Administrative Information

Access Restrictions

Collection is open to research.

Use Restrictions

Permission to publish material from the Nevena Kechedzhieva Architectural Drawings must be obtained from Special Collections, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

Preferred Citation

Researchers wishing to cite this collection should include the following information: Nevena Kechedzhieva Architectural Drawings, Ms2000-009 - Special Collections, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

Acquisition Information

The creator donated the Nevena Kechedzhieva material to the International Archive of Woman in Architecture via Milka Bliznakov in the summer of 1998. Additional drawings were acquired from the donor the same way in early 2005.

Processing Information

The processing, arrangement and description of the Nevena Kechedzhieva Architectural Drawings was performed in two stages. The first donation was arranged and described in the year 2000. Reprocessing to include the second donation began in February 2005 and was completed in March 2005.

Biographical/Historical Information

Nevena Stoianova Kechedzhieva was born in 1927 in Sofia, Bulgaria. She studied architecture at Sofia Polytechnic, graduating in 1951. Thereafter, she worked for the State Design Organization, "Glavproekt," until her retirement in 1984. In the late 1970s Kechedzhieva was sent to work in Cuba. She worked in Nigeria, the People's Republic of Yemen (Aden) and Mozambique in the early 1980s. Kechedzhieva is also an accomplished interior designer. Since her retirement, she has continued to design for private clients.

Scope and Content

The bulk of this collection consists of architectural drawings created by Nevena Kechedzhieva from 1971 to 1989. It includes residential projects in Bulgaria and commercial projects in Nigeria, Yemen and Bulgaria. Undated sketches of concept plans and elevations for an unidentified multi-storey building are available. A wall unit sketch and her curriculum vitae are also included. Most of the information on the drawings is written in Bulgarian. Translated "Sheet Identification" information for the drawings is included in the collection.

Arrangement

The drawings are grouped by project and stored by size. The smaller sketches and the translated "Sheet Identification" information for most of the drawings are stored in the flat box. Oversize drawings for the Sunny Coast Resort in Bulgaria are stored rolled. The rest of the drawings are stored in oversize folders.

In order to provide translation information for the Bulgarian on each sheet, all the drawings stored in oversized folders have a pencil notation on the left of the title block along the bottom edge that included the initials "IAWA", a letter for that set of project drawings, and the sheet number. The corresponding translation for each drawing is stored in the flat box. For example, more information about the "Attached Houses for Three Families" in Bulgaria in folder one, marked IAWA D1 to IAWA D8, can be found by looking at the translation sheet under that code.