Launched in May 2018 by founder and editor-in-chief Julia Gamolina, Madame Architect is a New York-based online magazine that publishes feature interviews on women’s lives and work.
Madame Architect focuses on women’s general career advancement in the industry. The magazine currently features more than 175 interviews with women who advance the practice of architecture. The Madame Architect team has recently grown to a core group of six. There is also an Advisory Board and National Council.
Origins and motivations
Julia Gamolina first introduced Madame Architect when she served as the second guest editor for ArchiteXX’s online journal, SubteXXt (from January to April 2018). The series “Madame Architect: Conversations on Finding Your Place and Hitting Your Stride” aimed to shed light on women in architecture from a variety of backgrounds, levels and corners of the field.
The guest editorship was meant to run for three months and ended in April 2018, but Julia loved the process of interviewing, editing and sharing so much, and the interviews were gaining traction, that it seemed like a logical step to launch a dedicated editorial platform called Madame Architect. The online magazine was to feature women putting their narrative and their story at the forefront, giving them a voice and a platform. Madame Architect became about visibility, information and encouragement.
The editorial platform is designed to celebrate the extraordinary women that shape our world, to break the stereotypical architect’s mould, and to show young women entering the industry the myriad choices they have in crafting a dynamic, meaningful and interesting career.
Activities and projects underway
Madame Architect publishes feature interviews on women’s lives and work, a ‘Days With’ series showing the course of their day, a historical column to highlight the Madame Architects of the past, and a Next Gen column to highlight the next generation of impactful women.
We’d love to fold men into the conversation, because the burden of women’s issues and women’s career advancement should not only be placed on women. Madame Architect will be launching interviews with men in April: conversations that focus on mentorship, fatherhood, healthy workplace practices, and equity.
Challenges
A key challenge is being mostly asked about women’s and gender issues, and not about our expertise in other areas. The Expert column aims to address this, but also having architects that are women write about their research and design focuses and interests. In the feature interviews, Madame Architect doesn’t ask what it’s like to be a “woman in architecture” and instead focuses on these women’s lives and careers.
The impact of COVID-19
In 2020, we ramped up our activities to bring forth even more inspiring content, and to highlight even more people, during this difficult time.
Advice to others
Just start! And allow it to grow and evolve organically.
Contacts
Julia Gamolina
Email: hello@madamearchitect.org
Insta: @madamearchitect
