Even as a teenager growing up in Plaquemine, Lynn Bradley knew she wanted to be an architect, which is pretty remarkable considering how few women there were in the profession back in the mid-1960s. But Bradley wasn’t intimidated by the prospect of being a trailblazer in a design profession dominated by men.
“My parents encouraged us to do what we thought we could do,” Bradley says. “Not what society told us we could do.”
Armed with that conviction—and a killer work ethic—Bradley entered the LSU School of Architecture in 1966 and went on to become one of its first female graduates five years later. In the nearly four decades since, she has established herself as a specialist in the field of hospital architecture. She has also made her mark on the community, devoting countless volunteer hours to needy social and civic organizations.
“We’re supposed to give back and so giving of my time as an architect has been the best way for me to give back to the community,” says Bradley, who was one of the founding members of the Baton Rouge Habitat for Humanity chapter. “But, really, I get so much more than what I give.”
Bradley is low-key and soft-spoken, but when she speaks about her work and volunteer endeavors she becomes animated and enlivened. And she will be the first to tell you that architecture is her passion. She was drawn to it in high school because it enabled her to utilize both her creative streak and her mathematical abilities.
“Architecture is a combination of art and engineering,” she says. “That’s important to me.”
Being one of just a handful of female students in the LSU School of Architecture in the late 1960s didn’t faze Bradley. Indeed, she says only one professor gave her trouble because of her gender. “And that was his problem, not mine,” she says.
After graduating, Bradley spent nine years working for Desmond-Miremont, where she cut her teeth designing school buildings around the state. In 1980, she went out on her own. Among the first major jobs Bradley-Blewster landed was an expansion at Our Lady of the Lake Hospital, which helped establish the young firm in the field of hospital architecture. Today, health care facilities account for about 75% of business at Bradley-Blewster, which services some 12 hospitals around the state.
“It’s really interesting work,” Bradley says. “There’s so much more detail in a hospital that doesn’t exist in other buildings.”
Bradley’s hospital designs have earned her recognition in national publications like Healthcare Spaces. She has also been active in her profession, serving on the boards of the local chapter of the American Institute of Architects, the American College of Health Care Architects and the LSU School of Architecture’s Advisory Board.
But it is for her volunteer activities that she has been most widely recognized. Besides being a founding board member and former president of the local Habitat chapter, she is a former president of the local Volunteers of America chapter, a past president of Quota International of Baton Rouge, a founding member of Sunrise Rotary and is very active at Broadmoor Methodist Church, where she has coordinated Habitat for Humanity activities for the past 16 years.
“My greatest love is Habitat for Humanity,” she says. “It has meant a lot to me to be able to give back to the community in such a meaningful way.”
