ABSTRACT
Architecture has been ‘professionalised’ more than the other arts, and we know from professions such as medicine and law, that part of the process of professionalism is to restrict entry. In the past this restriction has fallen heaviest on women since they come into so many of the barred categories. Rescuing from oblivion those pioneer women who, despite their sex, engaged directly with architectural design, has been, as Penny Sparke points out in the Introduction to this volume, a significant scholarly task. However, attention has shifted to women who have assumed gendered roles within the social practices of architecture and building, and it is now apparent that these roles have been crucial in the development of an architectural culture during the period under discussion. By social practices I mean those activities, which while not impinging directly on design, are nonetheless present to some extent where buildings are built, discussed, and visited. They then form the location for social interaction beyond the drawing board, where both men and women can participate. Such an activity is discussed by Lisa Koenigsberg who identifies a group of American women writing in an adjacent capacity between 1848 and 1913 about extant architecture.
