Day by day digest: Girls of colour face uphill challenges in structure, a Frank Lloyd Wright home on Airbnb, and extra

Good morning and welcome back to another midweek breakpoint. As we slouch toward the weekend, why not shake things up by checking out what’s going on today?

Harvard quantified the discrimination women of color face in the architecture world

A new report in Harvard Business Review breaks down the myriad ways that women of color face discrimination in the architecture world, from pay discrepancies to a lack of networking opportunities.

In An Investigation into Bias in the Architecture Profession, the team worked with current and past AIA members and surveyed 1,346 architects and designers across all sizes of firm. The findings were less than surprising but still damning; Black women architects consistently felt like they had to prove themselves more than their white, male counterparts. White, male architects were reportedly much less likely to face pushback for being considered “too assertive” (only a quarter of those surveyed), while women were much more likely (half of those surveyed) and 60 percent of non-white women reported being criticized for trying to take charge.

According to the report, “Nearly 90 [percent] of white male architects said they get to develop their design ideas, but only 72 [percent] of women of color did. Twice the percentage of women of color as white men said they do more behind-the-scenes work than their colleagues.”

To make things worse, women surveyed reported that firms often made like them feel they were in competition with each other to fill “the woman’s spot” or similar diversity targets on project teams.

H/t to the Harvard Business Review

You can now rent out Frank Lloyd Wright’s Schwartz House on Airbnb

If you’re looking to get away to Wisconsin for vacation, why not stay in the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Schwartz House in Two Rivers? Also known as Still Bend, the four-bedroom, four-bathroom home was built in 1939 and modeled after the “Dream House” Wright had published in a 1938 issue of Life magazine. It is now available on Airbnb.

Commissioned for Bernard and Fern Schwartz, the house is a rare example of a two-story Usonian building and marries red concrete floor with exposed interior brick. If you’re interested in renting Still Bend, you should plan far in advance; bookings are currently full through October.

H/t to Designboom

Manhattan’s landmarked Emigrant Industrial Savings Bank will soon host an exhibition hall

What was once America’s largest bank building when it opened in 1912 will become the permanent home of a new immersive art exhibition hall. The 15-story, Beaux-Arts Emigrant Industrial Savings Bank at 49 Chambers Street sits in Tribeca just a stone’s throw from Manhattan’s Civic Center and has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1982, and its exterior and first-floor interior have been city landmarks since 1985.

But it hasn’t been a bank for decades, and now survives as a condo tower. AN first reported on French operator Culturespaces’ plans to open an immersive art hall in the building all the way back in July of 2020, but now the operator has revealed a firm opening date and first show for the new Hall des Lumières.

After restoring 33,000 square across the former teller hall and vault level, the center will open this summer with Gustav Klimt: Gold in Motion, a “multi-sensory celebration of Klimt’s most iconic work.” A shorter show by Klimt successor Friedensreich Hundertwasser will also be installed.

Autodesk’s new gallery in San Francisco will soon open for public tours

Autodesk has totally overhauled its gallery space in San Francisco to put examples of cutting-edge projects realized with its software on display—and starting in March, the public can sign up to take free tours. Renovated with local firm Lundberg Design, the sprawling hall displays speculative landers from NASA, massive timber cross-braces from Perkins&Will, and a host of robotic fabrication examples.

H/t to Architizer

The U.K. sees a new housing minister after a sea of turnover

Eleven housing ministers in just as many years. That’s the reality the United Kingdom faces, as Prime Minister Boris Johnson recently appointed Stuart Andrew to replace Chris Pincher earlier this week. RIBA president Simon Allford released a public statement urging the government to find steady bearing in response, and that he hoped Andrew would quickly rise to address the housing deficit facing the U.K.

H/t to Building Design Online

Virgil Abloh’s last collection for Louis Vuitton debuts at Le Corbusier’s Firminy Vert

One of the last menswear collections designed for Louis Vuitton by late multi-hyphenate artist and designer Virgil Abloh has found an appropriate venue for its display: the Le Corbusier’s UNESCO-listed Firminy Vert neighborhood in France. The fashion house showed off its Pre-Fall 2022 menswear collection in front of stark concrete assemblages, including the radically sloping church only completed in 2006.

H/t to Highsnobriety