As part of the Cultural Heritage of Urban Planning project, eighty-two new information sheets about women* have been added to the VAi Archive Hub. In addition to careers in design, many women moved into education, the civil service, politics, and the wider civic sector.
Although eighty-two new information sheets about women have been added recently, there is still a stark gender imbalance: just one in eight registered records is about a woman*. Furthermore, we were able to ascertain the location of only fourteen archives belonging to women.
Be sure to click on the names in the article to read a more detailed biography. Do you know of any women* from the urban planning field, or their archives, that are missing? Let us know at kenniscentrum@vai.be.
The search for archival material about women urban planners is often complex. One good example is Eliane Havenith (1918-2004). She was the first woman* to graduate as an architect and urban planner from the NHIBS in Antwerp. However, her archive, preserved by CIVA, was filed under the name of her last firm, Atelier du Sablon, causing her to remain largely overlooked for many years.
Different search strategies are needed to track down the women* who worked in the urban planning field. Unlike their male colleagues, with a canon of well-known names in texts and articles, the work by women* demands more systematic research. Administrative sources are particularly important, as they list information without filtering. For example, this includes registers of enrolments and graduates from courses, as well as membership lists of campaign groups or professional associations such as the Belgian Association of Dutch-speaking Urban Planners or the Chambre des Urbanistes de Belgique [Chamber of French-speaking Belgian Urban Planners].
In the first half of the 20th century, a degree in architecture was often required to pursue an urban planning course. Claire Henrotin (1908-1989) was the first woman to graduate in both disciplines from La Cambre in Brussels. Odette Filippone (1927-2002), Frédérique Hoet-Segers (1929-2022) and Cécile Feron (1936-1994) also combined architecture and urban planning.
The democratization that followed from May 1968 and relaxations in the education system saw more women* pursuing degrees in urban planning or spatial planning, and they entered from various other fields. In particular, courses in geography, sociology, and law were popular. Simone Bellière-Vosch (1926-2015), for example, obtained diplomas in both sociology and urban planning from the ULB (Free University of Brussels), while Marie-Rose Proesmans (1943-2002) combined urban planning with a PhD in Law from RUG (State University of Ghent).
Although there are exceptions, many women* in urban planning did not work as designers. Instead, there was a significant influx into education, the civil service, politics and the wider civic sector. For example, Havenith taught at the NHIBS and Françoise Choay (1925-2025) at La Cambre. Anita Vanhoudt (1936-2016) and Violette Vansteelandt (1943-2013) built careers in the civil service. Vansteelandt developed the curriculum ‘Children Learning to Observe Their Own Living Environment’ [Kinderen leren kijken naar de eigen leefomgeving] at the Directorate-General for Spatial Planning.
At policy level, Minister Paula D’Hondt (1926-2022) oversaw the transition of the Public Works portfolio from the federal to the Flemish government. As Secretary of State for the Environment, Miet Smet (1943-2024) ensured that campaign groups could bring environmental violations to court. In Wallonia, Marthe Pierquin (1925-2011) sought to influence the urban planning policy of her home town, Wavre. She thus played a pivotal role in the founding of the Écolo party.
It is striking that both Smet and Pierquin were actively involved in a number of environmental and urban planning campaign groups. In her role as chair of the campaign group ABLLO, Smet was involved in the establishment of the Bond Beter Leefmilieu, and Pierquin was the founder of Wavre Urbanisme Environnement, which opposed the introduction of a new regional plan.
To find archival material about women* in the urban planning field, you can approach the following archival institutions:
Cultural Heritage of Urban Planning Project
In September 2025, the VAi Knowledge Centre launched a call for urban planning archives. With the Cultural Heritage of Urban Planning [Cultureel Erfgoed van de Stedenbouw] project, the VAi aims to map actors and archives from the urban planning and spatial planning fields in Belgium for the period 1945 to 2000.
Since the project’s inception, the VAi Knowledge Centre has been continuously documenting the collected knowledge in the VAi Archive Hub. A source guide will be published in 2028, which will help researchers navigate the dispersed archival material.
*We use an asterisk for women* to highlight inclusivity and focus attention on the diversity within this group. The asterisk indicates that the term includes not only cisgender women (women whose gender identity is in line with the gender that they were assigned at birth), but also trans women, non-binary individuals who identify with femininity, and other gender identities that fall under the umbrella of femininity. The use of the asterisk helps us to communicate a broader and more inclusive definition of femininity.
