Where are all the female architects? wrote Allison Arieff for an opinion piece in the New York Times; and I instantly thought back to one of my main philosophical sources, the movie series Pitch Perfect and the classic response “We’ve literally been here the whole time!”
Perhaps the question should be why is architecture so incredible frustrating? I don’t know why my graduating class at Columbia was 50% women and yet only 17% of us went on to get our license and why even fewer now actually practice architecture. I don’t know why after 20 years of paying off my student loans, I wondered, can I finally try something new?
But women architects are out there and we design buildings, and residential remodels, and plan cities. We are project managers, developers, designers, architects, business managers, and drafters. We work in small firms and large companies; we run our own small business and sometimes work from home. On the side, we build our own websites, act as marriage counselors to our clients and take our kids to job sites.
It’s exhausting, occasionally rewarding and incredibly complex. We are smart and versatile and willing to take risks. We’re not afraid of someone saying our work sucks and we also know that if there is a problem, most likely it’s because a client changed his mind late in the game.
So, staying in the theory that architecture is the last renaissance profession, I have decided to write this blog as an added element in my day and help promote the understanding of women in Architecture.
NLN