the report

Rediscover the Pioneering Women of Architecture That History Forgot

From Florence Knoll to Ada Louise Huxtable, a new research website by the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation gives 50 women in architecture their due credit
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Georgia Louise Harris Brown (third from right) at work in the office of Frank Kornacker, structural engineer, circa the late 1940s.Photo: Edwards; Courtesy of the Brown family

Perhaps you’ve heard of Ray Eames and Denise Scott Brown, but how about Natalie Griffin de Blois, Mary Jane Colter, or Isabel Roberts? All are architects born before 1940 and pioneering women in their field—De Blois was a senior designer at SOM; Colter’s structures grace the Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona; and Roberts was one of two women at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Oak Park, Illinois studio. But unfortunately, none are household names taught in architecture school.

Architect and designer Ray Eames.

Photo: Courtesy of the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation

Today, the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation has launched a website, designed by Los Angeles–based Yay Brigade, that it hopes will disrupt the overlooked history of women in architecture like the aforementioned. “Pioneering Women of American Architecture” will profile 50 accomplished architects and designers (the launch includes a first tranche of 24), detailing their lives, education, and accolades as well as the projects they built—often without the proper credit. When documenting a previously unwritten part of history, the field opens to new diversity in points of view about buildings, cities, and society. “What we’re working for is a culture of change—a mental state that will allow equality in the achievement of women,” says the foundation’s executive director, Cynthia Phifer Kracauer. A hopeful, she admits, but achievable goal. “I think you can be very serious about your scholarship and be entertaining and have a design impact.”

The Pepsi-Cola Corporation World Headquarters in New York was designed in 1960 by Natalie de Blois, a senior designer at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill.

Photo: Ezra Stoller

The foundation and its new informational site, edited by co-directors Mary McLeod and Victoria Rosner, is inspired by architect Beverly Willis. She began working in the 1950s and, at the time, thought herself to be the only woman interested in the career path due to a lack of documentation of others of her sex in the field. So why has time forgotten these women? “Because men write the history books,” says Kracauer. “But there’s a great rebalancing taking place now.”

Alice Constance Austin showing a model of a house to Llano del Rio colonist in May 1917.

Photo: Courtesy of Western Americana, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library