These Are the Women Who Changed Modern Architecture

Lene Tranberg, born in Copenhagen in 1956, studied under the renowned Danish architect Erik Christian Srensen at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. A year before graduating in 1977, she founded Lundgaard and Tranberg Architects with fellow architect Boje Lundgaard, and the two eventually married. Sustainable and energy-efficient solutions have been a recurring theme throughout Tranberg’s career. Throughout the 1990s, her and her husband’s firm focused on developing an innovative design approach by collaborating with Danish Building Research and other organizations that promoted sustainable construction. One project, Charlottehaven, combines single-family houses with shared communal facilities in an energy-efficient design, making it the first of its kind in Denmark. The firm has been instrumental in shaping the development of modern Copenhagen. Although Tranberg and Lundgaard divorced in 1994, they remained partners in the firm until Lundgaard’s death in 2004. Tranberg then extended partnership to six longtime employees, reforming the company as it exists today.