Natalie de Blois

{{Infobox architect

| name = Natalie de Blois

| image = Natalie de Blois.jpg

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| birth_date = {{Birth date|1921|04|02}}

| birth_place = Paterson, New Jersey

| death_date = {{Death date and age|2013|07|22|1921|04|02}}

| death_place = Chicago, Illinois

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| nationality = American

| alma_mater = Columbia University

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| practice = Skidmore, Owings & Merrill

| significant_buildings = Union Carbide Building, Lever House, Pepsi Cola Headquarters, Connecticut General Life Insurance Company Headquarters

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Natalie Griffin de Blois (April 2, 1921 – July 22, 2013) was an American architect. Entering the field in 1944, she became one of the earliest prominent women in the male-dominated profession. She was a partner for many years in the firm of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill.{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/01/nyregion/an-architect-whose-work-stood-out-even-if-she-didnt.html|title=An Architect Whose Work Stood Out, Even if She Did Not|first=David W.|last=Dunlap|work=The New York Times |date=July 31, 2013|publisher=|accessdate=February 28, 2018|via=NYTimes.com}} Her notable works include the Pepsi Cola Headquarters, Lever House, and the Union Carbide Building in New York City, the Equitable Building in Chicago, the low-rise portions of the Ford World Headquarters in Dearborn, Michigan, and the Connecticut General Life Insurance Company Headquarters in Bloomfield, Connecticut. Several of de Blois' buildings are among the tallest woman-designed buildings in the world. She later taught architecture at the University of Texas in the 1980s and 1990s.{{cite news|last1=Kamin|first1=Blair|title=NATALIE DE BLOIS 1921–2013: Key architect at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill|publisher=Chicago Tribune|date=July 2013}}

According to ArchDaily's Kayle Overstreet, De Blois's career legacy and body of work, "significantly changed the way that women can participate in the [architecture] profession [in the 21st century]".{{Cite web |last=Overstreet |first=Kayle |date=December 24, 2022 |title=A Woman Architect in the Mad Men Era: The Story of Natalie De Blois |url=https://www.archdaily.com/990357/a-woman-architect-in-the-mad-men-era-the-story-of-natalie-de-blois |access-date=November 2, 2023 |website=ArchDaily |language=en-US}}

Early years

De Blois was born in Paterson, New Jersey, into a family of three generations of engineers.{{cite web | url=http://www.docomomo.com/com/PDF/pdf_docomomo_journals/BettyJ.Blum-NatalieDeBlois_and_connecticut_GeneralLifeAssurance_Building-DJ31Sept2004_60-64.pdf | title=Natalie de Blois and the Connecticut General LIfe Insurance Building | publisher=Docomomo Journal | date=September 2004 | accessdate=October 9, 2013 | author=Blum, Betty J | url-status=dead | archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20150408032728/http://www.docomomo.com/com/PDF/pdf_docomomo_journals/BettyJ.Blum-NatalieDeBlois_and_connecticut_GeneralLifeAssurance_Building-DJ31Sept2004_60-64.pdf | archivedate=April 8, 2015 }} She was interested in architecture from an early age, saying in 2004, "I was selected to be the one that would go into art. I told my father that I wanted to be an architect from the age of ten or twelve."{{cite web | url=https://www.som.com/publication/natalie-de-blois-interviewed-detlef-mertins | title=Natalie de Blois Interviewed by Detlef Mertins | publisher=Skidmore, Owings & Merrill | date=June 17, 2004 | accessdate=October 9, 2013 | author=Mertens, Detlef | url-status=dead | archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20130901004814/https://www.som.com/publication/natalie-de-blois-interviewed-detlef-mertins | archivedate=September 1, 2013 }} She attended the Western College for Women in Oxford, Ohio, and received an architecture degree from Columbia University in 1944.[https://archive.today/20130801024040/http://www.bwaf.org/dna/archive/entry/natalie-griffin-de-blois "Natalie Griffin de Blois"], Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation (last visited July 31, 2013).{{cite news|title=Natalie de Blois dies at 92; pioneering female architect|author=Blair Kamin|newspaper=Los Angeles Times|date=August 1, 2013|url=http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-natalie-de-blois-20130802,0,5644178.story}} While at Columbia, she worked at Babcock & Wilcox during the summer and for Frederick John Kiesler.{{cite news|last1=Mertins|first1=Detlef|title=Cracking the Glass Ceiling A look back at the career of trailblazing architect Natalie de Blois|url=https://medium.com/@SOM/cracking-the-glass-ceiling-a-look-back-at-the-career-of-trailblazing-architect-natalie-de-blois-b7ef02b28c2b|accessdate=April 3, 2015|work=SOM JOURNAL|issue=4|date=2006}}

Architectural career

De Blois began her career at a New York firm, Ketchum, Giná & Sharp, but was fired after she "rebuffed the affections" of one of the firm's male architects. She then joined the architectural firm Skidmore, Owings and Merrill (SOM).[http://bwaf.org/built-by-women-union-carbide-building/ "Union Carbide Building"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140811012230/http://bwaf.org/built-by-women-union-carbide-building/ |date=August 11, 2014 }}, Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation (last visited July 31, 2013). While working at SOM, De Blois became known as a "pioneer" female-architect in the "male-dominated world of architecture."[https://web.archive.org/web/20130801020423/http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-07-30/news/ct-met-deblois-obituary-0731-20130731_1_nathaniel-owings-new-york-city-architect Obituary], Chicago Tribune, July 30, 2013. She designed major business buildings on Park Avenue in New York City, including the Pepsi building and the Union Carbide Building (now known as the Chase Building). She worked with Gordon Bunshaft on the Pepsi building, which was completed in 1960 and was "praised by critics for its gem-like, seemingly levitating exterior walls of gray-green glass and aluminum."

In 1962, she transferred to the Chicago headquarters of SOM, where she worked on skyscrapers until 1974. While there, she founded the Chicago Women in Architecture. Richard Tomlinson, the managing partner of SOM's Chicago office, said it's the "best thing that ever happened to us", and De Blois was eventually promoted to associate partner in 1964. Her works in Chicago include the Equitable Building.

De Blois joined Neuhaus & Taylor (now known as 3-D International) in Houston in 1974. In 1980, she began teaching at the University of Texas School of Architecture, and was a faculty member until 1993. She died at age 92 in Chicago, and had her ashes scattered on Lake Michigan.{{Cite book |last=Kuehn |first=Henry H. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CJ7RDgAAQBAJ&dq=is%2520natalie%2520de%2520blois%2520in%2520Graceland&pg=PA130 |title=Architects' Gravesites: A Serendipitous Guide |date=April 28, 2017 |publisher=MIT Press |isbn=978-0-262-34074-8 |page=130 |language=en}}

In 2014, De Blois was recognized for designing the Pepsi Cola World Headquarters and Union Carbide Building by the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation, whose Built by Women New York City competition identified outstanding and diverse sites and spaces designed, engineered, and built by women. Willis said, "There wasn't anybody in the country quite like Natalie, because there was no one else working for a firm quite like Skidmore."

Notable projects

Union Carbide Building (later known as the Chase Building), 270 Park Avenue, New York - Completed 1960, de Blois Senior Designer
New York State Building, 5 East 57th Street, New York - Designer of 1946 renovation
Terrace Plaza Hotel, Cincinnati, Ohio - 1948, Design Coordinator
The Terrace Plaza's Gourmet Room restaurant, considered one of the most iconic public spaces in a landmark of modernist architecture.{{Cite web |title=The Gourmet Room: Re-imagining a Modernist Landmark by Elizabeth Ickes - Issuu |url=https://issuu.com/eickes/docs/the_gourmet_room_at_the_terrace_pla |access-date=January 5, 2023 |website=issuu.com |date=May 3, 2017 |language=en}}{{Cite web |last=Walser |first=Lauren |date=February 9, 2018 |title=What's In the Future for Cincinnati's Modernist Icon? |url=https://infoweb-newsbank-com.research.cincinnatilibrary.org/apps/news/document-view?p=AWNB&sort=YMD_date%3AD&fld-base-0=alltext&maxresults=20&val-base-0=%22gourmet%20room%22%20cincinnati&docref=news/169FA522186B4FF0 |website=CityLab}}
Lever House, New York - 1952, Design Coordinator
Pepsi Cola Headquarters, 500 Park Avenue, New York - Senior Designer
Emhart Manufacturing Company Building - 1962, Senior Designer
Connecticut General Life Insurance Company Headquarters, Bloomfield, Connecticut - 1957, Senior Designer
Equitable Building, Chicago
Boots Pure Drug Co., Nottingham, England, 1968 {{Cite book |last=Torre |first=Susana |title=Women in American Architecture: A Historic and Contemporary Perspective |access-date=March 31, 2025 |publisher=Whitney Library of Design |year=1977 |isbn=0-8230-7485-4 |location=1515 Broadway, New York, N.Y., 10036 |pages=112-115}}

Gallery

File:Lever House 390 Park Avenue.jpg|Lever House
New York, New York 1952

File:270 Park Avenue.JPG|Union Carbide Building (now 270 Park Avenue)
New York, New York 1954

File:Connecticut General Life Insurance Company Headquarters.JPG|Connecticut General Life Insurance Headquarters
Bloomfield, CT 1957

File:500 Park Avenue.JPG|Pepsi Cola Headquarters
New York, New York 1959

File:Equitable Chicago 1.jpg|Equitable Building
Chicago, Illinois 1965

File:270 Park Avenue (WTM by official-ly cool 100).jpg|270 Park Avenue
New York, New York 1960

File:Exterior of Gourmet Room of the Terrace Plaza Hotel.jpg|Exterior of the Gourmet Room

File:Gourmet Restaurant, Terrace Plaza Hotel, Cincinnati, Ohio (79214).jpg|Interior of the Gourmet Room

Awards

Fulbright fellowship to study at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, 1951–52
Edward J. Romieniec, FAIA, Award for Outstanding Educational Contributions, recognizing an outstanding architectural educator, by the Texas Society of Architects, 1988
Named honoree of the Natalie de Blois scholarship, UT Austin
Fellow of the AIA (1974)

Further research

[http://digital-libraries.saic.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/caohp/id/15893/rec/1 Oral history of Natalie de Blois]. Interview by Betty J. Blum, Chicago Architects Oral History Project, Ernest R. Graham Study Center for Architectural Drawings, Department of Architecture, the Art Institute of Chicago.
Susana Torre, Women in American Architecture: A Historic and Contemporary Perspective
[https://legacy.lib.utexas.edu/taro/utaaa/00047/aaa-00047.html Natalie de Blois collection], Alexander Architectural Archives, University of Texas Libraries, The University of Texas at Austin
[http://communities.aia.org/sites/hdoaa/wiki/Wiki%20Pages/ahd1010389.aspx AIA Historical Directory of American Architects]

External links

[https://pioneeringwomen.bwaf.org/natalie-griffin-de-blois/ Pioneering Women of American Architecture, Natalie Griffin de Blois]
{{Cite web |publisher= M. A. S. Studio|date=April 2, 2021 |title=MAS CONTEXT SPRING TALKS 2021 - NATALIE DE BLOIS AT 100 |url=https://vimeo.com/532410148 |access-date=November 30, 2021}} - lecture and roundtable on the occasion of de Blois´ 100th birth anniversary.
[https://bwaf.org/resources/podcast Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation, Episode 2: Natalie de Blois: To Tell The Truth]

Notes

Category:1921 births

Category:2013 deaths

Category:20th-century American architects

Category:American women architects

Category:University of Texas at Austin faculty

Category:Deaths from cancer in Illinois

Category:Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation alumni

Category:People from Paterson, New Jersey

Category:Architects from New Jersey

Category:Skidmore, Owings & Merrill people

Category:20th-century American women

Category:American women academics

Category:21st-century American women