Melita RačkiMelita Rački receiving
Order of the Rising Sun with Golden and Silver Rays from H. E. Mitsuhiro Wada, Ambassodor of Japan to Croatia
On November 27, 2025, H. E. Mitsuhiro Wada, Ambassador of Japan to Croatia, held a ceremony to award the Order of the Rising Sun with Golden and Silver Rays to architect Dr. Melita Rački. Dr. Rački received the award in recognition of her long-standing contribution to promoting mutual understanding between Japan and Croatia through the presentation of Japanese architects, their works, architectural techniques, and the history of Japanese architecture.
Dr. Melita Rački defended her PhD in Architecture in 1970s at the Tokyo University in Japan, under the guidance of Professor Yoshinobu Ashihara. Dr. Rački is fluent in Japanese. Many thanks to Professor Ljubomir Miščević for this information.
Sena Sekulić-Gvozdanović, distinguished Croatian historian of ArchitectureSrebrenka (Sena) Sekulić-Gvozdanović (1916-2002)
Source: Hrvatska tehnička enciklopedija
Sena Sekulić-Gvozdanović serving as a Dean of the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Zagreb (1979-1981). Source: [Neidhardt]
Sena Sekulić-Gvozdanović was the first Croatian woman-architect who was a corresponding member of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts, in the division of Architecture. Also, she was the first woman who served as a Dean of the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Zagreb (1979-1981). She was a member of the Society of Brethern of the Croatian Dragon.
Some of her books:
Fortress Churches in Croatia, Zagreb 1995. (published in Croatian and German in 1994)
Žena u arhitekturi: tragom žene kreatora i žene teoretičara u povijesti arhitekture, Zagreb 1998. (Post Scriptum: Itsuko Hasegawa)
Islamski vrtovi i dvorovi / Islamic Gardens and Courts, Zagreb 2004
Utvrđeni samostani na tlu Hrvatske, 2007.
Sena Sekulić-Gvozdanović published a book Žena u arhitekturi (Woman in Architecture). A copy of her translation of her book from Croatian into English is kept in Japan (the English version is not published yet). However, Japanese specialists translated her English manuscript into Japanese.
More precisely, her unpublished manuscript Woman in Architecture was translated into Japanese in 2005 as a single copy, under the title
建築の理論と実践における女性の歴史
which, translated from Japanese, reads as A Search of Women in Architectural Theory and Practice. The publisher is UIFA JAPON (where UIFA stands for Union Internationale des Femmes Architectes), Sena's Book Reading Group (sic!). This shows that the unpublished monograph was studied in great detail by a group of Japanese women-architects.
A copy of her unpublished manuscript seems to be kept in the Virginia Tech University Library, USA, as a part of International Archive of Women in Architecture (IAWA):
SEKULIĆ-GVOZDANOVIĆ, SENA (d.2002). ARCHITECTURAL COLLECTION, 1963-2002. (0.5 cu. ft.)
Architect in Zagreb, Republic of Croatia. She was a professor (1946-1986) and the first female Dean of Architecture (1979-1982) at the University of Zagreb. Author of Žena u Arhitekturi: Tragom žene Kreatora I žene Teoretičara U Povijesti Arhitekture [Rare Book Room NA2543 W65 S45 1998]; a rare research document that explores the history of women in the built environment dating back to Ancient Babylonian Times. An unpublished English translation of this book titled By Her Order and Design: A Search of Women in Architectural Theory and Practice is present in her collection. Sekulic-Gvozdanovic's collection contains published and unpublished works, personal correspondence, photographs, slides, and lectures pertaining to her research concerning women in architecture. Materials range in date from 1963-2002. View the Sena Sekulić-Gvozdanović' Collection finding aid online. Ms1998-009.
Many thanks to Yoko Nishii (Ise, Japan) for this very interesting information.
