Advocacy: WOMEN IN ARCHITECTURE
Launch of Women [Re]Build: Stories, Polemics, Futures
ORO - ar + d Publishers, 2019
Coverage of Penn Women in Design, Penn Today
Coverage of Penn Women in Design, by the Weitzman School of Design
Women [Re]-Build: Stories, Polemics, Futures is exemplary in its mission to combine in one resource reflections on the renewal of feminist thought in architecture (Framing Stories), on challenges to architectural practice by activism (Shaping Polemics), and on portrayals of successful women practitioners who have paved the way for future women (Building Futures).
The number of women who study, work, and teach in design fields associated with architecture, landscape architecture, urban design, and industrial design continues to increase year after year. Universities boast near gender parity amongst their students and, in general, there is much to be optimistic about the changing demographics of women in design. And yet, during the past three decades of professional development, very little has substantially changed in what concerns the participation of women in senior, mission critical, executive, and political spheres of the discipline. Early gains have been registered, but systemic changes are fewer and less evident. Recent events in other creative fields such as film, television, art, dance, and the media continue to remind us that most large institutions, disciplines, and professions have yet to acknowledge the extent to which their management and social structures preclude the ability of women to take their well-earned place at the top. All the more critical is the absence of their transformative values, visions, and ethics.
Women [Re]-Build: Stories, Polemics, Futures gathers words and projects of leading women thinkers, activists, designers, and builders who have dared to ask, “where are the women?” Where are the women whose architectural work should be celebrated and recognized for its courage and impact; who have cultivated female leadership while challenging the very principles of the discipline they represent; and who’ve asked the most difficult and rigorous of questions of those who build their visions?
Women [Re]-Build: Stories, Polemics, Futures gathers articles, interviews, projects, and polemics in response to these questions and it does so according to four conceptual categories.
• Framing Stories is the first section of the book whose articles engage the intellectual history and contemporary debates that surround women’s participation in architecture.
• Shaping Polemics is the second section of the book and offers evidence of the impact and contribution of women who have chosen to actively challenge the discipline, its definition and practices.
• Building Futures is the third section, which captures the words and work of women practitioners who endeavor to build their visions and to leave physical and cultural traces of their making.
• Voices is a collection of four interviews and conversations whose transcripts are interspersed amongst the three main sections of the book. In their own voice, we hear from highly acclaimed women architects whose insights communicate a path to designing and building ethically, with intent and value.
Women [Re]-Build: Stories, Polemics, Futures documents, describes, and debates the work of women who have made immeasurable contributions to design and architecture. In writing an alternate story of architecture, it recognizes their achievements, their ability to inspire, empower, and contribute to the building of the next generation of leaders.
Launch of Women [Re]Build at the Weitzman’s School of Design (Nov 2019). In attendance, authors Julie Moskovitz, Winka Dubbledam, Annelise Pitts, Shirley Blumberg, and Ila Berman.
Editors: Franca Trubiano, Ramona Adlakha, Ramune Bartuskaite
