Gill Matthewson facts for kids

Gill (Gillian) Matthewson is an architect, a smart researcher, and a teacher from New Zealand and Australia. Since 2016, she has been working at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia.

Early Life and Learning

Gillian Matthewson was born in Wellington, New Zealand. She went to Tawa College for her schooling. She earned her first degree in architecture from the University of Auckland in New Zealand.

Later, she got a master's degree in architecture from the University of East London. Her master's study was about the work of Lilly Reich. It was called "... Lies and the Barcelona Pavilion" and was completed in 1994.

In 2015, she finished her PhD at the University of Queensland. Her PhD research looked at "Dimensions of Gender: Women's Careers in the Australian Architecture Profession." She even won an award for her excellent research. This work was part of a bigger project about fairness for women in architecture.

Helping Women in Architecture

Gillian Matthewson strongly believes in fairness for women in architecture. Her research focuses on how the architecture world treats women. She worked as an architect for ten years. She worked at Claire Chamber Architects in New Zealand. She also worked in England at Matrix Feminist Design Cooperative and BDP.

Besides being an architect, Matthewson has taught at the Wellington Institute of Technology. She did her PhD studies at the ATCH Research Centre. This center is part of the School of Architecture at the University of Queensland.

In March 2016, she joined Monash University. There, she is a lecturer and a senior researcher at the XYX Lab. She is also a senior researcher for a study on architecture education. This study is led by the Architects Accreditation Council of Australia.

Matthewson helped start Parlour: women, equity, architecture. This group works to make things fair for women in architecture. She also helps edit the Parlour website. She created a detailed map showing how many women work in architecture in Australia. This map has been very important for Parlour's work. Her research also helps the Architects Accreditation Council of Australia. She is known as the top expert on the number of people in the architecture job.

Gillian Matthewson often writes and shares her thoughts on architecture. She also writes about how statistics are used. She has always supported women in architecture in New Zealand. Historian Dr Julia Gatley has called her "the most persistent commentator" on women in New Zealand architecture.

Her Published Works

Gillian Matthewson has written many articles and chapters in books. Here are some of her published works:

• "Seeds" – NZ Architect, 1984
• "On Discrimination", with Heather Ives – NZ Architect, 1985
• "Standing in the Shadows" – Interstices 4 University of Auckland, 1996
• "Looking at the Icons" – Proceedings of the 17th Annual Conference of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand, 2000.
• "Breaking Clichés: the Human Accessory in the Work of Julius Shulman," Hunch: the Berlage Institute Report, 2001.
• "Imaging Utopia: Domestic Frames" – Proceedings of the 18th Annual Conference of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand, 2001.
• "Pictures of Lilly: Lilly Reich and the role of victim," – Proceedings of the 19th Annual Conference of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand, 2002.
• "Pictures of Lilly: erasures, additions and errors" – Lilith: A Feminist History Journal, 2003.
• "Take it to the Limit: Women as Breach in Architecture." – Proceedings of the 21st Annual Conference of the Society of Architectural Historians of Australia and New Zealand, 2004.
• "Sketching in the Margins: women in the architectural profession." – Exquisite Apart: 100 Years of Architecture in New Zealand, 2005.
• Co-edited "Celebration: Proceedings of the 22nd Annual Conference of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand" with Andrew Leach, 2005.
• "In a Glass Darkly: the Glass Pavilion and reflections in Photographs." – Proceedings of the 23rd Annual Conference of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand, 2006.
• Co-edited "Inhabiting Risk: Proceedings of the 3rd Conference of Interior Design / Interior Architecture Educators Association" with Christine McCarthy, 2007.
• "People who Live in Glass Houses: Walter Benjamin and the dream of glass architecture." – Proceedings of the 26th Annual Conference of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand, 2009.
• "You have No Idea: Women in Architecture in the Eighties" – "... ponderous pedantic pediments prevail... good, clean fun in a bad, dirty world": New Zealand Architecture in the 1980s, 2009.
• "House Work: women and the Group" and "Houses for Modern Homes Inc" – Group Architects: towards a New Zealand Architecture, 2010.
• "Suburban Imaginings: the Rotherham House Stories" – Proceedings of the 27th Annual Conference of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand, 2010.
• "Architect Barbie Through the Looking Glass: gender, identity and architecture" – Proceedings of the 29th Annual SAHANZ conference, 2012.
• "Nothing Else Will Do: the call for gender equality in architecture in Britain" – Architectural Theory Review, 2012.
• "Women and Leadership in the Australian Architectural Profession: Prelude to a Research Project" with Naomi Stead and Karen Burns, – Seizing the initiative: Australian women leaders in politics, workplaces and communities, 2012.
• "Women in Architecture: who counts?" – Architecture Now, 2014.
• Matthewson, G. (2017). The gendered attrition of architects in Australia. ARQ: Architectural Research Quarterly.
• Stead, N., Matthewson, G., Clark, J., & Burns, K. (2017). Parlour: The First Five Years. Field.
• Matthewson, G. (2018). Where Do You Go To?: The Class of ’76. Interstices: Journal of Architecture and Related Arts.
• Tanner, S., Kalms, N., Cull, H., Matthewson, G., & Aisenberg, A. (2020). 'Unsafe in the City' - SM - 'Disruption and Design: Crowdmapping Young Women’s Experience in Cities'. IDS Bulletin.
• Ison, J., & Matthewson, G. (2023). More than a dot point: Connecting primary prevention of violence against women and public transport. Journal of Transport & Health.