The Future is Feminine
Fall semester 2013 saw the largest class of students to date enter our Masters programme.1 31 future architects entered a programme set up for 20, an unremarkable fact except when one considers the gender ratio: of 31 students, only two were men. Within six months, one of the men transferred to another university and the other opted for a foreign exchange programme. In the spring semester of 2014, by a series of coincidences and with one exception, all lecturers for this group were women. I am an American, who trained and worked in New York before relocating to West Berlin in the late 1980s. Since 1992, I have taught architectural design at the University of Applied Sciences in Dresden.2 At a liberal arts women’s college, like the one I attended in the United States, this feminine predominance was unremarkable. But this occurred in Germany, where architecture has long been associated with the applied sciences; until recently, degree programmes culminated in the ‘Diploma Engineer’ (abbreviated as ‘Dipl.-Ing.’) degree. (This situation only changed after 2000, when the majority of German architecture faculties adopted the Bachelors and Masters system). Because architectural education here was located in the engineering sciences, until the early 1990s, it attracted a large contingent of male students.
Today, the number of women working in architecture in Germany is growing, and between 2008 and 2014 their share increased from 29% to 43%. (These statistics, it should be noted, include urban designers and interior architects as well as architects).3 Taking this all-women class as a point of departure and considering the impending feminisation of the profession, this chapter examines the following question: how will an influx of women transform architectural practice in Germany?
… But Der Architekt is Masculine
The numbers of women students may be growing steadily, but the gendered nature of German language shapes professional identity, lends meaning to construction and building, and also poses a challenge to the feminine professional.
Unlike English, German has three cases, and all substantives are either masculine (indicated by the definite article der), feminine (die), or neutral (das). Gender-conforming adjectives reinforce the case, or ‘gender’, of the substantive. Language indicates a gender for the professional, for all aspects of higher education, practice, even technology, impeding other interpretations from taking hold.4 Thus, in German, der Architekt (the architect) refers to the architectural professional and is gendered masculine. All normative references to this person occur in the masculine form.
For example, the monthly magazine of the Bund Deutscher Architekten (BDA, or German Association of Architects, an honorary professional organisation) is titled der Architekt. Whereas a male architect calls himself der Architekt, a woman is identified as die Architektin, and by the logic of this language, she is a variation on the normative condition. Likewise, der Professor is masculine, and die Professorin, the feminine form, is derived from the rule.
Furthermore, sexual metaphors and references to gender are sometimes used to identify building parts and construction materials. Thus a Schraube (shank of a screw) is inserted into a Mutter (the nut, or literally ‘the mother’); there are Mönche und Nonnen (monks and nuns) clay roofing tiles, which are typically half-cylindrical, overlapping clay tiles where the convex part is masculine and the concave feminine;5 and Mutter und Kindbalken (mother and child beams), where the mother is a main supporting beam and the child is the perpendicular joist. As in English, body metaphors, such as skeletal construction (feminine), headroom (feminine), and handrail (masculine), exist as well.
Learning from the Feminine Classroom
During socialism, the former East Bloc oversaw the successful integration of women architects into the workforce,6 and their share in these nations remains strong today.7
It is perhaps not surprising that the class that entered in the autumn of 2013 included a large contingent of students who were born in former East Germany, and a sizeable minority (20%) from Poland and Russia.
Conversations with colleagues8 who taught the group recall that these students made a uniformly positive impression. As is inevitably the case among any group of people, there were occasional difficulties and interpersonal conflicts, yet the teaching staff felt that this class functioned effectively as a group and could organise themselves exceptionally well. While the staff did not change the content of their programme, for some instructors this feminine mass affected how we taught, especially when women lecturers were present. Some of the staff became more demanding and enforced discipline, for example, forbidding eating or drinking in class, or removing cell phones when used in class for non-essential work.9 This stringency may have been motivated by a projection on our parts; in any event, we wanted the students to take themselves seriously and learn how to behave in a professional setting.
The colleagues also recall that an atmosphere arose that was distinct from the typical mixed-sex teaching situations. The students rejected academic hierarchies and focused more on collective interactions. One observed that where male students tend to direct their comments to the ‘alpha male’ – usually the professor or other authority figure – members of our all-women class typically turned to look at one another when they spoke, and they engaged with one another during class discussions. Another recalled that this attitude extended outside the classroom and, as a whole, they were more open and friendly, readily greeting professors and one another in the hallways.
How did social cohesion impact their architectural designs? Those who taught design seminars felt that a good quality emerged, although one instructor observed that no exceptional, highly ambitious projects were in evidence. Design instructors also noted that all the students seemed to orient themselves toward a median level, which spanned from the weaker to the stronger members of the group.
Women have Scaled the Ivory Tower but can they Claim the Architect’s Office?
In the spring semester of 2014, I encountered the group of individuals in my course devoted to biographies of women architects in the 20th century. Because most students read at least two languages, we were able to investigate a range of figures from diverse cultural and historical contexts. As is often the case when I teach this course, the seminar briefly becomes a consciousness raising session, and outrage erupts. Typically, indignation arises because many women contribute significantly to architecture, such as Marion Mahony Griffin’s renderings for Frank Lloyd Wright, or Lilly Reich’s interiors and furnishings for the buildings of Mies van der Rohe, yet they are rarely mentioned in mainstream history lectures. Others are exasperated because well-researched scientific texts are not available in German about influential German women (like the German born, Bauhaus-trained Lotte Stam-Beese, who became a leading public-sector architect in Rotterdam after World War Two). In this case, students must grapple with an excellent book that is written in Dutch.
After we repaired the historical record and speculated on the cause of these omissions, students reported on these biographies to consider how they should model their careers. By far their main concern was: How can a woman architect balance familial obligations and the demands of architectural practice? If one forgoes marriage to a man because one is a lesbian, like the American Eleanor Raymond in mid-20th century Boston, then living with a female partner in a house with other professional women who provide emotional support for one another is one model. Other biographies revealed the personal and professional consequences arising from intimacy with a colleague, and elicited much reflection. In Philadelphia during the 1950s, Anne Griswold Tyng, an accomplished young architect, worked for Louis I. Kahn and had a relationship with him. Tyng became pregnant but Kahn, who was married, refused to divorce his wife. Tyng then forged her career alone as a single mother, independent of Kahn. The biography of Marlene Moescke Poelzig (a talented sculptor turned architect, mother of three, and the second wife of architect Hans Poelzig, who was widowed on the eve of World War Two) provoked the following question: if you had to choose, which is more important – children or practice? We had several mothers in this class and the answer was clear: children came first. One wonders what direction this conversation would take in a mixed-sex group.
… And will their Names Appear on the Door?
Our all-women class of Masters students entered the job market at a time when the profession of architecture is undergoing profound change: the reliance on the computer is paramount; EU law has sharply curtailed the availability of open public competitions to gain commissions, typically a means for young architects to establish themselves; and the former regulated payment system, the HOAI (Honorarordnung für Architekten und Ingenieure, or Schedule of Services and Fees for Architects and Engineers), is being weakened.
Meanwhile, the top tier of the profession remains almost impenetrable for those women who desire to run their own office. One measure of success, the annual Bauwelt ranking of German architectural offices, which lists architectural offices based on the number of publications a firm accrues over the course of a year, reveals that in 2015, 25% of the top 20 architectural offices in Germany have one female partner. But these women typically collaborate with a husband or a male friend, and women-run offices are absent from this elite selection.10
While women in Germany are more likely to appear in representative positions, such as the current president of the Federal Chamber of Architects, Barbara Ettinger-Brinkmann, and Barbara Hendricks, the federal minister for environment, nature conservation and nuclear safety who oversees many issues relevant to architecture, urbanism and land use policy, the situation on the ground is more complex. Informal conversations with architects reveal that they encounter difficulties in recruiting and retaining good employees. Certainly an ample number of graduates enter the job market each year to meet the demand. Yet approximately half of women architects leave the profession by mid-career.11 Of those who remain in practice, approximately one-third work part-time, and over half make a break in their career to care for children (compared to one-fifth of men). Starting salaries for recent graduates are equal, regardless of gender, yet once an architect reaches mid-career, men, on average, earn 20% more than women.12
Will the Impending Feminisation of Architectural Practice Re-Gender Practice?
While many women desire to alter practice to suit their personal needs, for those caring for a family it is often difficult to engage with professional organisations that might bring about meaningful change. In 2011, those present at a well-attended meeting of women architects and urban planners in Baden-Württemburg observed that because many women work either part-time or head single-person offices, they rarely have the time to actively participate in professional politics. Caught between the demands of career and family, they have scant additional time to join professional interest groups and to articulate their specific concerns – such as rethinking the profession to better suit their situation – in a public forum.
Certainly some offices develop flexible schedules to help young mothers, stress the importance and the qualities of women architects, and have no problem when a man or woman brings a child into the office if school or childcare is cancelled.13 But one suspects that these are the exception. Challenging how offices are organised; what clients expect from their architects; or even how to integrate older professionals who have taken a break from architecture to raise a family or for other reasons, requires attention, too. Indeed, a feminine connotative and informed method of architectural practice appears to be a long way off. Or is it?
Recent history has also shown that when a mass of women appears in a male-dominated profession in Germany, they do not adopt the prevailing norms. Instead, they effect change by challenging the distinctions placed on them by language, acknowledging collectivity over individual acts, and ensuring that they are able to enjoy a fulfilling private life while carrying out their professional duties. In 1988 and 1989, the last Senate of West Berlin before and during the fall of the Berlin Wall, was comprised of 12 politicians hailing from the Green and Social Democratic parties, eight of whom were women. Once in office they changed the manner in which ministries were identified, replacing the masculine, individual-connoted der Senator (the Senator) to the feminised, implicitly collective die Senatsverwaltung (the Senate Administration). (Thus, what was formerly known as der Senator für Bau- und Wohnungswesen [The Senator for Construction and Housing] became die Senatsverwaltung für Bau- und Wohnungswesen [The Senate Administration for Construction and Housing].) In another break from tradition, these women politicians demanded, and received, one day each week that was free of official business to devote to their families and personal affairs.
… And Bridge the Eternal Conflict between Personal Ambition and Motherhood?
As previously noted, many in the all-women class of 2015 desired to unite family and meaningful work in architecture. Germany, it must be emphasised, has undertaken great strides to improve the compatibility of remunerative work and family life. In addition to a guaranteed daycare place for all children over the age of three, both men and women can legally take parental leave after the birth of their offspring.14 But the problem is not so much finding time to supervise babies and toddlers: childrearing evolves into supervising a teenager, and can occupy a parent for years. In addition, many adults also care for ageing parents, family members, or friends. Nor do all architects follow a well-defined career path, finishing their education while in their early 20s and proceeding immediately to an apprenticeship, registration, and professional work. Indeed, thanks to our emphasis on practical training, our architectural programme in Dresden has attracted many students who have previously worked in another profession or trade. Two grandmothers (in their early 40s) even completed the Bachelors degree! Those who enter the profession at a later stage in their careers are social beings with relationships and responsibilities; they bring with them extraordinary potential, yet require a new means of thinking about how architects can enter and remain in practice.
Future Practice: A Vision of the Class of 2015
At the close of our seminar on women architects, I asked the group who could be considered as an exemplary figure to model their career upon. The students were most impressed by those architects who were able to combine family life – and most importantly raising children – with ambitious work in architecture. They favoured not simply partaking in two parallel aspects of life, one professional and the other private, but were intrigued by strategies that blurred the distinctions between the two. Pictures of women architects working at their drawing tables with children nearby, such as well-known portraits of the British architect Alison Smithson, or the Swiss-born, German-based Barbara Holzer, exemplify this ideal. Collaborating with one’s life partner, who is also an architect, certainly can bridge the private/professional divide, yet I increasingly observe that young women reject this model because they desire a professional identity that is independent of their private partner.
Our experiences with this all-women class suggest possibilities that will potentially enrich and alter practice. Historical examples indicate that, as women enter architecture in Germany in greater numbers, both professional relations and the language we use to describe architecture will evolve. But to keep women in practice for the long haul, architects will have to devise new strategies that blur the boundaries between the public and private, identifying specific solutions to mediate between the day-to-day activity of producing architecture and each woman’s individual needs and desires.