From: Stephen Lauf
To: design-l@lists.psu.edu
To: architecthetics@mailbase.ac.uk
Subject: tsPOWa
Date: Sun, 18 Apr 1999 10:54:51 -0400
The Saintly Patronessing of Women Architects: Reconstructing the Practice of Flavia Julia Helena Augusta
Would the history of architecture significantly transform after acknowledging that the first master architect of Christianity was a woman?
Does it indeed matter whether Christianity's initial monuments were the design and plan of a woman?
Is there even a woman in history that could fulfill such a high and powerful role?
The simple answer to all three of the above questions is a resounding yes.
Yes, the history of architecture would significantly transform if the first master architect of Christianity was a woman because such an acknowledgment would profoundly effect architecture's entire future.
Yes, it does indeed matter if Christianity's first monuments were planned and designed by a woman because architectural history has yet to ascribed such a dominant position to a woman, and, moreover, the presence of a leading woman architect within the context of early Christianity only compounds the implications of origin with regard to such a pivotal point in not only architectural history, but in all history.
Yes, the woman in history that could fulfill the role of Christianity's first master architect is Flavia Julia Helena Augusta, the mother and empress dowager to Constantine the Great, otherwise know as Saint Helena.
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