benefits of hybrid architecture that has the potential for greater outreach and adaptability.20 As she worked to establish the architecture program, Mann reached across disciplines. She and her colleagues integrated their program with the Five College Program, connecting with faculty at Smith and Hampshire Colleges. Mann encourages students to ask: “What is the human interface? How can we teach Universal Design and embrace different levels of design with a human scale?”21 She emphasizes the educational aspects of studio culture that are rigorous but keeps sight of the goal of critiques as crucial to the learning process. Miller Pollin joined Mann and Lugosch in 1998. Leaving her position as chair at California Polytechnic University, Pomona, was a major decision. But she relished the idea of returning to New England and was particularly drawn to the idea of an interior design and architecture program at a state school and the chance to reach a wider student population. In interviews from 1999, it is clear that all three women felt they were forging a new path with a focus on collaboration in both teaching and design and as a department with a predominately female faculty. Miller Pollin argued: 390

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“Architecture used to be a white, male-dominated profession, but the role and image of architecture have changed a lot. Now it’s a team effort and more participatory, and I think women are very good at that.”22 There are now fourteen full-time professors, and only three of them are male. While the statistics for women in the profession have improved, the ratio at UMass is outstanding, and almost all the women faculty have children. In her article “Crashing the Boys Club,” Sarah Williams Goldhagen cites the data of the US Census Bureau that focused on women aged thirty-five to forty-four, which found that “four times more mothers than childless women drop out of the field.”23 In addition to the tradition of the “glass ceiling” and old boys network that are hard for women to break into, studies show that the long, demanding hours and travel requirements hinder women’s career progress, especially if they are caring for children or elderly parents.24 But this is changing as more female architects remain and succeed in the field. Caryn Brause, associate professor of architecture at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, understands the issue of women in the field as nuanced. She emphasizes the choices women and men have to make when pursuing their careers and a family: What are the costs of childcare relative to our salaries? What is the value of having someone home with the kids part time? Can one of us put our career in the “ ‘slow lane” for a period in order to be home with them? These questions, she argues, include issues of gender and access to opportunities for women but also reflect personal career timelines, geography, and economics.25 The UMass architecture program did not grow with the determination to be a leader in feminist design. But early on, these educators and practitioners responsible for collaboration, flexibility, and an interdisciplinary approach to design set out to inspire and influence their students both in the classroom and by their examples. In 2017, the department moved into a new building designed by the female-led firm of Leers Weinzapel. It houses three programs: architecture, landscape architecture and regional planning, and building construction and technology. Faculty offices are dispersed across two floors with no regard for departmental unity, a willful randomness that promotes interdisciplinary interactions. The building is a pioneering example of large-scale timber construction and sustainable design. It can be seen as the physical realization of the goals of those three young women faculty who took charge of the program in the late 1990s. It addresses collaboration and sustainability, openness and teamwork; and it serves as a teaching model for students in three different disciplines. It is the result of a vision shared by Kathleen Lugosch, Ray Kinoshita Mann, and Sigrid Miller Pollin, who collaboratively created a new kind of architecture program, one widely accessible to students of the Commonwealth, which manifests architecture as a discipline in fresh and equitable ways.

Conclusion The model presented to the graduates and undergraduates at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, is unique and valuable for the future of an equitable profession. Knowing about and learning from those who have come before has an enormous impact on a student’s career path. Miller Pollin, together with her colleagues, has established a new paradigm for architectural education and mentorship that has influenced generations. When asked about being a role model for young women at UMass, Miller Pollin argued that students of all genders see their professors designing buildings, teaching courses, reaching across disciplines, and juggling family life. Such examples are the norm here and subsequently shift the traditional paradigm toward a more subtle, nuanced, and balanced example. 391

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1290 Residence and Studio is the home and office for Miller Pollin and is a tangible expression of one woman’s commitment to design, to family, and to the architectural profession. In it she realized, in clapboard and ground-faced concrete blocks, the role of site and landscape, the legacy of our architectural past, and the issues women face in the architectural profession. Her house and studio are an elegant unity of white volumes against the changing New England landscape, with a colorful and expressive interior. The structure and site encapsulate Miller Pollin’s love for family, the spirit of the natural world, and architectural precedents, and they reflect her lifelong efforts to articulate the professional challenges women encounter while presenting solutions for overcoming them in the new public realm.

Notes 1. “Starchitect” is a trending portmanteau of “star” and “architect,” used to describe a famous architect. MeriamWebster Dictionary, accessed February  25, 2020, www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/famousby-design-starchitect. 2. Despina Stratigakos, Where Are the Women Architects? (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton Architectural Press with Places Journal, 2016). 3. Mitchell Giurgola Architects LLP, accessed February 25, 2020, www.mitchellgiurgola.com. 4. Sigrid Miller Pollin, interview with the author, January 7, 2017. 5. Ibid. 6. Quoted in Rob Gregory, “Home Truths,” Architectural Review 225, no. 1343 ( January 2009): 28–29. 7. David Gebhard, Schindler (London: Thames and Hudson, 1971), 105. 8. Miller Pollin, interview. 9. Ibid. 10. Leslie Kanes Weisman, Discrimination by Design: A Feminist Critique of the Man-made Environment (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1992), 125. 11. Avi Friedman, The Adaptable House: Designing Homes for Change (New York: McGraw Hill, 2002), ix. 12. See Figure 29.1. 13. Matrix, Making Space: Women and the Man-Made Environment (London: Pluto Press, 1984), 12. 14. Ghislaine Hermanuz, “Outgrowing the Corner of the Kitchen Table,” in Design and Feminism: Re-Visioning Spaces, Places, and Everyday Things, ed. Joan Rothschild (New Brunswick and London: Rutgers University Press, 1999), 70. 15. Annelise Pitts, Asst. AIA; Rosa Sheng; Erik Everhouse; and Ruohnan Hu, “Equity by Design: Knowledge, Discussion, Action!” Equity in Architecture Survey Report and Key Outcomes (AIASF, 2014), accessed February 25, 2020, https://issuu.com/rsheng2/docs/equityinarch2014_finalreport. 16. BWAF website, accessed February  25, 2020, www.bwaf.org/portfolio/pioneering-women-of-americanarchitecture/. 17. “Farewell to a Founder,” News, Department of Architecture, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, MA, March 1, 2017, accessed February 25, 2020, www.umass.edu/architecture/news/farewell-founder. 18. Kathleen Lugosch, interview with the author, January 10, 2017. 19. See: Ray Kinoshita Mann, accessed February  25, 2020, www.umass.edu/newsoffice/article/umassamherst-professor-ray-kinoshita-aspires-create-architectural-renaissance.html. 20. Ray Kinoshita Mann, AIA, “The New Collaboration: All Mixed Up,” Architecture Boston (November/ December 2008): 50. 21. Ray Kinoshita Mann, interview with the author, January 30, 2017. 22. Fred Contrada, “Women Drafting a Novel Role in UMass Architecture Program,” The Union News, March 1, 1999. 23. Sarah Williams Goldhagen, “Crashing the Boys Club,” Architectural Record 201, no. 6 ( June 16, 2013): 158. 24. Stratigakos, Women Architects. 25. Caryn Brause, interview with the author, January 31, 2017.

Bibliography Alexander, Christopher, Sara Ishikawa, and Murray Silverstein. A Pattern of Language: Towns, Buildings Construction. New York: Oxford University Press, 1977.

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Collaborations Beverley Willis Architecture Foundation. “50 Pioneering Women of American Architecture.” www.bwaf.org/ portfolio/pioneering-women-of-american-architecture.html. Contrada, Fred. “Women Drafting a Novel Role in UMass Architecture Program.” The Union News, March 1, 1999. Friedman, Avi. The Adaptable House: Designing Homes for Change. New York: McGraw Hill, 2002. Gebhard, David. Schindler. London: Thames and Hudson, 1971. Goldhagen, Sarah Williams. “Crashing the Boys Club.” Architectural Record 201, no. 6 ( June 16, 2013): 157–62. Gregory, Rob. “Home Truths.” Architectural Review 225, no. 1343 ( January 2009): 28–29. Hermanuz, Ghislane. “Outgrowing the Corner of the Kitchen Table.” In Re-visioning Spaces, Places and Everyday Things, edited by Joan Rothschild and Alethea Cheng, 67–84. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1999. Kinoshita Mann, Ray. “All Mixed Up: The New Collaboration.” Architecture Boston 11, no. 6 (November 2008): 50–57. Lau, Wanda. “QA: Rosa Sheng: The Chairperson of the Missing 32% Project Wants to Know Why Women Comprise Half the Number of Architecture School Graduates, But Not Half the Number of Licensed Architects.” Architect 103, no. 5 (May 2014): 28–28. Matrix. Making Space: Women and the Man-Made Environment. London and Sydney: Pluto Press, 1984. Oechslin, Werner. “Raumplan Versus Plan Libre.” Daidalos, Berlin Architectural Journal 42 (December  1991): 76–83. Pitts, Annelise, Ass. AIA, Rosa Sheng, Erik Everhouse, and Ruohnan Hu. “Equity by Design: Knowledge, Discussion, Action!” Equity in Architecture Survey Report and Key Outcomes. AIASF, 2014. https://issuu.com/ rsheng2/docs/equityinarch2014_finalreport.html. Stratigakos, Despina. Where are the Women Architects? Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press in association with Places Journal, 2016. “UMass Amherst Professor Ray Kinoshita Aspires to Create an Architectural Renaissance.” UMass Office of News and Media Relations, November  3, 1997. www.umass.edu/newsoffice/article/umass-amherst-professorray-kinoshita-aspires-create-architectural-renaissance. Weisman, Leslie Kanes. Discrimination by Design: A Feminist Critique of the Man-Made Environment. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1992.

Interviews Caryn Brause, AIA, Assistant Professor, UMass, Amherst, interview with author, January 31, 2017. Kathleen Lugosch, AIA, Professor, UMass, Amherst, interview with author, January 10, 2017. Ray Kinoshita Mann, AIA, Associate Professor, UMass, Amherst, interview with author, January 30, 2017. Sigrid Miller Pollin, FAIA, Professor, UMass, Amherst, multiple interviews with author, 2015–2020.

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Note: Page numbers in italics indicate a figure on the corresponding page. 1916 Easter Rising 19, 87, 91 1917 October Revolution 327, 341, 352n2, 352n7 30 x 30 327, 336 – 337, 337, 338, 339 Aalto, Alvar 197, 384 – 385, 387; Villa Mairea 384, 387 Abbot, Berenice 100 Abstract Expressionism 213, 222 abstraction 101, 105, 109, 125, 219 – 220, 222, 297 achievement 2 – 3, 6, 9 – 10n17, 10n19, 53, 84, 96, 105, 114, 155, 160 – 161, 176, 250, 255, 267, 320, 322, 327, 347, 352, 367 activism 2, 18, 38, 70, 72 – 73, 80 Adaleva, Elvina 347 Adams, Annmarie 6, 273n9 Aesthetic movement 44, 54n3 AIA Journal 139n3 Akioglu, Nuri 280 – 281, 281 Aktuelles Bauen 316, 323n7, 323n13 Albers, Anni 96, 112 – 113, 115, 117 – 118, 123, 124 – 125, 234 Albers, Josef 117 Alberti, Leon Battista 23 – 24 Aldonina, Rimma Petrovna vi Aleshina, Nina Alexandrovna 328, 342, 347 – 349, 348, 353n35; Chertanovskaya station 348, 348, 353n34, 354n40; Chkalovskaya station 349, 354n40; Design Department, Metropolitan Institute of Transportation (Metrogiprotrans) 324, 347 – 348; “Distinguished Architect of the Russian Federation” 342, 347; Kuznetsky Most station 348, 354n40; Mendeleyevskaya station 348 – 349, 354n40 Allaback, Sarah 59, 66n7, 139n1, 210n7, 211n13, 211n20 – 21, 211n42 – 43 amateurs 17, 24, 26, 114, 252 American Civil War 32, 202

American Home, The 78, 79 American Institute of Architects (AIA) vi, xxii, 9 – 10n17, 66n9, 97, 131, 166 – 167, 181, 203 – 205, 238 – 239, 239, 241 – 242, 246n3, 246n6, 247n8, 255, 278, 283, 339, 339 – 340n18, 357, 359, 363 – 364, 367 – 368, 374 – 375, 379; The American Institute of Architects Archives 210n9, 211n23 American modernism 225n55, 227, 229 – 236 Andrews, Ludelle Hinaman 177, 242, 245 – 246 Anthony, Susan B. 37 – 38, 70 antiquity 17, 23 – 24, 26, 46 apartment buildings 156, 156, 158, 160, 160, 162, 171, 206, 243, 370 architect(s): accredited 89; amateur 25 – 26, 29; American 10n20, 57, 255, 331, 378n5, 382; ancient 22 – 23; artist- 17, 24 – 25; Bauhaus 231; British 257, 372, 380n5; Californian 131; Canadian 9n14, 266; domestic 90; Dutch 143, 150, 151n28, 259; early modern 23 – 24, 29; European 10n20, 230; female 9 – 10n17, 21, 58, 66, 96, 129, 131, 142, 145, 147, 149 – 150, 157, 166, 172, 176, 198, 201, 203 – 204, 206, 208, 210, 227, 239, 239, 243, 246n2, 247n8, 250, 254, 276, 391; French 101, 381n23; German 112, 122, 260; Greek 22; humanist 23 – 24; Iraqi-British 287; Japanese 260, 262; Jewish 267; landscape 72, 78, 136, 185, 372; licensed 166, 197, 341; male 113 – 114, 147, 150, 155, 158, 177, 204, 207, 246n2, 382; medieval 22 – 23; men 157; modern 123, 176, 227; modernist 181; New York 204, 220; painter- 29; pioneering 262; practical 322; practicing 5, 241, 313, 389; professional 18, 25, 241 – 242, 255, 339 – 340n18, 379; registered 8n11, 139n10, 206, 238 – 241, 250, 267, 390; Renaissance 24 – 25; Roman 22 – 23; Russian 352; sculptor- 24; solo 40; Soviet 344, 346 – 347;

394

Index successful 233; Swiss 251, 313, 320; Ticinese 316; Turkish 250, 276, 278, 282; unregistered 241 – 242; university 370; woman 6, 19, 21, 58, 62, 65, 90, 155, 250, 262, 283, 283n1, 331, 382; women xxvi, 2 – 3, 5 – 6, 10n19, 21 – 22, 29, 66, 70, 72, 80, 90, 95 – 96, 154 – 158, 160 – 162, 163n15, 166 – 167, 198, 206, 208, 249, 255, 266, 269, 272, 276, 279, 282 – 283, 316, 320 – 322, 330 – 331, 357 – 358 Architect, The 8n2, 59, 67n16 Architectural Association (AA) 6, 9n16, 289 – 292, 290, 296, 298n15, 298n17, 298n20, 299n24, 299n28, 299n31, 299n37 architectural criticism 1, 176, 227 Architectural Digest 298n12, 306, 311n21 architectural education 1 – 2, 6, 33, 187, 241, 243, 254, 278, 289, 314, 390 – 391 Architectural Forum, The 58 – 59, 61, 62, 67n28, 68n34, 173n32, 196 architectural history 1, 4, 6 – 7, 96, 131, 139, 150, 182, 197 – 198, 210, 238, 250, 278, 283, 329, 347, 351 Architectural League of New York, The 62, 65 architectural practice xxvii, 2 – 3, 34 – 35, 73, 79, 83, 91, 129, 142, 166, 175 – 176, 197, 201, 206, 241, 272, 328, 370 – 379, 390 architectural production 2, 113, 118 Architectural Record 58, 201, 206 – 207, 210n2, 242, 367 Architectural Research Quarterly 163n Architectural Review, The 59, 160 architectural schools 33, 150, 250, 316; see also architecture schools architectural theory 1, 8n19, 380n4 architecture: American 7, 9 – 10n17, 33, 175, 230 – 231, 238, 328, 366 – 367, 389; avant-garde 351; Canadian 266; classical 25; constructivist 291; degree 9 – 10n17, 33, 250, 269, 278, 284n4, 292, 331, 383; department 72, 155, 316, 321; discipline of 4, 6, 301, 327; domestic 35, 85 – 86, 129, 137 – 139, 158, 176, 189, 197, 206, 231 – 232, 236, 276; Dutch 150; European 175, 201; experimental 246; faculty 4, 305; female students of 9 – 10n17, 276; field of 10n19, 32, 59, 179, 227, 382; firm 18, 57, 72, 157, 176, 201, 203, 205 – 206, 268, 271, 361, 383; German 351; historic 181, 362; humane 357; hybrid 390; imaginary 299n36; Japanese 336; landscape 1, 3, 18, 72, 134, 262, 278, 331, 374, 390 – 391; malecentric/dominated 176, 179, 227, 236; modern 66, 80, 96, 105, 136, 138 – 139, 156, 175 – 177, 179, 183, 189, 195, 197 – 198, 201, 224n39, 227, 230 – 231, 234, 236, 246, 265, 285n28; modernist 126n3, 165, 175, 230, 238, 246, 265, 267, 272; “paper” 301; practical 18, 253; profession 32, 327; professional 6; professionals 342; professor of 320, 324n34, 391; programs 34, 113, 267, 330; regional folk 231; residential 35, 97, 176, 183, 206; Roman 23; Russian xxvii, 2, 327, 341 – 352, 352n11; Soviet 329, 349, 352n12; spacecraft 351;

Spanish American 52; Spanish mission 51, 53; Swiss 313 – 314; Ticinese/Ticino 314 – 315, 319; traditional 65; Turkish 283; twentieth-century 172, 384; Victorian 362; women in xxv – xxvii, 2, 10n20, 21, 29, 34, 66, 84, 86, 160, 165, 204, 206 – 207, 253, 260, 262, 265, 328, 329, 331, 339, 366 – 368; world of 51, 53, 64, 99 – 100, 146, 176, 227, 236, 276, 349; see also names of architectural styles; architectural schools Architecture 67n24 architecture schools 2, 4, 6, 21, 201, 203, 283, 289; École Polytechnique Fédérale, Lausanne (EPFL) 316, 318, 320, 323n14; see also names of schools Architizer 5, 8n8 Archives Fondation Le Corbusier 110n11 Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution 123 Arendt, Hannah 252, 389 Arndt, Gertrud (Gertrud Hantschk) 115, 118 Art Deco (style) 50, 80, 100 – 101, 133, 135 – 136, 168, 182 Art, Design and Architecture Museum, UC Santa Barbara 130, 133, 135, 137, 138, 139n3 Art Nouveau 113 artistry 1, 51, 175, 250, 290 Arts + Architecture 307 arts and crafts 87, 113 – 114, 183, 363; see also Arts and Crafts Movement; Arts and Crafts period Arts and Crafts Movement 3, 18, 44 – 54, 113, 117 Arts and Crafts period 48, 50 Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) 8n11 Atatürk, Mustafa Kemal 276 Aulenti, Gae 331; Musée d’Orsay 331 Auschwitz 118 Australia 6 – 7, 250, 265, 267, 269, 272, 273n14 Austria 3, 59, 257, 263n26, 294, 333 – 334, 336, 380n3; Vienna 154, 156 – 157, 263n26, 294, 299n41, 332 – 334 Austria-Hungary 123 author 18 – 19, 22, 44, 52, 62, 67n26, 70, 84, 95 – 96, 109 – 110n1, 122, 144, 176 – 177, 227, 241, 246n1, 249 – 250, 253, 327 – 328, 380n4 authorship 34, 115, 119, 251, 289, 306, 314 Averbuch, Genia 156, 158, 159, 160 – 162, 163n15; Women Pioneers’ House, Jerusalem 161; Zina Dizengoff Square 158, 159, 162 Avery, Rachel Foster 35, 37 – 39, 38, 40, 42n30 Ayanlar, Fahrettin 281, 281 avant-garde 57, 96, 99 – 103, 105, 109, 142 – 144, 149, 176, 213, 220, 223n7, 245, 250, 289, 291 – 293, 299n30, 327, 329, 342, 344, 351, 352n13, 353n15 Azure 5, 8n8 Badovici, Jean 102, 103, 104 – 107, 104, 108, 109 – 110n1, 110n3, 110n11 Balashova, Galina Andreevna 328, 342, 349 – 351, 350; Apollo–Soyuz Test Project (ASTP) 350;

395

Index Baikal Space Shuttle 350; Buran Program 350 – 351; Mir Space Station interior design 350 – 351, 350; OKB-1 349, 354n44; Salyut 6 Space Station 350 – 351; Soyuz science module 349, 354n45; Soyuz Space Shuttle 351 Barberini family 24 – 25 Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London, The 4 – 5, 8n9 Bauer, Catherine 232 Bauhaus 95 – 96, 112, 114, 122 – 126, 126n3, 126n18, 126n20, 127n28, 176, 181, 189 – 191, 193, 197, 197n4, 230 – 231, 234, 253, 267, 278, 322n6, 344, 390; Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin 116, 120; Bauhaus Bauspiel 120; Bauhaus Dessau 119, 122; women weavers 2 – 3, 95, 112 – 126 Beaux-Arts 72, 131, 181, 203, 206, 217, 234 – 235, 243 – 244, 267; architectural principles 136 – 137; classicism 182 Beaux-Arts Institute of Design (New York) 234 – 235 Beckett, Samuel 100 “Becoming ‘We’ ” (forum) 5 Beecher, Catharine 18, 35, 227 – 229 Belfast Corporation 19, 83, 85, 87, 89 – 90 Belfast Riots 89 Belgium 220, 336 Bentel, Frederick 208, 208 Bentel, Maria Azzarone 208, 208 Benton, Thomas Hart 241 Benua, Irina Nikolayevna 352n12 Berger, Otti 113, 115, 116, 118 – 119, 123, 124 – 125 Bernini, Gianlorenzo 24 Bestor, Barbara 10n20 Bethune, Louise Blanchard 34, 41n15, 201, 203 – 205, 255, 332, 339 – 340n18; Bethune & Bethune Architects 201, 202, 204 Bethune, Robert 34, 41n15, 201, 204 – 205 Better Homes & Gardens 18, 58, 62, 63, 67n25, 68n29, 68n32, 233 Better Homes in America (non-profit advocacy organization) 166 Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation (BWAF) 211n47, 366 – 367, 368n38 – 39 368n41 – 43, 368n45 – 46 Blankstein, Cecil 250, 265, 266, 269, 272; see also Green Blankstein Russell and Associates (GBR) Blankstein, Evelyn 269, 273n28; see also Green Blankstein Russell and Associates (GBR) Bliznakov, Milka Tcherneva xxvi – xxvii, 253, 260, 262n3, 329 – 330, 333, 336, 338; see also International Archive of Women in Architecture (IAWA) B’nai B’rith Women of America (BBW) 163n15 Bos, Caroline 10n20 Bramante 24 Brazil 139, 262, 313 Breuer, Marcel 78, 115, 116, 117, 198, 201, 230 – 231, 232, 233 – 234, 233, 234, 235, 278 – 280, 279, 282; Flaine, Ski Resort Town, Chamonix,

France 278, 279; see also Marcel Breuer and Associates Bricci, Plautilla 22, 24 – 25, 25, 29 Britain/Great Britain 4, 86, 158 British Architect, The 91n7 British Mandate 6, 96, 154 – 155, 161, 162n1; see also Mandatory Palestine Brooks, Alison 10n20 Brooks, Katherine “Kitty” Glover 72 Browning, Robert 346; Andrea Del Sarto 346 Brugman, Mathilda 96 Brunelleschi 24, 387 Budd, Katharine Cotheal 204 Building in the Near East 163n17 built environments xxv – xxvii, 3 – 6, 8, 17, 32, 41, 46, 53, 96, 150, 165, 176 – 177, 179, 246, 249 – 250, 262, 266, 278, 328, 329 – 330, 338, 342, 349, 367 – 368, 383 Bulgaria 329 Calder, Alexander 214 California Mission style 47, 51 Callery, Mary 176, 213 – 223, 215, 223n7, 224n50, 224 – 225n51, 225n55, 225n58; Fables of La Fontaine, The 220, 221; sculptures 215, 216, 218, 219, 221; Three Birds in Flight 220; Valentin Gallery 176, 224n50; Vogue magazine 176 Callery, Mrs. Meric see Callery, Mary Cambridge School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture 18, 72, 78 camp architecture 74 Campbell Sisters Residence, School House Lane, Germantown, Philadelphia 35 – 37, 36 Canada 6, 7, 9n15, 249 – 250, 265 – 267, 272, 272n2, 273n5, 376; Toronto 6, 267; Winnipeg 265 – 272, 266, 268, 271, 272n1, 273n14, 274n41, 274n44 caryatids see Russian caryatids Chagall, Marc 154 change xxvii, xxix, 3 – 4, 6 – 7, 10n20, 17, 21 – 22, 24, 41n1, 53, 60, 83 – 84, 102 – 103, 110n11, 161 – 162, 182, 190 – 191, 197, 201, 209, 220 – 222, 230 – 231, 239, 249, 258, 270, 277, 291, 293, 298n10, 301, 305, 321, 327 – 328, 330, 336, 350, 357, 359, 362, 365, 374, 376, 380n9, 386, 389, 391 Charles, Ethel Mary 84 – 86, 90 Château de Bourdeilles 28 Chigguresque style 182 Church, Thomas D. 136 city planning 1, 3, 6, 171, 172n8, 269, 278, 281 Coade, Eleanor 332, 332; Coade stone 332 Codman, Ogden 228 Cohn, Lotte 96, 155 – 156, 156, 158, 160 – 162 Coke, Lady Elizabeth (Countess of Leicester) 26, 28; altarpiece, Chapel at Holkham Hall, Norfolk 28 Cold War 6, 175, 350 collaboration xxvi, 2, 6, 9n13, 18, 44, 48, 50, 72, 110n3, 117, 124 – 125, 136, 139, 144, 154, 160 – 161, 173n33, 175, 180, 182, 201 – 202,

396

Index 204 – 207, 210, 237n13, 240, 250, 266, 270, 272, 277, 280 – 281, 302 – 303, 306 – 308, 314 – 316, 320 – 322, 323n31, 328, 345, 350, 360, 376, 382 – 392 Colonial Revival style 36; see also Spanish Colonial Revival style Colonial style 35, 57, 60, 62; see also Colonial Revival style; Dutch Colonial style; Georgian Colonial style; Spanish Colonial Revival style Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP) 383, 390 communal living 77 Constructivism 96, 291 – 294, 299n39, 345, 352 – 353n14; Russian xxvi contemporary architecture 344, 10n19 contribution xxv – xxvii, 1 – 8, 17 – 18, 32, 45, 53, 66, 95 – 96, 99, 112, 114, 125 – 126, 143, 154 – 155, 161 – 162, 175, 177, 179, 189, 204 – 206, 222, 227, 236, 238, 246, 246n4, 249 – 251, 265 – 266, 269, 284 – 285n25, 314, 320, 322, 329 – 331, 338, 342, 351, 357, 366 – 367, 381n23; women’s xxvi – xxvii, 1 – 2, 7, 175, 177, 246, 249, 251, 265 – 272, 314, 330, 338, 366 Cook, Peter 287, 297n3, 353n20, 372, 380n5 Cook, Verna 2, 18, 57 – 66, 61, 63, 64, 66n1, 66n8, 66 – 67n11, 67n15, 67n21, 67n22, 67n26, 203; Alexander Crane House, Scarsdale 60, 61; Walsh Residence 60 Corinthian style 28 Cornell University School of Architecture 166; Cornell University Library (CUL) 167, 169, 170, 172n15, 172n21, 173n26, 173n29, 173n33; Cornell Women’s Club 167; Cornell University 172n1, 172n3 Country House at Weston Park, Staffordshire, England 27 Cox, Laura 78 craftsmanship 1, 44, 99, 176, 187, 222, 385; hand- 51 Creighton, Thomas H. 227, 234 – 236 critique of mastery 218, 224n25 Cubism 100 Cunningham, Mary P. 78 curate 196, 220, 367 curator 144, 176, 189 – 190, 195, 197, 213 – 215, 253, 292, 310, 323n31, 357 curatorship 1, 176, 189 Danely, Nell Cole see Mayhew, Nell Brooker Darling, Elizabeth 189, 198n2 da Vinci, Leonardo 359 decorative arts 113 De Montbron, Jacquette 26, 28; Château de Bourdeilles 28 design(s): American 190, 201; apartment-house 206; architectural 17, 24, 26, 115, 122, 124, 134, 165, 171, 189, 197, 231, 277, 283, 313, 359; avant-

garde 344; axis 364; Baroque 25; Bauhaus-style 230; Beaux-Arts 137; -build 2, 187, 292, 328, 372, 375, 377, 379, 381n21; carpet 118; center 370, 379; classical 23 – 24, 26; classicist 353n22; community 197; competition 265, 281, 294; computer-assisted 367; constructivist 299n39; criteria 372; culture 372; custom 181; domestic 132, 137; ecological 374 – 376, 379; ecologically scientific 362; environmental xxv, 363, 374 – 375, 383; establishment 207; exhibition 147, 250, 321; exhibitions 169; experimental 344, 347, 354n44; feminist 391; freed 231; French Revival–style 135; functionalized 166; furniture 119, 121, 122, 250, 301, 322; genius 204, 328, 342; globalist 272; graphic vi, 1, 147, 331; green 374; humanist 359; industrial 114, 172n8, 207, 331; institute(s) xv, 328, 344, 346 – 347, 374; interior 3 – 4, 18, 44, 47, 53, 101, 103, 109, 118, 147, 154, 160, 189, 193, 234 – 235, 267, 269, 276, 289, 331, 350, 361, 382, 390; international 294; joint 348; landscape 3, 137, 165, 206, 372; modern 99, 113, 187, 189, 193, 195, 197, 230 – 231, 236, 268; modernist 176, 183, 187, 190, 227, 230 – 231, 234, 236; modular 280; museum 289; organic 270; package 372; phase 23; philosophy 166, 273, 359; practices 328, 329, 374; principles 37, 44, 137, 193, 231, 375; process 26, 135, 370, 379; professional 18, 44, 189; project 47, 53, 132, 147, 342, 343, 376; prototypic 362; public 138; regional 236, 278; research 190; residential 35, 38, 40, 58 – 59, 96, 166, 168, 179, 181, 206, 210; school of 40, 181, 276, 278, 290, 298n18, 390; set-like 102; site 376; sketch 256, 261; stadium 287, 298n8; structural 23, 270; studio 262n5, 374, 376; sustainable 349, 351, 374, 376, 391; systems 379; team 172, 281, 383; traditional 62; two-dimensional 360; urban 1, 3, 138, 250, 276, 278, 280, 283, 284n4, 331 designer(s) 2, 7, 17, 44, 59, 96, 101, 119, 122, 129, 132, 142, 144 – 145, 147, 150, 154, 158, 165, 168, 171, 181, 190, 197, 207, 210, 227, 230 – 231, 235 – 236, 253, 255, 262, 268, 270, 278, 282, 321, 330, 342, 347, 350, 354n44, 357, 359, 362, 366 – 367, 375; architectural 376; avant-garde 327; Bauhaus 234; fashion 99; female 165 – 166, 328, 342; furniture 119; graphic 360; interior 18, 44, 47, 50, 53, 101, 104, 117, 136, 147, 154, 197, 243, 249 – 250, 265, 267 – 269, 272, 272n2, 331; landscape 9n15; residential 183; set 131; textile 33; women 57 – 58, 249 – 250 De Stijl (movement) xxvi, 2, 3, 96, 142 – 150 De Wolfe, Elsie 165 – 166, 172n12, 228, 236n4 d’ Herbez de la Tour, Solange 262, 381n23 Diamond, Katherine vi Dierks, Ruth 241 – 242 discoveries 1 – 4, 17, 54 disegno 24 – 25 domestic architecture 35, 78, 85 – 86, 129, 137 – 139, 158, 176, 189, 197, 206, 231 – 232, 236, 276

397

Index domestic design/domain/science 59, 129, 132, 137, 139 domestic spaces 58 – 59, 206, 321 Doric style 28 Doucet, Jacques 99, 101 Dozier, Henrietta C. 247n8 Duchamp, Marcel 214 Dunbar, Dorothy 185 Duncombe, A. Jane 181 Dushkin, Alexey Nikolayevich 347 – 348 Dutch Colonial style 60 Dutch Federation of Interior Designers (BNI) 147 Dutch Institute of Architects (BNA) 147 Eames, Charles 184, 201, 207, 234 Eames, Ray 184, 201, 207 earth-berms 371 – 372, 380n2 École des Beaux-Arts, Paris 131, 235, 243 – 244 educator xxvii, 2, 4, 126n3, 190, 197, 253, 259, 313, 328, 330, 342, 345, 367, 380n3, 382, 389, 391 Egypt 181 Eisenman, Peter 250, 301, 305; see also Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies (IAUS) emancipation 29, 142, 341 – 342, 351, 352n2, 352n8 Emmet, Lydia Field 214, 219 – 220 empiricism 359 empower 1, 4, 29, 321, 345 – 346, 376 empowering 46, 53, 297, 348, 352 empowerment 342, 372 England 3, 17, 21, 24, 26, 27, 44, 87, 118, 250, 269; London 4 – 6, 9n16, 19, 58, 85, 100 – 101, 146, 250, 269, 288 – 289, 292, 298n17, 298n18, 298n19, 299n38, 332, 332; see also Britain/Great Britain; United Kingdom English Cottage style 57, 60 environmental movement 372 Equal Rights Amendment (US) 357, 368 equity, equality xxv – xxvi, 6 – 7, 17, 37, 95, 112 – 113, 115, 157, 162n6, 205, 283, 327 – 328, 339, 341 – 342, 366, 368, 383, 392n15; see also gender equality Equity by Design Committee 352n1 Esherick, Joseph 209 ETH see Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Europe xxv, 17, 21, 44, 96, 102, 118, 131, 145, 149, 157, 177, 214, 231, 306, 316, 330, 342, 370, 383; Central 3; Eastern xxvi, xxix, 3, 6, 9n17, 267, 329; Northern 381n23; Western xxv, 6, 10n19, 17, 21 – 22, 26, 201 European modernism 230 – 231, 278 Everyday Art Quarterly 189 Federal Housing Agency (FHA, USA) 97, 168 – 170, 173n25 Feinstein, Dianne 366 “female domesticity” 57, 173n14 feminism, feminist movement 4, 25, 57, 86, 113, 129, 131, 139, 155, 181, 210, 251, 266, 277, 341 – 342, 352n8, 389, 391

feminist agenda 5, 25, 57, 113, 129, 131, 139, 155, 181, 266, 277, 341 – 342, 389, 391 feng shui 376 Fine Arts Federation of New York 167 first: African American vi, 9n15, 78; architect(s) 131, 310, 328, 342; architecture degree 33; architecture school 21; design 51, 101, 314, 349; designers 362; director 126n3, 267, 347; female 117, 203, 239, 239, 247n8, 250, 255, 320, 334, 339 – 340n18; professional 19, 201, 219, 339 – 340n18, 351; woman 9n15, 24, 32 – 34, 72, 83 – 84, 86, 88, 90, 96, 131, 154 – 155, 158, 243, 244, 250 – 251, 257, 267, 278, 287, 301, 305, 314, 316, 331, 357, 367 First All-Russian Congress of Working Women (1918) 341 firsts 201, 301, 357 Foderà, Leonardo 303, 304 Fondazione Archivio del Moderno 315, 318 – 319 Ford, James 229, 231; see also Ford, Katherine Morrow Ford, Katherine Morrow 3, 176, 227 – 236, 235; James Ford and Katherine Morrow Ford Residence 232, 233, 234 Four Capitals Model 375 France 3, 17, 24 – 26, 95, 100, 102, 105, 113, 134 – 135, 176, 244, 256, 257, 278, 279, 329, 331; Paris 24, 45 – 46, 58, 99 – 102, 100, 104 – 106, 109 – 110n1, 125, 134, 176, 214, 216 – 218, 221, 224n50, 235, 244, 256, 257, 331, 381n23 Francesco di Giorgio 24 French, Helen Douglass 206 French, Prentiss 206 French Provincial style 135, 169 – 170 French Revival style 135 Friedman, Alice T. 5, 150n4, 172n6, 189, 198n3 Friedman, Arnold 390 Friedman, Hilde Reiss see Reiss, Hilde Friedman, William 191 Frost, Henry Atherton 72, 78 Fuller, Buckminster 125, 328 functionalism 70, 80, 101, 105, 123 Gad, Dora 154 – 156, 155, 160, 162, 162n2; Israel Prize 154 – 155 Galfetti, Aurelio 313, 315 – 316, 317 Gándara, Melinda 139n1, 139n6 Gang, Jeanne 10n20, 382 Gannon, Mary 203; Gannon and Hands 203 Garden City, NY 97, 166 – 167, 167 Gardner, Jess 371; Hidden Hollow 371 Gayer, Diane Elliott xxvii, 2 – 3, 328, 370 – 379, 373, 375, 377, 378, 380n5; Four Capitals Model 375; GreenTARA Space, in North Hero, Vermont, 378 – 379; Masozera Family House, Lake Kivu, Rwanda 376 – 377, 377; The Left Bank Townhouses, Lakewood, CO 373, 373; The Old Mill and Lafayette, Burlington, VT 374,

398

Index 375; Vermont Design Institute (VDI) 328, 374; Yestermorrow Design/Build School 375 – 376, 379 gender and architecture 5, 8n11, 10n19, 328; see also architecture gender equality xxv, 6, 95, 113, 115, 157, 327 gender inequality 2, 157 – 158 gender roles 62, 66, 176 gender stereotypes 113, 166, 172 Gentilleschi, Artemesia 24 Georgian Colonial style 168 Georgian style 57, 60, 137; neo- 136 Germanic-medieval style 136 Germany xxv, 3, 95 – 96, 113, 157 – 158, 172n7, 190, 215, 294, 330; Berlin 96, 122, 155, 260, 287; nazi 119, 155, 334, 336 Getty Research Institute (Los Angeles, CA) 184, 185 Gibson, Sarah 278 glass ceiling 5, 10n20, 327, 382, 391 global xxv, xxvii, 1 – 3, 5, 7, 10n19, 95, 150, 175, 262, 272, 283, 287, 289, 294, 327, 336, 346, 367, 379 Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco 204, 205 Goldhagen, Sarah Williams 392n23 Goldman, Wendy 341, 352n6 Goldschmidt, Gertrud 156, 158, 162; Farmer’s House, Rehovot 158 Gordon, Elizabeth 176, 227, 234 Gottlieb, Lois Davidson 2, 175, 179 – 187, 180, 184, 185, 186, 262; Mackey House, Riverside, CA 183 – 185, 185; Mark and Sharon Gottlieb House, Fairfax Station, VA 185 – 187, 186; Robert Gottlieb House, Riverside, CA 181, 183, 184; Taliesin West 175, 179 – 181; Val-Goeschen House 181, 262 Gottlieb, Robert 181 – 183; see also Gottlieb, Lois Davidson graphic design vi, 1, 147, 331, 360 Gray, Eileen 3, 65, 95, 99 – 109, 100, 102, 103, 104, 108, 109 – 110n1, 110n3, 321; Chambre à coucher-boudoir Monte-Carlo (Monte-Carlo Boudoir) 101, 102; Le Destin 99, 101; E.1027 (Maison en Bord de Mer) 102 – 109, 103, 107, 108, 109 – 110n1, 110n3, 110n11; Galerie Jean Désert 101, 105; Lou Pérou 105; Roquebrune 102, 104 – 106, 108; Tempe à Pailla 105 Great Depression 53, 58, 76, 80, 168, 190, 206, 263, 266, 359 Greek Revival style 60 Greely, Rose Ishbel 78 Green, Lawrence 265, 272; see also Green Blankstein Russell and Associates (GBR) Green Blankstein Russell and Associates (GBR) 2, 249 – 250, 265 – 272, 268, 271; Winnipeg International Air Terminal 266, 268, 270 – 271, 271, 274n44 Gropius, Walter 95, 112 – 114, 116 – 118, 122, 124, 126n3, 127n28, 181, 198, 201, 230 – 231, 232, 233, 234, 234, 267, 269

Guggenheim, Peggy 223, 225n58 Guggenheim Museum (Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum) 292, 344 guilds 22 – 24, 26, 44 Gutman, Marta 311n20 “Habitat” (United Nations Conference on Human Settlements) 367 Hadid, Zaha (Dame Zaha Mohammad Hadid) 2, 9n16, 250, 287 – 297, 288, 290, 293, 295, 296, 297n3, 297n4, 297n6, 298n8, 298n10, 298n11, 298n13, 298n14, 298n15, 298n17, 298n19, 299n24, 299n28, 299n34, 299n40, 382; Al-Wakrah Stadium, Qatar 288, 298n7, 298n8; Capital Hill Residence 289; Malevich’s Tektonik 250, 291 – 292; Museum of the Nineteenth Century, The 250, 290; Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) 292, 294; Peak Swimming Pool Divers, The 296; Pritzker Architecture Prize 250, 287; RIBA Gold Medals 287; Rome Museum of Twenty-First Century Art (MAXXI) 296 – 297; World, The (89 Degrees) 293, 293; Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA) 287, 288, 289, 292, 294, 296 – 297, 298n10, 298n15, 299n41 Harriss, Harriet 2 – 4, 8n6, 95 – 96, 112 – 126 Harris, Harwell Hamilton 230, 235 Harvard University Graduate School of Design (GSD) 180, 181, 210, 278, 285n28, 390; Harvard Art Museums/Busch-Reisinger Museum 232 – 234; Harvard University Library 155; Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University 71, 75, 76 Hastings, L. Jane 339n17 Hayden, Dolores 5, 173n14, 323n15 Hays, Johanna 210n1, 211n19 head (of association, department, firm, institute, organization, program, studio) 37, 72, 158, 189, 207, 234, 250, 265, 269, 272, 318, 328, 342, 347 – 348, 380n5 heading 227, 231 historic preservation 328, 372, 374 Hitchcock, Henry-Russell 230 – 231 Hobson, Florence Fulton 3, 18 – 19, 83 – 91, 84, 86, 88, 89, 91n1, 91n9, 92n16, 92n38; Cottage for Helen Chenevix, Killiney, near Dublin 89, 89; “Firenze” 89; House in Carnalea 87, 88, 89 Holkham Hall, Norfolk 28 Home-Maker, The 35 – 37, 40 Hook, Mary Rockwell 177, 243 – 246, 245 Horton, Inge Schaefer 9 – 10n17, 198n4, 198n13, 204, 211n16, 211n26, 211n45 Hôtel Drouot auction 99 House & Garden 59 – 60, 67n25, 176, 227, 231 – 234, 235 House Beautiful, The 58 – 60, 67n21, 67n25 – 26, 78, 181, 187n9 – 10, 233 – 234 Housekeeper’s Weekly 35 housing project 147 – 148, 152n53, 157 – 158, 160, 165, 176, 189, 193, 272, 314

399

Index Howe, Lois Lilley 166, 204 Hudnut, Joseph 181, 231, 235 Hunter, Margaret King 208 husband-and-wife partnerships xxvi, 2, 176, 201 – 210, 242 Ideas for Better Living 176, 189, 196 – 197, 196 “Il Vascello” (Villa Benedetta, Casino e Villa Corsini fuori di Porta S. Pancrazio) 25 independent: architect 161; artist 219, 223; associations 344; career 214; commissions 90; direction/path 147, 283; female architect 147; identity 6, 91; individual 222; living 77; practice 17, 32, 34, 87, 90, 156 – 157, 206, 292, 360; practitioners 330; professional space 36; woman 213, 223 India 7, 125, 183, 262, 374 Industrial Age 2, 17, 21 – 29; pre- 5 – 6, 17 Industrial Revolution 29, 44, 327 inspiration xxvi, 4, 23, 45, 72, 113, 118 – 119, 179, 181, 187, 217, 254, 297, 310, 328, 359, 368, 384 – 385 inspire 1 – 2, 4, 9n15, 23, 45 – 48, 50, 52, 87, 89, 100 – 101, 109 – 110n1, 123, 126, 135, 137, 145, 160, 168, 179, 181, 187, 195, 220 – 221, 281, 283, 287, 299n41, 310, 318, 321, 333, 339, 344, 359 – 360, 363 – 364, 366, 372, 391 Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies (IAUS) 250, 301, 305, 310; ReVisions study group 305 interior design 1, 3 – 4, 18, 44, 47, 50, 53, 101, 103 – 104, 109, 117 – 118, 132, 136, 147, 154, 160, 189, 193, 197, 234 – 235, 243, 249 – 250, 265, 267 – 269, 272, 272n2, 276, 289, 331, 350, 361, 382, 390 International Archive of Women in Architecture (IAWA) xxvi – xxvii, 2, 7, 139n1, 143, 146, 150n20, 151n24, 151n33, 151n36 – 38, 152n51, 209, 249, 253 – 255, 263n21, 327, 329 – 340, 332, 334 – 335; Visual Archive Project 336 – 337; Virginia Tech 6, 150n5, 328 International Council of Women 38 International Federation of Interior Designers (IFI) 147 International Style 80, 95, 230 – 231, 234, 250, 267, 271, 274n44 International Union of Women Architects (UIFA) xxvii, 262, 328, 336 – 337, 339, 376, 379, 381n23 Irish Civil War 87 Irish Free State 87 Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) 87 Irish War of Independence 87 Irish White Cross 19, 83, 87, 89 – 90 Irish Women’s Suffrage Federation 89 Islam 277, 298n11 Israel 6, 96, 154 – 162, 162n1; Israel Architecture Archive (IAA) 155; Israel Museum, Jerusalem 154, 155; Israel National Library 162n3; Israel Prize 154 – 155; Tel Aviv 156 – 158, 156, 159, 160 – 163, 160; see also Mandatory Palestine

Italy 3, 9n15, 17, 24, 26, 244, 250, 301, 303 – 304, 308, 322, 323n11, 331, 333; Florence 24, 323n11, 388; Marfa 250, 306 – 308, 311n30; Milan 214, 331, 333 Jackson, Helen Hunt 50, 53 James Ford and Katherine Morrow Ford Residence, Lincoln, MA 232, 233, 234 Japan 6, 9n15, 44, 46, 101, 181, 260, 262, 267, 336, 383 Japanese internment 191, 198n12 Japonisme style 44 Johnson, Carl 170 – 172, 174n35 Johnson, Philip 121, 214 – 215, 230 – 231 Journal of Architectural Education 163n8 Journal of Design History 172n12 Journal of Interior Design 172n11 Journal of the Association of Engineers and Architects in Eretz Israel 163n12 Journal of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada 273n5 Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects 91n5 Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (JSAH) 81n38, 210n3 Joyce, James 100 Judd, Donald 250, 301 – 302, 304 – 309, 311n23, 311n31, 311n35 Judd Foundation Archives 302, 304, 307, 311n3 Jugendstil 113 Kahn, Louis 201 Kampe, Geoff 372 – 373 Karacabey, Ayla xxvi, 2 – 3, 250, 276 – 283, 277, 280, 281, 282; Esmeralda Resort Condominiums, Marbella, Spain 281 – 282, 282; Side, Turkey 280 – 281, 281; Student Union for the University of Florida 279 – 280, 280 Kastarlak, Bulent 280, 281 Keichline, Anna Wagner 331 Kennard, H. Hunter 207 Kennedy, Jacqueline 243 Kerr, Shirley 207 Kettner, Patricia 269 Kilham, Walter 78 Kilton, Esther 78 Kliass, Rosa 261 Knoll, Florence 201, 234 Knoll, Hans 201, 234 Koch-Otte, Benite 116; see also Otte, Benita Koller-Buckwieser, Helene 340n28 Komarova, Lydia Konstantinovna 327, 342 – 345, 343, 345; Comintern Palace 342, 343, 344; Karaganda Polytech, Kazakhstan 345; N. Bauman Moscow State Technical University (MSTU) 344, 345, 353n21 Kovalevskaya, Tamara Vladimirovna 328, 342, 345 – 347, 346; Palace of Youth and Creativity, Petrozavodsk, Russia 346, 347; Union of

400

Index Architects of Karelia 346 – 347; Union of Architects of the USSR 346 – 347 Krolik, Gertrude 162 Ladies Home Journal 233 Lamunière, Inès 320 landscape architecture 1, 3, 18, 72, 134, 262, 278, 331, 374, 390 – 391 Langhorst, Fred, and Lois Wilson 210 Lao-Tse 253 – 254 L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui 99, 107, 110n9, 110n13, 160, 163n14 L’Architecture Vivante 99, 102, 105 Lari, Yasmeen 262, 331 Laurens, Henri 214 lead: architect vi, 151n28, 281, 297n3, 342, 344, 345, 346; architectural periodicals 99, 265; designer 354n44; diplomats 278 leader(s) 80, 265, 328, 341, 352 – 353n14, 370, 382, 391; female 176 leadership xxvi – xxvii, 1, 6 – 7, 17, 26, 122, 175, 191, 249 – 250, 267, 270, 276, 327 – 328, 342, 347, 366 – 367, 374, 379; female 175; women’s 1, 17, 367 learning xxv, 4, 26, 72, 117, 119, 249, 252, 328, 374, 376, 390 – 391; constellations xxvi, 2 – 3, 249, 252 – 262; hands-on 179; tactile 125; teachinglearning methodology 252 – 253, 255 – 260 Le Corbusier 80, 104, 106 – 108, 107, 110n8, 110n11, 113, 125, 126n7, 201, 234, 310n1, 315, 322n6, 332, 344, 387; Cabanon 107; Sous les Pilotis 106; tapestry 125 Lees-Maffei, Grace 189, 198n3 Léger, Fernand 176, 214, 218 – 219, 224n46 Lemco van Ginkel, Blanche 6, 9n12, 9n14, 267, 273n19 Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich 341, 352n3, 352n4 Levete, Amanda 9n16 Leviseur, Elsa 339n16 Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division 121, 173n23 Lisbon, Portugal 145 – 146 Lissitzky, El 289, 292, 294, 299n35 Loos, Adolf 113, 123, 125, 319, 332 – 333, 387 Lord, Elizabeth M. (Crawford) 267 Ludington, Wright Salton 137 – 138; House 138 Lugosch, Kathleen 328, 390 – 391 L’Union Internationale des Femmes Architectes (UIFA) see International Union of Women Architects (UIFA) Luscomb, Florence Hope 2, 18, 70 – 80, 71, 75, 76; Elk Horn Ranch House, Tamworth, New Hampshire 70, 71, 73 – 76, 75, 76, 80; Mussel Point complex, Gloucester, MA 78 – 80, 79 Machine Age 44, 80, 181 Maissen, Anja 321 – 322

Malevich, Kazimir 250, 291 – 294, 299n39; Architekton series 291 – 292; Black Square 291; Red Square (A Peasant Woman in Two Dimensions) 291; Suprematism 291, 293 Mandatory Palestine (Eretz Yisrael/Land of Israel) 2 – 3, 6, 95 – 96, 154 – 162, 162n1; Kibbutzim 157; Moshavim 157 Mandela, Nelson 381n23 Mandelstamm, Elsa Gidoni 156, 160 – 162, 160; Domestic Science and Agriculture School, Nachlat Yitzhak 161 Mann, Ray Kinoshita 328, 382, 390 – 391, 392n21 Manning, Eleanor 73, 166 Mansfeld, Alfred 154, 155 Marcel Breuer and Associates 278 – 280, 279 Matisse, Henri 214, 219 Mayhew, Leonard 50, 55n32; see also Mayhew, Nell Brooker Mayhew, Nell Brooker 3, 18, 44 – 54, 45, 47, 48, 49, 52, 55n32; etchings 18, 44 – 46, 49 – 54; Mills Petrie Memorial Building 50; Mission Santa Inez 52; murals 46 – 48, 48, 50, 53; Royer Residence, Urbana, IL 48, 48, 49, 50; Torrey pine 46, 47 McCormick, Katharine 77 McCoy, Esther 176, 227 McKim, Charles Follen 203 McKim, Mead, and White 203 McLeod, Mary 9n12, 305, 311n18, 367 Mead, William Rutherford 203 Medici, Catherine de 26 Medici, Cosimo de’ 24 Mediterranean character/culture/tradition 103, 108 – 109 Mediterranean Revival style 129 Mendeleev, Dmitri 348 Mesic, C. (Charlotte) Julian 204 Mexico 58, 66n2, 131 – 132, 182 Meyer, Hannes 117 Mezentsev, Boris Sergeyevich 347, 354n36 Michelangelo 24, 359 Michelozzo 24 Middle Ages 22 – 23, 113 Middle East 6, 276, 278, 283 Midge Carr Art Center, New York Institute of Technology, Old Westbury, NY 208 Mies van der Rohe, Ludwig 112, 118 – 119, 120, 121, 122, 137, 176, 191, 198n4, 215 – 216, 220, 234, 267, 270, 346, 387; Barcelona Couch 121, 122; Villa Tugendhat 119, 120 Miller Pollin, Sigrid 2, 328, 382 – 392, 383, 384, 385, 386, 388; 1290 Residence and Studio, Amherst, MA 328, 382 – 389, 383, 384, 385, 386, 388, 392; Women in Design Award of Excellence 382 Mill-Rae, Rachel Foster Avery House, Somerton, PA 37 – 40, 38 Minority-owned Business Enterprise (MBE) 373 Mission Revival style 175, 182 – 183

401

Index Mizrachi Women’s Organization of America (MWOA) 163n15 Mock, Elizabeth Bauer Kessler 232 Modérn 113 modernism 5, 65, 95 – 96, 99, 101 – 103, 123, 129, 139, 158, 175 – 177, 210, 213, 225n55, 266 – 267, 269, 272, 282, 314, 316, 319, 344, 384; American 225n55, 227, 229 – 236, 276; European 231, 278; utilitarian 349, 372 Modern movement 5, 57, 62, 66, 101 – 102, 105, 108 – 109, 306, 314; women in 95 – 97 Modern Revival style 2, 96, 129 – 139 Moholy-Nagy, Laszlo 118 MoMoWo Project 5, 8n10 Mondrian, Piet 150n1, 387 Mongolia vi, xxvi, 6, 255, 262 Moretti, Luigi 319 Morgan, Julia 65, 131, 182, 204, 244, 357 – 358, 368n4; 2014 AIA Gold Medal 357 Morris, William 44, 54n2, 117 Morrow, Gertrude Comfort 204 – 205, 205 Morrow, Irving F. 204 – 205, 205 Moscow vi, 289, 328, 342, 344 – 349, 345, 348, 351, 352n4, 353n19, 353n34, 354n39; Moscow Metro 347, 348, 349, 354n38 – 41 Moscow Institute of Architecture (MARKHI) 345 – 347, 349, 353n27 Moss, Marjorie Jewel 96 Muche, Georg 115, 117 – 118 Müller, Ulrike 115, 126n9, 126n18,19,21 – 23 Munasypova, Lalia 347 Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) 80, 147, 207, 213, 219, 222, 230, 232, 250, 301, 310n1; Department of Architecture and Design 301 Muslim-majority countries 276, 283 Mutch, Marjorie (later Campbell) 265 – 268, 272n2 Nakahara, Nobuko 262 National Better Housing Day 169 National Housing Act (US; 1934) 97, 168 National Museum of Ireland 100, 102 – 104, 108 National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) 37 – 38 Naylor, Natalie 168 Nedved, Elizabeth Kimball 203 – 205 Nedved, Rudolph 203 neo-Georgian style 136 neo-Palladian style 27 Netherlands, the 3, 96, 142 – 147, 146, 149 – 150, 151n28, 259, 259, 292, 323n11, 331 Neufeld-Cherniak, Zipora 162 New Century Club of Philadelphia 35, 39 – 40, 39 Newcomb, Rexford 52 New England 18, 70, 78, 169, 231, 328, 385, 390, 392 New York World’s Fair Town of Tomorrow 62, 64, 173n32

Nichols, Minerva Parker 2, 17, 32 – 41, 34, 36, 38, 39, 41n1, 166; Campbell Sisters Residence, Germantown, Philadelphia, PA 35 – 37, 36; Mill-Rae, Rachel Foster Avery House, Somerton, PA 37 – 40, 38; New Century Club of Philadelphia 35, 39 – 40, 39 Niemeyer, Oscar 139 Northern Ireland 3, 18, 83 – 91, 92n33; Belfast 19, 84 – 85, 87, 89 – 91; see also Belfast Corporation; Belfast Riots Ochirpurev, Sarantstatsral vi, 255, 263n21 Ockman, Joan 311n18 O’Keeffe, Georgia 134, 176, 214, 219; Ghost Ranch 214, 219 organicism 175, 179, 363, 384 Otte, Benita 96, 113, 115, 116, 117 Ozenfant, Amédée 214 Page, Mary L. 33 Palestine see Mandatory Palestine Pamir, Doruk 280, 281 parametricism 297 Parker, Minerva see Nichols, Minerva Parker passive solar 184, 372 – 373 Pennsylvania style 60 Pepchinski, Mary, and Mariann Simon 7, 9 – 10n17, 126n10, 126n13 Pettersen, Eleanor Kendall 257–258, 258, 262, 263n28 Pfeiffer, Alberta Raffl 209 Pfeiffer, Homer 209 Picasso, Pablo 213 – 214, 217, 221, 224n46 Pilcher, Elizabeth 250, 265 – 266, 266, 269 – 272, 270 pioneer(s) 9n15, 9n17, 10n19, 26, 91, 99, 105, 125, 142 – 143, 155, 161, 179, 201, 255, 314, 331 pioneering women 7, 70, 142, 367 Poitier, Sidney 335 Pollock, Jackson 221 Post, Emily 228 Power, Ethel Brown 78, 79, 80 Praeger, Rosamond 87 Pratt Institute 6, 305, 390 Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood 44, 54n2 professional(s) 17, 21, 114, 145, 175 – 176, 189 – 191, 197 – 198, 228, 267, 357, 368, 374, 379, 383; architect 18, 25, 241 – 242, 255, 339 – 340n18, 379; architecture 6, 198, 342; design 18, 44, 189; female 7, 34, 241, 320 professionalism 147, 172, 262, 336, 382; culture of 202 Progressive Architecture 227, 234 – 235 public housing 146 – 147, 158, 278, 305 public space(s) 132, 305, 344, 385 Quakers 83 Raphael 24, 54n2 rationalism 103, 105, 344, 352 – 353n14, 359

402

Index Raum Plan 387 Raymond, Eleanor Agnes 18, 78 – 80, 79; Biddeford Pool, ME 80 Rebay, Hilla 223 record(s): architectural 249; archival 149, 290, 327; census 203 – 204; drawing of 257, 258; exhibition 199n38; historical 1, 21, 225n55, 366; human rights 289; introductory 10n21; material 113, 254; photographic 336; physical 339; professional 351; registration 238; written 21 regional modernism 231, 266 Reich, Lilly 113, 115, 119, 120, 121, 122, 310n1; Barcelona Couch 121, 122 Reiss, Hilde 3, 175 – 176, 189 – 198, 190, 192, 196, 198n4, 198n14; Everyday Art Gallery 189, 195 – 196; Everyday Art Quarterly 189, 195 – 196; Heart Mountain 191, 193, 197 – 198; House of Today shop 197; Ideas for Better Living 176, 189, 196 – 197, 196; Vallejo Housing Authority 176, 189 – 195; Walker Art Center 176, 189 – 190, 195 – 197, 199n38; Your Home 176, 189, 193, 194, 195 – 197 Renaissance 17, 23 – 26, 113, 387 Rey, Charlotte, and Katharina Wanner 323n13, 323n16 Richards, Ellen Henrietta Swallows 72 Richardsonian style 182 Richmond, Ruth S. 177, 243, 244 Rietveld, Gerrit 96, 142 – 145, 147, 149 – 150, 331 Riggs, Lutah Maria 2, 96, 129 – 139, 130, 133, 135, 137, 138, 140n18; Alice Erving House, Montecito, CA 136 – 137, 137; Casa del Herrero (House of the Blacksmith), Montecito, CA 132; Clavelitos (Carnations), Montecito, CA 132, 133; Fischel House, Montecito, CA 133 – 135, 135; Graves House 134 – 136; Hesperides, Montecito, CA 137; Lutah Maria Riggs Society 139n1; October Hill—Wright S. Ludington House no. 3, Montecito, CA 137 – 138, 138; Vedanta Temple, Montecito, CA 138 Riverside, CA 175, 179, 182 – 185, 184, 185 Rochlin, Harriet 129, 139n4, 139n10 Rodeck, Melita 333 – 334, 334, 340n26; Elevated In-Town Heliport 333, 334; Regina Institute of Sacred Art 333 role models xxv, 4, 6, 53, 96, 175 – 176, 197, 210, 278, 287 – 288, 314, 317, 320, 328, 342, 347, 382, 389, 391 Roman architects 22 – 23 Roque-Gourary, Judith “Dita” 335 – 336, 340n32; Union of Women Architects in Belgium 336 Rossetti, Dante Gabriel 54n3 Roth, Helene 154, 156, 160, 162 Royal College of Art, The 4 Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), The 19, 83 – 87, 90, 91n9, 287 Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland, The 4

Royer, Adelaide Danely 18, 46 – 48, 48, 49, 50 Royer, Joseph William 18, 46 – 48, 48, 49, 50 – 51 Ruchat-Roncati, Flora 2 – 3, 251, 313 – 322, 315, 317, 318, 319, 324n35; Bellinzona Municipal Baths 313, 315, 315; Professor at ETH 251, 314, 316 – 320; SAFFA 1928, 1958, … 1988? 320 – 321, 321; School Complex, Riva San Vitale 313 – 316, 317; Tendenzen: Neuere Architektur in Tessin 313 Rudolph, Paul 177, 238 – 239, 243 – 246, 246n4, 246n6 Rupp, William 177, 238, 245 – 246 Ruskin, John 44, 54n2, 117 Russell, John 267 Russell, Leslie 265, 272; see also Green Blankstein Russell and Associates (GBR) Russia vi, xxv – xxvi, 3, 6, 291, 329 – 330, 336, 341 – 342, 344 – 345, 345, 346, 347, 349, 351 – 352; see also Moscow Russian architecture, women in xxvii, 2, 327, 341 – 352, 352n11 Russian caryatids 342, 352n11 Russian Civil War 342 Rwanda 6, 328, 370, 376 – 377, 379; genocide 376; Lake Kivu 377 Ryan, Ida Anna 18, 72 – 73, 247n8 Saarinen, Eero 234, 235 SAFFA (Schweizerische Ausstellung für Frauenarbeit) 320 – 321, 321 Salomonsky, Edgar 58, 61, 66n3, 66 – 67n11, 203 Salomonsky, Verna Cook see Cook, Verna Salon des Artistes Décorateurs 101, 102 Samoilova, Natalia Konstantinovna 348; Mendeleyevskaya station 348 – 349, 354n40 San Francisco, CA 50, 101, 179, 181, 191, 205, 224 – 225n51, 269, 328, 358, 360 – 363, 363, 364, 365 – 367; Ballet 364, 365 – 366, 365; Opera House 365; see also Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco Sanger, Margaret “Betty” 77, 134 Santa Barbara, CA 47, 96, 129 – 134, 136 – 139 Sarasota School of Architecture (SSA) 177, 238 – 246, 246n4, 246n6 Saudi Arabia 372, 380n7 Scarsdale, NY 58 – 60, 61, 66n11 Schaefer Horton, Inge 9n17 Schellhorn, Ruth P. 139n12 Schindler, Rudolf M. 184, 230, 387 Schlemmer, Oscar 115 Schnitter, Beate 323n7, 323n13 scholar(s) xxvi – xxvii, 7, 8n19, 24, 113, 165, 213, 249, 252, 255, 293 – 294, 306, 322, 327, 344 – 345 scholarship xxvii, 3, 7, 21, 25 – 26, 131, 165, 183, 223n7, 250, 294 Schröder, Geertruida Antonia (Truus) 96, 142 – 145, 143 Schröder, Han (Johanna Erna Else) xxvi, 2 – 3, 96, 142 – 150, 143, 146, 148, 149, 259–260, 259,

403

Index 262, 331; House for Binnert Schröder in Hattem 148, 149; Rietveld-Schröder House 96, 142, 145, 147 Schütte-Lihotzky, Margarethe 59, 65; Frankfurt Kitchen 59 Scott Brown, Denise 9n16 Second World War see World War II Segall, Judith Stolzer 156, 158, 159, 162; Hadera synagogue 158, 159 Semper, Gottfried 95, 112, 122 – 123, 125 Shaw, Arvin Benjamin, III 131, 136, 137, 139 Shipway, Verna Cook see Cook, Verna Shipway, Warren Butler 58, 67n15 Siedhoff-Buscher, Alma 113, 115, 119; 126n38; Bauhaus Bauspiel 120 Skala, Lilia (Sofer) 257–258, 257, 262, 334–335, 335, 337, 340n29; Austrian Association of Engineers and Architects 334; Lilies of the Field 335 Skidmore, Owings and Merrill (SOM) 206 – 207, 211n29 Sklarek, Norma Merrick xvi Smith, George Washington 131 – 132 Smith, T’ai 115 Smithson, Alison 255, 256, 257, 262 Snyder, Gary 254 Socialist Europe 7, 9 – 10n17, 126n10, 126n13 Society of Architectural Historians (SAH) xxv, xxvii, xxix – xxx, 7, 8n1, 8n3, 8n5, 41n12, 81n38, 210n3 Society of Architectural Historian of Great Britain (SAHGB) xxvii, 4 Society of Friends 83; see also Quakers Soleri, Paolo 328, 372, 380n5 Somaya, Brinda 262 South Africa 6, 110n8, 328, 331, 339n16, 378 – 379, 381n23; Cape Town 379; Johannesburg 374, 378, 381n23 South African Architectural Record 110n8 Soviet/soviet architecture 352n2, 352n6, 352n12, 353n15, 353n18, 354n36, 354n39, 354n42, 354n43, 354n50, 354n51, 354n52 Soviet Union (USSR) 6, 9n13, 342, 344, 346 – 348; Union of Architects of the USSR 346 – 347; Zhenotdel 341 – 342, 352n5, 352n8; see also Russia Spanish Colonial Revival style 129, 132 Spanish Mission style 18, 44, 47, 50 – 53 Spanish Revival style 182 Spanish style 60 Sparke, Penny (Penelope Anne) 172n5, 269, 272n26 – 27 Spiral skyscraper 342 – 344 Spitzer School of Architecture, City College of New York 311n5, 311n7, 311n42 State Archives of Florida 239, 244 Steedman, George Fox 132, 134 Stein, Gertrude 223 Steiner, Rudolf 371 – 372, 380n3 Steinmetz, Joseph Janney 243 STEM fields 9n15, 162n7

Stewart, Alexander Turney 167; see also Garden City, NY Stickley, Gustav 44, 47 – 48, 51; Craftsman Workshops 44, 47, 51 Stieglitz, Alfred 214 Stinson, Margaret 268 Stojanik, Petra 318, 320 – 322, 323n26, 323n28, 323n33 Stölzl, Gunta 96, 113, 115 – 118, 127n26, 127n28 Stowe, Harriet Beecher 227 – 229 Stratigakos, Despina 9 – 10n17, 10n20, 163n8, 392n2, 392n24 stylistic revivalism 352 – 353n14 suburbanization 165 suffragists 37, 73, 89 Suprematism 291 – 293 Suzuki, Kimiko 260–262, 261, 336, 340n35; Susumu Abe Residence 336 Swiss Architecture Museum (S AM) 320, 321, 322n1 Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) 6, 145, 151n30, 251, 314 – 318, 320 – 322, 322n1, 323n12, 323n14, 324n35 Switzerland; Geneva 320, 328, 370; Zürich 6, 145, 151n30, 313 – 316, 320, 322, 322n1, 323n12, 323n14, 324n34 Syracuse University Libraries, Special Collections Research Center 235 Talbot, Lady Elizabeth (Bess of Hardwick) 26, 27; Chatsworth Hall 27 tapestry 125, 154 teacher xxvi, 3, 32, 36, 115, 158, 161, 187, 190, 207, 217, 240, 249 – 251, 253, 278, 290 – 291, 298n14, 301, 313 – 314, 316, 322, 328, 335, 347 teaching xxv, xxvii, 4, 6, 33, 40, 96, 117, 119, 124, 131, 144, 182, 190 – 191, 196 – 197, 202, 240, 249 – 251, 252 – 253, 262, 278, 291, 297, 301, 305, 307, 310, 314, 316 – 322, 323n11, 327, 344, 372, 374, 376 – 377, 379, 382, 389 – 391 Tel Aviv Museum of Art 156 textiles 73, 95, 101, 112 – 115, 117 – 118, 122 – 126, 234 Tjaden (Tjaden Johnson), Olive 3, 96 – 97, 165 – 172, 167, 169, 170, 171, 172n1, 172n2, 172n4, 172n7, 172n8, 172n10, 173n21, 173n23, 173n26, 173n27, 173n30, 173n32, 173n33, 174n39, 247n8; H. Jacobi Residence 173n26; HoveyMercury Apartments, Fort Lauderdale, FL 171; Mack Markowitz Oldsmobile Showroom, Hempstead, NY 170, 170; Sanford Jacobi Residence, Hewlett, NY 168, 169, 173n26; “Yuletide Cottage” 169 – 170 Torre, Susanna 210n7, 311n6, 323n15 Trade Union Women Oral History Project, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan 81n14 transform 17, 26, 102, 109, 117, 126, 176, 189, 191, 193, 197, 222, 276, 297, 302, 310, 311n30, 345, 361 – 362

404

Index transformative 95, 101, 179, 250, 313, 327, 341 Tremaine, Emily (Emily von Romberg) 136, 139 Trümpy, Ivo 313, 315 – 316, 317 Tsevelmaa, D. 262 Tudor Revival style 168 Turkey, Republic of xxix, 6, 250, 276 – 278, 280 – 281, 283, 284n4, 329; Istanbul 250, 276, 283; Side 281, 281 Twitchell, Ralph 177, 238 – 240, 242 – 243, 245 – 246, 246n4, 246n6 Tyng, Anne 201, 255 – 257, 256, 260–262, 261 UIFA see Union International Femmes Architectes (UIFA) Ukraine xxix, 345 Ulrich, Lila 190 – 191, 192, 194 uncover xxvi, 1 – 3, 7, 18, 25, 29, 95 – 96, 176, 198, 250, 254, 262, 265, 276 – 283, 308, 327, 329, 334, 337, 339, 342, 351 Un Día/Una Arquitecta 343, 353n15, 353n17; Moisset, Inés, editor 9n14, 353n17 UNESCO World Heritage Site 96, 162, 346, 353n28 Union des Artistes Modernes (UAM) 104 – 105 Union International Femmes Architectes (UIFA) xxvii, 262, 328, 336 – 337, 339, 376, 379, 381n23 United Kingdom (UK) 4, 83, 85, 92n33, 95, 113, 119, 294, 296, 297n4, 372, 380n5 United States (US/USA) xxv, 3 – 4, 6 – 7, 8n11, 9n15, 10n19, 18, 21, 57 – 58, 62, 65 – 66, 70, 77, 95 – 96, 101, 103, 113, 117, 126n20, 134, 142 – 143, 146 – 147, 149, 161, 165, 171 – 172, 175 – 176, 182, 190, 197, 201 – 203, 206, 210, 214, 221, 224n25, 229, 231 – 232, 244, 250, 257, 269, 276 – 278, 280, 283, 284n4, 285n26, 301, 305, 313, 316, 328 – 330, 333, 335, 341 – 342, 358, 362, 365 – 366, 379, 389, 391; New York vi, 3, 50, 58, 66, 96 – 97, 101, 131, 147, 165, 167, 172n1, 172n7, 182, 190, 193 – 194, 201, 203 – 204, 213 – 214, 216 – 220, 222, 234 – 235, 243 – 244, 255, 278, 292, 294, 301, 305, 308, 329, 361, 366 – 367, 383, 390 University of California, Berkeley 129 – 131, 210, 211n24; Environmental Design Archives 205 University of Manitoba 267 – 269, 268, 273n11, 273n13, 274n40 University of Massachusetts, Amherst 6, 78, 328, 383, 390 – 391; Department of Architecture 382 urban concepts/planning, urbanity 5, 87, 249 – 250, 278, 282, 284n4, 315, 331, 333, 353n19, 353n20 urban design xxviii, 1, 3, 138, 250, 276, 278, 280, 283, 284n4, 331 utilitarian constructivism 352 – 353n14 utilitarian modernism 349, 372 Vallejo’s war housing projects 176, 189 – 195 van Doesburg, Nelly 96, 142 van Doesburg, Theo 96 Van Slyck, Abigail A. 139n1, 139n14

Vargas, Eugenio 281, 282 Vasari, Giorgio 24 Victorian style 192, 362 Villa Benedetta 25, 25 Vinciarelli, Lauretta 3, 250 – 251, 301 – 310, 302, 303, 304, 307, 309; Atrium in Red 309; collaborations with Donald Judd 310, 305 – 308, 311n24; exhibit at Peter Eisenman’s Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies (IAUS) 250, 301, 310; Homogeneous Grid drawings 302; Marfa series 306 – 307; NonHomogeneous Grid series 302 – 305, 303; Puglia Project series 303 – 304, 304, 308; ReVisions study group 305; Seven Courtyards, The series 307 – 308, 307; Study for Luminous Void, Volume of Light 310; Texas Remembered 308; Water Enclosure series 308; watercolors 301, 308 – 310 Vitruvius 22 – 23 VKHUTEMAS–VKHUTEIN 342, 344, 352 – 353n14, 355 Vriesendorp, Madelon 289 – 290, 292, 294, 295, 297n1, 298n15 Wallace, Sadie Ethelyn 273n28 Warriner, Joan 241 – 242, 242, 246 Warriner, Ken 242, 242, 246 Waters, Elizabeth Boylston 177, 238 – 242, 239, 246n2, 246n5, 246n6, 247n7, 247n8, 237n13 Watkin, Rebecca Wood Esherick 209, 209 weaving 95, 112 – 126 Webb, Edith Buckland 52 Webb, Hugh Pascal 52 “We Can Do It” (poster) 352n10 Weisman, Leslie Kanes 392n10 Wells, Newton Alonzo 45 – 46, 48 Weltge, Sigrid Wortmann 115 Werk, Bauen + Wohnen 322n4 – 5, 323n10, Werkbund 114, 122, 126n15 West, Jack 238 – 241, 243, 246, 246n1 Weström, Hilde 259–260, 259, 262 Wharton, Edith 228 Whistler, James 54n3 White, Stanford 203 Whitney Biennial (2002) 310, 312n50 Wilbraham, Lady Elizabeth 26, 27; Country House at Weston Park, Staffordshire, England 27 Willis, Beverly 2, 328, 357 – 368, 358, 361, 363, 364, 365; Aliamanu Valley Community, Honolulu, HI 361, 361; Architecture Research Institute (ARI) 367; Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation (BWAF) xxvii, 7, 339, 366 – 367, 390; California Council of the American Institute of Architects (CCAIA) 367; CARLA (Computerized Approach to Residential Land Analysis) 362; National Building Museum 366 – 368; New York City Visionary Award 367; San Francisco Ballet Building, Civic Center, San Francisco, CA 364, 365 – 366, 365; Union Street Shops 362 – 363; Vine Terrace Apartments (Nob Hill Court

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Index Condominiums), San Francisco, CA 363 – 364, 363; Willis Atelier 360 Winnipeg Architecture Foundation 266, 266, 272, 273n4, 273n6, 273n32 woman-owned business enterprise (WBE) 373 Women in Architecture (WIA/WiA) xxv, xxvi – xxvii, 7, 204, 339, 374, 379 Women International Zionist Organization (WIZO) 163n15 women’s emancipation movement 29 Women’s History Review 163n18 women’s leadership 1, 17, 367 Women’s League for Israel (LENI) 163n15 women’s liberation movement 358 women’s movement 18, 328; see also feminist movement women’s rights 70, 72, 83 Women’s Rights National Park, Seneca Falls, NY 374, 390 Woods End Road colony 231 Woolf, Virginia 70, 80, 389 Works Progress Administration Federal Arts Project 195, 198n5 World’s Fairs: Brussels (1958) 220; Chicago (1933) 135; New Orleans (1885) 182; New York (1939–1940) 18, 62, 64, 168, 170; Paris (1900)

100; Town of Tomorrow 18, 58, 62, 64, 65, 170, 173n32; see also New York World’s Fair Town of Tomorrow World’s Congress of Representative Women 38, 42n38 World War I 19, 44, 73, 87, 92n28, 101, 134, 266, 331, 342 World War II 3, 76, 78, 99, 105, 122, 131 – 132, 165, 171 – 172, 175, 191, 198, 206, 209, 265, 282, 330, 336, 342, 345 – 346, 360 Wright, Frank Lloyd 175, 179 – 181, 183 – 184, 187, 201, 270, 344, 384 – 385; Frederick C. Robie House 183; Hanna House 179; Taliesin West 175, 179 – 181 writer(s) 4 – 5, 23, 36, 52, 78, 100, 113, 116, 124, 190, 227, 236, 254, 269, 313, 366 – 367, 389 Wurster, William Wilson 191, 193, 199n17 Young, Jean and Clayton 338 Your Home 176, 189, 193, 194, 195 – 197 Zaha see Hadid, Zaha Zeitgeist 95, 237n19 Zenghelis, Zoe and Elia 290 – 292 Zionism/Zionist movement 96, 155, 157, 160 – 161, 163n15

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