Susana Torre

Susana Torre (born 1944) is an Argentine-born American architect, critic and educator, based in New York City (1968–2008) and in Carboneras, Almeria, Spain (since 2009). Torre has developed a career that combined “theoretical concerns with the actual practice of building” and architectural and urban design with teaching and writing. Torre was the first woman invited to design a building in Columbus, IN, “a town internationally known for its collection of buildings designed by prominent architects.”

In 1977 Torre organized and curated the first major exhibition of American women architects, and edited the book Women in American Architecture: A Historic and Contemporary Perspective. The exhibition opened at the Brooklyn Museum in 1977 and traveled across the United States and to the Netherlands. The exhibition and book of the same title, which she edited and to which she contributed three essays, pioneered work in this field. Torre was also a co-founder of Heresies, A Feminist Journal on Art and Politics; was a member of the editorial collectives of Heresies 2: Patterns of Communication and Space; and Heresies 11: Making Room: Women in Architecture; and served on the editorial board of Chrysalis between 1976-1978.

Susana Torre was born in Puan, province of Buenos Aires, Argentina, the eldest of three children of Alfonso A. Torre, an economist, and Amelia E. Silva, a school teacher. Upon the death of her father when she was eight years old, the family moved to La Plata, near Buenos Aires, where she attended public schools until beginning her studies for the Dipl. Arch. at the Schools of Architecture and Planning, Universidad de La Plata and Universidad de Buenos Aires, which she received in 1968. The year before her graduation Torre was selected to represent Argentina at the 1967 International Design Conference in Aspen, Colorado and also won a Fellowship from the Edgar Kaufmann Jr. Foundation which enabled her to take a study trip across the US. Upon her return to Argentina, she established the Design Department of the Museo Provincial de Bellas Artes in La Plata, the first of any museum in Latin America. While still a student, Torre designed a six-story apartment building in La Plata for banker David Graiver and also built a small house for herself and her first husband, painter Alejandro Puente, in City Bell.

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