The theme of this year's Australian Women's History Month is Women with a Plan: Australian women architects, town planners and landscape gardeners.
Dr Bronwyn Hanna, co-author of Women Architects in Australia 1900-1950 talked to us about the women who have made history, and how the gender disparity continues to affect architecture and design in Australia...
In 2002, you were involved in a lecture series at University of Sydney - the topic was ‘Why have there been no Great Women Architects’? Ten years on, has anything changed?
The title of my talk in 2002 alluded to a famous feminist essay by Linda Nochlin from 1971, entitled “Why have there been no great female artists?” (now available online, I see). Both the original essay and my talk about Australian women architects critiqued the question itself in offering three contradictory feminist responses.
Firstly we described outstanding women practitioners that could be considered “great” but had been overlooked historically. For example, Marion Mahony Griffin, whose superior university education and lengthy experience in Frank Lloyd Wright’s office as well as her superb drawings for the Canberra design competition in 1912, undoubtedly contributed to the success of her husband Walter Burley Griffin’s winning entry.
Secondly both discussed social barriers that prevented women from reaching their potential. For example, women being denied appropriate technical training at school or being denied entry to university or technical courses or being discriminated in the workplace by employers or clients, or not having time to work because they had babies and no childcare or an unsupportive partner or not having appropriate socialisation to be as assertive or confrontational as the building industry might demand of leading practitioners.
Thirdly both my talk and Nochlin’s essay were critical of the notion of “greatness” itself and the way it privileges certain types of cultural achievement over others. For example, many skyscrapers are associated with big name male architects but are not necessarily better designed than the great complexity of alterations and additions to suburban housing designed cheaply by women architects that are sensitive and beautifully resolved but not yelling “look at me!”
Has anything changed? No, not in ten years. The question is still as problematic as ever.
What difference does gender make in the area of architecture and design?
Different people have different answers to this question. Some people say that all practitioners are trained to be impartial professionals and that their sex or gender makes no difference to their professional performance.
Contradicting that, some say that men and women are born with different brains with different perceptions of space which impact on their approach to designing for the built environment. These commentators often make unproved but interesting generalisations, for example that men tend to design for the look while women design “from the inside out”.
Others say women are socialised (nurture rather than nature) to be more accommodating and to be better listeners or they are concerned with practicalities more than abstract visions and so come up with designs that are not so visually impressive but work better.
Some say that there is no black and white divide between the genders but rather a continuum which individuals inhabit idiosyncratically. For example, although men are generally taller than women, some women are taller than some men, similarly on the design front some women are bad listeners while some men can provide highly sensitive design compromises.
Personally I would probably commission a woman architect to design my home rather than a man because as a woman I would expect to be able to talk more easily with her and be understood, and I would expect her to have more experience of domestic labour and to be extremely conscientious. But that’s just me.
How have some of the architects featured in your book Women Architects in Australia 1900-1950 helped to shape the Australian design landscape?
I’ll give two examples. Firstly, Marion Mahony Griffin worked closely with her husband Walter Burley Griffin on the city plan for Canberra and on many influential modern buildings in Melbourne (eg Newman College and the Capitol Theatre) and Sydney (eg Castlecrag houses) during their more than 20 years in Australia between 1914 and 1936. The beauty, intelligence and integrity of their design collaboration led the way for others such as the architectural couples who have contributed further outstanding modernist houses in Castlecrag, notably Hugh and Eva Buhrich’s two houses, and Bill and Ruth Lucas’s Glass House.
Secondly, it was Rosette Edmunds, a well respected architect, town planner and writer who convinced her Cumberland County Council planning boss, Sidney Luker, that the Sydney Opera House should be located at Bennelong Point on Sydney Harbour. According to the story told by planning historian Rob Freestone, Luker convinced conductor Eugene Goossens who convinced Premier Joseph Cahill, and the rest is history. Although this siting for the Opera House now seems so obvious and necessary, in the 1950s it was controversial. Another prominent woman architect and town planner, Florence Taylor, thought it should be opposite Hyde Park on the same block as St Mary’s Cathedral and argued vociferously that any building on Bennelong Point would inevitably become a white elephant. Thank goodness that Edmund’s view prevailed over Taylor’s.
How does the gender disparity in Australian architecture compare to other countries?
I am not aware of current statistics about this, although I understand there is a large Australian Government funded research project looking into such current issues (perhaps you should contact Naomi Stead at University of Queensland on n.stead@uq.edu.au). My PhD researched the history of women architects in NSW up to 1960. The only comparable study then was a book on the history of women architects in Finland.
What do you see as the future of architecture in Australia?
I haven’t got a clear answer for this. I’m an architectural historian and a heritage bureaucrat rather than a futurist. My fantasy would be to see the built environment become sustainable. I know a lot of women professionals are concerned about this and are contributing to the fundamental re-thinking and re-orientation of design necessary to make this happen.
Friday, February 17, 2012 at 12:18PM 
