Exhibition: Big Plans

The exhibition Big Plans. 10 women urbanists shape the modern world shows lives and works of ten women urban planners from the 20th century: Luz Amorocho, Catherine Bauer, Eulie Chowdhury, Jane Drew, Renée Gailhoustet, Blanche Lemco van Ginkel, Carmen Portinho, Flora Ruchat-Roncati, Jaqueline Tyrwhitt and Beverly Willis.

We are gradually getting used to the names of women architects, but the female urban planners of the 20th century are still a relatively unknown group. It was precisely in large-scale design that they recognised an emancipatory force.

In modernist urbanism, they saw opportunities to shape a society that sought to meet the challenges of urbanisation, industrialisation and decolonisation while improving the conditions of women, lower-income people and other marginalised groups. Another interesting aspect is the collective authorship we see in their work. Collaboration - as a couple, as a collective, within organisations, journals or, for example, education - was common and provided a pooling of forces, insights and perspectives deployed for projects around the world.‍