Having often been regarded as a profession for a privileged class of people, architecture is also traditionally considered a man’s profession. However, women are very much involved in this field, and they are doing so more and more. In many countries, such as the United States, women make up nearly half of the students in architectural schools. In others, such as France, women outnumber men by far. In schools as well as in the professional field, female architects face this double challenge of “being an architect” and “being a woman in the field of architecture” daily. Nevertheless, from school to the professional field, the proportion of women falls intriguingly. They represent only a very small percentage of licensed architects (less than 30% in the USA and 29% in France). Among the 100 largest firms worldwide, hardly three are headed by women. Most students take male architects as models and only a few women are often taken as models (Zaha Hadid, Kazuyo Sejima, …).
However, many women have demonstrated through their inspiring work that in principle it is not a question of male or female architects, but simply of architects. Discover in this list, beyond men and starchitects, some of these women who, through their visions and their work, make the world of architecture move.
A Syrian architect, Marwa al-Sabouni holds a doctorate in architectural design and is very interested in Islamic architecture. She has been ranked among the top ten experts on the reconstruction of Syria. Her book “The Battle for Home” on the subject was chosen in 2016 by The Guardian as one of the top five books on architecture. That same year, she produced one of the best TED talks, viewed over 1,000,000 times since its release. In 2014, her Tree units project won first place nationally in the UN-Habitat competition for multi-family housing rehabilitation. She was also a 2018 Prince Claus Fund winner and was listed as a top contender for the 2018 Pritzker Prize. She manages with her partner the Arabic Gate for Architectural News portal www.arch-news.net, the first and only site in the world dedicated to architectural news in Arabic.
Patricia Urquiola is a Spanish architect and designer. After studying architecture at the University of Madrid, she chose to focus on design, which she studied at the Polytechnic of Milan. In 1989 she defended her thesis, became a lecturer from 1990 to 1992 and taught at the ENSCI in Paris during the same period. She has collaborated with several major brands such as Cappellini or Alessi and DePadova. In 2001, Patricia founded her studio in Milan. She works on architectural and interior projects, but also on products for some of the most important Italian and international enterprises. In 2008, she was elected designer of the year at the French trade fair “Now! Design à Vivre”. In 2010 she was awarded the Gold Medal of Merit for Fine Arts by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports. She was also elected “Designer of the decade” as well as “Designer of the year” by several prestigious magazines.
Gabriela Carrillo is a Mexican architect who graduated from the Faculty of Architecture of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) in 2001. Later, she held academic positions in several prestigious schools in the country and abroad. She has also lectured and conducted workshops at universities in South Africa, the United States and China. In 2011, Gabriela began collaborating with Mauricio Rocha, with whom she founded the firm Taller Rocha + Carrillo. She was awarded the Federico Mariscal Chair by the UNAM Faculty of Architecture in 2012 and the Emerging Voices Award in 2014 by the Architectural League of New York. In 2017, she was honoured with the Architectural Review and Architects Journal International Award as “Woman Architect of the Year.” She also received the Niemeyer and Rogelio Salmona awards in 2018.
A rising star in architecture, Amélia Tavella is a Corsican architect. After her studies at the École spéciale d’architecture in Paris, she created her agency Amélia Tavella Architectes in Aix-en-Provence in 2007. With a taste for challenge, she works mainly on tenders and public markets. In her projects, she uses only natural and/or raw materials such as wood, metal and stone which are generally available locally. « L’École A Strega » (witch’s school in Corsica) is one of her best achievements. This school in the middle of the maquis, a few kilometres from Ajaccio has earned her several awards and prizes, including the Young Woman Architect Prize in 2016 and the Pierre Cardin Prize of the Academy of Fine Arts in 2017. Amélia Tavella is currently working in collaboration with architect Rudy Ricciotti on the new Ajaccio music conservatory for which they won the competition in 2018.
Sheila O’donnell is an architect from Dublin, Ireland. In 1976 she graduated from University College Dublin with a degree in architecture. Shortly thereafter in 1980, she obtained a Master’s degree in Environmental Design from the Royal College of Art and worked for James Stirling and later for Colquhoun + Miller and Spence and Webster before returning to Dublin. In 1988, she and her husband John Tuomey founded O’Donnell + Tuomey Architects in Dublin. The office has won numerous national, and international awards including the 2015 RIBA Royal Gold Medal, one of the world’s most prestigious architecture awards. O’donnell has taught and lectured at architecture schools in Europe, Japan and the United States. In 2010, she was elected an Honorary Fellow of the American Institute of Architects and in 2013, she was shortlisted for the Architects Journal Architect of the Year Award.
Franklin Yemeli is a young architecture student and blogger passionate about architecture and its relationship with nature and humans. He is convinced that these entities can help each other in a symbiotic relationship. He considers architectural discussions as introspections that allows one to be a little more architect every day.
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