Symposia

2026 IAWA Symposium – March 26-27, 2026

The 2026 IAWA Symposium was held in Blacksburg, offering both in-person and virtual opportunities for participation.

The program began on Thursday, March 26, 2026, with a Gallery Talk at 3:30 PM in The Lobby, featuring 1x1 Chile, an exhibition showcasing original works by Chilean women architects.

On Friday, March 27, 2026, symposium presentations were held at 2:00 PM (ET) in Room 300, Cowgill Hall, and were also made available via Zoom.

The symposium featured the 2026 IAWA Kristine Fallon Prize recipient, architectural historian and educator Kateryna Malaia, Ph.D., who delivered a keynote from Ukraine on her awarded manuscript, “Missing Women: Ukrainian Architects of the 1930s,” followed by a question-and-answer session.

At 3:30 PM (ET), Assistant Professor and historian Elizabeth Keslacy presented “Ahead of the Curve: California, Politics, and the Rise of Women in Architecture,” based on her exhibition at the DAC in Washington, DC.

The event brought together scholars, practitioners, and students to engage with the ongoing work of documenting and advancing the contributions of women in architecture.

Founded in 1985, the mission of the International Archive of Women in Architecture Center (IAWA) is to document the history of women’s involvement in architecture by collecting, preserving, storing and making available to researchers the professional papers of women architects, landscape architects, designers, architectural historians and critics, urban planners as well as the records of women’s architectural organizations, from around the world. The IAWA collects this information to fill serious gaps in the availability of primary research materials for architectural, women’s and social history research. These materials are held in Special Collections of the University Libraries. The Board of Advisors of the IAWA Center are a group of elected representatives from around the world, who oversee the research, publication, and publicity of the IAWA as well as identify potential donors (funds and work) for the archive.  

The IAWA is dedicated to:

• Find and preserve the records of the pioneer generation of women architects, interior and industrial designers, landscape architects, and urban designers and planners, whose papers may be lost or dispersed if not collected immediately;
• Appeal to retired women from these professions who have played a part in the history of the professions to donate their papers to the IAWA;
• Appeal to active women architects, designers, and planners to save their papers and to consider donating them to the IAWA at a later date;
• Serve as a clearinghouse of information on all women architects, designers, and planners, past and present, and to encourage research on the history of women in these professions through seminars, exhibits, and publications;
• Foster cooperation between all libraries or archives containing data on, or collecting material on, women in architecture, design, and planning.

The growing archive consists of sketches, manuscripts, books, individual projects, and the works of an entire career. Primary research materials (unique or original works) preserved in the Archive include architectural drawings, photographs and slides, manuscripts, models, and job files. To meet the need of serving as a clearinghouse of information about all women in architecture, past, and present, the IAWA also collects secondary materials such as biographical information in addition to books and other publications and exhibitions. Through many significant and diverse donations, the Archive is growing into a tremendous historical resource. The Archive currently now houses more than 450 collections and continues to grow in significance through donations from around the world. https://spec.lib.vt.edu/IAWA/