Administrative Information

Access

Collection is open to research.

Use Restrictions

Permission to publish material from the Vera Jansone Drawings must be obtained from Special Collections, Virginia Tech.

Preferred Citation

Vera Jansone Drawings, ca. 1940s, 1961-75, Ms2001-026, Special Collections, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

Biographical/Historical Information

Born in Latvia, Vera Jansone studied architecture, engineering, and art history at the University of Latvia. Following World War II, Jansone left her homeland to accept a scholarship to study at the Ecole des Beaux Arts from 1945-49, after which she worked full time in the Atelier Le Corbusier on the reconstruction of Paris. Upon receiving her French license, Jansone started practicing with J.L. Humbaire working mostly on schools, housing, hospitals and commercial buildings. In 1950 Jansone was awarded full tuition and travel expenses under an American Association of University Women (AAUW) scholarship to attend the Illinois Institute of Technology, where she studied under Mies van der Rohe. Jansone received her MS in Architecture from IIT in 1952.

After returning briefly to Paris, Jansone moved to the United States, first living in New York for a short duration and later moving with her husband to California in the early 1960s, where job opportunities were much more abundant for women architects. Some of her projects include The Fox Plaza while working with Victor Gruen Associates; underground stations for the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system while working with Ernest Born; the Mt Shasta Mall in Redding CA while working at Robert B. Liles, Inc.; and the Sycamore Medical Building, while working with T. Liles & Assoc.

Scope and Content Information

The Vera Jansone collection consists of 89 drawings documenting her career as a student at the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux Arts, Paris and as a professional architect in California. Her student work is comprised of drawings of the Atelier Labro, Atelier Perret, and Atelier Auguste Perret. Her later work includes drawings from the Mount Shasta Mall in Redding, CA, Commercial Development in Vancouver, WA, and Pearl Ridge Shopping Mall in Honolulu, HI. Also included are drawings from the Del Norte Medical Center, BART Civic Center, Crescent Beach, CA renderings, Fox Plaza Rapid Transit, and various stations and parks in San Francisco. Additionally, the collection contains an article in the "OWA Tour of Residences Designed by Women Architects in Marin County and Napa Valley" about the Greenbrae Residence which Jansone designed in 1975, as well as two resumes.

Arrangement

This collection is arranged chronologically according to project.