Volume 3, Issue 1: New Events & Fellows February, 2009 At the National Building Museum Jeanne Gang on Transforming Skylines and Communities Monday, March 9, 2009, Washington, DC BWAF, in collaboration with the NBM, presents Jeanne Gang, founder and principal of Studio Gang Architects and one of a new breed of young architects changing the profession. Gang will discuss the transformative elements of urban buildings and neighborhoods in her native Chicago and beyond on March 9, 2009. Jeanne Gang extends into the 21st century a continuum at least four generations long of outstanding women architects who, too, were transforming skylines across America beginning at the turn of the 20th century. In her introduction, Beverly Willis, FAIA, situates Gang's oeuvre within this continuum of American women architects. This lecture is part of the Women of Architecture series at the NBM, presented in collaboration with BWAF to celebrate Women's History Month. To register for this event, visit www.nbm.org or call 202.272.2448. Studio Gang's Aqua building in Chicago, currently under construction. Model by Studio Gang. SAVE THE DATE At The Guggenheim Museum The Architecture of Writing: Wright, Women, and Narrative Wednesday, June 10, 2009, New York, NY Concrete House: Design and rendering by Marion Mahony. In collaboration with The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation will present The Architecture of Writing: Wright, Women, and Narrative on June 10, 2009. Participants Carol Gilligan and Gwendolyn Wright with Sarah Williams Goldhagen as moderator, discuss how the architecture of writing shapes the narratives about women architects. To launch the discussion, the program premiers a BWAF-produced 15-minute film, “A Girl Is A Fellow Here”: 100 Women Architects in the Studio of Frank Lloyd Wright, that explores an unknown legacy of Frank Lloyd Wright. At a time when few architectural firms would hire women, Frank Lloyd Wright unhesitatingly employed women, giving them both training and opportunity to practice. Ultimately, over 100 women architects and designers worked with Wright, many of them going on to remarkable careers of their own. One of the Taliesin Apprentices of 1947, Lois Gottlieb, will be honored at the beginning of the program. Coney Island Hospital, 1952, New York City. Design by Architect Read Weber—a 1932 Taliesin Apprentice—and her firm. From the film “A Girl is a Fellow Here,” premiering June 10 at the Guggenheim Museum. Photo Credit: Stoller/Esto Photography. The New Dynamic National Archive The Dynamic National Archive (DNA), formerly known as the Timeline of American Women of Architecture, has been upgraded with an interface that is both more comprehensive and easier to use. The DNA is the first stage of an ongoing project to catalog the names, biographies, and work of female architects and designers who have contributed to the development of 20th-century architecture in the United States. This is an open, collaborative effort and we invite you to participate. Browse and contribute to the archive at www.bwaf.org/dna. Update: The 2008 BWAF Fellows The Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation Fellows are grantees chosen by the Foundation and its Trustees whose work furthers the mission of the Foundation. To find out more about BWAF grants, see www.bwaf.org/grants. The next grant cycle will begin in 2010.  Jane King Hession, an architectural historian, will produce Lisl Close: A Life in Modern Architecture, a monograph on the life of Elizabeth Scheu Close, FAIA (b. 1912). Close was Minnesota’s first female modern architect and the only woman to receive AIA Minnesota’s Gold Medal. Her life-long commitment to the design of practical, functional modern houses will be a major theme of the book.  Linda Ingram, an independent scholar, continues her work with the archives of The American Institute of Architects (AIA) at the national headquarters in Washington, D.C. Expanding on her previous project that listed all female members of the AIA up to 1980, Ingram will now develop biographical and career narratives based on the records of the 150 women elected Fellows of The American Institute of Architects from 1955 to 2000.  Alison Isenberg, an urban and cultural historian at Rutgers University, is writing Urban Design Unclothed: Collaborative Landscapes and the Modernist Turn Toward Preservation in the 1960s, which explores the era’s collaborations among design professionals and their allied fields in public art, graphics, property management and public relations. The book focuses on the gender-based features of these collaborations, and how they intersected with pressing questions of modernism, historicism, feminism, scale, and open space, as urban design emerged from the rubble of urban renewal.  Susan Morgan, writer and Contributing Editor at Metropolitan Home, will continue her research and writing for a monograph on Esther McCoy (1904-1989), the preeminent architectural writer on 20th-century American modernism. Entitled Sympathetic Seeing: Esther McCoy and the Heart of American Modernist Design, it will be the first book to focus on McCoy’s landmark work.  Anne Nicklin, Sustainability Consultant and member of the faculty at Boston Architectural College, will be researching the work of Elizabeth Wood (1899-1993), founding Executive Secretary of the Chicago Housing Authority. This study focuses on Wood's visionary contributions—in both policy and practice—to modern public housing in Chicago and beyond.  Sarris and Eisenbach, Terri Sarris, Filmmaker/Senior Lecturer, University of Michigan, and Ronit Eisenbach, Visiting Associate Professor in Architecture, Planning, & Preservation, University of Maryland, will produce a pilot film for a documentary on the Michigan designer, Ruth Adler Schnee (b. 1923). The feature will trace the development of Schnee’s vibrant textile designs against a biographical backdrop that shifted from Nazi Germany to midwestern America. The film will follow Schnee’s early association with America’s pre-eminent designers through to the present where she continues as an advocate for the promotion and preservation of Detroit’s modernist heritage.  Ellen Shoshkes, Architect and Planner, and Adjunct Associate Professor, Portland State University, will continue work on her forthcoming monograph concerning the town planner, editor, and educator, Jacqueline Tyrwhitt (1905-1983). Based on research conducted with support from a BWAF Fellowship in 2007, and entitled Hidden Voice: the Contribution of Jacqueline Tyrwhitt to the Origins and Evolution of Urban Design in America, 1945-1976, the book will examine the contributions and current relevance of Tyrwhitt’s career. Esther McCoy. Photo from Arts and Architecture: The Entenza Years. Barbara Goldstein, ed. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1990. Pins and Needles, textile design by Ruth Adler Schnee. Architects Lisl Close and Winston Close at work. Photo courtesy of Jane King Hession and William Olexy. Please be advised: The 2009 grant cycle for BWAF Fellowships is suspended while BWAF re-structures its website and grant application guidelines. New guidelines will be posted by September 1, 2009, at which time they will take effect for BWAF's 2010 grant cycle. Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation 2 Columbus Avenue  Suite 3A New York, New York 10023 212.577.1200 | 203.488.9009 www.BWAF.org contact the editor The Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization BWAF Briefly—all rights reserved © 2009