Women as architects in the present contemporary world face resistance daily to the stereotypes when trying to practice. Women in architecture and other professions around the world have long complained of the lack of gender equality. Even the famous Zaha Hadid referred to it as “a man’s world,” stressing how tough it was for women to achieve success. A well-built atmosphere is also more open and accepting. This is why diversity is essential in the profession of architecture since it broadens our worldview and ties us to society’s actual concerns. Even though women have faced a slew of challenges, they have stood out and will continue to stand out in their professional lives. Some prominent post-colonial female architects in South Asia include Pravina Mehta from India, Marina Tabassum from Bangladesh, Minette de Silva from Sri Lanka, and Yasmeen Lari from Pakistan.
Architect Pravina Mehta – India
Pravina Mehta (1923–1992) was a prominent Indian architect, planner, and political activist. Pravina Mehta joined the wave of rebellion that swept over British-ruled India in the 1940s as a young architecture student. She gave up her architecture degree from Bombay’s JJ College of Architecture owing to her activism. However, she was eventually able to complete her studies at the United States-based Illinois Institute of Design. She wanted to facilitate and modernise India after being exposed to the west, but what made her unique was her ability to observe from afar and see architecture in the intricate Indian landscape it is located in. She used lessons from her activism, her love of art, and her compassion for communities in her undertakings. India was growing as a new and independent country and was on the verge of modernism when she went back to her architectural profession. She started her job as an architect during a period when it was predominantly a male-dominated field.
She worked on a variety of projects, including planning and constructing private homes, companies, and schools. She had a strong sense of loyalty to Bombay, her hometown.
The 1962-built Uma Patel House in Kahim, Colaba, a weekend getaway resort with ocean views, and the J.B. Advani Oerlikon Electrodes Factory in Chinchwad, Maharashtra, are two prominent structures that remain. Mehta worked as the urban planner for the township of New Bombay or Navi Mumbai, a long extension of the expanding city of Mumbai, which was one of her most important accomplishments. She collaborated with India’s top architect Charles Correa and the brilliant civil engineer Shirish Patel on a proposal to construct this new city in 1964.
She contends that architecture and urban design must result in community-based solutions. She thus worked to create affordable houses in Mumbai’s slums as well as for disaster sufferers. Pravina Mehta contributed to the architecture and urban planning with her insights, sensibility, and understanding of people.
Architect Minnette de Silva – Sri Lanka
Minnette de Silva (1 February 1918 – 24 November 1998) was born in Kandy to a renowned biracial family. As an internationally renowned architect, she is credited with developing modern architecture in Sri Lanka. She was a fellow of the Sri Lanka Institute of Architects.
In 1948, De Silva became the first woman from Sri Lanka to get architectural training and the first woman from Asia to be elected as an associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA). De Silva was one of the first members of the Architectural publication Marg and the first Asian representative of CIAM in 1947. She received the SILA Gold Medal later in her life for her contributions to architecture, particularly her groundbreaking work creating a “regional modernism for the tropics.”Shiromi Pinto’s novel Plastic Emotions, which was inspired by De Silva’s vibrant life and career, eloquently depicts De Silva.
De Silva began her education at the Kandy Convent before moving on to the Bishop’s College Boarding School in Colombo. Her family relocated to England in 1928, and she attended St. Mary’s in Brighton. De Silva had to work as an apprentice for the Bombay-based company, Mistri and Bhedwar, where she made friends with her brother and took private classes at the Architectural Academy before enrolling because she did not complete her school matriculation.
She had faced all the challenges in finding employment – first with individual private residences, then with larger housing developments, including social housing – made more difficult by the effort to be regarded seriously as a female architect and to be adequately rewarded.
She returned to Sri Lanka in 1949 at her father’s insistence so that she might contribute to the newly independent nation. She returned to her parent’s house in St. George’s, where she would begin her work as an architect without any personal funds. Since Kandy was where her roots were and it served as the country’s cultural and traditional centre, she chose to remain there and pursue her profession on her own rather than working for someone else.
De Silva, who had been poor and lonely, fell to her death in the hospital after resting there for days without being found. Her home was cluttered, and her work had been mostly forgotten. She was one of the most exceptional women who deserved greater.
Architect Marina Tabassum – Bangladesh
Marina Tabassum (born in 1968 or 1969) is a Bangladeshi architect. She leads the Bengal Institute for Architecture, Landscapes and Settlements, a forum for those concerned with envisioning and influencing the region’s environmental prospects academically. She has formerly taught at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University, the Technical University of Delft, the University of Texas at Arlington, and BRAC University. The Technical University of Munich awarded an honorary doctorate to her. The Aga Khan Awards for Architecture, the Arnold W. Brunner Memorial Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Gold Medal of the French Academy of Architecture, the Soane Medal from the Sir John Soane Museum, and the Jameel Prize from the Victoria and Albert Museum are a few of the honours and accolades she has received for her work in architecture.
To offset what Marina Tabassum finds impersonal and confusing in architecture globally, she focuses on climate, materials, location, culture, and local history in projects that span in size from the scale of the housing complex to the master plan. A prime example is the Her Bait Ur Rouf Mosque, constructed over twelve years on a meagre budget. It is notable for its lack of prevalent mosque iconography, emphasis on materials, space, and light, and ability to serve as a place of worship, meeting space, school, and playground for a marginalised community on the outskirts of Dhaka.
Architect Yasmeen Lari – Pakistan
Yasmeen Lari was raised in a well-known Iraqi Biradari clan in and around Lahore after being born in the town of Dera Ghazi Khan in 1941. Lari was exposed to architecture through her father Zafarul Ahsan, an ICS officer who worked on significant construction projects in Lahore and other cities. The first female architect in Pakistan is Yasmeen Lari.
She not only fought for respect as a woman in a field overshadowed by men, but she also developed her “barefoot social architecture” ideology, which aided communities in ecological and socially sustainable ways.
She created the Anguri Bagh project in Lahore, Pakistan’s first public housing program, in 1973. The women who were relocated from their previous flood-prone homes needed outside space for their children and hens, so she created terraces that were open to the sky.
With her design for a fuel-efficient chulah, or stove, which produces none of the poisonous smoke that was endangering Pakistani women’s health, she won the World Habitat prize in 2018. She received the 2020 Jane Drew Prize for advancing the status of women in architecture. When a succession of natural catastrophes struck the area in 2000, she halted her business and focused all of her energies on leveraging her knowledge of building with bamboo and mud to aid.
References:
1) Amazon Web Services, Inc. (2019). Cloud Object Storage | Store & Retrieve Data Anywhere | Amazon Simple Storage Service. [online] Available at: https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com.
2) Buxton, P. (n.d.). The woman who brought modernism to Sri Lanka. [online] www.ribaj.com. Available at: https://www.ribaj.com/culture/book-review-plastic-emotions-novel-minnette-de-silva-sri-lanka-modernism-le-corbusier-pamela-buxton.
3) Dezeen. (2020). Pakistani architect Yasmeen Lari wins the Jane Drew Prize 2020. [online] Available at: https://www.dezeen.com/2020/01/30/yasmeen-lari-jane-drew-prize-2020/.
4) Harvard Graduate School of Design. (n.d.). Marina Tabassum. [online] Available at: https://www.gsd.harvard.edu/event/marina-tabassum/.
5) marinatabassumarchitects.com. (n.d.). Home | MTA. [online] Available at: https://marinatabassumarchitects.com/#.
6) Palmex India. (2018). Architect Profile: Pravina Mehta – Activist, Urban Planner, Architect. [online] Available at: https://palmexindia.com/pravina-mehta-urban-planner-architect/.
7) Wikipedia. (2022a). Marina Tabassum. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marina_Tabassum.
8) Wikipedia. (2022b). Minnette de Silva. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnette_de_Silva.
9) Wikipedia. (2022c). Yasmeen Lari. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yasmeen_Lari.
10) Wikipedia. (2022c). Pravina Mehta. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pravina_Mehta.
11) generator (n.d.). Shaping History: The Impact of Women Architects in Post-Colonial South Asia. [online] ARCHatlas. Available at: https://archatlas.net/post/699178916442783744.
12) Maria Thomas (n.d.). Behind India’s successful women architects are unconventional ideas and mothers-in-law. [online] Scroll.in. Available at: https://scroll.in/article/820725/behind-indias-successful-women-architects-are-unconventional-ideas-and-mothers-in-law.
CORRECTIONS BELOW:
Focus Keyword: Women Architects
Women Architects in Post-Colonial South Asia
Women as architects in the present contemporary world face resistance daily to the stereotypes when trying to practice. Women in architecture and other professions around the world have long complained of the lack of gender equality. Even the famous Zaha Hadid referred to it as “a man’s world,” stressing how tough it was for women to achieve success. A well-built atmosphere is also more open and accepting. This is why diversity is essential in the profession of architecture since it broadens our worldview and ties us to society’s actual concerns. Even though women have faced a slew of challenges, they have stood out and will continue to stand out in their professional lives. Some prominent post-colonial female architects in South Asia include Pravina Mehta from India, Marina Tabassum from Bangladesh, Minette de Silva from Sri Lanka, and Yasmeen Lari from Pakistan.
Architect Pravina Mehta – India
01_Ar.Pravina Mehta_©https://www.re-thinkingthefuture.com/know-your-architects/a2896-women-architects-of-india/
Pravina Mehta (1923–1992) was a prominent Indian architect, planner, and political activist. Pravina Mehta joined the wave of rebellion that swept over British-ruled India in the 1940s as a young architecture student. She gave up her architecture degree from Bombay’s JJ College of Architecture owing to her activism. However, she was eventually able to complete her studies at the United States-based Illinois Institute of Design. She wanted to facilitate and modernise India after being exposed to the west, but what made her unique was her ability to observe from afar and see architecture in the intricate Indian landscape it is located in. She used lessons from her activism, her love of art, and her compassion for communities in her undertakings. India was growing as a new and independent country and was on the verge of modernism when she went back to her architectural profession. She started her job as an architect during a period when it was predominantly a male-dominated field.
She worked on a variety of projects, including planning and constructing private homes, companies, and schools. She had a strong sense of loyalty to Bombay, her hometown.
The 1962-built Uma Patel House in Kahim, Colaba, a weekend getaway resort with ocean views, and the J.B. Advani Oerlikon Electrodes Factory in Chinchwad, Maharashtra, are two prominent structures that remain. Mehta worked as the urban planner for the township of New Bombay or Navi Mumbai, a long extension of the expanding city of Mumbai, which was one of her most important accomplishments. She collaborated with India’s top architect Charles Correa and the brilliant civil engineer Shirish Patel on a proposal to construct this new city in 1964.
She contends that architecture and urban design must result in community-based solutions. She thus worked to create affordable houses in Mumbai’s slums as well as for disaster sufferers. Pravina Mehta contributed to the architecture and urban planning with her insights, sensibility, and understanding of people.
02_Uma Patel House by Pravina Mehta in Colaba, Mumbai_©https://ofhouses.com/post/651132619034148864/892-pravina-mehta-uma-patel-house-kihim
Architect Minnette de Silva – Sri Lanka
03_Ar.Minnette de Silva_©https://www.kinfolk.com/peer-review-9/
Minnette de Silva (1 February 1918 – 24 November 1998) was born in Kandy to a renowned biracial family. As an internationally renowned architect, she is credited with developing modern architecture in Sri Lanka. She was a fellow of the Sri Lanka Institute of Architects.
In 1948, De Silva became the first woman from Sri Lanka to get architectural training and the first woman from Asia to be elected as an associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA). De Silva was one of the first members of the Architectural publication Marg and the first Asian representative of CIAM in 1947. She received the SILA Gold Medal later in her life for her contributions to architecture, particularly her groundbreaking work creating a “regional modernism for the tropics.”Shiromi Pinto’s novel Plastic Emotions, which was inspired by De Silva’s vibrant life and career, eloquently depicts De Silva.
De Silva began her education at the Kandy Convent before moving on to the Bishop’s College Boarding School in Colombo. Her family relocated to England in 1928, and she attended St. Mary’s in Brighton. De Silva had to work as an apprentice for the Bombay-based company, Mistri and Bhedwar, where she made friends with her brother and took private classes at the Architectural Academy before enrolling because she did not complete her school matriculation.
She had faced all the challenges in finding employment – first with individual private residences, then with larger housing developments, including social housing – made more difficult by the effort to be regarded seriously as a female architect and to be adequately rewarded.
She returned to Sri Lanka in 1949 at her father’s insistence so that she might contribute to the newly independent nation. She returned to her parent’s house in St. George’s, where she would begin her work as an architect without any personal funds. Since Kandy was where her roots were and it served as the country’s cultural and traditional centre, she chose to remain there and pursue her profession on her own rather than working for someone else.
De Silva, who had been poor and lonely, fell to her death in the hospital after resting there for days without being found. Her home was cluttered, and her work had been mostly forgotten. She was one of the most exceptional women who deserved greater.
04_Karunaratne House by Minnette de Silva in Sri Lanka_©https://gagosian.com/quarterly/2022/08/12/essay-minnette-de-silva/
Architect Marina Tabassum – Bangladesh
05_Ar.Marina Tabassum_©https://worldarchitecture.org/article-links/enpmc/marina-tabassum-wins-the-lisbon-triennale-lifetime-achievement-award.html
Marina Tabassum (born in 1968 or 1969) is a Bangladeshi architect. She leads the Bengal Institute for Architecture, Landscapes and Settlements, a forum for those concerned with envisioning and influencing the region’s environmental prospects academically. She has formerly taught at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University, the Technical University of Delft, the University of Texas at Arlington, and BRAC University. The Technical University of Munich awarded an honorary doctorate to her. The Aga Khan Awards for Architecture, the Arnold W. Brunner Memorial Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Gold Medal of the French Academy of Architecture, the Soane Medal from the Sir John Soane Museum, and the Jameel Prize from the Victoria and Albert Museum are a few of the honours and accolades she has received for her work in architecture.
To offset what Marina Tabassum finds impersonal and confusing in architecture globally, she focuses on climate, materials, location, culture, and local history in projects that span in size from the scale of the housing complex to the master plan. A prime example is the Her Bait Ur Rouf Mosque, constructed over twelve years on a meagre budget. It is notable for its lack of prevalent mosque iconography, emphasis on materials, space, and light, and ability to serve as a place of worship, meeting space, school, and playground for a marginalised community on the outskirts of Dhaka.
06_Bait ur Rouf Mosque By Marina Tabassum in Bangladesh _©Rajesh Vora
Architect Yasmeen Lari – Pakistan
07_Ar.Yasmeen Lari_©https://www.dezeen.com/2020/01/30/yasmeen-lari-jane-drew-prize-2020/
Yasmeen Lari was raised in a well-known Iraqi Biradari clan in and around Lahore after being born in the town of Dera Ghazi Khan in 1941. Lari was exposed to architecture through her father Zafarul Ahsan, an ICS officer who worked on significant construction projects in Lahore and other cities. The first female architect in Pakistan is Yasmeen Lari.
She not only fought for respect as a woman in a field overshadowed by men, but she also developed her “barefoot social architecture” ideology, which aided communities in ecological and socially sustainable ways.
She created the Anguri Bagh project in Lahore, Pakistan’s first public housing program, in 1973. The women who were relocated from their previous flood-prone homes needed outside space for their children and hens, so she created terraces that were open to the sky.
With her design for a fuel-efficient chulah, or stove, which produces none of the poisonous smoke that was endangering Pakistani women’s health, she won the World Habitat prize in 2018. She received the 2020 Jane Drew Prize for advancing the status of women in architecture. When a succession of natural catastrophes struck the area in 2000, she halted her business and focused all of her energies on leveraging her knowledge of building with bamboo and mud to aid.
08_Women’s Centre by Yasmeen Lari in Darya Khan, Pakistan_©https://www.heritagefoundationpak.org/Hf
References:
1) Amazon Web Services, Inc. (2019). Cloud Object Storage | Store & Retrieve Data Anywhere | Amazon Simple Storage Service. [online] Available at: https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com.
2) Buxton, P. (n.d.). The woman who brought modernism to Sri Lanka. [online] www.ribaj.com. Available at: https://www.ribaj.com/culture/book-review-plastic-emotions-novel-minnette-de-silva-sri-lanka-modernism-le-corbusier-pamela-buxton.
3) Dezeen. (2020). Pakistani architect Yasmeen Lari wins the Jane Drew Prize 2020. [online] Available at: https://www.dezeen.com/2020/01/30/yasmeen-lari-jane-drew-prize-2020/.
4) Harvard Graduate School of Design. (n.d.). Marina Tabassum. [online] Available at: https://www.gsd.harvard.edu/event/marina-tabassum/.
5) marinatabassumarchitects.com. (n.d.). Home | MTA. [online] Available at: https://marinatabassumarchitects.com/#.
6) Palmex India. (2018). Architect Profile: Pravina Mehta – Activist, Urban Planner, Architect. [online] Available at: https://palmexindia.com/pravina-mehta-urban-planner-architect/.
7) Wikipedia. (2022a). Marina Tabassum. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marina_Tabassum.
8) Wikipedia. (2022b). Minnette de Silva. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnette_de_Silva.
9) Wikipedia. (2022c). Yasmeen Lari. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yasmeen_Lari.
10) Wikipedia. (2022c). Pravina Mehta. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pravina_Mehta.
11) generator (n.d.). Shaping History: The Impact of Women Architects in Post-Colonial South Asia. [online] ARCHatlas. Available at: https://archatlas.net/post/699178916442783744.
12) Maria Thomas (n.d.). Behind India’s successful women architects are unconventional ideas and mothers-in-law. [online] Scroll.in. Available at: https://scroll.in/article/820725/behind-indias-successful-women-architects-are-unconventional-ideas-and-mothers-in-law.