Ethel Goodstein-Murphree to Present Edward Durell Stone Lecture at Crystal Bridges on Oct. 2

Two models posed on the terrace of the Collier's "House of Ideas," Edward Durell Stone, 1939. Courtesy of Rockefeller Center Archives.

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Ethel Goodstein-Murphree will present a lecture titled "Sex and the Celanese House" at 7 p.m. Friday, Oct. 2, at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, 600 Museum Way, in Bentonville. An architectural historian, Goodstein-Murphree is a professor of architecture and associate dean of the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design. Registration is available at the museum's website.

This lecture explores architect Edward Durell Stone, a native of Fayetteville, and his lesser-known role as an early torchbearer for the American modern home. It pays particular attention to what his work reveals about changing patterns of domesticity from the interwar years through the 1950s.

In 1959, Stone designed a mid-century modern model house for the Celanese Corporation. Conceived as a showcase for its "The America Idea" program, the Celanese House featured the corporation's fabrics and paints, but its identity was wed to Stone's signature screen, here constructed of wood and embellished with a star-shaped pattern. That pattern was a domestic iteration of the iconic screens he designed for his United States Embassy in New Delhi and the United States Pavilion at the Brussels World's Fair.

The Celanese Corporation was as well known as its internationally acclaimed architect, whose portrait had graced the cover of Time magazine in 1958. Celanese was the creator of luscious synthetic fabrics that transformed haute couture fashion into the lingerie and business suits of middle class American women, and the company figured significantly in the creation of a new and accessible kind of American glamour in the postwar era.

By the time Stone was commissioned to design the Celanese House, he already had translated European modernism into an accessible suburban design trope for an American interwar audience, particularly through three prototypes developed for Collier's magazine in the late 1930s, including the provocative "House of Ideas," an exhibition house perched on a terrace of Rockefeller Center, above New York City's tony Fifth Avenue. Together, these demonstration houses set reveal new expectations for allure and high style in otherwise ordinary suburban living, refiguring both the long-established notion of the house as a woman's sphere.

This lecture derives from Goodstein-Murphree's research on mid-century modernism, the controversies surrounding its preservation, and the importance of placing woman in the mainstream of its chronicle. A specialist in American architectural and cultural history, Goodstein-Murphree has been engaged in architectural education and practice for four decades. She received a Bachelor of Architecture from City College of the City University of New York, a master's degree in history of architecture and urban development from Cornell University, and an interdisciplinary Ph.D. in architecture from the University of Michigan. Prior to joining the University of Arkansas in 1992, she practiced architecture in New York City, served as architectural historian for the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program, and began her career in architectural education at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, where she taught for 10 years.

With her husband, David Murphree, she is a partner in studio m2, an alternative design firm. Recent scholarly projects of note include Clean Lines, Open Spaces: A View of Mid-Century Modern Architecture, a regional Emmy Award-winning public television documentary produced for AETN for which she served as architectural historical consultant and co-author, and "The Common Place of the Common Carrier: The American Truck Stop," an essay in the anthology Visual Merchandising: The Image of Selling.

Recognition of her teaching and scholarship includes an American Institute of Architects Education Honor Award; the Louisiana Preservation Alliance Award for Excellence in Preservation Education; the Ned Shank Award for Outstanding Preservation Publication from the Historic Preservation Alliance of Arkansas; and the Tau Sigma Delta Honor Society Silver Medal. She has held leadership positions on the Board of Directors of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture; the Southeast Society of Architectural Historians; the Historic Preservation Alliance of Arkansas; and the City of Fayetteville Historic District Commission.

Admission to the lecture is free for museum members and $10 for non-members. Registration for this lecture is available online or at the museum's Guest Services.

For more information, contact Crystal Bridges at 479-657-2335 or visit crystalbridges.org/.