Women in Architecture

The publication Women in Architecture documentsthe great achievements of women in architectureand their ever-increasing share in today'sbuilding activity. »Architecture is no morea men's world. This idea that women cannotthink three-dimensionally is ridiculous.« So ZahaHadid in 2013. Her death three years later camemuch too soon, but she will remain one of themost important exponents of the architectureof our time.The publication is based on the lecture series»Architecture Today« at Tübingen Universityand the female architects who could speakthere. Since 1987, this lecture series has offeredarchitects from all over the world a forum topresent their work and to explain their theoreticalideas about architecture. In the two wintersemesters 2016/17 and 2017/18 only womenwere invited. Together with the female architectswho have spoken in Tübingen in recent yearsand who are also represented in this book, theyprovide a very good overview of the special contributionthat women make to today's architecture.The question as to whether their contributiondiffers in content and form from that of theirmale colleagues, or whether it is inferior in quality,can clearly be answered in the negative. Inview of the achievements shown here, however,another question arises: Why did it take so longfor women to be able to take up this profession,in which not few of them are now achievingmuch greater success than their male collegues?The selection of female architects in this publicationis due to the lecture series. There is noclaim to completeness. The presentation ofthese architects working today, who are eachrepresented by a project of their choice, is complementedby a retrospective of the work ofsome extraordinary and pioneering women inarchitecture - with contributions by Dirk Boll onEmilie Winkelmann, Beatriz Colomina on EileenGray, Sol Camacho on Lina Bo Bardi and PatrikSchumacher on Zaha Hadid.Ursula Schwitalla studied different subjectsincluding art history and works as an