Jane Drew

Who was Jane Drew?

Dame Jane Drew, DBE, FRIBA was an English modernist architect and town planner. She qualified at the AA School in London, and prior to World War II became one of the leading exponents of the Modern Movement in London.

At the time Drew had her first office, with the idea of employing only female architects, architecture was a male dominated profession. She was active during and after World War II, designing social and public housing in England, West Africa, India and Iran. With her second husband Maxwell Fry she worked in West Africa designing schools and universities, and with Fry and Pierre Jeanneret, on the housing at Chandigarh, the new capital of the Punjab. She designed buildings in Ghana, Nigeria, Iran and Sri Lanka, and she wrote books on what she had learnt about architecture there. In London she did social housing, buildings for the Festival of Britain, and helped to establish the Institute of Contemporary Arts. After retiring from practice she travelled and lectured abroad, receiving several honorary degrees. She was awarded the DBE in the 1996 New Year Honours, gazetted 30 December 1995, only seven months before her death.