Thursday Oct. 23, 2025 | 5:30 pm | JAC 450
The Wellesley College Art Department and Architecture Program are pleased to welcome Julia Walker, Associate Professor of Art History at the University of Binghamton, SUNY, to present the Fall 2025 Harry Halverson Lecture on American Architecture.
ABOUT THE LECTURE
The extraordinary career of the German architect and planner Brigitte D’Ortschy has much to tell us about the vibrant exchange of ideas about modern architecture occurring across national borders in the twentieth century. Born in Berlin in 1921 and trained at the Technische Universität during the years in which it functioned as a Nazi state organ, D’Ortschy spent the early part of her career as a member of the Bavarian Committee for Urban and Regional Planning, helping rebuild German cities after World War II. However, it was a distinctly American strand of modernism that most impacted her. In 1952, along with ten other architects, she traveled to the United States as part of a professional “retraining” program sponsored by the U.S. Department of State to support Germany’s postwar reconstruction. During the study tour, an encounter with Frank Lloyd Wright and a subsequent stint at his fellowship at Taliesin West would change the course of her life. Though D’Ortschy returned to Germany and practiced as an architect, planner, and designer for the next decade, her interactions with Wright and his circle eventually led her to Japan, where she lived for the rest of her life, ultimately becoming the first Zen master (or rōshi) from Germany.
This talk examines the texts and designs D’Ortschy produced during the ten years in Germany that followed her encounter with Wright. Convinced by her study of Wright’s architecture that “truth” resided as much in the visual world as in the immaterial realm of spirituality, she pursued a process of interior design that sought to imbue minimal environments with maximal meanings. Though at first glance these designs seem in line with general postwar tendencies, I argue that they can also be read as evidence of D’Ortschy’s interest in domesticity as a backdrop against which the discipline—and drama—of personal spirituality could be performed. "
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Julia Walker’s research and teaching focuses on modern and contemporary architecture and urbanism, exploring in particular the persistence and transformation of modernist ideas within contemporary practice. Her first book, Berlin Contemporary: Architecture and Politics After 1990 (Bloomsbury, 2021), examines the architecture and urban planning of reunified Berlin and reveals how its iconic new government structures embody the unsettled contradictions that animate global contemporary architecture culture as a whole. Among the most high-profile and also the most contested of the city’s contemporary architectural projects were those designed for the national government and its related functions. Berlin Contemporary explores these government buildings and plans, tracing their relationship to the work of modernist architect-luminaries such as Bruno Taut and Louis Kahn while also situating their media-ready forms and influential designers within the spectacular world of global contemporary architecture. Close studies of these projects, including Norman Foster's redesigned Reichstag, Axel Schultes and Charlotte Frank's Chancellery, the reconstruction of the Berlin Stadtschloss (now known as the Humboldt Forum), and the recent controversies surrounding the city’s new international airport, reveal the intricate historical negotiations that contemporary architecture is called upon to perform across the globe.
Her second book, tentatively titled Why They Left: Women After Architecture, recovers the histories of women who studied and practiced as architects before leaving or being pressured out of the field. One such example is the German architect, planner, and designer Brigitte D’Ortschy, who was born and trained in Berlin and spent her early career in Munich. After encountering Frank Lloyd Wright during a study tour to the United States, D’Ortschy studied with him briefly at Taliesin West before moving to Japan, where she would eventually become the first Zen master from Germany. In addition to recuperating stories of individual architects, this project is intended to expand understanding of architecture’s intellectual scope, connecting it to fields as diverse as religion, science, politics, and music.
Walker has also published articles on the architecture of Zaha Hadid, Rem Koolhaas, and Daniel Libeskind, among others. Her work has been supported by the Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst, the Society of Architectural Historians, the Walter Benjamin Kolleg of the University of Bern, and the Ellyn Uram Kaschak Institute for Social Justice for Women and Girls.
Thursday Oct. 23
5:30 pm
JAC 450
This event is free and open to the public. Visitors driving to campus should plan to park in the campus parking garage and walk to Jewett (see campus map here).
Email mm138@wellesley.edu with any questions.
Mon. Oct. 27 | 12:45 - 2:00 pm | PNE Knapp Atrium (PNE 225A)
The Suzy Newhouse Center for the Humanities presents a book launch celebration event for Studio Art professor Kathya Landeros' new book, Verdant Land.
Verdant Land (2025) is a photographic exploration of prof. Landeros' family's century-long migration between Mexico and the U.S., shaped by agricultural labor. Blending personal memory with broader histories, the project reflects on immigrant contributions to the American West, honoring ancestors like her great-grandmother Mama Chuy and generations of Latino workers.
Prof. Landeros traveled through western American states between 2011-2024, creating photographs that reflect our interdependence both with the landscape and one another.
At this event, Prof. Landeros will be in conversation with the Newhouse Center's Irene Mata. Lunch and cake will be provided.
This event is free and open to the public. Visitors driving to campus should plan to park in the campus parking garage and walk to Jewett (see campus map here).
See here for more details. Contact Lauren Cote, lcote2@wellesley.edu, with any questions.
Fri. Oct. 31 | 12:30 - 1:45 pm | Davis Plaza Tent
Join the Art Dept for our annual Halloween Party/spring course preview event!
We will have:
pizza
candy
costumes
stickers
art friends
answers to all your questions about spring Art Dept classes, as well as all the Art Dept majors/minors (that's Art History, Architecture, Studio Art, CAMS, and the cool half of MAS)
This event is scheduled to take place in the Davis Plaza Tent. Rain location to be announced if necessary. Keep an eye on this site and our instagram page for updates.
This event is open to members of the campus community only.
Contact mm138 with any questions.
Oct. 20-Dec. 12, 2025 | Jewett Art Gallery
The Art Dept is thrilled to present Borrowed Worlds, the Fall 2025 Alice C. Cole '42 Studio Project Grant Exhibition, featuring new work by Ingrid Henderson '19, Korina Hernandez '20, and X.S. Hou '21. The show will be on view Oct. 20 - Dec. 12, 2025.
Ingrid Henderson makes fabric collages that translate scenes from public space--a ladder to nowhere, an upside-down traffic cone, a street sign--into textile form. She is drawn to handmade signs, quick fixes, and improvised gestures that communicate across time from presence to another. The hours of dyeing, cutting, and stitching necessary to make these works give permanence and importance to fleeting and improvisational encounters.
Korina Hernandez's work seeks to democratize and contextualize Mesoamerica antiquities through technologies both old and new: ceramics and 3D printing. Specific objects housed in institutions that do not want works in their collections digitized so that they can control access are 3D modeled based on what can be seen through a vitrine. This restrictive view means the models are not perfect replicas, but their imperfections open up discussions about the ownership of looted objects and the transformation between digital and physical forms.
X.S. Hou's practice constructs systems that join ritual, cybernetics, and material politics. She works with Physarum polycephalum slime mold, silk, bioplastics, and salvaged industrial metal to stage encounters between living organisms and rigid architectures. Each material carries its own history and set of connotations; together they propose a reality where decomposition and corrosion are not failures, but are instead sculptural forces.
The Alice C. Cole '42 Studio Project Grant provides project-based support to recent Wellesley College graduates for the development, production, and exhibition of new work in painting and sculpture, whatever those disciplines may mean to the artist. The fund enables promising recent graduates to set aside time for artistic development as well as to purchase materials, rent studio space, or access facilities for the creation of new projects.
This exhibition is free and open to the public. Visitors driving to campus should plan to park in the campus parking garage and walk to Jewett (see campus map here).
Contact gallery director Samara Pearlstein at spearls2@wellesley.edu or 781-283-2043 with any questions.
TO BE RESCHEDULED | Lulu Fire Pit
DUE TO RAIN ON MONDAY OCT. 20 THIS EVENT WILL BE RESCEDULED. STAY TUNED FOR THE NEW DAY/TIMES.
Various 2D-area art classes will be making charcoal from materials gathered on campus at the Lulu Fire Pit on Monday Oct. 20. Because we will need to keep the fire going all day, including between classes, we invite other members of the campus community to stop by between morning and afternoon class sessions to make their own charcoal!
BYOS: BRING YOUR OWN STICKS!
If you want to participate in this event, you need to bring your own sticks to transform into charcoal. Wood must be DRY, so we suggest gathering sticks around campus as early as possible on a day when it is not raining (and not right after it has just rained).
This event is open to members of the campus community only. There is no charge to participate in the event, but again: bring your own sticks.
Contact spearls2 with any questions.
Coming Soon:
Nov. 11-14: registration for Spring '26 classes
Nov. 14: Fall '25 Frank Williams Visiting Artist lecture