Pennsylvania’s Women Modernist Architects: Inspiration and Production

In this lecture, architectural historians Mary Anne Hunting and Kevin D. Murphy will explore the often-overlooked role of women architects in the development of Modernism in Pennsylvania, particularly in the Philadelphia area, from the 1930s through the postwar period. Drawing on the research behind their recent book — Women Architects at Work: Making American Modernism (Princeton University Press, 2025) — Hunting and Murphy will explore in their illustrated lecture the inspirations of such established architects as Anne Griswold Tyng and Elizabeth Hirsh Fleisher as well as lesser-known practitioners, many of whom studied at the Cambridge School for Architecture and Landscape Architecture for women in Massachusetts. This lecture will bring new attention to women architects who were influential designers, teachers, retailers, and more, while also demonstrating the central roles played by educational and cultural institutions in the development of Modernism in Pennsylvania.

Q&A and book signing will follow the lecture.