Program: Three Female Graduate Students at Mies’s IIT
Exhibition: 1X1 Chicago: Celebrating Women in Architecture
Place: S. R. Crown Hall, 3360 S. State Street, Chicago
Date: August 28, 2025
Time: 5 p.m. Exhibition Talk, 6 p.m. Presentation
Please RSVP by Monday, August 25 to secure your spot.
Share an evening in the magnificent S. R. Crown Hall with Mies Society and view an inspired presentation by distinguished professors and architects who curated this exhibition: Kristin Jones (ARCH ’95, Ph.D. ’16) and Zaida Garcia Requejo, Ph.D., Universidade da Coruña.
ABOUT THE CURATORS
Zaida Garcia-Requejo (ETSAC-UDC) completed her dissertation entitled “MIES AT IIT”. Connections between teaching and architecture.” A lecturer in Architectural Projects, Urbanism and Composition Department (DPAUC) at the University of the District of Columbia, she has published papers in several journals on architectural education.
Kristin Jones completed a dissertation entitled “Visual Training at Illinois Institute of Technology: Aesthetics in Architectural Education” complimenting her teaching as adjunct professor at Illinois Tech’s College of Architecture. She is also a Mies van der Rohe Society board member and founding architect of Studio Integra, Ltd. Kristin has published research in architectural education, urban planning, and architectural awards for historic preservation.
This research brings to light three architects—Pao-Chi Chang (M.ARCH ’54), Vera Jansone, (M.ARCH ’54), Gertrude “Peterhans” Lempp Kerbis (M.ARCH ’54)—and showcases their important work as the only female students to complete College of Architecture’s master’s thesis program under Mies’s directorship that can be attributed to key contributions to the field of architecture.
The Exhibition
College of Architecture is excited to announce 1X1 Chicago: Celebrating Women in Architecture! This summer, our city’s women in architecture will be celebrated in a month-long exhibition in S. R. Crown Hall along with weekly events beginning on August 7. Special exhibits featuring some of Illinois Tech’s trailblazing female architects and expert panel discussions looking backward and forward at the empowerment of women in architecture in Chicago will be open to the public.
Join us at 1X1 Chicago: Celebrating Women in Architecture to recognize the work of women in architecture in Chicago and support the International Archive of Women in Architecture Center’s 1x1 Initiative to collect and preserve their submission toward building a more inclusive vision and history of architecture. More information on this exhibition and other events with our partners can be found here.
Related Reading: Not a Woman Architect: The Life and Work of Brigitte Peterhans
College of Architecture alumnus David Fleener (ARCH ’80) presents the life story of Brigitte Peterhans, an extraordinary woman in the world of corporate architecture during the Mad Men era of the 1950s to 1980s. Born in a small village in Germany, Brigitte Peterhans managed to come to America to study with Mies van der Rohe at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, and then to work with Bruce Graham at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM). Her work during this time reflected the mid-century modernism of Mies and SOM. Later in her career, both towards the end of her time at SOM and then on her own after retiring from SOM, she developed her personal style.