Architecture and Absence
In this episode, recorded for Women’s history month, we think about the apparent lack of women in architectural history. We explore the stories of women working in architecture in an attempt to rebalance this absence. Our contributors talk about what it means to present more diverse stories about who creates our built environment.
You can listen to this episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Fig 1: XXAOC by Sarah Akigbogun
Contributors:
Sarah Akigbogun is an architect and a filmmaker. Sarah is the founder of Studio Aki, which is an transdisciplinary architecture and research practice committed to creating, socially-engaged projects. Sarah is working on a film about her search for the histories of female architects of colour.
Elizabeth Darling, who is Reader in Architectural History at Oxford Brookes University, has a particular interest in modernism and gender; Elizabeth has written widely about the history of women in architecture: Darling, E., and L. Walker, AA Women in Architecture, 1917-2017 (AA Publications, 2017); Darling, E., and N. R. Walker, Suffragette City: Women, Politics and the Built Environment (Taylor & Francis Group, 2019); Darling, E., and L. Whitworth, Women and the Making of Built Space in England, 1870–1950 (Routledge, 2017).
Erin McKellar is Assistant Curator Exhibitions at Sir John Soane’s Museum in London. Erin has researched the history of housing exhibitions and modernism and she is interested in how women have used curation as a way of being involved in architectural production.
Your hosts were Dr Jessica Kelly and Matthew Lloyd Roberts, and this project was devised with Neal Shasore. This podcast is produced by Front Ear Podcasts.