The Woman’s Building

There’s a good chance you’ve driven by this brick Beaux Arts office building at the end of L.A. State Historic Park without ever realizing that you’ve just passed a temple to protest art. In the early 1970s, artist Judy Chicago, graphic designer Sheila Levrant de Bretteville and art historian Arlene Raven all dropped out of CalArts and together hatched the Feminist Studio Workshop, an independent art school for women that sought to challenge the patriarchal school, museum and gallery systems. Initially located in MacArthur Park, the school settled in this spot on the edge of Chinatown in 1975 where—under the name the Woman’s Building—it remained open until 1991 (and during that time launched a lesbian art movement, including the Great American Lesbian Art Show in 1980).