Genius, Gender and Architecture: The Star System as Exemplified in the Pritzker Prize

This article theoretically unravels why the gender identity of “star architects” tends to be male. It posits that this masculine dominance has to do with a dovetailing of different factors. First, the traditional role model for architects has been gendered male, especially when that role model is manifested through the concept of “genius”. Second, the words used to describe the performance of the avant-garde in architecture—cutting edge, innovative, daring, original—are more in line with “masculine” than with “feminine” features. Third, the idea of authorship, crucial for the self-conception of the profession, benefits men more than women. This hypothesis is backed up by a discourse analysis of the jury citations that legitimise the selection of the Pritzker Architecture Prize winners from 1979 onwards. Combined with evidence from scholarly literature, the article argues that the different contributing factors reinforce one another, making for a system that produces many heroes and few heroines.