These Are the Women Who Changed Modern Architecture

Deborah Berke is widely considered a minimalist. Yet that label belies the extraordinary care she has taken in choosing materials and creating details for every building she’s designed over the last 40 years. "I worry that minimalism may be shorthand for things being spare," she says. "My idea behind the understated nature of the work is that you can find something new each time you visit." In 2016, Berke became dean of the Yale University School of Architecture, where she had been teaching since 1987. She’s familiar with the challenges women face, but sees a much larger issue: architecture’s lack of representation when it comes to race, gender, and socioeconomic backgrounds, and the narrow profile that architect-designed buildings serve.