Kathleen James-Chakraborty will deliver the 2026 Harry Halverson Lecture on American Architecture, “Writing Against Masculinist Histories of Modern Architecture: Ethel Power and Eleanor Raymond versus the Museum of Modern Art”.

Wednesday, 30 September 2026 at 5:00 pm in Collins Cinema, Wellesley College, MA, USA.

Historians of modern architecture have largely accepted Philip Johnson and Henry-Russell Hitchcock’s claims of having introduced the International Style to audiences in the United States through an exhibition held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1932. In fact a number of women, including most notably Ethel Power and Catherine Bauer, shared responsibility for this achievement. Moreover, Power’s partner Eleanor Raymond, Wellesley class of 1909, had already designed an International Style house for her sister Rachel in Belmont, Massachusetts, which the two young men declined to include in their exhibit. Understanding what has been excluded from canonical histories and why provides a first step towards writing more inclusive histories. 

https://www.wellesley.edu/events/the-2026-halverson-lecture