A new resource has consolidated a century’s worth of architectural registrations and nearly four decades of architectural graduations in Australia, marking the first time this information has been made publicly accessible.
Released by Parlour, this resource is known as the Parlour Data Bank. The database contains detailed spreadsheets on architectural registrations at the state level, as well as between genders, from 1924 to 2024. Additionally, the spreadsheets provide a snapshot of architectural graduations between states and genders from 1987 to 2023.
The findings show that women were registered as architects across the entire century, with the proportion of women architects dramatically increasing over the past twenty years. The data also shows that a continuous record of registration data has not always been kept, as can be seen in the years 2000–2004.
In 1924, Australia had 12 registered women and 1,197 men architects. In 1974, fifty years later, there were 275 women architects and 5,591 men architects registered in Australia, which equates to an increase of 263 women and 4,394 men architects between 1924–1974. In 2024 – the most recent registration year recorded – there were 5,543 women architects and 12,013 men architects registered in Australia.
The number of both domestic and international architectural graduates in Australia has also seen a marked increase. In 1987, there were 147 women and 309 men graduates. By 2023, women represented a larger proportion of architectural graduates, with a total of 2,105 women graduates compared to 2,066 men graduates.
The data has been meticulously gathered and cross-checked by architect, researcher and educator Gill Matthewson and her team over 13 years. The datasets build upon earlier efforts by Julie Willis, who collected data on registered architects from 1924 to the mid-1990s, and Paula Whitman and her colleagues, who compiled similar information in the early 2000s.
Matthewson commenced the data collection – with architectural researcher Kirsty Volz – as part of her PhD, which focused on the research project “Equity and Diversity in the Australian Architecture Profession: Women, Work and Leadership (2011–2014).” Led by Dr Naomi Stead, one of the aims of the research project was to map the participation of women in architecture, a responsibility that Matthewson undertook, resulting in the most comprehensive data on registration within the profession at that time.
To access the full data or read more about the data sources, visit the Parlour website. The majority of the data sources primarily view gender as a binary concept. More recent data from some state architectural boards now encompass a broader spectrum of gender identities.
Source: Architecture - architectureau
