Women Writing Architecture

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Seen From The South : ETH Zürich gta 2023

Dividing Space and Labour : Spatial Dynamics of Multinational Corporations

Bunna without Borders : Coffee / Making as a Relational Space

Theory from the South

Featured

Adhrita Roy on Seen From The South

The course “Seen from the South” curated by Cathelijne Nuijsink (chair of Professor Avermaete, ETH Zürich) aimed at investigating the relationship of the western world to its Global South counterparts. As Jean Comaroff says – the Global South – the ‘non-West’ has always been seen as the area of raw, unprocessed data so what if […]

27 June, 2023
Adhrita Roy

L’architettrice

Featured

Eliana Perotti on L’architettrice

In the historical novel by the Roman writer Melania Mazzucco, the long life and work of the painter and architect Plautilla Bricci (1616-1705) are part of a precise but entertaining narration, which develops against the background of Baroque Rome. As a protagonist of the culture of her time, Plautilla appears alongside figures such as Gian […]

8 April, 2021
Eliana Perotti

Reframing Value. Japanese Women Architects in the 20th Century

Nele Rickmann on Reframing Value. Japanese Women Architects

What has value as architecture? The answer varies from one historical moment to another, and is deeply linked to the cultural and geographic circumstances. But this fundamental question is also linked to the identity of the creator. A journey through the histories of Japanese women architects involves unravelling the meaning of these intersecting words. This […]

28 July, 2025
Nele Rickmann

A Dwelling Manifesto for Rebuilding Japan

Nele Rickmann on A Dwelling Manifesto for Rebuilding Japan

Miho Hamaguchi (1915–1988) was a pioneer in the modernization of Japanese residential architecture. Despite being the first woman in Japan to be licensed as an architect, developing a theory of the emancipated dwelling, writing, consulting, teaching, and designing over a thousand projects, her life and work have been little explored by canonical historiography. Hamaguchi’s goal […]

28 July, 2025
Nele Rickmann

An Interrupted Life: The Diaries of Etty Hillesum, 1941-1943

Clara Maria Puglisi on An Interrupted Life

Etty Hillesum (1914–1943) was a Dutch Jewish writer whose diaries, written during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, offer an intimate and profound reflection on life, memory, and personal resilience. She was a woman of extraordinary intellectual independence, defying traditional gender roles with her deeply introspective and philosophical approach to existence. Unlike many of her […]

7 July, 2025
Clara Maria Puglisi

A Casa da doutora Farnsworth

A Casa do senhor Malaparte

Habitabilidade do espaço doméstico : o cliente, o arquitecto, o habitante e a casa

Joana Ribeiro on Casas com nome

Together with illustrator Mariana Rio, Portuguese architect Joana Couceiro co-created the children’s book collection Casas com nome (houses with names), published by Circo de Ideias. These books are based on Ana Luísa Rodrigues’s doctoral thesis, Habitabilidade do espaço domoméstico : o cliente, o arquitecto, o habitante e a casa (The habitability of domestic space: the […]

15 June, 2025
Joana Ribeiro
Architectural Criticism 1: Architecture X Nature A Book I Love ETH Zurich Studio Caruso Semester Readings (2011-2021)

The Mushroom at the End of the World

Cristina Fusco on The Mushroom at the End of the World

Anna Tsing unravels stories of hidden ecologies emerging around the matsutake mushroom on different continents, unveiling the mushroom as an emotional anchor, a commodity, and a sign of resurgence in disturbance-based ecosystems. These disobedient ecologies, arising from deteriorated grounds, fascinate me as an alternative way of thinking about the relationship between non-human beings, architecture and […]

20 May, 2025
Cristina Fusco

Little Spaces : Kumiko Inui +

Meg Marumoto on Little Spaces : Kumiko Inui +

Little spaces or Little places? Or Little sceneries. Kumiko Inui (1969-), a Japanese female architect, describes a situation she encountered during her visit to a nursery who was the client for her first project. The office of the nursery was overwhelmed with documents and other objects and in this midst of things, she found a […]

4 May, 2025
Meg Marumoto
The Weather NEW ORDER (2023) Displacement (2024) Water

Cold Enough for Snow

Oliver Canins, Kim Gubbini, Victoria Jabbour on Cold Enough for Snow

As students in the NEW ORDER studio at the Academy of Architecture, Mendrisio, led by Clancy Moore, Oliver Canins, Kim Gubbini and Victoria Jabbour used the novel Cold Enough for Snow as a starting point and guide for the developments of their design projects. This is a selection of the memory drawings and and fragment […]

22 April, 2025
Oliver Canins, Kim Gubbini, Victoria Jabbour

“Give Me a Gun and I Will Make All Buildings Move”: An ANT’s View of Architecture

Lulu Crouzet on Give me a Gun

Context The essay discusses representation and architectural theory through the lens of Actor-Network Theory (ANT), a framework developed by Bruno Latour, and others. ANT emphasizes that meaning and definition come from relationships and that those are forever shifting. Therefore, the dynamic and interconnected nature of social and material worlds challenges the sometimes static or isolated […]

15 April, 2025
Lulu Crouzet
On motherhood

The Dignity of Resistance: Women Residents’ Activism in Chicago Public Housing

Rebecca Siefert on The Dignity of Resistance

I have not always been an architectural historian; in fact, I kind of stumbled into the world of architectural history after a chance discovery of the work of Lauretta Vinciarelli during my Ph.D. Over the course of my graduate studies, my relationship to architecture evolved from a purely formalist one, coming from a studio arts […]

2 April, 2025
Rebecca Siefert

L’immagine storiografica dell’architettura contemporanea, da Platz a Giedion

Silvia Groaz on L’immagine storiografica dell’architettura contemporanea

As for a book that has acted as a companion text for me, one to which I keep returning, it is an Italian one: Maria Luisa Scalvini, L’immagine storiografica dell’architettura contemporanea, da Platz a Giedion, Officina Edizioni, Rome, 1984. It was the first book that made me truly understand what a historiographic construction is, revealing the subjectivity […]

31 March, 2025
Silvia Groaz

Trockenmauern : Grundlagen, Bauanleitung, Bedeutung

Dry Stone Walls – Basics, Construction, Significance

Selmar Binder and Jaehee Shin on Dry Stone Walls

As the saying goes, people tend to gather with their own kind, and over the past few years I, Jaehee, have been introduced to this book Trockenmauern : Grundlagen, Bauleitung, Bedeutung by three very close people in my life. Ji Min An, Ramun Capaul and Selmar Binder. Although I have had this thick red book in […]

27 March, 2025
Selmar Binder, Jaehee Shin
Gender, Sexuality, and the Built Environment

Throwing like a girl and other essays in feminist philosophy and social theory

Lulu Crouzet on Throwing Like a Girl

Context “Throwing Like a Girl” was first presented in 1977, at a time when feminist theory was engaged with phenomenology and existentialism. Feminist theorists resisted the idea that men and women were the same and pushed for institutional and societal reform because of inherent patriarchal systems. The essay examines how norms shape the feminine movement […]

16 March, 2025
Lulu Crouzet
Metropolis Bookshop’s Sisters in Architecture

Dirty Theory : Troubling Architecture

Elisabeth Gellein on Dirty Theory : Troubling Architecture

A conversation with Hélène—of sorts Sugar and spice and all things nice. That’s what little girls are made of. No doubt, the theory of the girl needs some reclaiming, for girls can be dirty, and not very nice — and why should they be deprived of these dubious traits? You dirty slut. In May 2024, […]

5 March, 2025
Elisabeth Gellein, Spacegirls
Architectural Criticism 1: Architecture X Nature

Notions of Nature and a Model for Managed Urban Wilds

Jiyeon Moon on Notions of Nature and a Model for Managed Urban Wilds

Abandoned land, vacant lots emerge from human neglect, yet the urban wilds that form in these spaces challenge our perception of nature. For humans, nature has long been a target of conquest, a source of endless resources. After industrialization, it became a romanticized refuge—a pristine wilderness offering escape from artificial environments. In both cases, nature […]

4 March, 2025
Jiyeon Moon

Feuerlilie

Lucia Rocchelli on Feuerlilie

Two sisters, one officially mad, and a male refugee, escaped from hell and are still fighting the nightmare back. Their somewhat distorted perception of the built environment proves yet to be an acute one: doors are tricky thresholds to frightening memories, every tiny detail matters. This tale explores our intuitive relationship with architectural elements and […]

17 February, 2025
Lucia Rocchelli

The Dictionary of Lost Words

Naomi Caruso on The Dictionary of Lost Words

In this novel, Australian writer Pip Williams combines historical facts with fiction. The facts are based on the long and arduous process it took to compile and publish the venerable Oxford English Dictionary which took place from 1857-1928. The fiction describes the life of Esme, the book’s main character, who is the daughter of one […]

13 February, 2025
Naomi Caruso

Sinan Ottoman Architect: An Aesthetic Analysis / Mimar Sinan : Estetik Bir Analiz

Huriye Nur Aksoy on Sinan Ottoman Architect

Jale Nejdet Erzen’s Mimar Sinan: An Aesthetic Analysis transcends a simple exploration of Sinan’s life and works. Erzen contends that reducing his architecture to formal or technical terms alone would be an incomplete view. She argues that Sinan’s creations are deeply influenced by the societal, cultural, and technical contexts of his time, creating profound relationships […]

5 February, 2025
Huriye Nur Aksoy
Gentleness Metropolis Bookshop’s Sisters in Architecture

The Baudelaire Fractal

Occasional Work and Seven Walks from the Office for Soft Architecture

Elisabeth Gellein on Occasional Works and Seven Walks from the Office for Soft Architecture

We love shacks, because they pose impossible questions. How can we change what we need? How can we fearlessly acknowledge weakness as an animate and constructive content of collectivity? Lisa Robertson, Occasional Works:185 Lisa Robertson‘s Office for Soft Architecture (OSA) is a conceptual and poetic project that explores the intersections of architecture, urbanism, language, and […]

25 January, 2025
Spacegirls, Elisabeth Gellein
Architectural Criticism 1: Architecture X Nature

Can the Machine be an Actor ? : Drawing upon the Actor—Network Theory by Bruno Latour

Guktae Lim on Can the Machine be an Actor?

Since the rise of modernity, humans have largely disregarded the value of non-human entities such as nature, technology, and other non-human beings. Should this approach be rethought, and should the distinction between human and non-human subjects be abolished? In a seminar course on architectural criticism titled ‘Architecture × Nature’ at the Korea National University of […]

13 January, 2025
Guktae Lim
Gender, Architecture and the Construction of Modernity (2020)

De l’éclectisme au doute (From Eclecticism to Doubt)

Charly Jolliet on De l’éclectisme au doute

A WHITE SANCTUARY E-1027, a house born from a collaboration between Eileen Gray and Jean Badovici, was conceived and designed with emotions. It reflects their shared ideals and their individual perspectives while also embodying their relationship. Gray brought an acute understanding of how people live, creating spaces that respond to both practical needs and emotional […]

6 January, 2025
Charly Jolliet
The Weather A Book I Love Madame ETH

Vibrant Matter. A Political Ecology of Things

The Living Mountain

Yosuke Nakamoto on The Living Mountain

Both Jane Bennett’s Vibrant Matter and Immanuel Kant’s distinction between the phenomenal and noumenal worlds provide profound frameworks for understanding Nan Shepherd’s The Living Mountain. Bennett’s concept of vibrant matter challenges the traditional dichotomy between human and non-human realms, suggesting that all entities – animate and inanimate – possess vitality and agency. Kant’s division between […]

26 November, 2024
Yosuke Nakamoto
Architectural Theory & Gender Studies

The Ornamental Design of the Chosun Dynasty House 조선조시대주택의 장식적의장

Gayoun Jang on The Ornamental Design of the Chosun Dynasty House

  The Ornamental Design of the Chosun Dynasty House written by Chun Byung-Ok, shows a wide array of elements of the Hanok, the traditional Korean house, using photographs, drawings, and text. Covering everything from floor plans to individual pieces of furniture, the book reveals diverse aspects of traditional Korean architecture that are often overshadowed by […]

26 November, 2024
Gayoun Jang
Livraria Megafauna – A bookshop selection

Casa Butantã – Paulo Mendes da Rocha

Lina Bo Bardi: Habitat

Isabela Ferrari Rey Carneiro on Megafauna Bookshop

As I approached one of the most fascinating residential complexes I’ve had the chance to visit in Brazil, a new storefront caught my eye. It’s been over a decade since I began viewing that part of the city through an architectural lens, and COPAN—the iconic housing project by Oscar Niemeyer in São Paulo—is no stranger […]

25 November, 2024
Isabela Ferrari Rey Carneiro

Gwanghanjeon Baegongnu Sangnyangmun 광한전백옥루상량문 廣寒殿白玉樓上梁文

Jaehee Shin on 광한전백옥루상량문 廣寒殿白玉樓上梁文

노을 위의 은빛 창문에서 구만리 희미한 세상을 내려다보고, 바닷가 문에서 삼천 년 상전벽해를 웃으며 보고 싶다. 손으로 하늘의 해와 별을 돌리고 몸소 구천의 바람과 이슬 속을 노닐고 싶다. From a silver window overlooking the sunset, I look ten thousand miles to the dim world below. On the seaside door, I want to contemplate the three-thousand-year-old […]

25 November, 2024
Jaehee Shin

Just Kids

Huriye Nur Aksoy on Just Kids

Just kids. More than a biography. A quest. A story of self-discovery. In Patti Smith‘s narrative, the spaces she inhabits transcend mere physical settings. They are the silent architects of her identity, shaping not only her artistry but also the very essence of her being. Each place in the story—be it the chaotic streets of […]

16 November, 2024
Huriye Nur Aksoy
Youlhwadang Book Museum

Potato Flowers 감자꽃

Soojung Yi on Potato Flowers

Fifty-five stories by a photographer Jeeyoun Kim began taking photographs in her early 50s, and then published a book of prose, rather than photographs, in her 70s. ‘I struggled through middle age. When I turned fifty, I finally found photography’, she wrote in her autobiography, Life in the Fog. In various solo exhibitions including ‘Rice […]

16 November, 2024
Soojung Yi
Disabling Environments Galpi Project 갈피 프로젝트 #6-#9 Parlour Reading Room 3: Collective access

Examined Life

What Can a Body Do? How We Meet the Built World

Jessie Buckle on What Can a Body Do? How We Meet the Built World

Sara Hendren provides a series of vivid stories drawn from the lived experience of disability and the ideologies and innovations that have emerged from it. ‘What Can a Body Do?’ is a phrase initially coined by philosopher and gender theorist Judith Butler in conversation with Sunaura Taylor in The Examined Life, a documentary which has […]

13 November, 2024
Jessie Buckle

The Wild Geese

Lucy Byatt on The Wild Geese

I’m particularly interested in this poem by Violet Jacob, who was a posh woman from a big house, the House of Dun in Montrose. She was encouraged in her writing by journalist, writer and editor Hugh MacDiarmid, who lived nearby. When her only son died in the First World War, it influenced her poetry. I […]

28 October, 2024
Lucy Byatt
Reading Room Architecture Foundation’s Bedtime Stories, 2020 Contemporary Women Architects: Theories, Practices, Positions (2020)

The Master’s Tools will Never Dismantle the Master’s House

Soo Jin Kim on The Master’s Tools will Never Dismantle the Master’s House

  I no longer recall exactly when I first encountered Audre Lorde’s essay “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House” (1983), but after reading it, the text stayed with me, becoming one of the sharpest tools in my life—particularly, during my studies in architecture within a European context. In this essay, Lorde emphasizes […]

23 October, 2024
Soo Jin Kim
The Weather Architectural Criticism 1: Architecture X Nature Fifty-Fifty: Acoustics in Public Spaces and 50 Years of Women’s Voting Rights in Switzerland 2021 Architekturtheorie (2020)

Architecture and Modernity: A Critique

The Silent Spring

Jihyeong Lee on The Silent Spring

Everything we release comes back to us in some form, like an endless stream of looped rivers. And it flows everywhere, whether it is clumped or unclumped. It is in this sense that there is no nature untouched by humans. The entire system changes when some artificial action occurs. At first, people believed that changes […]

21 October, 2024
Jihyeong Lee
Can Writing Be Activism? Cyberfeminism Index ETH Zurich Studio Caruso Spring Semester Readings 2022 Fifty-Fifty: Acoustics in Public Spaces and 50 Years of Women’s Voting Rights in Switzerland 2021 Architecture Foundation’s Bedtime Stories, 2020

La potencia feminista : O el deseo de cambiarlo todo

Eight Theses on Feminist Revolution

The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction

Helen Thomas, Alicia Yerebakan, Sol Pérez Martínez, Monica Ciobotar, Burak Kaya, Clara Gostynski and Jaehee Shin on Can Writing Be Activism?

  Helen Thomas : Group two, Session two! So we’re going to start off by reading out the statements by the first group to read this text going around in groups there are six statements and so somebody from each group is going to read one statement to each.   A. Disrupting dualism by acting […]

2 October, 2024
Helen Thomas, Alicia Ayla Yerebakan, Sol Pérez Martínez, Burak Kaya, Monica Ciobotar, Clara Richard Gostynski, Jaehee Shin
Memories of the Women of Graubünden

Die Frau des Direktors: Annelise Leu, die Schweizer Hotelpionierin

Carla Capaul on Annelise Leu, die Schweizer Hotelpionierin

In the summer of 2024, Carla Capaul, director of the Hotel Alpina Lumbrein in Val Lumnezia, Graubünden, and Jaehee Shin, editor at Women Writing Architecture, met in the gardens of zum Alten Löwen in Zurich to talk about Annelise Leu, Switzerland’s first female hotelier, and her granddaughter Nina Zumthor, who has written a book about […]

2 October, 2024
Carla Capaul, Jaehee Shin
Space as Matrix

The Power of Place

Emilie Appercé on The Power of Place

The Power of Place, published in 1997, is relevant to anyone involved in the process of spatial and cultural production, or to young architects in search of alternative practices. It is for those who acknowledge the real way architects work, as a collective enterprise, which is not often the way architects talk about their work. […]

7 September, 2024
Emilie Appercé
Seen, Heard, Built Madame ETH Reading Room Loudreaders ETH Zurich Studio Caruso Semester Readings (2011-2021) Fifty-Fifty: Acoustics in Public Spaces and 50 Years of Women’s Voting Rights in Switzerland 2021

On the Meaning of Gossip

Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation

Helen Thomas on Witches and Gossip

For Women Writing Architecture, Silvia Federici’s book, Caliban and the Witch, is a central and influential text. Not bound by academic methodology and written with ideological energy it is easy to read without being explicitly emotional. Federici challenges and questions the location of women in history as hidden and secondary through her examination of one […]

8 August, 2024
Helen Thomas
The Power of Mushrooms – Growing Library

Pionierinnen und Pioniere für Menschenrechte, Freiheit und Frieden

Helen Thomas on Pionierinnen und Pioniere

  Berta Rahm is an important inspiration for women writing architecture, especially through her publishing work, which she carried out under the title ALA Verlag (1966-1993). Pionierinnen und Pioniere is one of the books that she produced during that time. Edited and written with her colleague, Renate Möhrmann, the pioneers referred to in the longer […]

31 July, 2024
Helen Thomas
Bauhaus Women

Bauhaus-Frauen: Meisterinnen in Kunst, Handwerk und Design

Estelle Gagliardi on Bauhaus-Frauen: Meisterinnen in Kunst, Handwerk und Design

The text below contains my contribution to the printed book, ‘Lives of the Most Excellent Architects’, edited and curated by Thomas Weaver and Cecilia Da Pozzo (2024). This work stems from a course taught during the spring semester of 2024 in Mendrisio.  In this piece, I present an intimate conversation with Lilly Reich, which serves as […]

29 July, 2024
Estelle Gagliardi

Spinnerei

Helen Thomas on Spinnerei

Although written in German, this story uncovering a complex socio-economic situation can be understood with even a rudimentary – a childlike – grasp of the language. That is, I, a perpetual student of German, could follow it, supported by sequences of drawings that show in fascinating detail the human, the architectural, landscapes of Glarus and […]

29 July, 2024
Helen Thomas