AWARE is expanding its scope to include women architects!

In 2025, the AWARE website will open up to architecture and highlight major and often overlooked figures such as Julia Morgan (1872–1957), the first woman to graduate with a degree in architecture in the United States, Aina Aalto (1894-1949) from Finland, and Lyn Huiyin (1904-1955), a pioneer in China. It also showcases influential 20th-century architects such as Jane Drew (1911-1996), Itala Fulvia Villa (1913-1991), Lina Bo Bardi (1914-1992), and Minnette de Silva (1918-1998), as well as contemporary figures such as Renée Gailhoustet (1929-2023), Denise Scott Brown (born in 1931), Brit Andresen (born in 1945) and Zaha Hadid (1950-2016). Through these biographies, AWARE will highlight the diversity and importance of women’s contributions to the history and evolution of architecture on a global scale.

Driven by a desire to document and highlight the careers of women who are still under-represented in the history of architecture, AWARE has imagined a programme that demonstrates the importance of women in the field of architecture in France and internationally, from the first women to graduate from architecture schools to women at the head of international architecture firms.

The research coordination of the programme was provided by Élise Koering and Stéphanie Bouysse-Mesnage, architectural historians working at the intersection between architecture and gender.

This programme received significant support from the Fonds de dotation Élysée Monceau. For the aspects relating to France, the project also received support from the Sous-direction de l’architecture, de la qualité de la construction et du cadre de vie (SDAQVCC) within the Direction générale des patrimoines et de l’architecture of the French Ministry for Culture.