Lois Gottlieb

Education Gottlieb attended Stanford University from 1944 to 1947, where she studied pre-architecture, a combination of art and engineering, before earning a Bachelor of Arts degree. She spent the summer of 1946 at the University of Mexico and the summer of 1947 at the University of Guatemala. In the last quarter of her senior year, Gottlieb visited Frank Lloyd Wright's Hanna-Honeycomb House (1936) near the university campus as part of the class curriculum. As she would later recall, "I was stunned and enchanted. lt was as though l had never heard music before and here was confronted with the visual equivalent of a Beethoven symphony." Driven by the appreciation for, and a desire to learn more about the design philosophy of Wright's architecture, Gottlieb applied for and was accepted as an apprentice to the Taliesin Fellowship. She began a two-year journey of work and study with Wright in 1948. Gottlieb was one of the few women who have been apprenticed to Frank Lloyd Wright as a Taliesin fellow. During her time at Taliesin, she worked on the Eric and Pat Pratt Residence, aka the Pratt house, in Michigan, and the Mrs. Clinton Walker house in Carmel, California. Her book, A Way of Life: An Apprenticeship with Frank Lloyd Wright records the eighteen months that she spent with Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin Fellowship in the late 1940s.

Upon the completion of Taliesin fellowship, Gottlieb went to Harvard University's Graduate School of Design from 1949 to 1950 to continue her professional education. Following graduate school, she received her architecture license. In 1967-1968, she traveled to India and studied the crafts of that country with a Fulbright Grant. Gottlieb believes the apprenticeship with Wright also taught her "to be harmonious with nature and to take full advantage of a beautiful setting." Gottlieb was able to interpret these Wrightian principles in her own practice, as described in her book, Environment and Design in Housing (1968).

Architectural works Source: Val-Goeshen, Inverness, California (1951) Robert S. Gottlieb, San Francisco, California (1955) Robert S. Gottlieb, Riverside, California (1964) Mackey House, Riverside, California (1966) Beals House, Riverside California (1967) Hansen House, Seattle, Washington (1978) Lynn House, Ketchum, Idaho (1980) Harrah Energy Efficient House, Sedona, Arizona (1981) Mark and Sharon Gottlieb House, Fairfax, Virginia (1996)

Publications Writings

The Balance between Diversity and specialization in American and Indian education, Fulbright Newsletter, Spring 1972. Environment and Design in Housing, Macmillan,1968. [ASIN: B0000CMTSS] A Way of Life: An Apprenticeship with Frank Lloyd Wright, Mulgrave: Images Publishing, 2001.

A Woman is a Fellow Here - 100 Women Architects in the Studio of Frank Lloyd Wright (2009) Gottlieb was one of the few women who have been apprenticed to Frank Lloyd Wright as a Taliesin fellow. She is one of the six women in architecture featured in the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation movie "A Woman is a Fellow Here". The other women featured included Marion Mahony Griffin, Eleanore Pettersen, Jane Duncombe, Isabel Roberts, and Read Weber.

Legacy Gottlieb's papers, designs, and drawings were donated in 1997 and 2003 to the International Archive of Women in Architecture at Virginia Tech, which is founded by Professor of Architecture Milka T. Bliznakov in 1985. The collected papers (Ms1997-003) include project files, drawings, correspondence, manuscripts, photographs and printed material related to Gottlieb's design work and various professional activities. There is also documentary footage by Eva Soltes Productions about Lois Gottlieb, including tapes entitled "Lois Plans," "A Way of Life (demo reel)" and "House and Exterior by Robert Gottlieb," 1995–1997. Photographs of some of her works are available on the VT ImageBase.