Symposia
2027 IAWA Symposium – April 1-2 , 2027
The International Archive of Women in Architecture Center
School of Architecture at Virginia Tech
Blacksburg, VA
2027 IAWA Symposium - April 1-2, 2027
Call for Abstracts: September 15, 2026 – November 1, 2026
Selection announced: November 15, 2026
Competition | Collaboration
The 2027 IAWA Symposium centers on competition and collaboration: two complimentary yet opposing modalities through which women have initiated and sustained their professional practices. As a form of labor within the capitalist system, architects compete for school admission, for employment, for individual projects, and for recognition. Conversely, architecture is an intensely collaborative profession. Not only do firms bring together architects of various roles and expertise to accomplish complex designs, but architects must collaborate with a broad spectrum of other professions in the design and realization of buildings. Architects also collaborate with the public, often inviting the building’s constituents to participate in its design. Competition and collaboration often converge; for example, architecture firms often get their start through competition wins.
Competition and collaboration are shaped by questions of access, power, authorship, and recognition within the profession. For women architects, collaboration and mentorship have often created opportunities to establish and sustain practices within, and sometimes outside of, traditional professional structures. While architecture is produced through collective knowledge and labor, its histories have often privileged individual authorship, raising questions about whose contributions become visible and ultimately part of architectural history.
This symposium seeks scholarly work as well as practice-based perspectives on the relational nature of architecture. How have women in architecture leveraged competition and collaboration to further their careers? How is the design of buildings shaped by the structure of teams that create them? How have women innovated in the design of practice to meet the challenges of their time? By what means have women competed for recognition or credit when collaborations fail to highlight their contributions? To what extent have women utilized architectural competitions as a way to build their practice, and what can we learn from instances of women’s successes and experiences in architectural competitions?
Possible topics include:
Individual architects or firms whose careers were established through competitions or singular commissions
Use of competition entries to enhance firm profile or develop an office’s architectural language
Innovative forms of collaboration within the profession and with adjacent professions, such as landscape architecture, interior design, engineering, or general contractors
Innovative financial or legal structures used to accomplish projects, such as land trusts or integrated project delivery
Studies exploring how recognition or credit is distributed among collaborators
Microhistories of individual buildings shaped by collaborations
Ethnographies of architectural firms that parse the role of competition and collaboration in firm operations
Accounts of competition or collaboration in women’s academic work
Pedagogies of competition or collaboration
Critiques or analyses of gendered conceptions of competition or collaboration
Accounts of care work within the profession (such as employee resource groups)
The 2027 IAWA Symposium will be held at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, VA. Papers may be presented in person or virtually.
Please email 300-word abstract and a one-page CV, by November 1, 2026 to: iawacenter@vt.edu
Subject heading: 2027 IAWA Symposium Abstract Submission
Please indicate in your abstract if you plan to attend in person, or present virtually.
Paola Zellner Bassett, Chair IAWA
International Archive of Women in Architecture Center
School of Architecture
Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia
The International Archive of Women in Architecture Center
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/