Honoring Women in Architecture: 2026 Bethune Lecture and “In Her Steps” Exhibition

To mark the 19^th year of the Bethune Lecture Series, an exhibition was installed in the lobby of Hayes Hall—In Her Steps: Celebrating Women’s Leadership Through the Bethune Lectures. Suspended from the ceiling are 19 rectangular panels—one for each past lecturer—telling their stories and highlighting their professional achievements. Overhead, a slideshow projects the images of influential women architects. 

The exhibition opened on March 23 with a lively panel discussion in the Hayes Hall lobby, where attendees sat in the installation’s center, surrounded by these influential women. The panel included: Roxanne Button, associate principal at Ashley McGraw Architects; Brian Carter, professor in UB’s Department of Architecture; Joyce Hwang, professor in UB’s Department of Architecture; Olga Kislyuk, architect at POPLI Design Group; and Despina Stratigakos, PhD, SUNY Distinguished Professor in UB’s Department of Architecture. The conversation was moderated by Kelly Hayes McAlonie, UB’s director of campus planning.

McAlonie opened the discussion by asking Professor Stratigakos to reflect on the status of women in architecture when the lecture series began 19 years ago. Looking back, Stratigakos described the early 2000s as a period dominated by neoliberal feminism—the belief that equality had largely been achieved and that feminism was a personal, rather than structural, concern. Yet, women continued to be starkly underrepresented in lecture series nationwide, making UB’s initiative especially forward thinking.

Hwang recalled that when she joined the UB faculty around this time, she attempted to organize a women’s focus group, but the students weren’t interested. Kislyuk, a UB student at that time, understood where that sentiment was coming from. Women made up just 25% of her class, and they didn’t want to be singled out or perceived as different.

With more than a decade of experience under her belt, Kislyuk now understands the value of programming that supports and empowers women planning to enter a male-dominated field. She recounted a time when a client struck up a conversation with her junior male colleague about his career aspirations before turning to her to ask when she plans to get married. “The situations you come across in practice show how important it is to be involved in these lectures and to listen, to be inspired, to push and keep advancing women,” she shared.

Button reflected on her own education, noting the total absence of women on the faculty of her school and that no women architects were discussed in her architectural history courses. Facing discouraging barriers early in her career, it took years for her to gain the professional confidence she needed to start her own firm. “If I had more exposure to women like this, maybe that would have given me a different context,” she noted. “I didn’t have that, so I had to find it for myself.”

Since the Bethune Lecture series began, enrollment of women at UB’s School of Architecture and Planning has steadily risen and now stands at 50%. Hwang observed, with excitement, that students today are not afraid of engaging with identity politics, and both she and Stratigakos emphasized the importance of intersectionality: not just embracing feminism but also connecting it with ideas like ecological and racial justice.  

In response to questions from the audience, the panel explored additional topics, including the inherent and proven value of diversity in the workplace, how Stratigakos’s answer to “Where Are the Women Architects?” has changed over the last decade, and the importance of archiving the work of women architects so their histories can live on.

In Her Steps was curated by Kelly Hayes McAlonie and Maia Peck, director of exhibitions and clinical assistant professor in the Department of Architecture. Edwin Sanchez Rodriguez served as exhibition assistant, and Matt Hervan provided IT support services.

The exhibit will be open to the public through April 12, 2026.

This year’s Bethune Lecture was delivered on April 1 by Annabelle Selldorf, principal of Selldorf Architects, the internationally renowned architectural practice she founded in New York, NY in 1988. Now a 65-person firm, Selldorf Architects is widely respected for work rooted in humanist principals, with a portfolio that includes prestigious cultural and civic institutions, including The Frick Collection, The National Gallery of London, Musée Yves Saint Laurent, the Art Gallery of Ontario, and the Sunset Park Material Recovery Facility.

Selldorf began with reflections on her early life. Born in Cologne, Germany, she grew up in a family of architects and spent her first decade in a top-floor apartment designed and built by her father—"one of the most elegant places I can think of,” she recalled. The bottom floor was occupied by the workshops of tradespeople—mill workers, metal workers, a cane maker—that she and her friends were accustomed to visiting, popping their heads in to ask for sweets. From an early age, she was surrounded by people who made things.

Determined to establish her own professional identity beyond her father’s influence, she left Cologne to study architecture at Pratt Institute and Syracuse University. She was just 27 when she started her own firm, beginning with a small gallery project in Cologne. “I had the energy and the determination to try things on my own,” she shared. “I did many, many small projects that other people might not have thought worthwhile. Then things grew, but it took a long time.”

Over the last 38 years, Selldorf has taken on a multitude of impactful projects in New York City and across continents. She shared some of the highlights, including:

o   Neue Galerie, Upper East Side (NYC)

The transformation of a 1914 Carrèra and Hastings residence into a home for German and Austrian art. Client-led research trips to Vienna helped her understand how texture, proportion, and light could evoke the right atmosphere. “To this day, when you walk into their café, you feel transported to Austria.”

o   David Zwirner Gallery, Chelsea (NYC)

At the client’s request, she found a way to use cast-in-place concrete for the building’s façade despite the many challenges associated with that material. One of her proudest moments came when renowned sculptor Richard Serra took notice. “So, you’re the architect? Good job,” he told her.

o   Sunset Park Material Recovery Facility, Brooklyn (NYC)

This recycling facility required careful orchestration of complex circulation patterns and a humanistic approach despite the enormous scale. “We realized there were people working there, so we wanted to be sure that the juxtaposition of volumes included thinking about how a person working there would feel.”

o   The Sainsbury Wing, National Gallery, London

Selldorf reimagined the existing entryway to create a space that feels open, welcoming, and intuitive for visitors. This included the replacement of black glass with clear glass: “That communication contributes a great deal to creating curiosity and a sense of welcome.”

o   10 Bond Street, Noho (NYC)

A terra cotta-clad residential building in Manhattan that helped Selldorf balance universal appeal with memorability. “I’m always touched that people connect with the color and texture of this cladding. I love working with this material.”

o   Luma Arles, France

The adaptive reuse of former railway workshops into a dynamic creative campus and exhibition space. The site later also welcomed a Frank Gehry building.

o   One Domino Square, Brooklyn (NYC)

Her first and only high-rise to date, flanking the Williamsburg Bridge and wrapped in subtly iridescent porcelain tile that allows the building to almost disappear. “I was looking for a material that becomes one with the sky.”

o   The Frick Collection, Upper East Side (NYC)

The expansion and renovation of this beloved museum, Selldorf designed a subterranean auditorium, opened up and extended the lobby, and improved circulation—all carefully designed to harmonize with the building’s layered architectural history.

Recently, Selldorf has ventured into furniture design, finding that many of her familiar architectural principles apply; scale, proportion, juxtaposition; and construction remain critical. “My desire with furniture is that we do something that is long lasting,” she shared. “That is also what I want our buildings to be. Long-lasting, perhaps, means timeless. And I always try to figure out, can timeless be modern? Can timeless be provocative? Can timeless matter? I like to think so.”

During the closing Q&A, Selldorf was asked for advice on understanding human scale in design. Her answer was practical and characteristically direct: buy a measuring tape. “For once, I’m not kidding,” she quipped. “Measuring tapes are helpful because they help you distinguish thicknesses, stair treads, table heights, railing heights, door width, room heights. When you’re working on a screen all day long, scale doesn’t exist in the same way.”

The School hosted a pre-lecture reception for Selldorf, where she was kind enough to sign copies of her latest book, A Design for Continuity and Change: The Frick Collection.