91ÊÓƵ

Carol Mayer-Reed sought to take a drafting class in high school, but wasn’t allowed.

“I was told I would not enjoy it, so why didn’t I take fine art classes instead?”

Mayer-Reed is one of many Oregon women architects profiled in the MatriArchs exhibit at the Center for Architecture in Portland. Their stories and comments appear on informational panels.

In college, Mayer-Reed, now a partner at Portland-based landscape architecture firm Mayer/Reed, was one of the few women in design studios and lecture halls. She also found herself in the minority when she started working as a landscape architect in the early 1980s.

“In early practice, contractors used to whistle and make catcalls at me on job sites,” she said. “Back then, client contracts were negotiated over two-martini lunch and the (Daily Journal of Commerce) used to have a good old boys business advice column or some such nonsense. So yes, things have changed for the better.”

Mayer-Reed’s comments, especially the 91ÊÓƵ mention, struck me as I spent an afternoon perusing the exhibit. It was interesting to take in the progression of women in the profession – from earliest pioneers to contemporary counterparts. They have come a long way.

When the American Institute of Architects’ Portland chapter premiered the exhibit in 1992, it documented the lives and careers of 13 of the first women to practice architecture in Oregon. The updated exhibit is back up this month with the addition of seven Oregon women fellows of the AIA and the American Society of Landscape Architects, including Mayer-Reed.

Another new addition to the MatriArchs exhibit is Nancy Merryman. In 1992, she and Linda Barnes and Candace Robertson founded one of the first women-owned architecture firms in Portland.

“Women really have made great strides over the last 30 years in being accepted and being put in positions of responsibility,” Merryman said. “When I started, the women were almost always the first ones laid off in economic downturns, and any women who were principals were typically interiors, marketing or business professionals, not architects.”

The onset of World War II gave Mary Alice Hutchins a chance at an architecture job.

“I was really fortunate I didn’t have any obstacles to overcome,” she said. “World War II had begun and the architectural offices were hurting for help. They were grateful to include women in their offices where they hadn’t been before.”

Margie Largent got her first job out of college in 1950 as a senior drafter for an engineering firm after a male friend, who she later married, answered a help wanted ad with her résumé and qualifications. When he was hired over the phone, he explained that he was calling on behalf of a female friend.

After Marjorie Wintermute got married in 1947, she quit her job working for renowned architect Pietro Belluschi.

“That was what was expected in my time,” she said. “I was working for Pietro and I quit! Can you imagine! Stupidest thing I ever did.”

Nina Pence, who worked for years as a private architect in Klamath Falls before retiring in 1992, didn’t consider gender a hindrance.

“I never worked as if I was a woman architect,” she said. “I was a woman working in architecture.”

The exhibit will be dismantled on Monday.