From History to Herstory: Documenting the Historical Narratives of All Architects

     It is as though female architects had only started pursuing the profession recently, in the last quarter of the twentieth century. The first architectural projects authored by women that have achieved recognition indeed generally date back from the 1980s and 1990s. Architectural sociologists Olivier Chadoin, Nathalie Lapeyre, and Nicolas Nogue point to the start of the feminization process around the aftermath of the 1968 protests, or even the late 1970s,[1] after the closing of the Architecture section of the École des Beaux-Arts and the creation of the Unités Pédagogiques d’Architecture (architectural teaching units), which resulted in a surge in enrollments and expanded access to architecture studies with the end of the numerus clausus admission limits.[2] And yet, hundreds of women studied and practiced architecture in France before 1968.[3] In this article, we’ll relate some of the main features of these historical narratives, focusing on the period running up to the eve of the Second World War.

     The first female architecture students were admitted in the 1880s and 1890s to the École des Beaux-Arts (Ensba)[7]—the primary place of education for architecture in France in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries—and the École Spéciale d’Architecture (Esa)—a private institution founded in 1865. Their entry into architecture schools follows similar timelines as other areas of higher education. For example, women gained access to medical education in 1868, to literature in 1871, and law in 1884.[8] Laura White was the first female student to enroll at Esa, in 1883, while Julia Morgan passed the admission examination at Ensba in 1898. At the turn of the century, the two schools adapted their admissions policies to allow for the admission of women, though it wasn't until the 1930s that they gained access to the official workshops of Ensba and the 1970s that the last remaining external workshops of the school (like the La Mache[9] workshop) were opened to female students. Other schools providing architecture education also enrolled female students, but at a later date. These include the École Centrale des Arts et Manufactures de Paris (Ecp), which enrolled its first female students in 1918.[10]
     The end of the First World War marked an important milestone in the history of these pioneers, as women began being admitted more regularly and in higher numbers at Ensba and Esa. On the eve of the Second World War, 74 female students were admitted to Second Class at Ensba (the first level of education offered at the school) and 43 at Esa between 1883 and 1939. This doesn’t account for other women, who weren’t formally admitted, but nevertheless also studied in these workshops. Though female students only made up a fraction of the total student body, accounting for barely 3 percent of the student intake in Second Class at Ensba in 1939 for instance (3 out of 127 students), the quantitative data nevertheless highlights our lack of knowledge of these students, as only a few names (like Adrienne Gorska) ever achieved recognition.

      The 1920s and 1930s were also marked by the women’s entry into professional architectural practices. A number female architects joined architecture organizations such as SADG (Société des architectes diplômés par le gouvernement) after graduating. Jeanne Besson-Surugue was admitted in 1924 for instance, the year following her graduation. In the early 1930s, female architects authored their first projects—Adrienne Gorska designed an apartment building located on Rue Casimir Pinel and Rue Théophile Gautier in Neuilly-sur-Seine in 1931 or 1932. A large number formed husband-wife architecture firms, though it must be noted that architects often resorted to partnerships during the Interwar period in order to better face the difficult economic circumstances of the times. For example, many architects were teamed up with family members or friends around the same time.[15] Henri and Renée Bodecher[16] designed a number of apartment buildings in the upscale neighborhoods of western Paris in the mid-1930s and had a prolific output well into the 1950s and 1960s. After completing a building at 2 Rue Oswaldo Cruz, in the vicinity of the Bois de Boulogne, around 1934, the couple built another at 25 Rue Paul Valérie in 1935, a short distance away from the Arc de Triomphe, followed the next year by a vast complex at 33 Avenue Montaigne for the insurance company Lloyd France Vie. Juliette[17] and Gaston Tréant-Mathé primarily worked on HBM social housing units in Colombes, as well as in Saint-Denis for the Le Gai Logis development. Adrienne Gorska and Pierre de Montaut formed a duo which specialized, in the 1930s, in movie theaters. The couple authored fifteen or so Cinéac newsreel cinemas, in Paris, Brussels, or Angoulême, as well as a dozen other movie theaters across France and abroad.

     Besides working as prime contractors, from an early stage, women also took part in the diversification of the architectural professions, and were employed within architecture in different capacities. Juliette Billard, who was admitted in Second Class at the École Régionale d’Architecture de Rouen in 1913, thus later worked as a set decorator, teacher, and illustrator. Geneviève Dreyfus-Sée, who graduated from Ensba in 1934, worked as a magazine journalist and authored publications on the history of architecture and teaching under the pen name of Amélie Dubouquet.
     It is important to keep in mind that the use of the professional title of architect was unregulated at the time, and therefore not all acting architects were architecture graduates. Certain architects had gained access to the profession through other pathways, as did a few furniture designers of the 1920s, including Irish-born Eileen Gray, who was enrolled at the Parisian art schools of the Académie Colarossi and then the Académie Julian. Though she never enrolled at an architecture school, she trained informally under the Romanian architect, Jean Badovici, and together they designed the modernist villa E-1027 (1926–1929) in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin.[18]

   It is now high time that we adopt a more complex representation of architects and the architectural professions in order to write a multifaceted history that gives an account of both the diversity of profiles among architects and of the different ways the profession can be practiced. White males from affluent backgrounds haven’t fully monopolized architecture; other protagonists, including women, have also practiced in the space. Using gender as a category of analysis helps reveal some unknown dimensions in the history of architecture, as well as the conditions of domination that operate in this professional field. Future studies will also help better capture the specific features of the feminization of the profession in France. How should the timelines of this history be understood? How are they specific to France? These questions are further fueled by the substantial research conducted abroad on several key figures who have studied and practiced architecture at an early stage. Let us briefly mention two of them to conclude this short overview: Sophia Hayden, an MIT graduate who authored the Woman’s Building for the World’s Columbian Exhibition in 1893,[19] and Signe Hornborg—after whom SIGNE is named as a tribute to this pioneer—, a female architect active in Finland towards the end of the nineteenth century who designed the fire department building in Hamina in particular.[20]

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Stéphanie Bouysse-Mesnage
Stéphanie Bouysse-Mesnage is an architectural historian with degrees from Ensa de Versailles (in architecture) and the University of Versailles-Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (Research Master’s in the cultural and social history of architecture and urban forms). A doctoral research fellow at the ARCHE research unit at the University of Strasbourg and an associate member of the AHTTEP lab at Ensa Paris-La Villette, she has been conducting research on the history of women in the architectural professions in France in the twentieth century for more than a decade. In January 2023, she will be defending her doctoral thesis titled “Les pionnières : architectes en France au XXe siècle. Les femmes, élèves du troisième atelier d'Auguste Perret à l'Ecole des beaux-arts (1942-1954)” [The Pioneers: Female Architects in France in the Twentieth Century. Female Students in Auguste Perret’s Third Workshop at the École des Beaux-Arts (1942–1954)]. She has presented her research in France and abroad, in particular in the context of the European research program MoMoWo (Women's Creativity Since the Modern Movement) (2014–2018). Her latest publications include “Féminisation” [Feminization] in L’architecture en ses écoles, une encyclopédie de l’enseignement de l’architecture au XXe siècle (Châteaulin: Locus Solus, 2022), 358–60. [Architecture through its Schools. An Encyclopedia of the Teaching of Architecture in the Twentieth Century], ed. Anne-Marie Châtelet, Amandine Diener, Marie-Jeanne Dumont, and Daniel Le Couédic (Châteaulin: Locus Solus, 2022), 393–6.

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1. Olivier Chadoin, Sociologie de l’architecture et des architectes [Sociology of Architecture and Architects] (Marseille: Parenthèses, 2021), 149; Nathalie Lapeyre, Les Professions face aux enjeux de la féminisation [The Professions in the Face of the Challenges of Feminization] (Toulouse: Octares Éditions, 2006), 57–89; Nicolas Nogue, Les Chiffres de l’architecture, t. 1 : Populations étudiantes et professionnelles [Key Figures of Architecture, t. 1, Professional and Student Populations], Paris (Monum: Éditions du patrimoine, 2002), 16–7.
2. The numerus clausus system was nevertheless reinstated for a few years, from 1978 to 1984. See Daniel Le Couédic, “Groupements professionnels” [Professional Bodies], in L’Architecture en ses écoles. Une encyclopédie de l’enseignement de l’architecture au XXe siècle [Architecture through its Schools. An Encyclopedia of the Teaching of Architecture in the Twentieth Century], ed. Anne-Marie Châtelet, Amandine Diener, Marie-Jeanne Dumont, and Daniel Le Couédic (Châteaulin: Locus Solus, 2022), 393–6.
3. Unless otherwise specified, the data presented in this article comes from the thesis I will be defending in January 2023: Stéphanie Bouysse-Mesnage, “Les Pionnières : architectes en France au XXe siècle. Les femmes, élèves du troisième atelier d’Auguste Perret à l’École des beaux-arts (1942-1954)”[The Pioneers: Female Architects in France in the Twentieth Century. Female Students in Auguste Perret’s Third Workshop at the École des Beaux-Arts (1942–1954)] (PhD diss., Université de Strasbourg, 2023), under the supervision of Anne-Marie Châtelet.
4. Louis Callebat (ed.), Histoire de l’architecte [History of the Architect] (Paris: Flammarion, 1998).
5. Maxime Decommer, Les Architectes au travail. L’institutionnalisation d’une profession, 1795-1940 [Architects at Work. The Institutionalization of a Profession (1795–1940)] (Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2017).
6. The following is a list of some key works on the topic: Bénédicte Chaljub, La Politesse des maisons. Renée Gailhoustet, architecte [The Politeness of Houses. Renée Gailhoustet, Architect] (Arles: Actes Sud, 2009); Meredith Clausen, “L’École des beaux-arts : histoire et genre” [The École des Beaux-Arts: History and Gender], EAV. École d’architecture de Versailles, no. 15 (2009–2010), 52–61; Élise Koering, Eileen Gray et Charlotte Perriand dans les années 1920 et la question de l’intérieur corbuséen : essai d’analyse et de mise en perspective [Eileen Gray and Charlotte Perriand in the 1920s and the Question of the Corbusian Interior: An Attempt at Analysis and Perspective] (PhD thesis, Université de Versailles-Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, 2010); Stéphanie Mesnage, “Éloge de l’ombre” [In Praise of the Shadows], Criticat, no. 10 (Fall 2012), 40–53; Lydie Mouchel, “Femmes architectes, ‘une histoire à écrire’” [Female Architects, “a History that Remains to be Written”] (diss. in sociocultural history, Université de Versailles-Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, 2000).
7. The French National School of Fine Arts has gone by a number of different names over the years. We’ll be using the most generic name, as well as the commonly used acronym, Ensba (which stands for École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts) in this article.
8. See in particular Carole Lécuyer, “Une nouvelle figure de la jeune fille sous la IIIe République : l’étudiante” [A New Figure of the Young Woman: the Female Student], Clio. Femmes, Genre, Histoire, no. 4 (1996).
9. See Isabelle Conte, “Les femmes et la culture d’atelier à l’École des Beaux-Arts” [Women and the Workshop Culture at the École des Beaux-Arts], Livraisons d’histoire de l’architecture, no. 35 (S1 2018), 87–98.
10. See Gwladys Chantereau, Les Femmes ingénieurs issues de l’École centrale pendant l’entre-deux-guerres [Female Engineers Trained at the École Centrale during the Interwar Period] (Master’s diss. in contemporary history, Université Sorbonne Paris-Nord, 1997). Note, however, that Ecp teaches many specialties, and construction is only one among many.
11. We’re using their birth names here. The following female architects went by different customary (married) names: (Jeanne) Besson-Surugue, (Thérèse) Urbain, (Adrienne) Gorska-de Montaut / de Montaut, (Jeanne) Bessirard, (Lucia) Creangă, (Yvonne) Meyer-Severt. We do not know the birth name of (Andrée) Garrus, and this is therefore a customary name.
12. The French National School of Decorative Arts has gone by a number of different names over the years. We’ll be using the most generic name, as well as the commonly used acronym, Ensad (which stands for École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs) in this article.
13. The spelling of the name and surname of this female architect isn’t consistent across data sources. She's referred to as Vallia Nicolakaki in the Ensad archives, but as Vassia Kiaulinas or Vassia Kiaulenas in the archives of the Order of Architects of the Île-de-France region (Archives de Paris, 2327W/25).
14. Florence Lafourcade, L’Architecture à l’École des arts décoratifs. Regards sur l’évolution d’un enseignement : de la culture générale artistique à la formation de l’architecte diplômé (1831-1942) [Architecture at the École des Arts Décoratifs. Perspectives on the Development of a Syllabus: from a Foundation of Artistic Knowledge to the Training of Graduate Architects (1831–1942)] (PhD diss., Université de Strasbourg, 2021), p. 484–5. Under the supervision of Anne-Marie Châtelet.
15. See Decommer, Les Architectes au travail, op. cit.
16. Born Renée Bocsanyi.
17. Born Juliette Mathé.
18. See Koering, Eileen Gray et Charlotte Perriand dans les années 1920 et la question de l’intérieur corbuséen […], op. cit.
19. See in particular Mary Pepchinski, “Desire and reality : a century of women architects in Germany,” in Frau Architekt. Seit mehr als 100 Jahren: Frauen im Architekturberuf / Over 100 Years of Women in Architecture (Tübingen: Wasmuth Ernst Verlag, 2017), 25–35.
20. Anna Autio, “Signe HORNBORG,” in Le Dictionnaire universel des créatrices [The Universal Dictionary of Female Creators], ed. Béatrice Didier, Antoinette Fouque, Mireille Calle-Gruber (Paris: Des femmes, 2013).