INCONSTR EN UC M T O IO W N

®

N

F A

T O

I

O

N

N

O

I

A

T

L

A I A C S O S

FOR TODAY’S WOMAN IN CONSTRUCTION August/September 2011 Rosie’s Girls prove they can

Building the right way What I learned from Architect Barbie AGC installs first female president

1 The NAWIC IMAGE | www.thenawicimage.org BY DESPINA STRATIGAKOS n February Architect Barbie made her industry debut at phenomenon of vanishing women architects. The common as- the Toy Industry Association’s Toy Fair in New York City; sumption — that women “naturally” opt out to have children Iin May she made her professional entrance at the Ameri- — doesn’t hold up to scrutiny: professionals in equally de- can Institute of Architects convention in New Orleans. But Ar- manding fields, such as medicine and law, start families while chitect Barbie’s real beginnings were political. In 2006, while I continuing to work. And although other professions might of- was a research fellow at the University of Michigan, the pas- fer the incentive of better pay, money alone does not explain sage of Proposal 2, a ballot initiative, ended affirmative action a woman’s ability or desire to persevere. One of the most poi- in that state. Debates before and after the law’s passage tore gnant findings of a 2003 study by the Royal Institute of Brit- into friendships and collegial relationships, and the atmo- ish Architects on the loss of women in architectural practice is sphere on campus was tense as the school’s colleges, including that women make this choice reluctantly: they love architec- architecture, struggled to determine what the new law would ture and don’t want to go. mean for diversity among students and faculty, and ultimately As a feminist scholar, I am interested in analyzing the ideo- why that diversity mattered. logical fences that architecture has built around the profes- This question was especially pressing in architecture, which sion — the barriers that determine outsiders and insiders. One has struggled more than most professions to foster diversity. starting point is the idealized image of the architect that has Today, more than a century after the Buffalo, New York-based been nurtured within the profession and reinforced in popular architect Louise Bethune became the first woman admitted culture. Here we find a pervasive insistence on the incompat- into the American Institute of Architects, the organization’s ibility of the architectural and the feminine — seen not only membership remains 83 percent male. And yet architecture in early 20th-century writings on modern architecture by Otto schools have seen steady increases in female enrollment over Bartning, Karl Scheffler and others, but also in recent Holly- the past two decades, reaching 40 percent nationwide. Having wood films, such as “One Fine Day” (1996), in which Michelle earned an architectural degree, why do so many then leave the Pfeiffer, playing an architect compelled to bring her young profession? There are few studies to help us understand the child to work, trips over her own handbag and crushes the de-

16 The NAWIC IMAGE | www.thenawicimage.org Girls participating in one of the Architect Barbie workshops at the AIA convention. [Images courtesy of Mattel, Inc.] sign model she’s carrying, including its phallic high-rise. This Eager to see Architect Barbie materialize, I asked Michigan scene points also to another deeply embedded conflict in the architecture students and faculty to develop their own pro- image of the architect: the irreconcilability of production and totypes. I was particularly interested in how a younger gen- reproduction. They require different and opposing abilities, eration, just learning to become architects and absorbing the we’re told, and being a good architect necessarily means being professional culture, would imagine her. The results, exhib- a bad parent, as Adam Sandler’s character discovered in “Click” ited in the architecture school, were an eye-opener. I had ex- (2006). pected Barbie to show up in a black power suit and Corbusier eyeglasses. In other words, architecture would come first, Bar- Hoping to encourage discussion about these beliefs and at- bie second. Instead, some students reversed the order. Their titudes, but wary of preaching to the converted, I looked for dolls explored architecture on Barbie’s own terms, from an an unusual angle to address issues of diversity in my fellow- über-feminine angle that celebrated fashion, hairstyles and ship exhibition at Michigan, held in 2007. I had long admired makeup. In these dolls, I was confronted by the “femmenism” feminist artists, such as the Guerrilla Girls, who use humor or “girl power” of a younger generation, which seeks empow- to political ends. Given the tensions and resentments stirring erment by playing up femininity in contexts that prohibit it. on campus in the wake of Prop 2, it seemed more important Inside architecture’s hallowed halls, Barbie’s “girlie” attributes than ever to harness the disarming power of humor. It was at were not a mark of oppression, but of resistance. These dolls that point that I remembered Architect Barbie. In 2002, Mattel looked you right in the eye and asked, “Why can’t architects had staged a public vote to allow people to determine the next wear pink?” career in its new professional series, “Barbie I Can Be…” The choices — architect, librarian and police woman — unleashed My assumptions would be challenged again, a few years an epic online battle, which architects won. But then came later, when Architect Barbie finally entered the realm of trade- Mattel’s crushing announcement that the company would not marked toys. In February 2010, Mattel invited the public to produce the doll — in its view an architect’s work was beyond vote on Barbie’s 125th career, only the second such election to the comprehension of little girls. be held since 2002. Having once shunned “complex” careers

August/September 2011 17 in the “Barbie I Can Be…” line, Mattel was now focusing on to Mattel’s designers, who selected three with iconic power professions in which women were underrepresented. (Even and instant recognizability: a pink drawing tube, white hard a corporation can evolve.) This time, Architect Barbie’s rivals hat and black glasses. included Surgeon Barbie and Computer Engineer Barbie; the Negotiating the transition from office to construction site latter emerged victorious. At which point — still reluctant to also posed a sartorial challenge. What outfit would work for concede defeat — I joined forces with architect Kelly Hayes both? After considering slacks, we ultimately agreed with McAlonie, a colleague at SUNY Buffalo, in a last-ditch effort to Mattel that Architect Barbie would wear a dress. A century save Architect Barbie, and approached Mattel directly to ad- ago, men campaigned to ban women from construction sites vocate for the doll. To our delighted surprise, Kelly and I were because their dresses (standing in for female bodies) were asked to advise on her design. seen as nuisances. Since women then were also forbidden to Over the next six months, as Mattel explored the world of wear pants, this dress code effectively excluded them from architecture, Kelly and I were inducted into the mysteries of the building trades. Our decision to combine a hard hat with toy manufacturing. One of our first lessons was that creating a dress — symbols of building and femininity — channels the Barbie in the image of a professional was not about miniatur- spirit of girl power, flaunting that which has been prohibited. izing the adult world, but rather about translating it into a Ultimately, though, Architect Barbie’s power is not in her child’s terms. Yes, we know architects like to wear black (we clothes, but in what she represents. And this, Architect Bar- like it ourselves). But to a five-year-old girl, a doll dressed in bie’s last and most enduring lesson, became fully clear to me black says “villain” or “mortician,” not “architect.” In working only at the official launch of the doll, at the AIA convention with Mattel’s designers on Architect Barbie’s outfit, we focused in New Orleans. Working with Mattel and the AIA, Kelly and I on simple volumes, clean lines and basic colors. Since Barbie’s developed workshops for 400 girls, recruited from local schools molded feet made flats impossible, we gave her black ankle and girls’ clubs. The workshops, led by women architects, had boots with a chunky heel. With architecture undergoing rapid three components: an introduction to what architects do, a changes, not least in its technologies, accessorizing Barbie in- discussion of the work of past and present women architects, volved difficult choices. We sent a list of 25 possible accessories and an exercise to redesign Barbie’s Dream House. The exer-

Despina Stratigakos (left) and Kelly Hayes McAlonte (right) at the AIA Convention. [Images courtesy of Mattel, Inc.]

18 The NAWIC IMAGE | www.thenawicimage.org 1974 version of the Barbie Townhouse. [Images courtesy of Mattel, Inc.]

discussions about how to encourage and keep women in prac- tice need to happen in architecture schools, around the water cooler, in boardrooms. If Architect Barbie gets us talking, then more power to her. But ultimately she is for kids, not adults, and it is the politics of the sandbox that I hope to influence. I look forward to the day when little girls claim hard hats and Architect Barbie on display at the AIA convention construction sites as just another part of their everyday world. i in New Orleans, May 2011. [Photo courtesy of Mattel, Inc.] cise focused on teaching the girls basic skills for drawing floor “What I Learned from Architect Barbie” was originally published plans and encouraging them to explore their ideal domestic by Places, a journal of architecture, landscape and urbanism, at environment. Throughout, I was amazed at how intensely the http://places.designobserver.com. girls wanted to learn how to shape and control their own spac- Despina Stratigakos is an internationally recognized historian es. One of my favorite floor plans, created by a seven-year-old, included a room for monsters; by acknowledging their pres- and professor in the architecture department at SUNY Buffalo. ence and giving them their own space, the rest of the house She has published extensively on the history of women in archi- would remain monster-free — a design solution to an eternal tecture, including her award-winning book, “A Women’s Berlin: childhood problem that would have put Freud out of business. Building the Modern City,” the story of a forgotten metropolis At the end, each girl left with a gift bag that included drawing designed by and for women. She is on the board of directors of tools and her own Architect Barbie. the Society of Architectural Historians, and was formerly an ad- At no point during the workshops did I hear any girl ques- visor of the International Archive of Women in Architecture at tion her spatial skills or the appropriateness of architecture Virginia Tech; she was a founding member for women. And that, precisely, is where Barbie’s power lies. of the Architecture and Design Academy, The fact is that Barbie appeals to little girls like no other toy. an initiative of the Buffalo Public Schools They are proprietary about her — they know the doll is just for created to increase diversity in architec- them. And whatever Barbie does, she brings it into the sphere ture. She received her Ph.D. from Bryn of women. She has the power to make things seem natural to Mawr College and has taught at Harvard little girls. Admittedly, Architect Barbie can’t do all the work. University and the University of Michigan Deeply held attitudes about women must shift before architec- ture becomes a profession that truly embraces diversity. Open before joining the faculty at Buffalo.

August/September 2011 19