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 woman in the male-dominated profession. She was a partner for many years in the firm of

Skidmore, Owings and Merrill Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) is an American architectural, urban planning and engineering firm. It was founded in 1936 by Louis Skidmore and Nathaniel Owings in Chicago, Illinois. In 1939, they were joined by engineer John Merrill. The fir ...

. Her notable works include the Pepsi Cola Headquarters,

Lever House Lever House is a office building at 390 Park Avenue in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. The building was designed in the International Style by Gordon Bunshaft and Natalie de Blois of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) as ...

, and the

Union Carbide Building 270 Park Avenue, also the JPMorgan Chase Tower and Union Carbide Building, was a skyscraper in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Built in 1960 for chemical company Union Carbide, it was designed by architects Gordon Bunshaft a ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

, the Equitable Building in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

, the low-rise portions of the

Ford World Headquarters The ''Henry Ford II World Center'', also commonly known as the ''Ford World Headquarters'' and popularly known as the Glass House, is the administrative headquarters for Ford Motor Company, a 12-story, glass-faced office building designed to accom ...

in Dearborn, Michigan, and the

Connecticut General Life Insurance Company Headquarters The Connecticut General Life Insurance Company Headquarters is a commercial office complex at 900 Cottage Grove Road in Bloomfield, Connecticut. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on January 27, 2010. Built between 1954 an ...

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 The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

in the 1980s and 1990s.

Early years

De Blois was born in Paterson, New Jersey, into a family of three generations of engineers. 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." She attended the

Western College for Women Western College for Women, known at other times as Western Female Seminary, The Western and simply Western College, was a women's and later coed liberal arts college in Oxford, Ohio, between 1855 and 1974. Initially a seminary, it was the host of ...

in Oxford, Ohio, and received an architecture degree from

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

in 1944."Natalie Griffin de Blois"
Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation (last visited July 31, 2013). While at Columbia, she worked at

Babcock & Wilcox Babcock & Wilcox is an American renewable, environmental and thermal energy technologies and service provider that is active and has operations in many international markets across the globe with its headquarters in Akron, Ohio, USA. Historicall ...

during the summer and for

Frederick John Kiesler Frederick John Kiesler (September 22, 1890 – December 27, 1965) was an Austrian-United States, American architect, theoretician, theater designer, artist and sculptor. Biography Kiesler was born Friedrich Jacob Kiesler in Czernowitz, Austro-H ...

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

(SOM)."Union Carbide Building"
, Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation (last visited July 31, 2013). While working at SOM, De Blois became known as a "pioneer" as a female architect in the "male-dominated world of architecture."Obituary
''

Chicago Tribune The ''Chicago Tribune'' is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television a ...

'', July 30, 2013. She designed major business buildings on

Park Avenue Park Avenue is a wide New York City boulevard which carries north and southbound traffic in the boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx. For most of the road's length in Manhattan, it runs parallel to Madison Avenue to the west and Lexington Av ...

, including the Pepsi building and the

(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 Neuhaus (German for "new house") may refer to: Places *in Germany: **in Bavaria: ***Neuhaus an der Pegnitz, in the district Nürnberger Land *** Neuhaus am Inn, in the district of Passau **in Lower Saxony: *** Amt Neuhaus, in the district of ...

(now known as 3-D International) in

Houston Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 i ...

in 1974. In 1980, she began teaching at the

University of Texas School of Architecture The University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture (UTSOA) is a college within The University of Texas at Austin, with its major facilities located on the main university campus in Austin, Texas. UTSOA's dean is Michelle Addington. I ...

, and was a faculty member until 1993. She died at age 92 in Chicago, and had her ashes scattered on Lake Michigan. 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

(now 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 on of the most iconic public spaces in a landmark of modernist architecture. *

, New York - 1952, Design Coordinator * Pepsi Cola Headquarters, 500 Park Avenue, New York - Senior Designer * Emhart Manufacturing Company Building - 1962, Senior Designer *

, Bloomfield, Connecticut - 1957, Senior Designer * Equitable Building, Chicago

Gallery

File:Lever House 390 Park Avenue.jpg,

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 * Edward J. Romieniec Award, recognizing an outstanding architectural educator, by the Texas Society of Architects * Named honoree of the Natalie de Blois scholarship, UT Austin * Fellow of the AIA (1974)

Further research

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''
Natalie de Blois collection
Alexander Architectural Archives, University of Texas Libraries, The University of Texas at Austin
AIA Historical Directory of American Architects

External links

Pioneering Women of American Architecture, Natalie Griffin de Blois
* - lecture and roundtable on the occasion of de Blois´ 100th birth anniversary.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:De Blois, Natalie 1921 births 2013 deaths 20th-century American architects American women architects University of Texas faculty Deaths from cancer in Illinois Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation alumni People from Paterson, New Jersey Architects from New Jersey Skidmore, Owings & Merrill people 20th-century American women American women academics 21st-century American women