Women of Architecture: Andrea Leers, FAIA and Jane Weinzapfel, FAIA
Also of Interest |
Program SeriesWomen of Architecture |
The National Building Museum sat down with Andrea Leers, FAIA and Jane Weinzapfel, FAIA, principals of the architecture firm Leers Weinzapfel Associates, as part of the Women of Architecture lecture series.
National Building Museum (NBM): When did you first meet, and how soon after did you decide to go into practice together? What were the motivations to do so?
Andrea Leers, FAIA and Jane Wienzapfel, FAIA (LW): We met as interns at the office of Earl R. Flansburgh in Cambridge, MA, and, over ten years later, we joined in practice. We wanted to create an active practice dedicated to design innovation and excellence in the public realm that was fully committed to our clients and also supportive of family and teaching.
NBM: Give us a snapshot of what the culture of your practice is like—does it differ from other firms?
LW: Our studio is a collaborative one, with an equal number of women and men sharing responsibilities at all levels. We actively seek to hear many voices within the studio and to develop shared design values responsive to each project.
NBM: Leers Weinzapfel Associates has done a sizeable amount of work for educational institutions like Harvard, Brown, and Ohio State. What are some of the particular advantages as well as challenges this kind of environment has placed on your work?
LW: Most university and institutional clients are making investments for the long term, so they value high quality and good design. The challenge is that these clients often have many voices to bring into concert regarding program and direction as well as outside influences.
NBM: As architects, how do you define architectural design (single buildings, communities, cities, etc.)?
LW: Architectural design is a continuum from urban design and landscape to architectural and interior detail. We seek to strengthen urban design connections, create ensembles of buildings integrated with landscape, and make buildings that fit their purpose, resonate with their context, and look to the future.
NBM: Describe a project that you found especially challenging, either from a logistical or conceptual perspective, and tell us a bit about how you overcame that.
LW: The University of Pennsylvania Gateway Chiller Plant was a new, larger type of infrastructure project for us. And because it was a design competition, we did not have a high level of interaction with the client during the initial design. We took a cue from the competition brief that requested maximizing recreation opportunities in addition to the new required varsity baseball field. We treated the entire site as a recreational landscape with the chiller plant and truck movement precinct enclosed in a screen creating a 1/4 mile jogging track. The jogging track and screen envelope quickly became elongated into an ellipse juxtaposed with the ball field to fit the teardrop-shaped riverfront site.
NBM: This panel discussion takes place during, and in celebration of, Women's History Month. Some historians and critics distinguish between architectural history and social history, placing women's designs into social history. Do you agree?
LW: Women’s design work certainly falls within the larger discussion of social history. Access to education, opportunities within the profession, and perceptions of us as professionals have all been colored by the social history of which we are part. We are, however, at a moment in which we are attempting to make architectural history more complete with the inclusion of long neglected work of women. Although we have, for many years, resisted characterization as “women architects,” we understand that it is essential to bring that history to light.
NBM: You have a long history of teaching in architectural schools. How does pedagogy fit in with your practice, why is it important to you?
LW: The fluid exchange of ideas in the academy complemented by testing those ideas in practice has always been essential to the creative and intellectual challenge of architecture. The large space of speculation teaching affords is complemented by the focus of applied research and experience of building in practice.
NBM: When did you first start teaching, and where? How many other women were teaching design at the same school then? Do you recall the male-female ratio of students in your studios? Did you ever think of yourselves as role models for the students—the women in particular?
Andrea: I first began teaching at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, where only two other women to my knowledge had preceded me—Joan Goody and Sally Harkness. There were occasional other women as visiting faculty—Adele Santos comes to mind—but rarely more than one or two at a time. In my years at Yale, M.J. Long and Deborah Berke were some of my few women colleagues. Returning to HGSD in the 90s, the percentage of women faculty slowly began to improve, with the first tenured design professors including Toshiko Mori, Monica Ponce de Leon, and later, Farshid Moussavi, yet women were still a very small percentage of the design faculty. Among the students, I saw a rise in percentage from less than twenty-five percent of the class to forty-to-fifty percent. While I didn’t think of myself as a role model for women initially, it became clear that many female students sought me out, and I enjoyed the long- term relationships that often developed. Like many teachers, I often feel as though I learn more from others than I teach them.
Jane: When I first started teaching at the MIT School of Architecture and Planning, Dolores Hayden in planning was the other woman that I remember teaching there at the time. Although the MIT SAP has a long and distinguished history of woman graduates, I was not aware of the women faculty who may have preceded me or may have been teaching at the same time; this may have been my limitation, but I didn't find it unusual then. I had the great honor of sharing the studios of Lawrence Anderson, FAIA, and Edward Allen, FAIA, each Topaz Medallion awardees, and other gentlemen; but a few of the almost exclusively male faculty were not welcoming. Certainly, that changed dramatically and rapidly, and Adele Santos is now Dean there. There may have been ten-to-twenty percent women in the design studios, and some of their work was of the highest caliber. I didn't actively think of myself as a role model, but I do remember being asked for career advice and also my challenging male gender assumptions in the studio.
NBM: Who are/were some of the women that have had the greatest influence on your work?
LW: During our training as architects, our teachers and major inspirations were men—Louis I. Kahn and Fumihiko Maki—to name a few. In the formation of our practice, Joan Goody was an important source of guidance and support. Today, we admire and are inspired by an exciting group of women—Marion Weiss (Weiss Manfredi NY), Ines La Meunière (Devanthéry La Meunière Geneva), Kazuyo Sejima (SANAA, Tokyo), Yvonne Farell, and Shelley McNamara (Grafton Architects, Dublin).
Andrea: Two of my professors at Wellesley College were pivotal in encouraging my pursuit of architecture—Dean Theresa Frisch (art history) and Professor Ingrid Stadler (philosophy).
Jane: The pursuit of architecture takes courage and optimism, critical thinking, and leadership as a collaborative venture. Rosa Parks was my inspiration for her courage of conviction and her action for change. Sister Mariana was my inspiration for her clarity of thought and leadership.
NBM: What is the one piece of advice you would give young women studying architecture right now?
LW: Follow your passion, enjoy what you do, and move the discussion forward. Don’t be blind to the barriers that remain for women, but don’t be blocked by them. Remember that you stand on the shoulders of women before you, and offer a hand to women emerging.
Attend Leers Weinzapfel Associates: Connecting Forward.
