Yale-Aided Design: The Work of Female Architecture Graduates

1950s Ideology: Estelle Margolis 

Fourth-year Department of Architecture jury in the Yale University Art Gallery

Overall, the 1950s was a decade filled with change, confusion, and frustration for the study of architecture at Yale. In 1950 George Howe was appointed as chairman of the Department of Architecture. Howe sought to modernize Yale’s program by emphasizing architecture as a design profession, closely related to the other arts. Though he wanted his students to be technically adept, Howe stressed that architecture was not a technical profession, exemplifying one of the many contradictions in his educational philosophy. Still he sought to lead the students on the way to self-education but did not stay in a leadership position for very long. In 1954 Howe stepped down and Paul Schweikher became chairman. Schweikher’s time as head of the school has been described by faculty and students as a period of extreme discontent. He was considered too literal and determined in his teaching style, so many students disagreed with his methods. He was soon ousted, making way for a more productive architectural environment in the 1960s.

Photograph of Estelle Margolis and other students building a house for George Brunjes in Weston, Connecticut
[Image used with permission from the family of Estelle Margolis]

 

Estelle Margolis graduated from Yale with a Bachelor of Architecture in 1955. Her work in design studio exemplifies the interdisciplinary creative approach that the institution emphasized. Like all students, Margolis became an expert in architectural drawing conventions, working always by hand. Margolis’s detailed linework is particularly astonishing, as she was keen to sketch perspective drawings that extend and recede in different directions. She drew cross-sections through structures and creative floorplans to communicate her ideas to the viewer expertly through visual means. Architects learn these many conventions in order to convey space to their client from various angles and perspectives.

Original material study of wood by Estelle Margolis. [1952]. Art, architecture, and art history theses and projects, Yale University

Original material study of wood by Estelle Margolis
[Image used with permission from the family of Estelle Margolis]

 

“Each discipline [in the School of Architecture] is united by basic courses common to all and by occasional collaborative projects, cross-departmental electives, and lectures which encourage in each student an awareness of the essential unity of the visual and spatial arts. Training for the practice of architecture at Yale is based on the concept that architecture is the art of building, and that the art of building is the fertilizing principle that makes the trade, the science, and the business of building bear fruit in significant form.” Bulletin of Yale University, Division of the Arts, 1953.

 

Original design for a watershed by Estelle Margolis. [1953]. Art, architecture, and art history theses and projects, Yale University

Original design for a watershed by Estelle Margolis
[Images used with permission from the family of Estelle Margolis]

Original cross-section design by Estelle Margolis. [ca. 1953]. Art, architecture, and art history theses and projects, Yale University

Original cross-section design by Estelle Margolis
[Image used with permission from the family of Estelle Margolis]

 

Original design for a parking garage by Estelle Margolis. [1954]. Art, architecture, and art history theses and projects, Yale University

Original design for a parking garage by Estelle Margolis
[Image used with permission from the family of Estelle Margolis]