“For those of you who, like me, care deeply about architecture and want to see it become a truly inclusive profession, I ask that you be vocal and make trouble”
— Despina Stratigakos, Where are the Women Architects?

In her book Where are the Women Architects?, Despina Stratigakos outlines a rising third wave of feminism in architecture, marked by the energy of the students calling for change. A group of students at UCD are taking up this call by organising a programme of events titled ‘Gender: An Architectural Agenda’ to explore this feminist critique of architecture for themselves. The programme began with a series of lunchtime lectures and now continues into the summer with a roving exhibition of student work made in response to a series of critical feminist texts. The exhibition will travel from UCD to the RIAI and host a supporting series of events featuring some of the authors of these texts to encourage a dialogue between academics, students and architects.

Recordings of all the talks in their lunchtime lecture series can be found online on the UCD Architecture YouTube page while the exhibition runs at UCD Architecture, Richview, Dublin D14 from 1—7 June and the RIAI, 8 Merrion Square, Dublin 2 from 12—20 June. Building on the nation’s history in educating some of the leading women architects currently practising in Europe, this exhibition has been organised by students of UCD Architecture as a response to a series of critical texts on gender in architecture published since 2016. Gender as a critical theory in the practice and discourse surrounding architecture has been re-emerging in recent years. A student and staff group at UCD Architecture have taken on the topic and developed it into a programme of public events. This group exhibition is seen as the final outcome of this sustained critical discourse, and will feature student work inspired by a series of six publications that provide a feminist critique of spatial practice.

Lastly, each edition of the exhibition will be accompanied by a guest lecture or discussion. On 7 June at 7pm in UCD Architecture, Richview, join Jane Rendell (UCL), Despina Stratigakos (University of Buffalo) and Ruth Morrow (Queen’s Belfast), while on 12 June at the RIAI hear from Ruth Morrow in conversation with student lead Chloe Spiby Loh.

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