On Wednesday 26 January, Julie Beckers, Postdoctoral Fellow at Illuminare, will deliver the lecture ‘Rebuilding for Observance: Architectural changes to Santa Maria di Monteluce in Perugia post Reform, c. 1448-1485’ at the WoArch 2024 symposium in Rome.

For almost 30 years, the literature investigating women and the built environment before the modern era has focused on women’s patronage of architecture. This symposium is designed to open a discussion about what is missing from this conversation yet can be found in the historical record: the roles that women of various social classes played in shaping architecture, landscapes, and cities in diverse parts of the world and the cultural and political implications of their activities. In part, the symposium calls for a re-interpretation of patronizing activities by women and, from another point of view, it directs the spotlight toward women engaging in socio-political urban reform, creating networks of design influence, managing, and participating in construction, and serving as the designer the built environment across a broad geographic scope before modern industrialization.

WoArch 2024 is a symposium organized by the University of Arkansas Rome Center in collaboration with the School of Architecture + Planning at the University of Texas at San Antonio. It is supported by the Women in Architecture Affiliate Group of the Society of Architectural Historians.

WoArch is hosted in person at the Palazzo Taverna, Rome, and will be live-streamed on the Rome Center YouTube channels.

For more information on the WoArch symposium, please click here.