A blueprint for women architects to overcome doubt, discrimination

An online campaign to have the work of architect Denise Scott Brown recognized by the Pritzker Architecture Prize committee has shed light on the ongoing struggles of women in architecture. Women must push themselves to 'lean in' more to fight internal and external obstacles.

Women make up almost half the graduating architecture classes, but only 17 percent of architecture-firm leadership. Even as women have made great strides in the field over the last several decades, that disconnect hasnt gone away.

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So a few weeks ago, Harvard architecture students Caroline James and Arielle Assouline-Lichten launched a campaign on Change.org, an online petition platform, which has garnered more than 11,300 signatures. Some of the worlds premier architects have signed it including Rem Koolhaas, Jacques Herzog, and Pierre de Meuron.

These signers are petitioning the Pritzker Architecture Prize committee to formally and equally recognize the work of Denise Scott Brown in the 1991 award given exclusively to her male collaborator Robert Venturi. Now in its sixth week, their campaign continues to gain signatures including from Mr. Venturi and nine other Pritzker prize winners and media attention.

More important, the campaign has raised questions about the challenges facing female architectural designers today and how talented women can face them down.

Why would two young female architects take up Ms. Browns cause 22 years after the fact? I am inadvertently responsible for setting into motion the events that led to this petition. But I hesitated to write this article because my contribution did not come from a moment of insight or inspired action; it came from a moment of desperation and self-doubt.

A few weeks ago, as a student at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, I came to campus distressed and deflated. I had been working hard on an application for a prestigious fellowship that was due later that day, but was convinced that my proposal wasn't good enough. I felt naive and that my work was that of an amateur.

Looking for absolution and emotional permission to give up, I turned to a classmate, Caroline James. Instead of the kind shoulder I sought, she gave me a challenge and asked, Have you ever heard of leaning in?

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A blueprint for women architects to overcome doubt, discrimination