Princeton University Press, 2025.
In the interwar decades, American architecture schools enrolled increasing numbers of women. But as architectural historians Mary Anne Hunting and Kevin D. Murphy recount in their book Women Architects at Work, professional success did not come easily. Focusing on the Cambridge School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture in Massachusetts and several coeducational architecture schools, Hunting and Murphy profile women designers who pursued careers in architecture, describing how these innovative practitioners leveraged social, educational, and professional ties to achieve success and address social concerns. Some joined women-led architectural firms, while others partnered with men or contributed to Modernism as retailers of household furnishings, writers and educators, photographers and designers, or fine artists.
With stunning illustrations, Women Architects at Work offers new histories of recognized figures, while recovering the stories of previously unsung women, all of whom contributed to the modernization of American architecture and design.
Mary Anne Hunting & Kevin D. Murphy
Mary Anne Hunting is an architectural historian and the author of Edward Durell Stone: Modernism’s Populist Architect. Kevin D. Murphy is Andrew W. Mellon Chair in the Humanities and professor and chair in the Department of the History of Art and Architecture at Vanderbilt University. His books include Skyscraper Gothic, coedited with Lisa Reilly.
The video begins with presentations by Mary Anne Hunting and Kevin D. Murphy, followed by a discussion with the authors as they respond to audience questions. Museum Director Carol Willis' introduction is placed after the presentation and discussion.