Art & Architecture Library: International Archive of Women in Architecture

International Archive of Women in Architecture

Selections from the IAWA Collections

What Can She Be? alternative book cover featuring Judith Edelman

Washington D.C. architect Melita Rodeck at work

Presentation drawing of house by Lilia Skala

Hand-colored photograph of kitchen design by Han Schröder

Annotated elevation drawing by Elsa Leviseur

Computer aided landscape survey by Beverly Willis, CARLA program

About the IAWA

The International Archive of Women in Architecture (IAWA) was established in 1985 as a joint program of the College of Art, Architecture, and Design (formerly the College of Architecture and Urban Studies) and the University Libraries at Virginia Tech. The purpose of the Archive is to document the history of women's contributions to the built environment by collecting, preserving, and providing access to the records of women's architectural organizations and the professional papers of women architects, landscape architects, designers, architectural historians and critics, and urban planners. The IAWA strives to improve the availability of rich primary source materials for architectural, women's, and social history research.

What We Collect
Today, the IAWA documents the legacies of more than 435 individuals, firms, organizations, and exhibits from the 1890s through the present day. The permanent collections include approximately 2200 cubic feet of documents, photographs and negatives, architectural drawings, sketches, scrapbooks, building models, presentation boards, and other materials that capture the creative process. Additionally, we are building our capacity to accept electronic records and implementing workflows to improve access to the files that still live on legacy media (floppy disks, zip disks, CDs, etc.). The IAWA also collects a limited number of books, biographical information, and other published materials as part of its mission to act as a clearinghouse of information about the global history of women in architecture.

Who We Serve
Special Collections and University Archives works with a global community of scholars, students, researchers, and members of the general public. The IAWA and its resources are available to everyone. It is not necessary to make an appointment, although we invite you to contact us in advance with any questions you might have. For more information about visiting Special Collections and requesting materials, please review Special Collections and University archives: A Basic Introduction.

Structure of this Guide
The guide consists of the following pages:

A. Collecting Focus: Learn how Special Collections discovers and acquires new materials for the IAWA. This page includes information about donating materials to the IAWA and what happens to a collection after it is donated.
B. Scholarly Highlights: Quickly identify notable themes, communities, and sub-topics in the IAWA. This is a great place to start if you are looking for research inspiration.
C. Find Materials: How does one conduct research and find resources in the IAWA? This page examines different tools you can use to find appropriate materials for your work and offers tips to help you overcome potential challenges.
D. Research and Instruction Services: Special Collections and University Archives employees can support your work with the IAWA by helping you find and retrieve materials and by conducting reference consultations to assess which materials align with your research interests. While we are able to devote time and resources to reference and some imaging requests, those resources are not unlimited. Thus, we are not able to accommodate requests for materials that are too general or unjustifiably large, because they are time-intensive. Requests are assessed on a case-by-case basis.