Big Plans. 10 women urbanists shape the modern world

Big Plans presents the lives and work of ten women urbanists from the modernist era. Although recent years have shown growing interest in women architects from past and present, the role of women in urban planning has remained underexposed. Big Plans takes a first step towards complementing 20th century historiography by offering an introduction to the lives and work of ten leading women urbanists. Not only did they plan regions, cities and neighborhoods, they also created laws, computer programs and publications with which they further developed the fields of urban design and planning. What distinguishes the workof these women urbanists is the shared belief in the emancipatory power of urban design, for women, disadvantaged socio-economic classes, or other marginalized groups in society. A common thread is their collaborations and the forms of collective authorship they advanced. Recognizing this work expands our understanding of urbanism as a wide-ranging, contextual field that thrives on shared knowledge and insights.