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Mapping the (Invisible) Salaried Woman Architect: the Australian Parlour Research Project Karen Burns, Justine Clark and Julie Willis

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Mapping the (Invisible) Salaried Woman Architect: the Australian Parlour Research Project Karen Burns, Justine Clark and Julie Willis 143 Review Article Mapping the (Invisible) Salaried Woman Architect: The Australian Parlour Research Project Karen Burns, Justine Clark and Julie Willis The (invisible) salaried woman architect: The architects in the service of bureaucracies. This Parlour project special journal issue retrieves a domain of ‘invis- During the 1970s, feminist historians highlighted ible’ architects, and our paper offers a distinctive ‘women’s invisibility’ in written histories and argued focus on the topic by exploring the gendering of the that these absences exposed structural biases in salaried architect. We begin by drawing attention to history writing.1 Through mainstream history and its the over-representation of women as salaried archi- privileging of particular topics and institutional struc- tects in both the historical record and contemporary tures, history’s very objects of inquiry threatened practice. Moving beyond this demographic outline, to perpetuate women’s invisibility. For example, the paper studies women architects’ everyday work although women had been political participants in the office.5 Focusing the gaze of historians and throughout history, they had organised and oper- theorists on the office rather than the building site ated in informal ways and their practices were provides an important shift of attention that chal- marginalised within the historical record.2 For some lenges them to conceptualise the production of historians, it was not simply a task of adding women buildings within the organisation of the architectural in and correcting exclusion with inclusion. Instead, workplace. Mythologies of design genius are coun- writers invented new subjects and unknown tered by an analysis of the conditions of production. topics and drew on unfamiliar sources in order to Furthermore, investigations of work and gender enable ‘the prevalent structures and experiences reveal an even less visible topic: the stratification of women’s lives’ to be recognised and accorded of architectural professionals through labour hierar- the same level of interest as men’s stories.3 The chies. Women are over-represented as employees trope of invisibility governed both history writing and and part-time workers, with lower earnings and contemporary political action. Historian Joan Scott reduced status. As we will argue, these absences joined historical inquiry to present-day protest by and delays can be explained by the theory of ‘accu- declaring that ‘women’s subordination – past and mulative disadvantage’, a term denoting the uneven present – was secured at least in part by their invis- but persistent and accumulating impacts of gender ibility.’ ‘Making women evident’ became a political stereotypes on individual careers. Finally, this paper project.4 The idea of the ‘salaried architect’ has describes some of the activist programmes founded particular resonance for feminist projects driven by by Parlour. We will explain how these initiatives work concepts of historical invisibility and the bias and to transform the everyday office lives of women in privileges of the dominant historical narrative. architecture. Footprint has invited writers to consider the cate- Research on women architects and their daily gory of the ‘salaried architect’, particularly those labour must strive against a double invisibility: it 17 The ‘Bread & Butter’ of Architecture: Investigating Everyday Practices | Autumn / Winter 2015 | 143–160 144 has to contend with both low numbers of women of overt discrimination. Digging far enough into the in the profession and a dearth of information on the historical record reveals these women architects, quotidian practices of the office. The environment usually working quietly in a large firm or on their in which many architects spend their working lives own, carving out a place for themselves within the remains obscure, and office life is generally omitted profession and earning the respect of their clients, from accounts of buildings, design, or narratives colleagues and peers. of architecture’s symbolic meaning. In order to discover the hidden workings of gender and the To reveal the history of women architects, the architectural office, this paper draws on a large researcher needs to delve further than the ‘named’ inquiry undertaken by a team of researchers that architect and, in doing so, calls into question the investigated women and the Australian architectural standard practices of architectural historiography, profession during 2011–2014.6 As part of a broad where the named architect of a work, be it a part- study, the research project mapped the micro prac- nership or individual, is considered the author of tices of the workplace. By studying transactions, the work. For the history of women architects is, in exchanges and tacit practices, we came to under- many instances, the history of architects working for stand how particular professional and institutional other architects – the hidden labour force that fuels rules and unconscious processes limit women’s the profession and its production. The historical participation and delay career progression. We record of the profession consists of evidence that is theorise the everyday practice of architecture by commonly left behind: professional journals, reports drawing attention to work cultures, hierarchies and in the popular press, photographic collections, rules. The architectural office is a site for producing, drawing collections, and manuscript and archival distributing and maintaining work ‘norms’ and iden- holdings. Architectural activity by individuals is tities. These norms include beliefs on how work largely understood through the tropes of named should be organised and distributed, and involve architects – owners of firms – rather than those mechanisms that produce and reinforce powerful who work for them, simply because these are the mythologies of the ‘ideal’ architectural worker. names attached to buildings. Only in the details of drawings and job lists can the keen observer deter- The figure of the salaried woman architect domi- mine the other hands that contribute to such works. nates the larger history of women in architecture and still forms the majority experience of female The question might be why women were – and architectural professionals. Historical scholarship are – more likely to work for another architect. has confirmed the presence of women in the design Prior to second-wave feminism, the answers lay and construction of architecture and attested to their in social expectations or gender norms that had a later qualification as architects when the profession- significant limiting effect on women’s full participa- alisation of architecture progressed in the second tion in every aspect of the architecture profession. half of the nineteenth century.7 From early pioneers, Women lacked capital or access to it due to their women increasingly became active members of the exclusion from inheriting capital and obtaining bank profession in many Western societies, their pres- credit, which limited their capacity to start and run ence encouraged by the establishment of formal, businesses. They faced gendered assumptions institutionalised architectural education. Their small or structures that limited their access to potential numbers reflect the difficulties such women faced in clients (such as men’s clubs or public bars). They joining the profession, but individual stories of archi- faced assumptions about their physical and mental tectural engagement were not, by definition, ones capacity for the demands of architectural practice, 145 or about their predilections for certain types of is included and excluded, promoted and rewarded, architectural practice, which tended to pigeon-hole noted and ignored. Gender as a category of anal- or propel them towards domestic practice, inte- ysis reveals stark differences between men and rior design or ‘caring’ institutional work, such as women’s participation in the profession. By focusing welfare buildings and hospitals. Women also faced on cohorts we mask individual identity and suppress expectations that, for many, dictated their enforced accounts of buildings and offices as the expression departure from the profession upon marriage and/or of key individuals. Examining the group instead of childbirth, underscored by a lack of social services the individual brings structural patterns and privi- to support a continued engagement with their leges to the fore. Everyday social practice operates career. The capacity to marshal capital and clients within the profession. The social is not an exterior and to undertake significant risk are the factors that world but an internal dynamic. enable architects to begin, and to control, their own practices – factors that probably continue to play a In the 1830s, the British government introduced major role in the career decisions made by contem- large-scale statistical mapping as civil servants porary women architects. Working for someone worked to better know, administer and (many would else was, and remains, the safe option in the vola- add) control its population. Statistical mapping tile world of architectural work. makes a population visible. Our gendered archi- tectural demography exposes gender differences The project within the profession and allows us to see archi- Footprint’s call for a study of ‘salaried architects’ tecture’s distinctive differences from university positions itself against the canon’s roll-call of populations, other professions and society as a individual
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