Women in Architecture timeline.
The exhibit is on view until January 16, 2015 at the Architecture Center Houston, 315 Capitol, Suite 120. Click here for more details.
Six-inch-square pixels — hand assembled, pushed, and pulled along a 118-foot-long three-dimensional timeline — have injected energy and life into the Architecture Center of Houston.
Women In Architecture: 1850 to the Future is an ambitious, engaging, and articulate display signifying the resurrected voices of pioneers including Charlotte Perriand, Ada Louise Huxtable, Anne Tyng, Ray Eames, and Aino Aalto, coupled with current international and local leaders in the field including Denise Scott Brown, Zaha Hadid, Kazuyo Sejima, Jeanne Gang, Val Glitsch, Elizabeth Chu Richter, Nonya Grenader, Donna Kacmar, Lisa Lamkin, and Janis Brackett.
Glitsch, Richter, Lamkin, and Brackett were also panelists in a women in leadership talk moderated by Lauren Roberts, a recent graduate of UH and core member of the committee. The presidents of the local, state, and national AIA chapters shared stories of their professional paths, visions for the future of the practice, thoughts about how issues have changed and progressed, and answers to thought-provoking questions from the audience of past, present, and future practitioners.
"We can collectively do something more than we can as an individual. More of us need to step up and take a chance," said Richter, the 2015 AIA national president-elect.
Women in Architecture fabrication.
The site-specific interactive exhibition and rigorous assemblage of facts, photos, drawings, models, and collective experiences of women practicing architecture travels back in time to depict the tour de force of contributions by trailblazing women and recognizes their leaps and struggles.
The pixels highlight various topics and firsts in the history of women in the field — from being admitted into architecture schools, sitting for exams, and experiencing rejection from male-dominated studios to collaborating and forming famous partnerships to dispel the fallacy that great architecture has been made singularly by men.
“I hope this exhibit shows the long history of women in architecture and gives my current students an understanding of past struggles,” said Kacmar, one of the core organizers of the exhibit.
Kacmar, an architect and associate professor at the Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture, led the efforts that began as an idea in 2011 and recruited Sharon Chapman, then one of Kacmar’s thesis students at UH, whose research centered around women in architecture.
Chapman, who is the curator and head of the design/fabrication committee for the exhibit and an adjunct faculty member at UH, has great ambitions for the exhibit beyond enlightening the public about the contributions of women to the field.
Women in Architecture committee.
A handful of those goals include finding human and capital resources to print an exhibit catalogue, finding a way for the exhibit to travel to other cities, establishing a lecture series and scholarship fund, encouraging more conversations in the community, and facilitating more mentorships in the profession.
“The whole point of this exhibit was to educate and enlighten,” said Chapman. “Most of (the younger committee) did not have a great deal of knowledge on women's accomplishments in getting their education as well as becoming licensed architects. It was very informative for them.”
Contributed pixels from countless professionals, intern members, and students from the Houston area add layers of depth and foretell the unfolding stories of what will be in the next generation of torchbearers.
Kiza Forgie, an associate AIA member, was involved early on when Chapman tapped her in the atrium of the UH College of Architecture. She was a leading part of the team that transformed the research into the design and construction of the wall.
Exhibition installation.
The wall “truly is meant to be a malleable exhibit that grows with time and experiences,” Forgie said.
The committee is actively seeking more pixels to add to the exhibit. With major sponsorship from Page and several of the big firms in the city, the curatorial committee was led by Sharon Chapman, Nonya Grenader, Wendy Heger, and Donna Kacmar, with many more who collaborated by working on the exhibit after work, on weekends, and into the night.
Upcoming Event
Diane Hoskins, FAIA
A Conversation with the Co-CEO of Gensler
Monday, December 1
5:30-7:30 pm
