Judith Edelman

Judith Deena Edelman (September 23, 1923 – October 4, 2014) was an American architect. She designed a variety of projects in New York with her firm Edelman Sultan Knox Wood/Architects. A feminist, she was an advocate for the advancement of women in architecture and led the American Institute of Architects' first task force on women.

Early life Edelman was born Judith Hochberg in Brooklyn in 1923. Her parents were migrants from Eastern Europe. She was interested in architecture from a young age after visiting an architectural office as a high school student. She attended Connecticut College, New York University and Columbia University, finishing her Bachelor of Architecture at Columbia in 1946.

Career During Edelman's time in Columbia University, her class had several women (due to World War II) who were never given respect to by the architecture professors. Her and a few classmates were not content with the curriculum, and succeeding spoke up for it to be more challenging. After graduating from Columbia, Edelman struggled to find work and was told by numerous employers that they would not hire women. She worked briefly designing mental hospitals before she was hired by the Greenwich Village-based architect Huson Jackson.

Edelman was a frequent campaigner for the advancement of women architects and insisted that women should become involved in the American Institute of Architects (AIA) although it was "an exclusive gentleman's club". She was the first woman to be elected to the executive committee of the AIA's New York chapter in 1972. In 1972, she founded the Alliance of Women in Architecture, an organization to promote the advancement of women architects. and came to be called "Dragon Lady" at AIA headquarters.