C O N T E X T 1 2 4 : M A Y 2 0 1 2 39 Architecturally speaking Women, architecture’s outsiders Women have been instrumental in commissioning great buildings and innovative, cutting-edge experiments in architecture since construction began; a fact that is well-known in our professional circle.What is less clear is quite how late women managed to break into the design world as professionals, and how they struggled for recognition and the ability to call themselves architects. This article is not intended to be a piece of feminist writing in any way, but merely topical, given that the female Japanese architect Kazuyo Sejima and her partner won the prestigious Pritzker Prize for architecture in 2010. Sejima is only the second woman ever to win the prize, a fact which perhaps makes it timely to look at the struggle women have had historically in architecture.When the surface of this topic is only slightly scratched, it becomes clear that some of our best architects were women, and that they have often made an unregistered or unnoticed contribution to our diverse architectural legacy. Bess of Hardwick (1518–1608), the well-known driving force behind the then avant-garde, Elizabethan prodigy house Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire, is a good example of a woman involved in building projects nearly 500 years ago. Responsible also for the construction of Chatsworth, Bess used architecture as a means of securing her position in life and crystallising some of the vast wealth she had acquired over the course of four marriages. In this respect she was no different from many other aristocratic men of her association who were also building prodigy houses as signs of their wealth, power and dynastic intentions. For both men and women within the aristocracy at this time, however, it was wholly unacceptable to be seen to be involved in anything as menial as construction. Nonetheless, the evidence shows that Bess, like many of her aristocratic male counterparts, took an actively participative role in the building of her several mansions. Such was her interest in architecture that she once stated that she believed she would never die as long as she was involved in building. Ironically her death came on 13 February 1608 during a frost which stopped all her building activities. Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough (1660–1744) is another example of a woman in history who was deeply involved in the detailed design process of a major construction project, this time Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire. So involved was she in fact that she eventually came to blows with the scheme’s official architect, Sir John Vanbrugh. He, not for the first time, left in a fit of pique. Sarah records this event in a letter. ‘I have made Mr Vanbrugh my enemy by the constant disputes I had with him to prevent his extravagance,’ she writes. By 1716 the duchess had accused him outright of mismanagement. This ended with Vanbrugh writing to Sarah: ‘I should put a very great affront upon your understanding if I Suppos’d it possible you cou’d mean any thing in earnest by them; but to put a Stop to my troubling you anymore.You have your end Madam for I will never trouble you more… unless the Duke of Marlborough recovers so far, to shelter me from such intolerant treatment.’¹ Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough:‘I have made MrVanbrugh my enemy by the constant disputes I had with him.’
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