New Website Explores the Women in Architecture

From Smithsonian:

The project, titled “Pioneering Women of American Architecture,” currently features hefty profiles of 24 female architects. Another 26 profiles will be added to the collection in the future, reports Elizabeth Fazzare at Architectural Digest. To compile these biographies, a team of scholars relied on “hundreds of interviews and countless hours digging through archives,” according to the project’s website. The profiles also include photographic documentation of structures, layout plans and the women themselves, bringing the architects and their work to life.

All of the project’s featured architects were born before 1940 and worked during a time when, the website writes, women “struggled both to be allowed entry into the architectural profession and to be recognized for their work.” Visitors can learn about Louise Blanchard Bethune, the first woman to be admitted to the American Institute of Architects, and Mary Elizabeth Jane Colter, who drew on Native American construction traditions when designing landmark buildings in the Grand Canyon. The site also includes profiles of the likes of Norma Merrick Sklarek, who is lauded as one of the first African-American women to break into the field of architecture, who overcame workplace racism and oversaw major architectural projects in California.