Since the 1970s, when architects Susana Torre and Doris Cole brought the achievements of American women practitioners to light, architectural historians have recognized “pioneering” female architects, primarily through compilations of essays, exhibitions, and biographical profiles.1 Within the past decade, a new wave of interest in this topic has led to major collaborative projects—the Beverly Willis Foundation's exceptional digital archive, Pioneering Women of American Architecture, and two forthcoming publications highlighting the achievements of women architects throughout the world.2 Last summer, members of the Society of Architectural Historians established the affiliate group Women in Architecture, charged with “recording the largely unwritten women's professional histories.”3 Now two new biographies, both of which focus on prominent women modernists, offer models for introducing the contributions of such influential architects to a broader public.
Biography brings figures from the past into our present. This traditional form of historical writing, with its goal of...
University of California Press