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.

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.”

"It is improving," agreed Jane Duncan, director at Jane Duncan Architects and past president of the RIBA. "There are more and more savvy young women architects coming into the workforce. Once some break through the glass ceiling they become role models for others on their way up. It's inevitable."

Royal College of Art tutor Harriet Harriss has created a list of over 300 notable architectural texts written by women, to show universities that there are no excuses for giving students male-dominated reading lists.