CRAN Symposium 2018 Wrap-up: Interview with Marilyn Moedinger of Runcible Studios

So, I have a wrap-up for the CRAN Symposium 2018 (before the CRAN Symposium 2019 in Scottsdale, Arizona but I have been kindof busy with projects in construction and getting projects submitted to the building departmetn (inlcuding trying to get my own residential addition in for review) and with  the holidays...

The "I've never met a woman architect before..." Holiday Gift List 

The Top Ten of 2018


I am finally writing and posting!!!!

I wanted to do the Interview with Marilyn Moedinger for this final CRAN Symposium 2018 blog post who I "met" on Twitter and then we met in person at the EntreArchitect and Charette Ventures Meetup in New York City at AIA'18 in June and then we both went to the CRAN Symposium in Cincinnati but we didn't do the interview until a week ago so, here it is

MARILYN W. MOEDINGER, AIA, NCARB, LEED AP
PRINCIPAL

Marilyn is the founding principal of Runcible Studios. Like the runcible spoon, she is happiest operating at the seam[s] between practicality and whimsy, utility and beauty, the esoteric and the mundane.

She previously practiced architecture at Utile, Inc. in Boston, and worked as a construction project manager, contractor, and estimator in Charlottesville, VA. She has also taught design studios, construction detailing, and theory courses at Boston Architectural College and Wentworth Institute of Technology, and was the Director of Practice Instruction and Community Engagement Projects at the BAC, where she directed nearly 80 student-led projects.  She has lectured on her research and/or been a guest critic at Northeastern University, University of Virginia, UC Berkeley, Harvard GSD, Elon University, Savannah College of Art and Design, Rhode Island School of Design, and University of Cincinnati, as well as various architecture and design firms in Boston and nationally.

She is a Chair of the Advisory Board for Northeastern University’s NuLawLab, and a weekly volunteer at MSPCA Boston Adoption Center.

She earned a BS in Architecture, BA in History, and an M.Arch from University of Virginia, where she won several awards for her teaching and academic work. Marilyn was the 2010 recipient of the SOM Prize. [View the resulting book here.]

Marilyn by Tiffany Knight

Interview with Marilyn Moedinger of Runcible Studios

Here are the two previous AIA CRAN Symposium 2018 Cincinnati:

AIA CRAN Symposium 2018 Cincinnati: Interview with Robert Swinburne of Bluetime Collaborative

AIA CRAN Symposium 2018 Cincinnati Interview with Tim Martin of Martin Architecture


So, I flew into Cincinnati in the middle of the night, met with my second cousin for lunch and we talked about her career and my career and her daughters' careers and my daughter's career..  Two of her three daughters went to architecture school, one of them finished and is working in landscape design with her husband who is in real estate and the other one decided that she liked to sleep (something that I have an affinity for also but I can stay up for a day or two and then sleep for a day to catch up.  Many years ago, when I was out of architecture school and working in the profession, my cousin's mother sent me a letter (back when snail mail was the only means of written correspondence) asking me if I could give any advice to her grandaughter who was thinking about going into architecture school.  So, because the internet wasn't invented yet and Bob Borson and "Life of an Architect" were not even on my radar, I couldn't just refer them to his site and say, "Good luck with the whole architecture school thing!" No, I had to actually respond to her with my 26 year old "architect in training" advice which was:

"This will be one of the hardest things that you will ever do"

Of course at this point, I had never given birth naturally to 8.5+ pound babies and raised them to adulthood, taken the California Supplemental Exam or even been married for 20+ years, my most difficult achievement thus far.

My other thing that i said was that Architecture School would be the least restrictive environment that they would ever be in to "practice architecture".  After they would get out into the real world it would be a constant struggle and especially because they were female.

So my cousin's mother sent me back a letter and said:

"is it because you don't want any competition?"

Now for anyone who has ever met me, in school, in life after school, who knows me now, would find that to be completely untrue.  I am probably the least competitive person, the least competitive architect that I know of, lol!  Of course one of my friends said about me, "well, she doesn't need to be competitive, because she is already good" but I think it is because I truly want people to succeed and I am not going to step on anyone to get ahead.

So anyways, I think that part of what I said is true, because one of my cousins graduated from school and went into another aspect of environmental design, landscape, and the other one went into Accounting and then a few other degrees, I believe.  I think it is just a difficult field for everyone, be it man or woman and at least one of my cousins is part of "The Missing 32%".


EquityXDesign


which leads me to this:

So, the Symposium started Saturday night and there was a great boat tour and then the next morning I got a notification on my phone. I guess what I wanted to say about the Symposium isn't really about the Symposium, but more about what was happening during the Symposium that many of us were thinking

a little bit off topic but not too off topic,

 because what we were thinking but some of us weren't saying


And just because we don't say anything doesn't mean it didn't happen.

I was up in the "special" dining room that was kindof weird because I have never been to a hotel, where there was a special club for members.  And because I didn't have enough points that year, I wasn't in the "Breakfast Club" but the woman who worked there told me that I could just have breakfast there anyway because I was already there.   However, the news was on and they were going over the hearing and of course there is a table of older couples and one man said,

"well, it's just a He said, She said situation."

And they all laughed,

And I took my breakfast outside to the deck and ate looking at the skyline and the herbs that were planted on the roof,

And I stopped off in the kitchen on the way out and gave her a big tip because she definitely earned it...

Then when the news broke the next morning, we were going on the House Tour and it just seemed like another morning, right?  We were all architects together, it wasn't a "that woman architect said" thing and a "that man architect said" thing and then it just kept coming up


and then later, when i was standing with a group of people, a man said, and he was not an architect or a vendor,

well, if a man can't be with a woman without being accused of something, then who can you trust?

oh, so it's a trust thing on the man's part, like "who is going to accuse me of sexual assault...next?'

So, we spend a good portion of our lives dedicated to a profession and it becomes all about whether or not we can be trusted?  whether we can be trusted to not say anything when someone says something or does something that offends us as women or as a human being?  that we can be trusted to tell our employer or client about our reproductive plans or rights?  that we can be trusted to come back to work after giving birth for a job? When were men not hired fro a job because they had plans for a family or maybe would accuse their employer of sexually harassing them?

So, the next morning, I "played hooky" and went  over to the Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center designed by a woman architect who is one of the few women who were able to break the glass ceiling and then passed away of a heart attack on March 31st, 2016 and the only good coming from that was that more of the general population know who she was.  And it would seem, looking back at prior years, she is now eligible for the AIA Gold Award.  It was a Tuesday and the museum wasn't open, but I was able to sit and have breakfast in the lobby.  And take photos.

The security guard said he liked to watch people
walk down these stairs
after having a couple drinks during the opening 

And of course, after her passing there was instead of just her work, the inevitable comments about

"she wanted to be known as a woman architect/she didn't want to be known as a woman architect "

"She was a strong personality" (Oh, are there any starchitects out there who aren't strong personalities? I work with a lot of architects who aren't stachitects and they are "strong personalities")

The main thing that I have learned from her story is and these are pretty much in her own words:

"This is not an easy profession and being a woman and being Iraqi, didn't make it any easier."

dezeen article "zaha hadid dismisses vagina stadium jibes as ridiculous

Dezeen News by Marcus Fairsews: 

"architect Zaha Hadid has hit back at critics who have compared the design of her Al Wakrah stadium in Qatar to a vagina, describing the comments as "embarrassing" and "ridiculous".

Speaking to TIME magazine, Hadid said: “It’s really embarrassing that they come up with nonsense like this. What are they saying? Everything with a hole in it is a vagina? That’s ridiculous.”

She suggested that the comments would not have been made had the architect been male:  “Honestly, if a guy had done this project…"

I have seen several towers, designed by men, show up looking like they have been referencing the "Adam and Eve" website, not that I frequent it that often...

I am bringing this up because it was hard for us as women to hear this, to hear that this woman had a "problem"

Because that resonated with a lot of women including myself.

You know what her only "problem" was?

She was too trusting, she was too nice.

She didn't say, "no, you're not going to hurt me"

She didn't say, "why are you naked in your kitchen when I was only told to go drop plans off to you, when I was just doing my job?'

She didn't say, "don't take me off of this project because I'm due with a baby in 4 months"

She didn't say, "don't touch me" when the sub touched her hair

Because when you aren't nice, you get called a bitch, you get called a ball breaker, and sometimes you still don't get the job and you still lose the job.
You are damned if you do, damned if you don't.

And then days, months, years later, you get told that you were over-reacting" or you can't remember what happened accurately, or you can't be trusted....

And believe me, every woman who heard that man yelling in the chambers immediately recalled a time in their life  where a man believed that his needs were greater than hers, because he was a man and she was a woman.

Every woman, man, and every human being deserves to be treated better than they have in this profession and in this world  than they have in the past.

Here's to a better profession and a better world for everyone.