This informal collection has been made by Kathleen James-Chakraborty and is based on her reading over one and a half years for an ERC project that she is leading called Expanding Agency: Women Race and the Global Dissemination of Global Architecture The research project explores four ways in which women and ethnic minorities had an […]
This collection was put together by the Women Writing Architecture editors, who analysed and gathered the titles of books written or edited by women that appeared within the Architecture and Landscape Design section of CMYK’s online shop. Out of 263 titles we found 89 female-authored publications, which constitute this collection. For more check out @CMYK_BOOKSTORE
Throughout history, women have relied on places outside the mainstream in order to find a place where they can accomplish intellectual work. Sometimes these are physical places, other times they are mental constructions or propositions. This collection brings together some example citations from the Women Writing Architecture bibliography that can be used as a starting […]
Disabling Architectural Environments is a collection extracted from a postgraduate thesis, ‘Disabling Architectural Environments: Absences in Architectural Conditions’, by Jessie Buckle. This is an auto-ethnographic exploration of the relationship between epilepsy, climate and the built environment.
This text was part of my PhD entitled Material Dramaturgy: Tracing Trails of Dust in the Architectural Design Process. It served as a preface before I delved into my research on the engagement with materials in the contemporary context of architecture. This collection you see now is somewhat different from the references I had in […]
CAC Seoul – Curating Architecture Collective Seoul – is currently running the Galpi Project 갈피 프로젝트 , starting in September 2023, which extracts architectural forms contained in books and buildings and builds its own reference tower. Based on the etymology of the word ‘Galpi 갈피’, which means “a gap between or between each overlapping […]
Seen, Heard, Built is an exhibition curated by the CABLE team in Shenzen, China, who contacted women writing architecture with an invitation to participate. This is how they explain their idea:
Spazio bookshop in Milan sells only books, around 300 at any one time, which have been researched, then read and then chosen for the list by Mariana Siracusa. This bespoke and intimate selection by the selector has been specially collected to represent Spazio on womenwritingarchitecture.org. To listen to Mariana discuss her favourite book, visit the […]
“The history of feminism is, in a sense, the history of autotheory.” Lauren Fournier, Autotheory as Feminist Practice in Art, Writing and Criticism, 2021. Thinking & Writing Place – Writing as Feminist Spatial Practice was a seminar curated by Lilian Robl at the Technische Universität München in spring 2023. The production of multilayered […]
This collection was created by Natália Peťková in preparation for the Women Writing Architecture 2-day workshop in Ennenda, Glarus, Switzerland called ‘Being A Stranger’. Six of the books in the collection are accompanied by an annotation that connects it to the theme. Some of these can also be seen in the women writing architecture (publishing) […]
This semester, for three weeks in a row, master and bachelor students of the Studio Caruso at the ETH Zurich meet for the reading circle. By group, they perform a text of the reader in one of the three sites studied. After which, the whole studio, including the teaching team, gathered to discuss what happened. […]
Has feminism impacted architecture? asks Professor Annmarie Adams of McGill University … let’s discuss This 13-week graduate-level lecture and seminar course (ARCH 684) at McGill University covering 37 texts (only four by men) begins with this challenge. “If Architect Barbie gets us talking, then more power to her,” is the opening statement, quoted from Despina […]
The sixth and final theme in the Parlour Reading Room series built on and wove together ideas from the previous five themes to explore existing and emerging methods for practicing intersectional feminism within built environment professions.The discussion re-visited Sarah Ahmed’s thoughts on creating a killjoy manifesto in her Living a Feminist Life and how to […]
The Urban Design Group, based in London, has a small library of around 200 publication titles on its website, each of which is accompanied by a review. 50 of these were written, edited or co-authored by women, and so the editors of women writing architecture have added these to the list.
This collection is created to celebrate the journey of Andrea Gollbach and Uschi Neubauer, managing directors of Lillemors bookshop in Munich, who retire in June 2023. The book lists that they have put together over the years for Lillemors since 1975 will be presented to the Munich authorities who will create an archive, thus preserving […]
Resident artist at Plas Brondanw in rural North Wales, Siw Thomas talks to Helen Thomas about the writer Amabel Williams-Ellis, the importance of self-education and writing in her life, and making space for her creative work within the traditional women’s role managing family and home. Siw speaks of Williams-Ellis’ relationship with her husband Clough Williams-Ellis, […]
Each episode of The Author Speaks (T-A-S) series is a short interview where we find out a little about the approach and inspirations of different female producers of text, focussing each time on one of their works. Our circle of guests extends globally to women that in some way or another, engage with an idea […]
Our understanding of how urban designers and architects can design cities is still largely shaped by Western urban conditions and perspectives. In particular, the European city, with its steady and controlled growth, has long served as the backdrop against which new urban design methods and tools have been developed. As scholars who advocate a decentring […]
These texts by women were instrumental within a studio teaching semester in the Chair of Adam Caruso at ETH Zurich. To find out more, see the annotations in the Glossator ‘Insights into Reframe, Rearrange, Repeat‘.
This list was selected by Mindy Seu from her book Cyberfeminism Index during her extensive tour across the world to mark its publication. The online version of Seu’s work was a treasured reference for the Women Writing Architecture team when we were conceptualising the brief and presence of our project, so we are happy to […]
How is ‘a book’ defined? Is it delimited by the processes of publishing: through binding and printing, or can the physical boundaries that contain content be loosened? The Book Society is a bookshop and publishing house founded by Helen Ku and Kyungyong Lim in 2010. With curator Jeongyeon Koo they seek to expand the book’s […]
The following collection consists of recent books by women that can be found at the After 8 Books in Paris. After 8 book is one of several constellations that have contributed to the selection of books that are on sale at Madame ETH. It can be found at the kiosk K67 in the […]
Understanding space as matrix is to underline space as a complex layering of ever-changing social relations. It is to disrupt the normalcy of some, whilst not necessarily stressing other or new conditions under which these social relations arise – rather altering the terms on which they are founded. Matrix Feminist Design Co-operative, Ursula Mayer, muf […]
During the course of the semester, students were required to carry out a process of active reading, which has been described in depth in the article ‘Reading-With: A Collaborative Method for Inclusive Architectural Histories (scroll down for abstract). This deep engagement with historical texts is being developed by Dr. Anne Hultzsch and Dr. Sol Pérez […]
It was a day of heavy rain during the summer of 2022. When I arrived, drenched, at the Youlhwadang Book Museum, chief editor Su-Jeong Yi and chief curator Hye-Gyoung Chung warmly welcomed me in. Youlhwadang is located in Paju Book City, a place about an hour away from Seoul by bus inhabited by a group […]
The Anglo Irish writer Elizabeth Bowen was born in Dublin in 1899. Her first seven winters were spent in the city that she describes as “a bold Italianate plan in tricky Celtic light”. The city left a profound mark on her sensibility, with its “climatic moodiness” where “all stood for stability”; it was a city […]
In the summer of 2022, Women Writing Architecture requested a list of publications from the Swiss Architecture Museum in Basel for the compilation of this collection. Out of a total of 80 publications in conjunction with the S AM exhibition, 32 publications are written by female authors. This is closely related to Ulrike Jehle-Schulte Strathaus, […]
During the summer of 2022, the chair of Jan de Vylder at ETH Zurich began a 3-year experiment at the Furka Pass in Switzerland (in:dépendance), 2429 m above sea level and only accessible 4 months a year. Responding to their invitation for proposals for short residences, Women Writing Architecture was represented by Helen Thomas, born […]
This collection has been compiled from a reading list by co-director Tine Milz at Theater Neumarkt, who contributed to Episode 2 : A book I love. Who created and wrote the world we live in? Feminism is pretty often intricately linked to Sexism, Racism, Gender, and Politics. The third Chapter brings us closer to the way […]
Each episode of A Book I Love (A-B-I-L) is a conversation around a book that is special to one of the speakers. It is a companion text, in the words of Sara Ahmed, that in some way or another intersects with an idea of architecture. Episode 1: The Living Mountain by Nan Shepherd, chosen by Helen […]
Loké excerpt The list is composed of selections made by participants in Loké and it’s predecessor, BI, which is discussed in the conversation between Erandi de Silva, editor of Loké, and Helen Thomas, editor at Women Writing Architecture: Helen Thomas: The origins of Loké lie in a project you started over ten years ago, called […]
What do buildings mean? This questioning of the subject has always been a less straightforward issue in architecture than in painting or sculpture. An iconography of painting can be relatively direct. A woman depicted with an iron studded wheel while clutching a martyr’s palm is St. Catherine, an image rendered with personal and historic moment […]
This collection is composed of a list of twelve favourite books sent to us by Flora Bonnemé, founder of Technè Bookshop.
The fifth Parlour Reading Room collection considers the climate crisis through an intersectional lens, imagining our “still possible shared futures” (Osborne, 2018, 148). The collection highlights the need to undo dominant concepts of nature, the politics of failure for the politically depressed, the impact of Climate Change on Indigenous communities and whether the equal representation […]
The fourth Parlour Reading Room collection considers the built environment through an intersectional feminist lens, questioning equity and the city, and exploring the connections between public space and power. The collection touches on trans feminism, queer design strategies and the argument for community-led projects and design justice. In February 2022, we hosted a conversation between […]
The third Parlour Reading Room collection considers the built environment through a feminist lens, reflecting on and questioning accessibility and the importance of noticing the “diverse perceptions and experiences of occupying built space” (Boys, 2018, p. 37). Through the collection, we ask how the social model of disability manifests in architectural practice and the built […]
The second theme of the Parlour Reading Room explores inclusivity and diversity within built environment professions. With Denise Scott Brown’s essay, “Room at the Top? Sexism and the Star System in Architecture”, Marie-Louise Richards’ essay in Field Journal: “Becoming a Feminist Architect” and other read-watch-listen materials, we ask how status affects inclusivity within the architectural […]
The Parlour Reading Room was launched in August 2020 by Anwyn Hocking and Sophie Adsett. It offers an invitation for the Parlour community to delve deeper into themes related to intersectional feminist theory, practice and the built environment. The initiative provides the framework for individuals to self-organise book club groups with their friends, family and […]
20 years ago, I researched the 1934 Levant Fair in Tel Aviv, an international exhibition whose purpose was to boost the economy and the commercial ties of the Jewish community in Palestine under the British Mandate (Mandatory Palestine, 1921-1948). This was also an important architectural event that marked the acceptance of the international style as […]
To accompany the exhibition Life Without Buildings curated by Adam Szymczyk, the gta exhibition team created Madame ETH located in Kiosk K67. This red kiosk was designed by Slovenian architect Saša Mächtig as a multi-purpose structure for the street. It takes the form of a modular smooth plastic shell, which here becomes a bookshop in […]
The Women who Rewrote the History of Finnish Architecture The history of Finnish architecture, like the history of architecture in general, is full of women. Although Finland was one of the first countries in the world where women could train as professional architects, for a long time these women remained in the shadows of history. […]
In November 2021, the editors at Women Writing Architecture wrote to Metropolis bookshop asking them whether they would be interested in contributing a collection to the annotated bibliography. The book buyer, Molly, wrote back with screenshots of their running list (so probably already transformed), explaining that these describe what we call ‘sisters in architecture’ These […]
Between 11 and 26 February 2022 the editorial staff of Caryatide were installed, temporarily, at the Galerie d’Architecture de Paris, transforming the rooms into a hybrid space where working and exhibiting went hand in hand. The exhibition offered the visitor the opportunity to discover their projects-in-progress. A documented presentation of the projects at their respective […]
Day 1 (via texts) 8pm “Bad News I’m afraid… Me too…” Day 2 (18th January, 9-10pm) Impossible to read new things today. So, through streaming eyes, Anne Enright’s The Green Road, from 2015, swims again into view; specifically the second chapter, Dan, and then the next, Constance. I first read these two chapters immediately after […]
The Foyer. is Marta and Blanca Vives, sisters and architects of the inner life of the project. Their intention for participating in Women Writing Architecture is to deepen insights of the texts that they curate from a Unique Narrative angle. Unique Narrative is the orphaned step zero; the recreation of an inner world through a […]
This collection has been compiled from a larger reading list used by Professor Andrew Clancy and Laura Evans in their teaching of Unit 3 at Kingston School of Art in London in 2020-21. A parallel unit with a different reading list was run by Catherine Blaney and Colm Moore at Queens University Belfast. Faced with […]
This list was made spontaneously by Pablo Bronstein on encountering Women Writing Architecture, responding to but not entirely reflecting his idea of Lady Decoratoresses. Curious about the reasons that many female designers reside in the shadowy corners of books written about male architects and designers, this list suggests some of the historical names that occurred […]
During the autumn of 2021, Dr Anne Hultzsch (Women Writing Architecture: Female Experiences of the Built 1700-1900 (WoWA)) led a seminar around reading history from women’s perspectives, questioning not only the subject matter and ways of seeing it, but also the mechanism for writing. Using the form of ficto-criticism, students were encouraged to understand this […]
In the spring of 2011, Reto Geiser and Martino Stierli, lecturers for architectural criticism at the Department of Architecture, ETH Zurich, ran a seminar course focused on the making and collecting of oral histories. During this time, their students met and interviewed figures from the Swiss architectural scene, seeking to locate their position within the […]
