The history of women architects in the Summer School "Cities and Gender: Perspectives and Strategies"
The framework of the challenges and issues around women's history in architecture was one of the topics discussed on the first day of the Summer School "Cities and Gender: Perspectives and Strategies" (co-organization of Mulheres na Arquitectura association, research project W@ARCH.PT and BIP/ZIP project "Um Género de Escola!"). On September 18, Patrícia Santos Pedrosa, coordinator of W@ARCH.PT, shared an afternoon of reflections with architect and researcher Daniela Arias Laurino (Uruguay/Spain, Un Día / Una Arquitecta project) and with the participants of the summer school.
Summer School "Cities and Gender: Perspectives and Strategies"
For the first time in Portugal there was a school dedicated to themes of architecture and the city with a gender perspective. With the co-organization of the Mulheres na Arquitectura association (Women in Architecture), the research project W@ARCH.PT and the BIP / ZIP project "Um Género de Escola!", The application of a reflective and participative methodology, with a gender perspective, was privileged. Between the 18th and 20th of September 2019, at CIULisboa, the Summer School "Cities and Gender: Perspectives and Strategies", brought together students of architecture, technicians of city councils and people related to associations, from different parts of the country, with national and international experts.
During 3 days, conferences, workshops, urban walks, viewing and debating films, made it possible to understand the possibilities of strategies for: 1. Visibility and reinforcement of professionals (architects, urban planners, etc.) in places of technical and political decision; 2. Questioning about the urban consolidation of inequalities and the consequent socio-spatial resistances and 3. Assessment of consolidated or developing urban realities and processes and necessary strategies. The essential objective was fulfilled: to create safe and debate environments that allow learning and working with tools that aim at building more solid urban intervention strategies with an awareness of diversity, for an inclusive daily life.
Gender Matters: first publication in the scientific journal The Plan Journal
Patrícia Santos Pedrosa, coordinator of the research project W@ARCH.PT, published a reflection on the initial phase of the research in the volume "Gender Matters" of the international scientific journal The Plan Journal. Subjected to a peer-review process, the article The W@ARCH.PT as an Ongoing Feminist Research Project in Architecture: Contextualizing Initial Reflections" presented the initial questions and considerations about the history of women architects in Portugal and the strategies of feminist historiography.