One of the country’s best modernist architects, Jane Drew created the designs for famous buildings in the UK and throughout the world.

Born in Surrey in 1911, Drew studied at the Architectural Association School of Architecture and married fellow architect Jim Alliston in 1934. Unlike most married women of the time, she insisted on keeping her own name and when the couple set up a joint business, it was named Alliston Drew.

She became interested in modernist architecture – the bold, contemporary designs coming in from mainland Europe, especially the way-out yet practical buildings of Swiss architect Le Corbusier. She became an evangelist for modernist architecture in Britain, getting heavily involved with the Modern Architectural Research Group. MARS had radical plans for rebuilding post-war London with a new utopian, socialist layout including plenty of flats to house the population. It was mind-blowingly futuristic for the time, but never came to pass.

Drew’s first marriage didn’t work out, and in 1942 she married another architect, Maxwell Fry, and started a professional partnership with him. Together, they worked on creating the new town of Harlow, Essex, then moved on to public buildings including hospitals, universities, housing complexes and damns in Nigeria, Ghana, the Ivory Coast, Persia and India. They became experts in the architecture of hotter climates.

She frequently mixed with design luminaries such as Barbara Hepworth, Eduardo Paolozzi and Henry Moore and collaborated with Walter Gropius, founder of the Bauhaus school. In 1996, Drew was made a Dame of the British Empire.

The true story of the modernist architect who made a point of only hiring women