In 2011, a student asked architect and historian Lisa Landrum, an associate professor of architecture at the University of Manitoba?s Faculty of Architecture: why were women absent from the architectural history curriculum" 
It launched Landrum on a decade-long research project to redress the gender balance in her teaching?and in the design history of her adopted home province. One of the results of that work is a double deck of playing cards released this spring.
The cards celebrate early women architects who studied and worked in Manitoba, from Ethelyn Wallace, the first woman to graduate from UM?s architecture program, in 1932, to Gerri Stemler (née Holland), who became the first woman president of the Manitoba Association of Architects, in 1998. It also includes women who forged careers in the 1960s and 1970s, such as Lana Kinoshita (née Cheung), an early graduate of the UM interior design program?founded by Joan Harland, who also figures in the decks. One of the two decks includes photos of the women; the second features capsule bios. A research booklet provides sources and prompts for further investigation. ?Players can invent games to match women with their story, play any regular card game, or use them for trivia and as mnemonic devices,? writes Landrum.
The research for the cards was conducted in collaboration with Marieke Gruwel, an art and architectural historian with the Winnipeg Architecture Foundation. Much of the material was gleaned from the univers...