Zugl.: Berlin, University der Künste, Diss., 2004 u.d.T.: Pepchinski, Mary: The American model?

This dissertation examines the history of the women’s movement in architecture in the United States. In response to the feminist movement of the 1960s and ’70s, and especially the women’s liberation movement, which began in the late 1960s, women in architecture began to organize and fight for greater status in a profession that had systematically excluded them. Their activism took many different forms—from the establishment of women’s professional groups and the organization of conferences or exhibitions to research on female architects of the past. At the same time, more radical projects such as the Open Design Office, Women’s School of Planning and Architecture (WSPA), and the Women’s Development Corporation tried to re-imagine how architecture could be taught and practiced, which client groups should be served, and the relationship between architects and clients. Beginning in the early 1970s, women architects formed the Alliance of Women in Architecture (New York City, 1972) and Women Architects, Landscape Architects, and Planners (Boston, 1972), and the Organization of Women Architects (Bay Area, 1973). Through these organizations, feminist architects pressured the American Institute of Architects (AIA) to create a Task Force on Women. Several conferences in 1974 and 1975—most notably “Women in Architecture: A Symposium,” at Washington University in St. Louis in March 1974 and the “West Coast Women’s Design Conference” at the University of Oregon, Eugene, in April 1974—facilitated the development of a national network of feminist architects. The AIA’s Task Force used this network to help conduct a survey, which it finalized as a report to the Institute in 1975. These organizations and conferences also brought together the founders of WSPA, which held its first session in 1975. While women were forming professional organizations and hosting conferences, a few architects began conducting historical research on women and architecture. In 1973, Doris Cole published From Tipi to Skyscraper, the first history of women architects in the US. Four years later, an exhibition entitled Women in American Architecture and accompanying book were launched at the Brooklyn Museum. Both publications challenged architectural historiography by including non-professional women like the domestic reformer Catharine Beecher. Architectural scholars Dolores Hayden and Gwendolyn Wright pushed the boundaries of the discipline even further—Hayden through her work on utopian communities and the “material feminists” of the nineteenth and early twentieth century, and Wright through her social history of housing, which placed equal weight on the contributions of women writers and reformers as those of professional architects. This dissertation demonstrates the successes and shortcomings of the women’s movement in architecture. These include an increase in the number of women studying and practicing architecture, pressure on institutions such as architecture schools and the AIA to take seriously the plight of women in the profession, a reduction in the discrimination and harassment faced by women at schools and work, and the production of a significant body of scholarship on the contributions of women to the built environment. These achievements can be credited to two principal factors. The first is the concerted effort made by feminist architects to work together and bring about these changes. By participating in women’s organizations and at conferences, female architects across the US created a collective identity based on their shared grievances and desire for change. It was their ability to work collectively that forced institutions to respond to their demands. The second factor was the larger social transformation of American society at the time. The successes within architecture were possible only in a period of broader feminist activism that placed external pressure on the profession and reinforced the demands of feminist architects. Less successful were the more radical efforts, few of which survived architecture’s retreat from social projects towards the formalist and pop culture concerns of postmodernism by the late 1970s, the resurgence of conservative politics, and a backlash against feminism in the 1980s. By the mid-1980s, the energy of the women’s movement in architecture had diminished, but not without leaving behind a rich legacy for future generations of feminist architects.

Cheng Lok Nin Olivia. / "Architecture Department, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Master of Architecture Programme 2008-2009, design report." / Includes bibliographical references. / Acknowledgements / Chapter 1. --- Introduction / Chapter 1.1 --- Background / Chapter 1.2 --- Purpose / Chapter 1.3 --- Structure of Report / Chapter 2. --- Theory Analysis / Chapter 2.1 --- Definitions / Chapter 2.2 --- Construction of feminine space / Chapter 2.3 --- Relationship between architect and feminine space / Chapter 2.4 --- Feminine Space in Different Cultures / Chapter 2.5 --- Environmental psychology / Chapter 2.6 --- My position / Chapter 3. --- Project Analysis / Chapter 3.1 --- Programme Description / Chapter 3.2 --- Case Study / Chapter 3.3 --- Site Selection and Analysis / Chapter 3.4 --- Process / Chapter 3.5 --- Documentation / Bibliography / Appendix 1

Thesis (Ph.D.)-- Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, School of Architecture, Lanscape Architecture and Urban Design, 2003. / Includes 2 previously published journal articles by the author: Women in architecture: a personal reflection ; and, "Half the sky, but no room of her own", as appendices. Includes bibliographical references (p. 233-251).

Includes 2 previously published journal articles by the author: Women in architecture: a personal reflection ; and, "Half the sky, but no room of her own", as appendices. Includes bibliographical references (p. 233-251) An examination of some texts influential in the discourse of Australian architecture in the twentieth century. Explores from a feminist standpoint the gendered nature of discourse in contemporary Western architecture from an Australian perspective. The starting point for the thesis was an examination of Australian architectual discourse in search of some explanation for the continuing low numbers of women practitioners in Australia. Hypothesizes that contemporary Western architecture is imbued with a pervasive and dominant masculinity and that this is deeply imbedded in its discursive constructions: the body housed by architecture is assume to be male, the mind which produces architecture is assumed to be masculine. Given the cultural location of Australian architecture as a marginal participant in the wider arena of contemporary Western / international discourses, focuses on writing about two iconic figues in Western architecture; Le Corbusier, of international reknown; and, Glenn Murcutt, of predominantly local significance.

Includes 2 previously published journal articles by the author: Women in architecture: a personal reflection ; and, "Half the sky, but no room of her own", as appendices. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 233-251) / [xxiv], 252 p. : ill. ; 30 cm. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / An examination of some texts influential in the discourse of Australian architecture in the twentieth century. Explores from a feminist standpoint the gendered nature of discourse in contemporary Western architecture from an Australian perspective. The starting point for the thesis was an examination of Australian architectual discourse in search of some explanation for the continuing low numbers of women practitioners in Australia. Hypothesizes that contemporary Western architecture is imbued with a pervasive and dominant masculinity and that this is deeply imbedded in its discursive constructions: the body housed by architecture is assume to be male, the mind which produces architecture is assumed to be masculine. Given the cultural location of Australian architecture as a marginal participant in the wider arena of contemporary Western / international discourses, focuses on writing about two iconic figues in Western architecture; Le Corbusier, of international reknown; and, Glenn Murcutt, of predominantly local significance. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, School of Architecture, Landscape Architecture and Urban Design, 2003

100 years after the official acceptance of women into higher architectural education in Sweden’s technical institutions, I have tracked and summarized the progress of not just female students and female employees within the architecture industry, but also the extent of the creative space offered for women throughout the years to express their individual styles. This has been with the intention of detecting a female design language that can be read in the Swedish city, starting from Sweden’s earliest female pioneer in the late 1890s. The study relates the female design language to openness and fluidity, and the feminine sense of caring for the social experience taking place within urban spaces. This is naturally not the case for every woman and is just a common pattern detected throughout different architectural eras. Results show a rapid progression of women within statistical numbers of both educational institutions and architecture firms. This number is, however, one dimensional and does not accurately represent positions of power - which appear to be male dominated - and its impact on the Swedish urban city. The modern woman, as it turns out, does not face the struggles of the pioneers. She is, on the other hand, placed within the box of large architecture corporations, and in that way loses her personal touch and sense of style in her professional work.