The school of wives

Abstract

The research looks at the role of architecture education in the female architects practising between 1930 and 1972 in Poland. It investigates not contested women's contribution to architecture development, as they are unquestionably underexplored and underappreciated. Women's participation in the construction of Polish cities remains a blank page in the literature, with only a few names of female architects appearing infrequently. This paper aims to track down female architects working and those unnoticed in the descriptions, to identify the reasons for and differences in the architectural education of people in Poland during the chosen time.
More specifically, the research investigates the beginnings of the "wives' school" (Szkoła żon) dates to 1927, established by architect Władysław Jastrzębski and architect Aleksander Kapuściński and Dr. architect Mieczysław Popiel, that was primely called “Female Architectural Courses” (Żeńskie Kursy Architektoniczne). This incongruous name came from the focus of female education on being architects' wives and drafting technicians working in their studios. In 1960 the name of the school was changed to the Stanislaw Noakowski State School of Architecture (Żeńskie Liceum Architektury im. Stanisława Noakowskiego). Since 1970 the school has had a co-educational character and function as a technical High School of construction engineering and architecture (technikum Architektoniczno – Budowlane), graduating with a Building Technician title.
In post-war Poland, women were educated not only as architects but also as housewives according to 20th-century standard, so-called "Mother Pole" (Matka Polka) – family-focused, musical, talented in painting and interior design. Therefore, the curriculum included building-related subjects and those enriching "sensitivity" and "imagination" such as "The Sunlight in Architecture" or "Musicology". The original idea was to organise during design classes. The pieces performed were, of course, related to the theme of the architectural project.
In the pre-war period, the school was completed by 150 - 200 female graduates , obtaining the title of architectural technician, not an architect, which prevented them from potentially starting their businesses, building projects, or signing plans. Their only position opportunity was to work as an assistant to an architect or drafter. There is no documentation of their later fates, as nobody recorded and stored data about technicians. Many remained housewives: others worked in architectural offices, building men's world dreams.
The school was developing very dynamically due to the highly qualified staff members recruited from the Faculty of Architecture at the Warsaw University of Technology. The teachers - architects - were male as architecture was considered a male department. It is worth noticing that no female teacher from the early years of school activity appears in the data record. However, due to this dependence, some graduates met their future husbands, the architects, through an organised social event as dances and games with the students from the University, forming architectural tandems, which enabled them to work in the creative process of architecture.
The paper traces female graduates, their faiths, historical circumstances, and stereotypes entering post-school life, elaborating on the dynamics between the "husbands" and "wives" who formed architectural teams between 1930 and 1970.