Constructive: The Adkhss n’Arfalen granary, in Tata province, Morocco, which Salima Naji, one of the women architects featured in a new book, has been working to restore.
Sometimes answers to obvious questions are so evident they jolt you into reality — and leave you a little embarrassed.
A book, 100 Women: Architects in Practice, written by academics Harriet Harriss, Naomi House, Monika Parrinder and Dezeen editor Tom Ravenscroft, has just been published by RIBA Publishing (Riba stands for the Royal Institute of British Architects).
When I asked my first question — why they had written 100 Women: Architects in Practice, the authors answered: “The idea for the book came from frustration that all architecture books are about men!”
I interviewed them, via email, about their fascinating book.
I was dreading having four people answering by committee. Fortunately, I needn’t have worried as their answers were witty, insightful, provocative and had a radical clarity, much like their publication. It showcases 100 exceptional architects from every continent — who happen to be women, who work in a profession where they remain desperately underrepresented, underpromoted and underpaid.
The book was initially pitched as containing historical figures but evolved to highlight the work of current architects who are impacting the world right now.
When the authors surveyed books already out there, they realised that the most interesting project would be to sample a much broader geographical range.
“We wrote this book because we never wanted to see another ‘manel’ in architecture again,” they told me. “Not in juries, not in design reviews, not in judging panels, not in architecture faculties or practice directors’ board meetings.
“We never wanted to see another student design project that didn’t reference a ‘non-man’. Or to read or assess a bloat of dissertations written about only male architects, referencing only male academics.”
Only half-joking, they opined in the interview that the staunchly feminist 100 Women: Architects in Practice could easily have been called “No more excuses” or “Not-dead-yet-women-architects”.
“Too often, recognising women’s contribution to architecture happens only after the morticians have feathered their last flourish of rouge, and not when a talented architect, who is also a woman, needs a project or a professorial appointment.”
In the book, each woman architect shares through illustrated interviews how they are responding to the disconnect between architecture and the people and landscape it serves.
The authors make no apologies for the fact that 100 Women: Architects in Practice is profoundly political: “This book is for those of us who want to ‘see’ architecture for what it really is — when it isn’t privileging men, privileging whiteness, privileging straightness or the Global North or the architecture of the few and not the many.”
Into the future: The Royal Netherlands Embassy in Addis Ababa, which was designed by Ethiopian architect Rahel Shawl. Photo: Iwan Baan
How did you decide who to include in the book?
We were looking for women creating architecture that we thought was significant — sometimes this was because they were working at the highest level with major public projects and sometimes they were working outside of the mainstream or in radical new ways.
We deliberately included qualified architects who curate, write, teach and do advocacy work, alongside their studio practice, to show the broader ways in which architects are working these days.
And to exclude?
Given that there are an estimated three to four million architects worldwide, 100 women could only ever function as a sample and not a survey. We wanted to blend the emergent architects with the high-profile women architects, but not allow the latter to dominate the book, as typically happens in these tomes. Because of the constraint we established to represent each region of the world as equitably as possible, there were many established names that we decided not to include.
What politics was the point of departure for compiling and writing a book like this?
A broad equality agenda, where we recognise that sexism will not be eradicated until racism is addressed — and classism too.
For Tom, a motivating factor was acting on his allyship and not just paying lip service to it.
For the three women authors, I think our own experiences in academe were challenging enough to inspire us to push back — not just for ourselves, but for our colleagues and our women students, too.
But because we are all situated in the privileged Global North, all of us allies, we wanted to use our positions in publishing, education and advocacy to support, platform and, hopefully, empower women who suffer both racial and regional forms of marginalisation and exclusion.
What makes this a decolonial book?
It’s a decolonisation and not a diversity project because the issue of broadening representation of women architects from across the globe is just a way in — the book explores different perspectives and worldviews in the practice of architecture and thus opens up questions about what architecture is, who it’s by and for.
Will a book like this make a change to the canon?
Showing the work of architects who are often navigating different worldviews — and understanding how they can better relate to each other — not only disrupts the canon but opens up multiple new possibilities going forward.
How did you make sure that it wasn’t a book seen through a Global North lens, considering your background as writers?
The honest answer is that we couldn’t but, importantly perhaps, we admit as much in our preface and introduction. We can’t escape the fact that we are an all-white, British team, writing for a British publisher, itself part of one of the world’s oldest architectural institutions.
We used two tactics to mitigate, but not deny, our position of white, “Western” privilege.
First, using the UN geographical framework to frame the research meant that we could not fall back on pre-conceived ideas about where to look for interesting work or existing networks for suggestions.
Second, in the writing process, we decided to prioritise the architects’ own voices, making the book quote-rich, and we offered every architect the opportunity to edit their profile.
What do you hope to achieve with the book?
By making a wider set of voices and variations of practice models known, we hope to expand the possibilities that people see for architectural practice and to reveal different ways of imagining and manifesting the future of the built environment.
Who is your reader?
We imagined initially that it would be for professionals, students, professors, those curating architectural discussions, hiring, awarding and headhunting …
As it turns out, there is a widespread appetite to see what brilliant women architects from around the world are doing — and the book has already been picked up in national newspapers and the in general-interest press.
Is there a part two in the works?
No, but there should be!
Continental volumes would be the next logical step. 100 African Women Architects feels like the next step to make and would prove to be an amazing project.
However, it feels that the rightful authors of this text wouldn’t necessarily be us. African women architects are better positioned than we are to lead such an initiative.
What is the book telling us about women’s presence in architecture?
Advocacy and activism have necessarily become a daily part of many architects’ work.
Almost all the architects talked to us about how hard their architectural journey has been in a paternalistic profession — from being the only woman in the room or building site to balancing professional and mothering responsibilities.
Most of the women are pushing an agenda for change in working practices as well as representation.
Did you pick up global trends for women through writing it?
Patterns did jump out. Collectively, the architects told us of the need to heal the ways in which global development and colonial agendas have mis-used architecture to disconnect people and land — instead practising architecture as an act of reconnection and repair.
If there is a common approach it’s that architecture works best when rooted in context … the architects often proceed by asking authentic questions and engaging empathetically with communities, landscape, to-hand materials — often sustainably low tech — and local and indigenous know-how.
Do buildings designed by women look different?
We don’t believe there is a “female” or “feminine” architecture that makes buildings look a certain way.
However, many of the women we interviewed have developed their architectural practice against common constraints — a paternalistic profession, divisive and racist colonial agendas, climate crisis, etc — and so there are often points of connection in their practice that we outline in our introduction, not because they “happen to be women” or to suggest a unified way forward, but to help build coalitions and share healing practices for architecture, people and planet.
What did the book and the 100 architects teach you about society?
What became clear was how people find meaning and express their sense of self, community and future when the places they live include them — but this will only happen if architects make a conscious choice to make architecture that is more accessible.
What did you learn from the African architects in the book?
Interestingly, the interviews confirmed how globalised architecture is (partly because it still is such a rarefied and expensive training) — many of the architects under “Africa” are educated in a global centre outside their country/continent and have variously returned to participate in the life of their home region, retain studios based in more than one place, or work in international collaborations. And in the “Americas” and “Europe” sections, many identify as part of the African diaspora.
Whilst we initially intended to write a contextual/insight essay for each geographic region, when it became apparent how globalised the architects are, and that research based on interview does not provide enough context, we decided to reveal the more compelling patterns that were emerging across continents.
And yet … it is true that with 25% of the architects in the book from Africa, our insights on common agendas for change was heavily influenced by the work and words of the African architects.
Like many of the architects across the globe, the tendency was to resist the one-size-fits all approach of international modernism and development agendas and, instead, to emphasise a context-sensitive approach, which bridges local tradition, materials and know-how with global currents.
Therefore, the Africa section could be said to reveal architectural aesthetics, materials and forms expressive of the region — in all its contemporary complexity — which many of the African architects expressly talk about as crucial for social, environmental and economic sustainability as well as nation-building.
Ilze Wolff
Ilze Wolff runs South African studio Wolff Architects, alongside her partner Heinrich Wolff. “I’m not one of those architects who always wanted to be an architect,” she said in 100 Women: Architects in Practice. Originally focusing on graphic design, she also considered archaeology, before deciding to study architecture at the University of Cape Town. These broad interests have influenced the multifaceted thinking adopted by the studio. Founded in 2012, Wolff Architects has a strong focus on advocacy, research and documentation.
Olajumoke Adenowo
Olajumoke Adenowo is a Nigerian architect practising in Lagos. The neo-heritage architecture of AD Consulting combines Adenowo’s career-long exposure to global architecture with a traditional African approach to building design solutions.
Adenowo is the architect of more than 70 buildings and specialises in master planning and projects at scale.
She studied architecture at Obafemi Awolowo University in Nigeria, followed by qualifications in business management and leadership in Lagos, Harvard and Yale in the US and Barcelona, Spain.
Paula Nascimento
Paula Nascimento is an architect and independent curator based in Luanda, Angola. She was co-founder of Beyond Entropy Africa (2010 to 2016) with Stefano Pansera, a research studio that worked in architecture, visual arts and geopolitics. Her practice encompasses several artistic and curatorial projects including Luanda, Encyclopaedic City, which was the award-winning Angolan Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2013, as well as collaborating in the design of the Angolan Pavilion at Expo Milano 2015 and Expo Dubai 2020.
Rahel Shawl
Over the past 30 years, Ethiopian architect Rahel Shawl has designed buildings ranging from private homes to hospitals and from shopping malls to breweries across Ethiopia.
Shawl graduated from the Ethiopian Institute of Architecture and Building Construction in 1991 at a time when Ethiopia was experiencing change at the end of 17 years of communist dictatorship. Shawl chose to stay and work in Ethiopia. In 1994 she co-founded Abba Architects and, a decade later, she established her own studio, RAAS Architects.
Salima Naji
Over the past 20 years, Moroccan architect and anthropologist Salima Naji has been working to rehabilitate and transform dilapidated traditional igoudars (citadel grain stores) and ksours (fortified villages) in southern Morocco.
Her work was shortlisted for the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 2013 and 2022, for the Issy Valley Improvement. Practising what she terms “research-action”, her work brings together her experience as an architecture graduate of the École d’Architecture de Paris-La-Villette and her PhD in anthropology from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, in Paris.
Shahira Fahmy
Based in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, Shahira Fahmy is an architect, urbanist and researcher. She works between teaching and practice, taking a strong theoretical approach. In 2005 she founded and became principal of Shahira Fahmy Architects. Her projects have encompassed both design and master planning and have included everything from a single bench to a cultural centre, as well as all the spaces in between.