
March 25, 2010
The World’s Foremost Female Architect
Image from a great Icon slideshow of the Las Vegas studio.
Not to belabor the point I have made here (Jeanne Gang) and here (Zaha Hadid) and here (Aline Saarinen), but Martin Filler takes up the discussion of female architects and puts Denise Scott-Brown in her rightful place. I may not like the work, but I agree on her importance. More talk about women in the profession can only be of benefit to women in the profession.
Martin Filler
Preposterously premature acclaim has posited the London-based Iraqi Zaha Hadid (who turns sixty next Halloween but has yet to produce a body of built work commensurate with her hyperbolic reputation) as the world’s foremost female architect. Instead, that designation rightfully belongs to Denise Scott Brown, a truly towering figure in the modern history of the building art.
UnBeige picks SANAA’s Kazuyo Sejima as the wildcard for this Sunday’s Pritzker Prize. I would not call her a wildcard, since the film’s work has been widely covered and praised and she and partner Ryue Nishizawa operate in the same quiet way as last year’s winner Peter Zumthor. My question is, will it be a joint win? I have never understood SANAA’s process, and some of the partners’ work is separate, but giving it to another partnership would be a step toward recognizing the realities of the profession.
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Observed
By Alexandra Lange
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