women in architecture


satisfaction of course is walking away from a well designed building which everyone is happy with. I liked the idea that you could use a very real medium to create something that was borne out of the imagination.


Q


What city/space inspires you the most?


BW: I love three cities, not one…Paris, London and New York. I need to know that they all exist; one is not enough!


Cape Town and sat in on a lecture about Architecture. Something about what was said struck a chord in me that was enough to convince me that this was what I wanted to do. At the time when I left school, the country was in turmoil and a new government was inevitable. Among all the uncertainty was the will for a better nation. For me, architecture was a tool that I wanted to use to allow me contribute to society – be it the new or old South Africa. Not so much in terms of politics but a plight that has always been close to my heart - orphans. Architecture encompasses a diversity of interest for me. It is a convergence of a variety of subjects and therefore keeps you challenged and interested. The


TS: So many ... but Rome, Greece, Venice, Singapore, Cape Town, Prague ...all for different reasons. It’s hard to say why each of these evokes something inside me but the Architecture from the classics echo the sheer determination of will and design. It amazes me how these buildings are a testament to progressive thinking of their time. They dared to try new things at a scale that is seldom done today. The Coliseum, The Pantheon are obvious ones, all still a very big presence, though one could go on forever naming these types of buildings that still shape the cityscapes today. By contrast we can look at modern cities like Singapore, not unlike other cities that have tower blocks but it is the efficiency and the cleanliness of this city that struck me. I enjoyed the boldness of their mixture of sharp shapes and glass towers overlooking parts of the city surrounded by myth and legend with evidences of this still within the city. Bold, daring and yet, sympathetic to the culture also in many ways. It would be remiss of me not to mention my hometown Cape Town, a city that enjoys being part ‘the most beautiful peninsula in all the circumference of the earth’ (explorer Bartholomew Diaz). This is the juxtaposition of first world meeting third - a progressive city of opportunity with buildings that don’t go any further back than 1666.


Q


What do you think of London and the


architecture within it? BW: London is so many different things: I love it because it is grand, generous, green, and gritty, complex and ever changing. I never tire of it. But I do despair at the terrible quality of so many of the new buildings that are going up.


TS: Entering London for the first time in 1999 the first thing that hit me was how busy it was. The


MAXXI Museum, Rome, designed by Zaha Hadid


women like Zaha Hadid who won this year’s Sterling Prize just goes to show we can contend with the ‘big boys’


“Time is a wonderful thing and


scale of the buildings was unlike anything I had experienced before. Historically rich yet exposing some of its face to the future and hosting some modern structures I think it is a good showcase for what was and what is to come.


” Q


What/who influences you in your designs?


BW: My very mixed background (middle-European, Italian, American, and now English) is constantly contributing to the way I think of spaces and design solutions… Loos and Rossi are my heroes… My two great teachers were Leon Krier and James Stirling, and while I feel I have developed my own language and architectural approach, I am heavily indebted to both.


TS: If I had to pick an architect whose life has intrigued me with their fearlessness for experimentation with technology, it would be Frank Lloyd Wright. I particularly enjoy the account of the leaky roof episode at Wingspread where ‘Hib’ Johnson, CEO of the SC Johnson Wax


Tanja Smith, GRADONARCHITECTURE


Company was hosting a housewarming dinner party. The great hall covered by a typical Wright design of sweeping curves and soaring skylight-ringed suspended ceiling from the central chimney (compared to a circus tent) started to leak during a thunderstorm. Johnson called Wright in a rage and fumed ‘...and the roof is leaking right on top of my head!’ to which Wright replies ‘Why don’t you move your chair?’ I wonder what his PI cover would have been today?


Q


When you started out on your career as an


architect, did you find it hard as a woman in such a male- dominated industry? BW: In some ways, though in others it has been an advantage. My worst problem is trying to find clients who will give my practice its big break; I think women-led practices are often unfairly over- looked for the big commissions.


TS: It varied, I found that there were definite barriers but that could also have related to my level


Architects Choice 27


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