architecture

Women Architects We Love

In a field long dominated by men, these fearless females pushed boundaries and made a name for themselves

February 24, 2017

The architecture world has long had a problem with gender inequality. Numerous studies (and firsthand accounts) have shown blatant sexism in the field, and scholars have, when regarding the architectural canon, long posed the question, "Where are all the women?" When Amale Andraos was named dean of the venerable School of Architecture and Urban Planning at Columbia University in 2014, much was made of her status as the first female to lead the institution. Despite the numerous hurdles, though, many women are making an undeniable mark on the field of architecture, leaving their fingerprints on cities worldwide in a manner that will hopefully encourage others to follow suit. Read on to learn more about some of the most talented women in the field.

Photo: Courtesy of Jeanne Gang
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Jeanne Gang
An Illinois native and recipient of the prestigious MacArthur "Genius grant," Gang leads Studio Gang in Chicago, where she first made a splash with the now-iconic Aqua Tower and went on to design multiple buildings for the University of Chicago. She's also authored two books, taught at Harvard and the Illinois Institute of Technology, and served as a judge for the competition to design the forthcoming Guggenheim Helsinki.
Photo: Steve Hall © Hedrich Blessing
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Jeanne Gang
Though perhaps its most recognizable design, Studio Gang's Aqua Tower is only one example in the firm's innovative portfolio, which also includes buildings at the University of Chicago and Kalamazoo College, a boardwalk at the Lincoln Park Zoo, and the forthcoming Vista Tower in downtown Chicago.

Photo: Michael Weschler
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Annabelle Selldorf
With a penchant for creating minimalist spaces that still exude warmth, the German-born architect has earned high praise for her public and private works. Active in the American architecture community, she is a fellow of the American Institute of Architects, an academician of the prestigious National Academy Museum and School, and a board member of the Architectural League of New York.
Photo: Todd Eberle
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Annabelle Selldorf
The LEED-certified building Selldorf created for Manhattan gallerist David Zwirner is a prime example of her trademark innovative minimalism. “Architecture is art,” Selldorf said in a 2016 book of her work. “As a matter of fact, it is the mother of all arts.”

Photo: Courtesy of Deborah Berke & Partners
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Deborah Berke
When she succeeded Robert A.M. Stern as the dean of the Yale School of Architecture in 2016, Berke became the first woman to hold the role. By that time, though, the architect and designer had already made her mark on the design world through her New York–based firm, Deborah Berke & Partners, which is responsible for such projects as Louisville's 21c Museum and Hotel, New York's Battery Park City community plan, and Yale's School of Art.
Photo: Laura Resen
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Deborah Berke
In this LEED-certified Hamptons home she devised alongside fellow AD100 designer Thomas O'Brien, Berke endeavored to nestle the structure into its natural surroundings.

Photo: Matt Wargo/Courtesy of Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates, Inc.
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Denise Scott Brown
Long overshadowed by her husband, Robert Venturi (he infamously won the 1991 Pritzker Prize for the Sainsbury Wing of London's National Gallery, which they designed together), Scott Brown has recently become recognized as a master architect in her own right. In 1989 she took the architecture world to task for its sexism in a seminal essay titled "Room at the Top? Sexism and the Star System in Architecture." Since then, she's become a prominent voice for women in the field.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
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Denise Scott Brown
Scott Brown's contributions to the field of architecture would perhaps best be felt on a college tour of the U.S.: She and Venturi created buildings and plans for Brown University, Williams College, Bryn Mawr College, and the University of Michigan, among many more. They also redesigned the Seattle Art Museum, which opened in 1991, taught courses together at the University of Pennsylvania and UCLA, and authored several books.

Photo: Thos Robinson via Getty
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Elizabeth Diller
A founding partner of Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Diller, who graduated from the Cooper Union School of Architecture, is a professor of architecture at Princeton and a MacArthur Genius grant recipient along with her partners, husband Ricardo Scofidio as well as Charles Renfro and Benjamin Gilmartin. The New York–based firm is responsible for some of the city's buzziest buildings, which says a lot on an island full of super-skyscrapers and other boundary-pushing structures. Columbia University's newest medical building, Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall, and the upcoming MoMA expansion are all their creations. Outside New York, the firm built Los Angeles's Broad museum, Boston's Institute of Contemporary Art, and a creative arts center at Brown University.
Photo: Donna J. Pallotta
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Elizabeth Diller
At New York's famous Julliard School, Diller and her partners transformed Pietro Belluschi's original Brutalist building into an elegantly cantilevered structure with delicate glass façades and an incorporated public space.

Pier Marco Tacca
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Odile Decq
After helming her own firm for several years, the French architect joined forces with Benoît Cornette to form Odile Decq Benoît Cornette Architectes Urbanistes, but returned to operating on her own after Cornette's death in 1998. Decq taught at Paris's École Spéciale d’Architecture as well as the Bartlett School of Architecture at University College London before opening her own school, Confluence, in Lyon in 2015.
Photo: Luigi Filetici
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Odile Decq
Decq's most notable project is perhaps her expansion of Rome's Museum of Contemporary Art (MACRO), which was completed in 2001. The glass-and-steel structure tripled the museum's gallery space and includes the red-lacquer auditorium shown.

Photo: Courtesy of Zaha Hadid
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Zaha Hadid
Any list of great women architects would be remiss not to include Dame Zaha Hadid. Though the Iraqi-British architect died unexpectedly in 2016, her projects are still being carried out throughout the world under the direction of her firm's new principal Patrik Schumacher. A trailblazing architect with a signature style, Hadid was the first woman to win the Pritzker Prize and the first to be awarded the Royal Gold Medal by the Royal Institute of British Architects. She also claimed the U.K.'s prestigious Stirling Prize and was made a dame by Queen Elizabeth in 2015. A graduate of the Architectural Association School of Architecture, where she studied with Rem Koolhaas, Hadid held teaching positions at her alma mater as well as Harvard Graduate School of Design, Cambridge University, the University of Chicago, and Columbia University, to name a few.
Photo: Andrea Pistolesi/Getty Images
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Zaha Hadid
Hadid's work was instantly recognizable for its organic, curving shapes, which necessitated strict engineering. Shown is the Heydar Aliyev Centre in Baku, Azerbaijan. Hadid completed projects in Germany, Austria, Denmark, Spain, Italy, China, the U.S., and the U.A.E., to name a few.