Women’s History Month started in 1987, and has been celebrated since every year in March. It comes to highlight the contributions of women to events in history and contemporary society, and has been celebrated in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. For this month, I would like to acknowledge those women, who against all odds, made remarkable careers in the world of design. Natalie de Blois (1921-2013) was one of them, and she she was enormously successful as an architect of corporate modernism in the postwar years, working at Skidmore, Owings, Merril. Her name has been in the news recently because of a plan to demolish the skyscraper she designed at 270 Park Avenue, home of JP Morgan Chase. These news have provoked criticism and saddened the architectural community and those in support of sustainability, as it will be the world’s tallest building to be voluntarily demolished in history. When she completed it in 1960, it was admired and praised as a great and glamour example of postwar corporate modernism, and its demolition will take approximately two years to complete. With all of her success, Natalie de Blois was never made a partner at the firm, and became an activist in advancing women in architecture. About Natalie de Blois and her contribution to American architecture, in the upcoming Spring Dialogues where I will discuss her legacy with Gabrielle Esperdy, architecture historian and critic, who is an expert scholar on de Blois. Stay tuned.
