Beautiful Tomes Celebrating Distinguished Female Architects

         


Eileen Gray, Designer and Architect

By Chloe Pitiot

Eileen Gray (1878–1976) was a versatile designer and architect who navigated numerous literary and artistic circles over the course of her life. This handsome volume chronicles Gray’s career as a designer, architect, painter and photographer. The book’s essays, featuring copious new research, offer in-depth analysis of more than 50 individual designs and architectural projects, accompanied by both period and new photographs. Gray struggled for acceptance as a largely self-taught woman in male-dominated professions. Although she is now best known for her furniture, lighting and carpets, she dedicated herself to many architectural and interior projects that were both personal and socially driven.

 


 


Zaha Hadid:
Complete Works 1979–Today

By Philip Jodidio

Zaha Hadid was a revolutionary architect. For years, she was widely acclaimed and won numerous prizes despite building practically nothing. Some even said her work was simply impossible to build. Yet during the latter years of her life, Hadid’s daring visions became a reality, bringing a new and unique architectural language to cities and structures such as the Port House in Antwerp, Belgium, the Al Janoub Stadium near Doha, Qatar, and the spectacular new airport terminal in Beijing. By her untimely death in 2016, Hadid was firmly established among architecture’s finest elite, working on projects in Europe, China, the Middle East and the United States. With abundant photographs, in-depth sketches and Hadid’s own drawings, the volume traces the evolution of her career—spanning not only her most pioneering buildings but also the furniture and interior designs that were integrated into her unique and distinctly 21st-century universe.

 


 


Powerhouse: The Life and Work of Architect Judith Chafee

By Christopher Domin and Kathryn McGuire

Powerhouse is the first book on the singular life and career of American architect Judith Chafee (1932–1998). Chafee was an unrepentant modernist on the forefront of sustainable design. Her architecture shows great sensitivity to place, especially the desert landscapes of Arizona. Chafee was also a social justice advocate and a highly respected woman in a male-dominated profession. After graduating from the Yale University Architecture School, where her advisor was Paul Rudolph, she went on to work in the offices of legends including Rudolph, Walter Gropius, Eero Saarinen and Edward Larrabee Barnes. In addition to her architectural legacy, her decades of teaching helped shape a generation of architects. Chafee’s drawings and archival images of her work are complemented by stunning photography by Ezra Stoller and Bill Timmerman.