Marking International Women’s Day 2023, the national women’s advocacy group Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation will release its debut episode of Season 2 of the audio documentary series, ‘New Angle: Voice’. Starting March 8 and following the first season, ‘New Angle: Voice’ continues to document the lives and legacies of pioneering yet under-recognized women in the history of architecture and design, beginning with the story of designer Ray Eames.
In 2022 the audio documentary series won grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Graham Foundation. The second season’s premiere on March 8, International Women’s Day, presents a history of Ray Eames (1912-1988), whose contributions in the arts, architecture, graphic design, textile design and furniture innovation have had a profound effect on the trajectory of those fields.
“Our original story about Ray Eames draws on new research of her years as a painter in New York, from archival footage and audio of her media appearances as well as interviews with Eames family members and employees of Eames Office, their design studio in Venice, California,” says Cynthia Phifer Kracauer AIA, creative leader of the series and executive director of Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation (BWAF). “The interviews also offer a deep-dive into manufacturer Herman Miller’s archives, showcasing the bold ideas sometimes obscured by Ray’s self-effacing public persona.”
The audio series New Angle: Voice is created and produced by BWAF and its executive director Phifer Kracauer, who is joined in conceiving and producing the audio documentaries by writer and editor Alexandra Lange, Ph.D. and producer Brandi Howell. The primary sponsor of ‘New Angle: Voice’ is MillerKnoll, a collective of brands and a modern design company.
The debut episode on the legacy of Ray Eames is informed by interviews with Eames Foundation board members Lucia Dewey Atwood and Llisa Demetrios, the film art director and production designer Jeannine Oppewall, as well as Library of Congress collaborators Meg McAleer and Tracey Barton. In addition, the design curator Donald Albrecht and design historian Pat Kirkham contribute to the Eames episode.
Following the debut episode on Ray Eames, new episodes of New Angle: Voice in 2023 will include the stories of t African American architect Amaza Lee Meredith (1895-1984), the architect and industrial designer Anna Wagner Keichline (1889–1943), and Wall Street Journal architecture critic Ada Louise Huxtable (1921-2013).
Later this second season, episodes feature interviews with architecture and design critics Christopher Hawthorne, Eric Gibson and Karrie Jacobs on the life story of Ada Louise Huxtable. For the episode featuring Black architect Amaza Lee Meredith, insights come from a senior executive of the National Trust for Historic Preservation and leader of the “Where Women Made History” campaign, Christina Morris. The episode on Anna Keichline includes comments from Sarah Lichtman, dean of the Parsons School of Design, as well as from industrial designer Nancy Perkins, who is Keichline’s great-niece. Background on a Cambridge, Mass.-based firm The Architects Collaborative, with founding members including Jean B. Fletcher (1915-1965) and Sarah P. Harkness (1914-2013), comes from Bloomberg Green editor Amanda Hurley and the professor of architectural history Michael Kubo.
“The ‘New Angle: Voice’ series pulls forward the stories of women who’ve helped to define the fields of architecture and design,” says Amy Auscherman, Director of Global Archives and Brand Heritage at MillerKnoll. “With the spotlight on Ray Eames in the debut episode, season two kicks off with a bang, taking a deep look into Ray’s significant oeuvre across many disciplines. Ray’s contributions to the work of the Eames Office were severely overlooked during her lifetime. This episode helps to rectify that and includes digitized interviews culled from our archive that provide an intimate look into her problem-solving approach to design.”
In its opening season 2021-2022, the ‘New Angle: Voice’ audio documentaries brought its growing listener audience the stories of Julia Morgan, the first woman to attend the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris, and Norma Merrick Sklarek, the African American architect who oversaw the construction of the largest U.S. shopping mall. Other episodes spotlight the pioneering women Natalie de Blois, Helen Fong, and Florence Knoll, and can be found on Apple Podcasts and other services. The work by BWAF’s Kracauer and team earned grants from the NEA.
‘New Angle: Voice’ embodies the mission of BWAF: “to lead a cultural revolution in the building industry that will acknowledge, cultivate, and value women’s contributions and achievements — past, present, and future.” The series shines a spotlight on the often untold or forgotten stories of American women who broke barriers of gender, race, and education, offering the recognition they deserve for redefining the physical landscape of this country and reinventing the role of women in leadership.
“Fighting the sexism and misogyny of white male-dominated American architectural offices, these women design leaders overcame prevalent issues of professional disrespect for mothers and the persistent mythology of the individual creator,” says Kracauer. “Our goal with ‘New Angle: Voice’ is to document and preserve these important but easily overshadowed or forgotten achievements as we also correct the record of our greatest leaders in architecture and design.”
Adds Kracauer, “We’re excited to debut our second season in observance of International Women’s Day and share with others globally the essential mission of elevating the voices of women. around the world.”
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