When I worked in architectural practice at the start of my career there were no awards for female architects and I’m not sure I even gave it much thought. But in 2011, I was involved in the founding of the Architects’ Journal’s Women in Architecture campaign and its subsequent awards programme, and this has led me to frequently question whether awards based on gender are a good thing. In recent years numerous awards have launched in an attempt to flip the architectural profession’s imbalance. Yet we have seen little change in the number of women in the profession – it still languishes at around 25%. Have these gender-biased awards made things worse? Are they helping or hindering the development of female architects? And do awards promote role models or merely perpetuate the worries of women struggling to break the glass ceiling?
One of the first major prizes solely awarded to female architects was the Architects’ Journal’s Women in Architecture Awards. These emerged off the back of a survey carried out by the weekly magazine, which found that female architects were suffering from a lack of role models.
‘The ambition was to inspire change by celebrating great women architects and in doing so, to create role models for young women in practice’, says award founder Christine Murray.
The awards have strived to highlight the great work female architects are doing and to create role models for other women in the profession. If you look at it this way – and try to disconnect it from the gender issue – there is nothing wrong with that as a brief. Everyone needs role models, right?
They have also uncovered new names and emerging talent. Take Olga Felip, for example. She was largely unknown in the UK before winning the 2013 AJ Emerging Woman Architect of the Year Award and now she is working alongside O’Donnell + Tuomey on the high-profile Olympicopolis project at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. But for me, the Architects’ Journal’s Women in Architecture Luncheon – where these awards are handed out – has always felt different to other awards ceremonies. Women come together to meet, to chat and compare stories, and to hear from inspirational architects including Denise Scott Brown, Phyllis Lambert, Zaha Hadid, Farshid Moussavi and Sheila O’Donnell. The awards just happen to be a part of it. The competitive nature so often present within the architecture industry disappears.
The AJ Women in Architecture Luncheon
What does it Really Mean to Win a Gender-Specific Architecture Award? Winners Give their Thoughts
Michál Cohen: ‘Winning was Useful for me and our Office’
Winning one of these awards was certainly useful for me and for our office. With regard to awards in general, it matters a lot who is giving the award. AJ is a publication that is widely respected among architects. The entry requirements and judging criteria also matter: to have AJ agree that Cindy and I could enter jointly was a flexibility we appreciated. Some awards in this industry don’t seem to put any emphasis on the quality of an architect’s work, whereas we knew AJ was looking at that as well as the work we do outside of the practice and the way we run our business.
Teresa Borsuk: ‘It has Given me a Sense of Responsibility to Women in Architecture’
Winning the award is an acknowledgment and that’s a great honour. It’s been a great encouragement and it’s evidently raised my profile. I have always been a little ambivalent about the thought of being considered as a ‘role model’ – whether I am a typical role model or not, I have been the holder of an award and that has certainly heightened my responsibility to women in architecture and actually to architecture in itself. It has made me think more responsibly about my role and position as well as made other people think more about me. Being in this position has made me more passionate and ambitious to make a difference to the role of women in architectural practice. I was reluctant to be entered for the award, as I felt that the singling out of women (architects) just perpetuated the issue – that as in every intellectual endeavour, gender should not be an issue or category in any recognition. Having said that, I have always been fully supportive of the AJ’s campaign – recognising that the poor statistics of women in architectural practice does demand action. The award’s future is interesting – will the measure of its success mean that there ultimately won’t be the continued need for it?
Tatiana Von Preussen: ‘Winning Made Clients Happy they Had “Backed the Right Horse”’
The Emerging Woman Architect Award that we received was brilliant for our profile and made a huge difference on several fronts. Most immediately it made our existing clients and recent clients very happy that they had ‘backed the right horse’ and strengthened our relations with them, leading to repeat work. In the mid-term it raised our PR profile so that publications took more interest in us and other architects took more notice of us. In the long term I think that this really helped us to gain new larger projects.
Although these reflections highlight the effect the awards had on those who won and those who attended the celebratory luncheon, it remains unclear as to whether they really need to be gender specific or whether they create a deeper rift within the profession. Although the number of female architects in the UK has changed little since the AJ’s Women in Architecture Awards were launched, other countries have followed suit and launched similar awards. There are now prizes for female architects in the US, Australia, and even Iraq. However, the profession seems to still suffer from the same problems – a lack of female role models, a glass ceiling, and female architects leaving the profession before or shortly after qualifying. So does having an award for women architects really do anything to improve things? Or is it still failing to tackle the underlying issues facing the profession?
Tatiana von Preussen of vPPR Architects receiving the Emerging Woman Architect of the Year Award
The Pritzker Architecture Prize became symbolic of the debate around gender and awards. In 1991 Robert Venturi was awarded the prize – which is largely regarded as architecture’s biggest accolade – for work he had jointly completed with his partner, Denise Scott Brown. 22 years later, after Scott Brown spoke out about the award, saying, ‘They owe me not a prize but a Pritzker inclusion ceremony’, a petition was launched calling for the 81-year-old architect to be jointly recognised alongside Venturi. Despite amassing more than 18,000 signatories, the petition failed. This news came as a huge blow for those fighting to tackle gender equality in the industry. However, the decision did mark a step-change for awards – both the Pritzker Prize and the American Institute of Architects’ (AIA) Gold Medal changed their criteria to allow joint recognition. Just two of the 41 Pritzker winners have been female. But it is not just the Pritzker that suffers from a shocking lack of female winners. Both the AIA Gold Medal and the RIBA Royal Gold Medal have had just one female architect win the award in her own right, while Japan’s Praemium Imperiale has only had two – Gae Aulenti and Zaha Hadid.
Zaha Hadid is the most successful female architect the profession has seen. It could be argued that she outweighs her male counterparts in terms of recognition outside the industry. But it took until 2016 for her to be recognised with the RIBA Royal Gold Medal, when she also became the first woman to receive it in her own right. If three of the profession’s most highly regarded awards – the Pritzker, the AIA Gold Medal, and the RIBA Royal Gold Medal – have rarely been awarded to female architects then maybe we do need awards that solely recognise women’s talent. But sometimes awards can have the wrong effect. Awards conceived to generate role models might only glorify the work of already prominent individuals. The profession worships the ‘starchitect’ and this traditional form of award can just perpetuate this ongoing problem. Farshid Moussavi argued in her speech at the first AJ Women in Architecture Luncheon in 2012 that there should be no female role models. ‘Without them women had more freedom to be creative and undo stereotypes’, she said. She makes a good point. Perhaps as female architects we need to forge our own path and not follow that which has been previously set by the male architect.
Where are the women in the profession’s key awards?
Awards, like the medals of the AIA and RIBA, and existing women in architecture prizes, also perpetuate the myth that award-winning buildings worthy of recognition are created by a lone genius. The creation of architecture is a collaborative and cooperative affair and is rarely – if ever – done by a sole individual. This is the kind of thinking that has damaged the profession and the reputation of the architect. I may even struggle with this kind of singular recognition more than I do recognising a particular gender. As in any endeavour, gender should not be an issue. Perhaps awards for women architects won’t be needed when there are as many female architects as there are male. But it’s also a question of recognition – not just of women architects, but the status of the award, too.