Associate Professor Paola Zellner Leads International Archive of Women in Architecture (IAWA) Event

Prof. Paola Zellner, director of the International Archive of Women in Architecture (IAWA) Center, led an event this past May 22 hosted by the European Cultural Center, at Palazzo Bembo in Venice. 

The event titled “The International Archive of Women in Architecture (IAWA): toward a balanced history of architecture,” was one of many celebrating the IAWA’s 40th anniversary and included a presentation by Prof. Zellner and a roundtable with an outstanding panel of guests. The panel explored the future of archiving, and the future of women’s records, aiming to collectively envision an archive of the future that will enable a balanced history of architecture.

The mission of the IAWA is to preserve women’s records and foster research aimed at repairing the omissions in the recorded history of architecture. The program sought to raise the awareness of the underrepresentation of women in architectural archives, the general absence of dedicated women’s collections, and the urgent need to establish women’s archives internationally. 

The guest panelists joining the event were Martha Thorne, former Dean of the IE School of Architecture and Design in Madrid and Segovia, Spain, who served as Executive Director of the Pritzker Architecture Prize from 2005 to 2021; Catja Edens, architectural historian and educator in architectural history at Delft University of Technology; Teresita Scalco, art and design historian and Head of the Archivio Progetti at IUAV University of Venice; and Fabio Marino, architectural historian and Assistant Professor at the Polytechnic University of Milan and recipient of the IAWA’s 2024 Milka Bliznakov Research Prize. 

The event included a written text provided by Behran Mousavi, former Head of State Collection Architecture and urban planning at the former Netherlands Architecture Institute (NAi) and later at Het Nieuwe Instituut, who was unable to attend in person.