Associate Professor Stephen Vider Curates Exhibit on Leading Feminist Architect

Associate Professor of History and Program Co-director of Gender and Sexuality Studies Stephen Vider is the co-curator of a new exhibit at the Center for Architecture in New York City. Fantasizing Design: Phyllis Birkby Builds Lesbian Feminist Architecture traces the life and work of lesbian feminist architect Phyllis Birkby and the influence she and her network had on architectural practice and the built environment. 

Birkby was the co-founder of the Women's School of Planning and Architecture and was inspired by the women's rights and gay liberation movements. Birkby led a series of workshops in which women designed their "fantasy environments," re-imagining their home and community spaces. The exhibition showcases more than 80 images, fantasy workshop drawings, and personal letters, as well as other artifacts and ephemera from Birkby’s archive at Smith College. Two contemporary art installations respond to Birkby's life and the themes of her work.

“Birkby’s immense archive is a crucial lens on lesbian life and activism in the 1960s and ’70s, at turns playful, moving, and deeply inspiring,” Vider says. “While her professional aspirations were often constrained by the limits placed on women in architecture, the spaces she designed and built speak to her desire to push past the limits of conventional architecture, placing the needs of women, queer people, the elderly, and people with disabilities at the center.

The exhibit is on view at the Center for Architecture through Sept. 2, 2025, and according to Vider, it couldn't be more timely. 

"At a moment of ongoing housing crisis and gentrification, Birkby’s work calls on all of us to reimagine how the spaces and places we call home can best serve the needs and dreams of our communities," he says. 

Vider's co-curator on the exhibit, M.C. Overholt, will be a visiting lecturer in Growth and Structure of Cities this fall.