Women Architects under State Socialism Online Symposium
by the EAHN Special Interest Group Women and Gender in Architecture, Landscape and Urban Design
Symposium Conveners: Alla Vronskaya, Luca Csepely-Knorr, Svava Riesto
Day 1 – October 9 at 13:30 CET
13:30 Welcome and introduction – Alla Vronskaya – Luca Csepely-Knorr and Svava Riesto
13:35 Opening event: Exhibition talk – “Comrades and Team Players. Women Who Built Berlin, Capital of the GDR” Ursula Müller and Katharina Deppisch
14:00-14:15 Break
14:15-16:15 Session 1: Alternative Archives I
Chair: Juliana Kei
- Dijia Chen, Xiahong Hua, Yuli Zhong, Women Architects in China’s State Design Institutes: Collectivism, Professional Agency, and Gender-Neutral Ideals
- Hatice Yaren Karadeniz, Shared Kitchens, Collective Care: Women Architects and Social Infrastructure in Yugoslav Self- Managed Housing, 1961-1980
- Asma Mehan, Petro-Modern Housing: Women Architects in Iran’s Socialist Urban Projects
- Lidija Butković Mićin, Alternative Sources, Alternative Histories: Researching Women Architects in Socialist Yugoslavia
16:15-16:30 Break
16:30-18:00 Session 2: Alternative Archives II
Chair: Anna Sokolina
- Olga Kazakova, A Week Like Any Other. Combining the “Female” and “Professional” Roles of Women Architects in the Brezhnev-era USSR (Based on Personal Interviews)
- Ingrid Ruudi, Minor archives in feminist research of Socialist architecture
- Kaja Schelker, A Woman Architect of Polish Borderlands – The Network of Architect Anna Górska
Day 2: October 10 at 13:00 CET
13:00 -14:30 Session 1: Media
Chair: Sarah Wheat
- Luis Miguel Lus-Arana and Lucia Perez-Moreno, (Film) Women Architects Under State Socialism. The Representation of women architects in commercial cinema in the USSR and the Eastern Bloc, 1956-1990
- Jorun Jensen, Gendered Domesticity in Housing Magazines of the German Democratic Republic (GDR)
- Kateryna Malaia, Missing Women: Ukrainian Architects of the 1930s
14:3O-14:45 Break
14:45-16:15 Session 2: Institutions
Chair: Jelena Bogdanovich
- Qendresa Ajeti, Silent Contributors: Women Architects and Architectural Education in Socialist Kosovo
- Helka Dzsacsovszki, Protagonists in Restoring the Past: Women Architects in Historical Monument Conservation in State -Socialist Hungary
- Anna Weichsel, Design(ed) Collectives – East German women in the selection process for architectural education
16:30 Closing event: “East” and “West”: On Geopolitics and Feminism
A dialogue between Helena Doudova and Elke Krasny
17:00-17:20 Closing remarks. Mary Pepchinski and Mariann Simon
This event is free for everyone to attend but registration is necessary: https://eventsignup.ku.dk/2025womenarchitectsunderstatesocialism/conference
Download the book of abstracts here.