Migrating Modernism, Migrating Ideas
A symposium about transnational exchanges in architecture and art.
Julian Rose House, Wahroonga Sydney 1950-54. Architect, Harry Seidler. Photo by Max Dupain 1954. © Penelope Seidler.
Migrating Modernism, Migrating Ideas: Transnational Exchanges in Architecture and Art is a symposium bringing together scholars and practitioners to explore how the movement of people, objects, and expertise reshapes art, the built environment, and their cultural meanings.
Across three days in Sydney (26–28 August), the symposium traces modern and contemporary exchanges across artistic and architectural cultures, professional networks, and the making of private and public commissions, asking what “migration” produces in terms of identity, authorship, and agency.
Keynotes by Prof. Barry Bergdoll (Columbia University) and Dr Lynne Cooke explore, respectively, Marcel Breuer’s work and collaborative networks, and the relation of textiles and architecture.
Conceived in dialogue with the exhibition Migrating Modernism: The Architecture of Harry Seidler, the art-focused day examines modernist utopias and broader transatlantic exchanges among artists, patrons, and institutions. The architecture day extends this inquiry to the built environment, exploring how transnational movements shape architectural identity, complicate authorship, and redistribute agency across the professional networks that carry architecture from design conception to material realisation.
This symposium is convened by Dr Paolo Stracchi and Dr Ann Stephen, University of Sydney.
It is co-presented by the Chau Chak Wing Museum (CCWM), the University of Sydney School of Architecture, Design and Planning (ADP), the United States Studies Centre (USSC), the Power Institute of Art & Visual Culture, The University of Sydney USA Foundation, and the State Library of NSW.
Explore the full program here
People
Lynne Cooke
Lynne Cooke has held senior curatorial positions at institutions in New York, Madrid, and Washington DC for more than three decades. Recently her work has focused on the role of textiles in modernist and contemporary art. From 2023-2025 her seminal exhibition, Woven Histories: Textiles and Modern Abstraction toured to four North America venues. Cooke lives and works in New York.
Barry Bergdoll
Barry Bergdoll is Meyer Schapiro Professor of Art History at Columbia University, and former Chief Curator of Architecture and Design at MoMA. Author and curator, he has published widely on modern architecture, including works on the Bauhaus and on Marcel Breuer. He was the co-editor of Marcel Breuer: Building Global Institutions (2018).