MARION MANLEY: MIAMI'S FIRST WOMAN ARCHITECT By Carie Penabad
The achievements of the first generation of academically trained women architects, the few who worked during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century in a profession regarded as "masculine," are only beginning to be recognized. Through the first half of the last century, women seldom won apprenticeships in the most important offices, even less often were able to establish independent practices, and when they did, their practices were usually limited to designing houses that were not published in architectural journals. As a result, the work of these early women architects has remained relatively inaccessible and unknown to subsequent generations.
to shape the architectural character of Miami, first as a competent practitioner in traditional styles, then in high modernist ones, for which she was an early vocal advocate. She was a founder of South Florida's chapter of the American Institute of Architects, served on the editorial board of its journal, and was nationally recognized as only the fourth woman named a fellow of the AlA. Manley' s apprenticeships in the offices of leading local architects of Coral Gables and Miami, Walter DeGarmo and Phineas Paist, provided a foundation in the art of building with local materials, vernacular traditions, and classical themes. She learned the language of the Mediterranean Revival, South Florida' s primary architectural style throughout the 1920s and 30s. Manley's early residential work draws upon this experience and can be seen in her commissions for the Villa Paula (1924), the Villa Scott (1925) and the "Finca" Fink (1938), a home for Denman Fink, George Merrick' s uncle, a
None of these generali~ I zations apply to Marion Manley, except the obscurity of her work, for in fact she did apprentice with the leading local architects, did establish her own office , and did receive important institutional commissions that were University of Miami Memorial Classroom Building, Robert Law Weed and Marion Manley, locally and nationally Pencil Rendering, University of Miami Libraries published. At a remarkably early date, visionary artist of Coral Gables and 1918, she was the first woman in chair of the University of Miami's South Florida granted a license to Department of Art. practice architecture, launching a career that was to span six decades Planning and Building the during which she became a leading University of Miami figure in the local architectural and planning professions. She helped
At the end of the Second World War, Manley acquired her largest and most important architectural commission: the design of a new masterplan for the University of Miami. Her vision for the University included buildings inspired by the International Style and set loosely upon open greens. She studied modernist planning theories at M.LT. where she enrolled in a course in urban planning during the summer of 1945. In collaboration with Robert Law Weed, Manley not only designed the masterplan but also a multitude of campus buildings. These projects were widely published as one of the earliest instances of the use of Modernist architecture for an American campus. While working at UM, Manley maintained her residential practice. She spent her last years developing what she regarded as an appropriate architecture for the climate of South Florida. For it she used local materials, large overhangs for protection from sun and rain, windows and doors arranged to enhance cross ventilation patterns and to maximize the prevailing south easterly breezes, as well as a variety of porches, courtyards and terraces that offered respite from the intense tropical heat. The Paul Wylie House (1953), and the Sam Bell Residence (1954) became emblematic of Manley' s tropical architectural style and were published in leading architecturaljournals of the day. Carie Penabad teaches at the UM School of Architecture and coauthored with Catherine Lynn the book Marion Manley: Miami's First Woman Architect.
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