How do women make architecture? The current exhibition in the bunker of the Architekturgalerie München e.V. deals with this question and presents visitors with “profiles” in poster format. They contain statements by female architects that refer to the diversity of the profession. Using text and images, they are analogous to the “elevator pitch”, a presentation format from marketing that allows a quick summary of a concise idea. In this case, it serves to convey the role of women in architecture across a broad spectrum.
Why is this important? Why do we (still) ask such a question? Young women currently make up a good two thirds of students studying architecture. It is therefore only right that faculties respond to this reality and appoint women as professors. And they come from the field, they work there and they build. This is important for all those interested in architecture, as from a social perspective, gender is one of the demographically defined characteristics according to which inequality structures and restricts access to resources. And these resources include built space, its conception and its realization.
The exhibition, curated by Carmen Wolf, was opened on November 27 by Nicola Borgmann, director of the Architekturgalerie. The participants present, who are represented with posters, immediately told the audience in their elevator pitch how they see the role of female architects in our society. They also addressed the culturally relevant changes in gender equality in architecture, which were researched as part of an interdisciplinary study at the Technical University of Munich. Representatives from the Department of Architecture as well as Sociology and Gender Studies were involved in the development of the study. Diversity is therefore the key to success not only in architectural practice, but also in architectural research.
Exhibition “Female architects and their way of doing architecture” until December 20, 2019 in the shop window of the Architekturgalerie München at BUNKER, Blumenstraße 22, 80331 Munich
Further events:
December 4, 2019, 19:00 Reading from the profiles with Katja Brenner (actress)
December 12, 2019, 19:00 Women in Architecture Discussion with Prof. Paula Villa Braslavsky, Anne Niemann, Meike Schalk, Sandra Schuster