Lecture to Focus on Edward Durell Stone's Role in Marketing Modernism to American Families

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – The internationally acclaimed architect and Fayetteville native son Edward Durell Stone is best known today as a victim of changing tastes, with a disproportionate number of his signature works lost or irrevocably altered. In a lecture titled “The House of Ideas and the Idea of the House: Edward Durell Stone and the Mid-Century American Home,” School of Architecture professor Ethel Goodstein-Murphree will explore a lesser-known aspect of Stone’s career – his role as an early torchbearer for the modern American home.

“Edward Durell Stone warmed up Le Corbusier’s cold ‘machine for living’ and in so doing, made the modern house an American place,” Goodstein-Murphree said.

Scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 24, at the Arkansas Arts Center lecture hall in Little Rock, Ark., Goodstein-Murphree’s lecture will focus in particular on three prototypes for modernist homes that Stone developed for Collier’s magazine in the late 30s. His proposals culminated in “the House of Ideas,” a temporary structure perched on a terrace of Rockefeller Center, high above New York City’s tony Fifth Avenue.

At first blush, Stone’s modern American homes look very much like the villas designed by his European counterparts, with flat roofs, curved walls, creamy white stucco and open plans. The difference, Goodstein-Murphree said, is in the back story: Stone stripped the modernist house of the socio-political baggage that left Americans cold, investing the “machine for living” with the machines that supported American ideals of domesticity, from dishwashers to garbage disposals, as well as a garage to house the inevitable car.

“It comes down to narrative – the stories we tell about architecture – and Stone was very good at telling those stories,” Goodstein-Murphree said.

Goodstein-Murphree also will touch on the challenges in preserving mid-century modern architecture by Stone and others. She noted the example of New Canaan, Conn., where houses by Philip Johnson, Paul Rudolph and Stone have recently been threatened.

“Taste is such a capricious thing,” Goodstein-Murphree said with a shrug. “In their day they were fabulous houses, and 1,800 square feet or 2,400 square feet was ample living space. Now, these exemplars of modernism are just too small.”

Though loathe to call herself a preservationist ­– “It sounds like I’m putting up pickles,” she said with a grin – Goodstein-Murphree, an architectural historian, has been active in conserving heritage structures throughout her career. Currently she serves on the board of directors for the Historic Preservation Alliance of Arkansas and is a member of the Fayetteville Historic District Commission. She recently served on the steering committee for the development of a Historic Preservation Master Plan for the University of Arkansas.

Goodstein-Murphree is currently working on a book on Edward Durell Stone. Other avenues of scholarly inquiry range from the Arts and Crafts churches of Victorian England to the truck stops of the contemporary American roadside. Goodstein-Murphree began her career practicing architecture in her native New York City. She subsequently earned a master’s degree in the history of architecture and historic preservation planning at Cornell University and a doctoral degree in architecture and American cultural studies at the University of Michigan. Before joining the School of Architecture faculty in 1992, she worked for the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program and taught at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. 

Well-known for her lively lectures, Goodstein-Murphree has received numerous teaching awards from the School of Architecture and the University of Arkansas Teaching Academy, among other honors.

Goodstein-Murphree’s talk is part of a lecture series co-sponsored by the University of Arkansas School of Architecture, the Arkansas Arts Center and the central Arkansas section of the American Institute of Architects. A 6 p.m. reception will precede the lecture. The event is free and open to the public. Continuing Education Units will be awarded to design professionals.