women in architecture Archives - Page 5 of 5

Women in Architecture: Norma Merrick Sklarek

Posted on March 11, 2021May 6, 2024 by Nancy

From well-known figures like Charlotte Perriand to lesser-known names like Eileen Gray, countless women have left their mark on the history of architecture. As part of our Women in Architecture series, today we’re taking a look at another pioneering figure: Norma Merrick Sklarek, a woman who paved the way for generations of African American woman architects to follow.

Norma Merrick Sklarek

Norma Merrick Sklarek was born on April 15, 1926, in Harlem, New York. Her parents were both immigrants from Trinidad; her father was a doctor and her mother was a seamstress. Sklarek grew up going to predominantly white schools, where she excelled in math, science and fine arts, encouraged by her father. In fact, he was the one who initially suggested she pursue a career in architecture.

Sklarek pursued education at Barnard College for a prerequisite year before enrolling at the School of Architecture at Columbia University. Her experience was challenging, but nevertheless she persisted and went on to graduate in 1950 as one of two women and the only African American in her class.

Pacific Design Center, Los Angeles. Credit: Kent Kanouse, Flickr Creative Commons CC BY-NC 2.0 Deed

Career and Work

After graduation, Sklarek faced both gender and racial discrimination in her job hunt and was rejected by nineteen firms. She told a newspaper in 2004, “They weren’t hiring women or African Americans, and I didn’t know which it was [working against me].” She took on a civil service job as a draftsperson for the city of NY, but refused to settle. While working for the city, she took the architectural licensing examination in 1954 and became the first licensed African American woman architect in the state of New York. (Later, this accomplishment would earn her the nickname “the Rose Parks of Architecture.)

As a single mother, Sklarek’s own mom watched her kids while she worked at a variety of architectural firms. The first cordoned her to menial tasks, such as designing bathrooms, while the second gave her more responsibility. At her third firm job, Sklarek noticed her supervisor was particularly scrutinous of her. She carpooled with a white male colleague who was consistently late to work; her boss critiqued Sklarek’s own punctuality but never made mention of the man’s. In response, Sklarek bought her own car.

In 1959, she became the first African American woman member of the American Institute of Architects and in 1960, the first Black woman licensed as an architect in California. Sklarek rose in rank at her third architectural firm job, overseeing other staff and production processes. Like many women in the field, she remained cordoned to project manager positions, rather than becoming a project architect, despite her aptitude and keen sensibilities.

She worked on prestigious projects such as the California Mart, Fox Plaza, Pacific Design Center, San Bernardino City Hall, and the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo. She also continued to accumulate accolades throughout her career, including becoming the first African American woman elected to the College of Fellows of the American Institute of Architects in 1980. Five years later in 1985, Sklarek co-founded Siegel Sklarek Diamond, the largest woman-owned architectural field in the country and became the first African American woman to co-own an architectural practice. Throughout her lifetime, she served on numerous boards, became an esteemed educator and prioritized mentoring other aspiring architects. She was proud to be a role model for others, acting as a figure that she herself had not had access to on her own journey.

Norma Merrick Sklarek was a pioneer of her own time, and remains today a figure of inspiration for anyone who faces discrimination and prejudice in their field. She proved that you are not what others believe you to be, and fought for others to be able to step into their full potential and leave their own marks on the architectural world.

Female Weavers and the Bauhaus

Posted on March 1, 2021 by Nancy

The Bauhaus is a renowned institution in the history of Modernist architecture — and art in general. But what may come as a surprise to many: the most commercially successful department of the school was actually the Bauhaus weaving workshop. And even more notable, this workshop was run by a slew of highly innovative, influential female designers.

Anni Albers, Originally produced by the Bauhaus Workshop. Black-White-Red, 1926–27 (produced 1965). © The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Defying Expectations

When the Bauhaus opened in 1919, the progressive school was heralded as an equitable place. In fact, its founder Walter Gropius even wrote in the Bauhaus bylaws: “Every eligible person whose talent and training are considered adequate will be accepted without regard to age and sex.” Gropius’s philosophy was stronger in theory than in action. He later became known for believing men thought in three dimensions, while women only thought in two.

Because of this gender bias, when women applied to the school, they were directed away from heavy craft areas, such as carpentry and metalwork, to a workshop considered more appropriate for women. This was the weaving workshop, which Gropius even referred to as “the women’s section” of the school.

Like many other women in architecture, the female weavers at the Bauhaus wouldn’t be put down by others’ limited perspectives. Designers such as Anni Albers, Gunta Stölzl and Otti Berger took the two-dimensional textile craft and breathed new life into it. In addition to creating patterns that were both commercially marketable and had deep influence on the fine arts world of the time, these female weavers also played with form and function. They took weaving beyond the two dimensional — inadvertently, defying Gropius’s backwards beliefs.

Claire Zeisler, Free Standing Yellow, 1968, shown at Weaving Beyond the Bauhaus. Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago.

A Collaborative Cohort

While the other workshops of the Bauhaus dealt in the highly theoretical and abstract, and often struggled to succeed commercially, the success of the weaving workshop stood in stark contrast. Besides its practical success, the workshop was also notable in the way that its female members taught to and learned from one another in a deeply collaborative process. Because Bauhaus members like Albers went on to teach their learnings globally, the impact of this collaboration is still seen in the weaving world today on figures like Sheila Hicks, Claire Zeisler and others.

Most recently, the Art Institute of Chicago hosted an exhibit titled Weaving Beyond the Bauhaus, which ran from 2019-2020. The exhibit explored the influence of the Bauhaus weaving workshop across the Atlantic and across the decades. In lieu of traditional placards for each work, viewers navigated the exhibit by reading quote cards from various women in the field, all of whom were in conversation with one another, and with one another’s work.

The women weavers from the Bauhaus exemplify an ongoing trend in the world of architecture and design: despite the odds or expectations, female designers are always ready and willing to rise to the challenge.

Women in Architecture: Eileen Gray

Posted on February 1, 2021April 26, 2024 by Nancy

While women’s contributions to architecture are celebrated more than ever in modern times, these contributions have always been part of the architectural world — historically, they were just overlooked. As part of our women in architecture series, today we’re spotlighting another strong female figure in Modernism: Eileen Gray.

Eileen Gray was born into a wealthy aristocratic family in Ireland in 1878. Her father, a landscape painter, encouraged Gray’s artistic pursuits so that in 1900, Gray left for Slade School in London to study fine arts in a bohemian, co-ed program that was quite unusual for the time.

From connections made at Slade, Gray learned to lacquer furniture, eventually opening a studio in 1910 with Japanese craftsman Seizo Sugawara. In fact, Gray was so committed to the trade that she suffered from the so-called lacquer disease — a painful hand rash. Her hard work paid off, however, as she and Sugawara produced commissions for Paris’s wealthy elite.

Bibendum Chair, designed by Eileen Gray. Photo courtesy of EileenGrayDesigns.com

Gray’s time lacquering was cut short by World War I. However, after a brief stint driving ambulances during that period, she dove back into the world of interior design. Her most notable project included the Rue de Lota apartment and showcased some of Gray’s most iconic furniture designs, such as the Bibendum Chair (which parodied the shape of the Michelin Man) and the Pirogue Day Bed. Gray’s success led her to open her own shop in 1922, attracting high-caliber clients like Ezra Pound. During that time, she honed her style to become more streamlined and industrial, taking after Modernist inspirations like Le Corbusier.

E-1027, designed by Eileen Gray in France in 1929. Photo courtesy of e1027.org

With the support of her romantic partner, architect Jean Badovici, Gray pursued architecture. And despite not having a formal education in the trade, through apprenticeship and field learning, Gray flourished. Gray’s most notable architectural project was E-1027, a cuboid structure. When Gray finished E-1027, Badovici announced the home in his magazine and claimed himself joint architect. Of the nine architectural projects she completed in her lifetime, Badovici took credit for four of them.The home attracted Le Corbusier, who stayed often and later disrespected Gray’s wishes that the home remain without decor when Corbusier painted Cubist murals of naked women on its walls. Critic Rowan Moore commented on the move by Corbusier in 2013, calling it an “act of naked phallocracy” by a man asserting “his dominion, like a urinating dog, over the territory.”

In spite of the disrespect she faced from her male counterparts, Gray stands evermore steadfast as an influential figure in Modernist history.

Stay tuned for more features on women in architecture.

Women in Architecture Part I

Posted on January 13, 2021January 15, 2021 by Nancy

While conversations about the architectural greats center around figures such as Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Frank Lloyd Wright, there are countless powerful women whose names are left out. At Optima, we’ve celebrated the contributions of everyone from Charlotte Perriand to Ray Eames — and today, we’re spotlighting a few more women in architecture you should know.

Sophia Hayden

Sophia Hayden was born in Santiago, Chile in 1868 and moved to Boston at age six. Hayden discovered her interest in architecture during high school and went on to be the first female graduate of the four-year program in architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She graduated in 1890 with honors. After college, Hayden initially struggled to find work in the male-dominated world of architecture and settled for a position as a mechanical drawing instructor at a local high school.

Only a year later, at just 21, Hayden jumped at the opportunity to enter her design in a competition for the Women’s Building at Daniel Burnham’s 1893 World Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Her design won the competition and Hayden was awarded $1,000, a tenth of what male architects earned for similar buildings.

Women’s building, 1893 World Columbian Exposition in Chicago.

During construction, Hayden was micromanaged incessantly and had to make many compromises on her design. The stress of the situation led Hayden to a breakdown and she was placed in a sanitarium for an “extended period of rest.” After the incident, Hayden retired from architecture permanently. Her treatment and diagnosis of hysteria have much to tell us about the challenges women in architecture faced during this time.

Marion Mahony Griffin

Marion Mahony Griffin was born in 1871 in Chicago, and at nine her family migrated to the suburb of Winnetka after the Great Chicago Fire. Watching a landscape consumed by growing suburban sprawl developed Mahony’s interest in architecture. She went on to graduate from MIT in 1894, becoming the second woman to do so after Hayden.

Artist's Studio (Section). Watercolour and ink by Marion Griffin 1894. — Artist’s Studio (Section). Watercolour and ink by Marion Griffin 1894.

After college, Mahony moved back to Chicago and became the first woman licensed to practice architecture in Illinois. She found work at her cousin’s architecture firm downtown alongside Frank Lloyd Wright. There, she created beautiful watercolor renderings of buildings and landscapes — a signature style which would later be attributed to Frank Lloyd Wright. Mahony worked alongside Wright for fifteen years, contributing greatly to his reputation and success to little recognition. She was also an original member of the Prairie School of architecture.

Fair Lane, Henry Ford’s Dearborn mansion, 1913-1915

When Wright eloped to Europe, he offered Mahony his studio’s remaining commissions, but she declined. Mahony is even rumored to have said Wright’s habit of taking credit for things, including the Prairie School movement, are what led to the movement’s early death. Later in life, Mahony collaborated with ex-Wright employee, Prairie School member and her husband, Walter Burley Griffin. Throughout her career, Mahony brought to fruition many notable projects, including Henry Ford’s Dearborn mansion and the Gerald Mahony Residence in Elkhart, Indiana.

Stay tuned for more features on women in architecture.

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