Woman-Made: 13 Architects You Might Not Know

Norma Merrick Sklarek was dubbed the “Rosa Parks of Architecture” for her breakthrough achievements in a male-dominated field. She was the first African American woman to graduate from Columbia University (1950) and practiced as the first licensed African American woman architect in both New York (1954) and California (1962). She designed large-scale projects such as the California Mart (1963), Los Angeles; the San Bernardino City Hall (1963); the San Francisco Fox Plaza (1966); the U.S. embassy in Tokyo (1976); the Los Angeles Pacific Design Center (1978); and the Mall of America (1992), Minneapolis, Minnesota. Sklarek also served as the head designer and project director for the construction of the $50 million Los Angeles International Airport Terminal One prior to the 1984 Olympic Games. She retired from private practice in 1992, switching to lecturing at universities and advocating for increased recognition of minority-produced work in architecture. She became the first female African American fellow of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) in 1980 and was posthumously awarded the AIA Los Angeles Gold Medal (2019).

Chicago-born Dina Griffin, the president of Interactive Design Architects (IDEA) since 1999, and has designed a number of buildings in her hometown, including the Modern Wing at the Art Institute of Chicago (2009) with Renzo Piano and the Media Arts, Data, and Design Center at the University of Chicago (2019). She was the first female graduate of the School of Architecture at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and she designed her alma mater’s African American Cultural Center in 2019. Griffin’s team has done facade renovations of the Anthony J. Celebrezze Federal Building (2015), Cleveland, and designed the national marketing office of the General Services Administration, Chicago. Her team was commissioned by Chicago Public Schools to design the Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., Paideia Academy and by Chicago’s Lincoln Park Zoo to design the lion, macaque, penguin, seal, and tiger exhibits. Alongside Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects, she is currently working on the Obama Presidential Center, which is expected to open in Chicago in 2025.

J. Meejin Yoon is the first female dean of the College of Architecture, Art, and Planning at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, and the first female chair of the department of architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, Massachusetts. She has been lauded for her innovative use of emergent technology within architecture. In 2004 she cofounded the firm Höweler + Yoon, and later she designed projects such as the Sean Collier Memorial (2015) at MIT, dedicated to a campus police officer who died in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing; the Memorial to Enslaved Laborers (2020) at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville; the Moongate Bridge (2022), Shanghai; and the Living Village (expected completion 2025) for Yale Divinity School, New Haven, Connecticut. Yoon also created highly regarded contemporary art installations, including White Noise/White Light, an interactive sound and light grid that responded to pedestrian movement and was featured at the 2004 Olympics at Athens, as well as unknown, unknown, which she showed at the 2023 Venice Biennale. It was created as an homage to the enslaved community that labored at the University of Virginia.

Acclaimed as Pakistan’s first female architect, “starchitect” Yasmeen Lari has designed prestigious state commissions such as the Pakistan Finance and Trade Centre (1989) and the Pakistan State Oil House (1991), both in Karachi, and low-income housing for tens of thousands of Pakistanis. In 1964 she was the first Pakistani woman to graduate from the Oxford School of Architecture in England, and the first Pakistani woman to establish her own architectural practice, Lari Associates. A few of her socially conscious projects include cofounding the Heritage Foundation of Pakistan (1980), a conservation organization supported by UNESCO whose goal is to preserve Pakistan’s cultural heritage; the Anguri Bagh Housing (1973), Lahore, Pakistan, which was the first large-scale public housing development in the country; zero-carbon shelters for victims of the 2005 Kashmir earthquake; and the design of the Pakistani Chulah, an eco-friendly and fuel-efficient mud-brick stove for use by women in rural areas. She has been awarded the prestigious Jane Drew Prize (2020) and the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) Royal Gold Medal (2023).

Nigerian-born Olajumoke Adenowo has been dubbed a star architect of her country by CNN. At age 14 she enrolled at the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University), Kajola, Nigeria, and at age 23 she helped design the Federal Ministry of Finance, Abuja, Nigeria, the first of more than 70 projects. She established her own firm, AD Consulting, in 1994. Adenowo’s portfolio includes commissions from multinational organizations, such as the Nigerian Stock Exchange (2008) and Coca-Cola (2010), both in Lagos, and the Central West Africa corporate office for L’Oreal (2014), in Accra, Ghana. She also designed the Senate Building (2013) at her alma mater and Maryland Mall (2016), a luxury shopping center in Lagos. Adenowo is the founder (1999) of Awesome Treasures Foundation, a United Nations-recognized philanthropic organization committed to supporting women, children, and sustainable development. She has been recognized by RIBA as one of the most inspirational women in architecture.

Judith Edelman, who died at the age of 91 in 2014, was a feminist, a social activist, and an architect. A force to be reckoned with, she was called “Dragon Lady” by her peers at the AIA. When she arrived at Columbia University in 1942, she was disappointed that classical architecture was still the focus of the curriculum and appalled by the sexism she encountered from her professors. Edelman led a rebellion there that resulted in more-modernist architecture being taught at the school. She made a career of restoring historic buildings and designing affordable housing. In 1990 she and her husband, architect and preservationist Harold Edelman, received the AIA New York Chapter’s Andrew J. Thomas Pioneer in Housing Award. She became the first woman to be elected to the Board of Directors of New York’s AIA chapter and was a founding member of the Alliance of Women in Architecture in 1972. Edelman was the inspiration for the 1974 children’s book What Can She Be? An Architect by Gloria and Esther Goldreich.

Kazuyo Sejima, Japanese architect and coprincipal, with her partner Ryue Nishizawa, of the Tokyo-based firm SANAA, rose to fame with her dramatic designs, many for contemporary art museums: the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art (2004), Kanazawa, Ishikawa, Japan; the Glass Pavilion (2006) at the Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio; the New Museum of Contemporary Art (2007), New York City; and the Louvre Lens (2012), an annex to the Paris museum in northern France, to name a few. Sejima, with her partner, has won numerous awards, including the Pritzker Prize in 2010.

The British modernist architect Jane Drew left her mark in her own country as well as in Africa, the Middle East, India, and Sri Lanka. Her most famous project was the development of Chandigarh, the new capital city of Punjab, India, in 1951. She worked alongside Le Corbusier, her husband and partner, Maxwell Fry, and Pierre Jeanneret to create a modern city from scratch. She and Fry focused on designing affordable, practical housing. Among her many other accomplishments, she was instrumental to the establishment of the Institute of Contemporary Art in London, securing its land and designing its interior.

A formidable figure in the field of architecture, Denise Scott Brown has an impressive list of accomplishments as an architect, theorist, and educator. Often overshadowed by her husband and partner, Robert Venturi, she made headlines when she was excluded from the Pritzker Prize awarded to Venturi in 1991. Through their writings and building designs, she and her husband were pioneers in the move away from modernist glass-and-steel structures, favoring instead the use of ornament and historical and vernacular references. Her architectural design and planning can be seen on university campuses throughout the United States and her preservation planning in historic districts in Philadelphia; Galveston, Texas; and Miami Beach, Florida.

Sophia Hayden was the first woman to be accepted to (1886) and graduate from (1890) MIT’s prestigious architecture program. Despite her credentials, she had a hard time finding work once she graduated. Her big break came when her design was chosen for the Woman’s Building of the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. Unfortunately, she retired from the male-dominated architecture field after enduring unfair treatment throughout the construction of the building and when she saw her remarkable accomplishment torn down after the fair. Imagine what she might have achieved had she lived a century later.…

A true “starchitect,” Jeanne Gang steadily rose to the top of her field after her firm, Studio Gang Architects, opened in 1997. She became a household name with her addition of the Aqua Tower (2010) to the Chicago skyline. She and Studio Gang have won numerous awards and were the subject of a solo exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago in 2012–13. Some of her other notable works include the SOS Lavezzorio Community Center (2008), the Nature Boardwalk at the Lincoln Park Zoo (2010), and the WMS Boathouse at Clark Park (2013), all in Chicago.

Possibly the most famous architect on the list, Zaha Hadid was the first woman to win the Pritzker Prize (2004). Besides that honor, her big personality and bold designs proved that she could hold her own in the male-dominated field. Her buildings are distinct, incorporating asymmetry, fluidity, and unexpected twists and turns. Her award-winning works include the MAXXI museum of contemporary art and architecture (2010) in Rome, Evelyn Grace Academy (2011) in London, and the Heydar Aliyev Center (2012) in Baku, Azerbaijan.

The modernist architect Lina Bo Bardi did most of her work in her adopted home of Brazil. She was a prolific designer of buildings, jewelry, and furniture. Her 1950s bowl chair remains her best-known design. She dedicated her life to creating a truly Brazilian vernacular architecture. The needs and habits of her buildings’ inhabitants were primary to her design ethic. She lived and designed buildings in impoverished regions of Brazil and put her efforts toward the preservation of historic districts there. Her Museum of Art of São Paulo (1968) and Social Service for Commerce Building-Pompéia (built in stages, 1977–86), São Paulo, are icons of the city.