Chicago is celebrated as the birthplace of the skyscraper, a hub of design innovation, and a city where steel and glass meet the sky in stunning harmony. While names like Mies van der Rohe and Frank Lloyd Wright often dominate discussions of architectural greatness, one woman worked quietly, brilliantly, and boldly to leave her mark on the city’s skyline—Gertrude Lempp Kerbis. For decades, her influence was largely overlooked, her genius tucked away beneath the towering reputations of her male peers. But today, her story is being rediscovered, and her contributions to Chicago’s modernist legacy are finally receiving the recognition they deserve.
Born in 1926, Gertrude Kerbis was one of the few women to emerge in the world of postwar architecture, an industry dominated almost exclusively by men. She didn’t just break into the field—she built within it, designing some of the city’s most elegant and structurally ambitious buildings. Among them: the United Airlines Terminal at O’Hare International Airport and the Skokie Public Library. But perhaps her most iconic work remains the Seven Continents Restaurant at O’Hare—an architectural marvel that fused form and function into a futuristic dome where diners could watch planes take off as they enjoyed fine cuisine.
What made Kerbis’s work stand out was not just her technical skill, though she had plenty of it, honed at the University of Wisconsin, Harvard, and MIT. It was her vision. She embraced the core tenets of modernism—clean lines, open spaces, functional elegance—but infused them with a warmth and purpose that gave her buildings soul. Her structures didn’t just serve—they inspired. She was especially drawn to the interplay of geometry and light, creating spaces that felt both grounded and expansive.
One of the major turning points in her career came when she joined Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), one of the world’s leading architecture firms. There, she worked on massive projects, including the Mitchell Hall at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. Later, she became one of the first female partners at a major Chicago architectural firm, the Bertrand Goldberg Associates. But even as she scaled these heights, Kerbis remained somewhat invisible to the broader public. In interviews, she later recalled how frustrating it was to be the only woman in meetings or on construction sites, often treated as an exception—or an outsider.
Despite these barriers, Kerbis never stopped pushing forward. In 1967, she founded her own firm, Lempp Kerbis Architects, where she was finally able to lead projects on her own terms. That same year, she became the first female president of the Chicago chapter of the American Institute of Architects. Through mentorship and leadership, she worked to create space for the next generation of women in design.
Yet, for all her accomplishments, Kerbis’s name remained largely unknown outside architectural circles. Part of that was the era. Part of it was the industry’s historic reluctance to elevate women to the same platform as men. And part of it was Kerbis herself—modest, meticulous, and more interested in the work than the spotlight. She believed buildings should speak for themselves. But time has shown that without a voice to tell the story, even the most brilliant work can fade into the background.
