Women’s religious communities and patronage in the UK

This paper discusses women as architectural clients through an examination of Roman Catholic nuns as patrons, designers and in some cases builders of religious architecture. The paper offers two case studies to explore the roles that women assumed in religious communities: the first, a chapel commissioned and built by a community of Carmelite nuns in Wales during the 1950s and the second, a recently completed abbey in the North of England. The examples highlight the evolution of female agency in the built environment and how this has been impacted by the professionalisation of architecture.