100 Women Architects: The Exhibition

Leading industry voices, writers and academics Dr. Harriet Harriss, Naomi House, Monika Parrinder and Tom Ravenscroft, have garnered international plaudits for their eye-opening book 100 Women: Architects in Practice. Showcasing the largely overlooked stories of women currently making their mark in the architectural world, there have been launch events and press coverage for the book from Dubai to New York, Uzbekistan to South Africa.

Now, for the first time, they will make their findings tangible and accessible to the public through 100 Women Architects: The Exhibition. Geographically balanced to feature architects from 79 countries across six continents, the exhibition will amplify their voices, and projects will be illustrated by photos and rendered as simplified 3D paper models, constructed by graduates from London’s RCA Architecture programme, under the guidance of Interior Design MA tutor Steve Jensen.

These highlighted projects will show the breadth of innovative approaches to be found in every region of the world, from reinterpretations of indigenous building types that offer passively-sustainable solutions to local housing, such as Laura Narayansingh’s Bush House on the Caribbean Island of Trinidad; to organic, contemporary forms that sit sympathetically within the landscape, such as Rahel Shawl of RAAS Architecture’s Aga Khan award-winning Royal Netherlands Embassy, Addis Ababa, a red-ochre building that references the hewn rock churches of Lalibela.

The book explores “the different worlds, different forms of architecture and the place-sensitive approaches” each architect has taken to fulfill their vision through a series of insightful profiles and inspiring imagery, some of which will be on display in the gallery.

Over the past decade, awareness of the need for gender balance in architecture has gained traction. Within the profession, women remain underrepresented, underpromoted and underpaid. Through this RIBA publication and Roca exhibition, women’s contribution to the built environment is rightly acknowledged and celebrated.

In addition to a range of new names, visitors will also see works by established practitioners such as Liz Diller, Farshid Moussavi and Yasmeen Lari. Areas of common focus, identified by the authors across their research and discussed in the book’s introduction, will be highlighted, including: practice innovation; care and connection; unpredictable participation; future place-making; and equity.

The team says: “Our aspiration is gender equity across all professions and disciplines. We wrote the book to play some part in increasing the visibility of architectural practitioners who all have the knowledge and talent to be a household name.”