Older men "expected nothing from me" says Alexandra Hagen

Architect Alexandra Hagen ​is stepping down as CEO of the leading Swedish studio White Arkitekter. In this exclusive interview, she reflects on the experiences, people and beliefs that have shaped her career so far.

"In my early 30s, I was head of our international division, and I would meet people who were 20 years older than me, mostly men, and they expected nothing from me," Hagen told Dezeen.

"They were like, 'Oh, who's this young blonde, she can't know very much'," she recalled. "No one really had any expectations that I would deliver on anything, and they were really surprised that I could, actually."

Rather than allowing these misconceptions to demoralise her, Hagen decided early on to view her unusual position as a young woman in a male-dominated field as a positive.

"When you are the only woman, people will always remember you, because you are the one who's different in the room," Hagen explained.

"So you have to also learn how to use your differences to your advantage. And that doesn't only go for being a woman, it can go with other differences as well," she continued.

"Gender equality is just one of the matters of inequality that we see, but you have to grow the confidence to use your differences as an advantage."

Hagen joined White Arkitekter as junior architect

Hagen graduated with a degree in architecture from Chalmers University of Technology in 2000, before landing her first job as a junior architect at White Arkitekter in 2001.

The Dezeen Award-winning firm, founded in 1951 in Gothenburg by architect Sidney White, has over 900 employees, making it one of the largest in Scandinavia.

Hagen only intended to stay with the practice for one or two years while she developed enough skills to open her own studio. She has ended up staying for a quarter of a century.

"My intent was to work for White for maybe one or two years, learn the skills and then open my own practice," Hagen confessed.

"But White has been an amazing practice to work for," she continued. "I've had several positions as an architect working with various market sectors, and I've also had several leadership roles during my career."

After nearly eight years as CEO, Hagen is now set to step down from her position in 2026, in a move that aligns with White Arkitekter's upcoming strategy period.

In her climb to the position of CEO, Hagen also worked as head of the firm's Malmö office and as international director for business development in the UK.

Thankfully, in that time, she believes working as a woman in architecture in Sweden has become less challenging, with gender equality being "one of the cornerstones of Swedish society".

"I think that [architecture's gender balance] is 50-50 in Sweden, and actually, the female architects are paid more than the male architects," Hagen said.

Hagen said maintaining gender balance and offering employees equal opportunities is a priority of White Arkitekter. In recent years, this has meant encouraging male architects at the studio to take parental leave, which she said helps to reduce stigma around hiring women who may want to start a family.

"It's really about supporting the men in being good fathers, and if they take equal responsibility for their families, then there's no difference," Hagen said.

"When the men start to have more parental leave, the women take less, so it becomes more equal. So it's not only about helping women, it's also about supporting men."

"Guided tour of the Pantheon" led Hagen to architecture

Hagen credits her grandparents for setting her on the path to a career in architecture, as they sparked her interests in both the humanities and sciences – something she believes only a career in architecture can satisfy.

On her paternal side, her grandparents encouraged her to enjoy opera, orchestral music, literature and art.

"My grandmother, she never took me to the playground. She said, 'You can choose between the opera, the city library and the city art hall'," Hagen explained.

Meanwhile, with her maternal grandparents, who were mathematicians and physicists, she remembers enjoying dinners with "crazy scientists" staying at their house.

"I loved both of these worlds. And I thought, 'How am I going to choose? Someday, I will have to choose between these two great worlds'," Hagen recalled.

It wasn't until a trip to Rome as a teenager that she realised the solution to this was becoming an architect.

"When I was a young teenager, I was in Rome, and I had a guided tour of the Pantheon, and the guide was talking about how this building has been such an important part of the spiritual part of Rome for 2,000 years, but it was also a technical masterpiece at the time," she said.

"Then I thought, this is the perfect combination of science and art, and therefore this would be my world."

"The trick is not to point the finger"

Hagen views architecture as "a tool to make life better for people", but one that must also respect the natural environment.

She said this belief has been the "driver for everything we do" at White Arkitekter since the '90s, influencing her choice to stay at the practice.

"Humanity needs to be a part of the natural world as a whole, and we need to understand our place in the world, and that we are also dependent on nature to survive and thrive in this world," said Hagen.

"I really think that the greatest inspiration for the city is really the forest, and that nature really is the greatest designer of all, and we have so much to learn from that."

This ethos is evident in the studio's projects, including the mass-timber Sara Kulturhus Centre, which she said "shifted the view of wood" in architecture, and its work on the relocation of the city of Kiruna, which has been developed as a sustainable model city.

It is also demonstrated by one of the firm's biggest challenges yet – its pledge that every building it designs will be carbon neutral by 2030.

Guided by Hagen, the firm has committed to a goal of having "a minimum of CO2 emissions from materials and energy throughout the life cycle of every building and to balance all emissions with climate-positive initiatives".

Hagen said White Arkitekter is making good progress, but that it often faces difficulties, particularly when it comes to discussions with hesitant clients, aligning with legislation and meeting budgets.

"We are constantly measuring this and working on this, and in some respects it's moving quicker than we think, and in some respects slower, but I think it's very important to aim high and believe in that goal," she explained.

"There are always obstacles, you know, but the trick is not to point the finger at someone else. The trick is to focus on what we can do and where we can make a difference."

"A great building is never designed by one person"

She also acknowledged that for the pledge to have a real impact, more architecture practices must follow suit. To encourage this, White Arkitekter frequently shares its learnings and methods with other architecture practices.

"If it's just one architect practice delivering towards these goals, we're not going to get there," Hagen said.

Knowledge sharing and learning is another priority of White Arkitekter, and something Hagen believes is vital in helping the industry become more sustainable and ethical.

"There are very interesting innovations going on in many parts of the world, and hopefully, by learning from each other across nations, we will be able to move quicker towards a more sustainable and also a more beautiful society," she said.

The firm regularly invests time in research and development, which Hagen said is partly thanks to it being employee-owned.

"One of the great benefits of [being employee-owned] is that we don't have an owner outside of the practice that just uses the practice as a vehicle to earn a lot of money, and there's also a great support to reinvest profits that we make into research and development," she said.

"When we put money aside for research and development, that will make a more interesting workplace for all of the people within White."

In her time as CEO, Hagen has been praised for expanding the firm's transnational operations, including by opening a studio in Stuttgart and growing its UK presence, and for guiding the practice through the Covid-19 pandemic. Her plan for life beyond working as CEO of White Arkitekter is yet to be disclosed.

Reflecting on her career, Hagen said her biggest lesson has been the importance of persistence, but also the value of teamwork. She has indisputably been the face of the company for the past eight years, but she rejects the idea of starchitecture.

"The biggest lesson about architecture is that it's all about persistence," she said. "Many of the projects that we're working on, sometimes the large projects, they can take 10 years or 15 years, so you have to be persistent, and it's not a one-man show."

"I think that it's sometimes really sad when you have one name, like this building is designed by one star architect," she continued.

"A great building or a great city is never designed by one person. It's all about the team. To create great architecture, we need to have a good team."

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