About

Patricio del Real is an Associate Professor of History of Art and Architecture at Harvard University, specializing in Modern Architecture with a focus on the Americas. His work examines the intersections of buildings, politics, and cultural identity, contributing to a deeper understanding of the global dimensions of modernism and its unique transformations and adaptations. He has made notable contributions through his research on institutions, transnational flows of ideas and practices, and how these migrations have impacted architectural forms and practices of architects in the second postwar period. Del Real also investigates exhibitions as sites of negotiations and dissemination of architectural knowledge, exploring how global narratives of modernism have been constructed and contested. His scholarly work includes the book 'Constructing Latin America: Architecture, Politics and Race at the Museum of Modern Art' (Yale University Press, 2022), which studies architecture exhibitions that positioned MoMA as a cultural weapon in the 20th century. He co-edited 'Latin American Modern Architectures: Ambiguous Territories' (Routledge, 2012), challenging established narratives about the region's built environment. His forthcoming book, 'Tropical Whiteness: Notes on the Racialization of Modern Architecture,' analyzes discursive histories of whitening in Latin America, focusing on Brazil’s national pavilion for the 1939 New York World’s Fair and the hegemonic culture of 'International Whiteness.' Del Real's research also interrogates the 'myth of the secular' in 20th-century architecture, with ongoing projects related to the Valparaíso School in Chile. His courses explore modernism as a global phenomenon, emphasizing political and cultural influences on design practices. He has served as Exhibitions Review Editor for the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians and continues to investigate curatorial practices through seminars, workshops, and collaborative programs. Del Real holds a PhD in Architecture History and Theory from Columbia University and a Masters of Architecture from Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. His professional background includes work at MoMA’s Architecture and Design Department and curatorial projects such as 'Latin America in Construction: Architecture 1955-1980,' which received the 2017 Philip Johnson Exhibition Catalogue Award, and 'Displaying Latin America' at Harvard Art Museums.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Humanities
• Economic geography
• Archaeology
• Art
• Geography

Selected publications

• Construyendo un continente: la exposición Latin American Architecture Since 1945 en el MoMA

  ARQ · 2025-04-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Since 1945 buscaba destacar los logros de la arquitectura moderna en la regin, pero, en retrospectiva, result una visin parcial e idealizada.Este trabajo examina cmo la exposicin de Hitchcock enmarc la arquitectura latinoamericana

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The Architectural Exhibition as Cross-Cultural Contact Zone: Op-Ed

  Architecture and Culture · 2024-10-01

  articleOpen access
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Latin American architecture and the Iberian temperament

  2024-11-21

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  In 1954, US architectural historian Henry-Russell Hitchcock toured Latin America to produce the exhibition Latin American Architecture since 1945, which opened at New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in 1955. Like MoMA’s previous engagement with the modern architecture of the region in 1943—which produced the much-acclaimed exhibition and volume Brazil Builds—this later project became a reference point on the formal adaptability of international modernism. In 1955, Hitchcock saw the modern architecture of Latin America as being part of a distinct Iberian tradition that manifested in cultural preferences for expressive architectural forms. In this, he identified a resistance to the global expansion of the International Style during the second postwar period. Hitchcock’s reportage and his selection of representative monuments cemented the idea of a homogenous cultural zone caught in a temporal caesura, which became operative in architectural histories, allowing select buildings to work synecdochally to represent the entire region. This essay ponders why Hitchcock chose to mobilize the notion of Iberianness—which had little currency in US modern architectural circles—and its broader implications. Because he tacitly argued for the legacy of the region’s colonial experience with a kind of formalist and spiritual long durée, it continues to germinate in the historiography.

  PublisherDOI

• The Road to Buenos Aires Is Paved with Good Design: Worldmaking Fantasies and the Latin American Industrial Design Exhibition

  The Art Bulletin · 2023-04-03

  article1st authorCorresponding

  In 1970, Argentinian industrialists and cultural entrepreneurs sought to harness industrial design to reenergize a stalled economy. In collaboration with the International Council and the Department of Architecture and Design of the Museum of Modern Art, they worked to bring to Buenos Aires more than 400 objects of MoMA’s design collection. Spearheaded by Emilio Ambasz, the exhibition 20th Century Industrial Design would effectively reproduce the New York institution in Buenos Aires. Amid entropic forces dissolving the social cohesion of Argentine society, MoMA sought to champion a revised version of Good Design in a cultural battle for the souls of Latin American consumers.

  PublisherDOI

• “Weak” modernism

  2021-09-20

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  The international influence of Brazil's modern architecture was in full swing when the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) opened the exhibition From Le Corbusier to Niemeyer, 1929–1949 in 1949. Led by Oscar Niemeyer, a member of the 1947 United Nations design team, the Brazilian school of modern architecture attracted US architects, designers, and entrepreneurs who looked "down south" to build "up north." As the self-appointed arbiter of international modernism, MoMA's department of architecture—led by the return of Philip Johnson—sought to manage the aesthetic and cultural values of Brazilian modernism. The museum's curatorial actions, enmeshed in a trans-Atlantic conversation and Lewis Mumford's sustained attacks on the "International Style," reveal the period's cultural fears and racial anxieties brought about by interactions with the "others of Europe."

  PublisherDOI

• 3. Barbacoas: Havana’s New Inward Frontier

  Duke University Press eBooks · 2020 · 2 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Geography
  • Economic geography
  • Archaeology
  PublisherDOI

• Modernismo + Arquitetura = Democracia: o apagamento da ditadura do Capital Cultural no MoMa

  arq urb · 2020

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Humanities
  • Humanities
  • Art

  Como artefatos culturais, as mostras de arquitetura fomentaram imaginários políticos dominantes. Em meados da metade do século 20, o Museu de Arte Moderna de Nova York e seu Departamento de Arquitetura e Design apresentaram a arquitetura moderna como um símbolo de liberdade e democracia sob incentivo governo dos Estados Unidos. A arquitetura moderna na América Latina desempenhou um papel importante nessa visão de mundo. Começando com a exposição Brazil Builds, o MoMA (Museu de Arte Moderna de Nova York) implantou uma forte agenda curatorial sendo palco para essa mensagem, usando suas exposições como armas culturais para gerir ditaduras América Latina e para explicar ao público americano como a “democracia” funcionava nessa região.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art: The Arthur Drexler Years, 1951–1986

  Journal of Design History · 2019-10-21 · 7 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  The Museum of Modern Art has always been a battleground where diverse curators, directors, historians, cultural impresarios, and trustees have wielded power. As Mary Anne Staniszewski so eloquently stated in The Power of Display, the logic that shaped exhibitions at MoMA was aesthetic, but these were far from neutral objects, writing: ‘Exhibitions, like the artworks themselves, represent what can be described as conscious and unconscious subjects, issues, and ideological agendas’ (p. xxii).1 This is why Thomas S. Hines’ book, Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art: The Arthur Drexler Years 1951–1986, is such a fascinating examination of those tensions and tumultuous agendas. Hines’ book resonated with me on many levels, since I also worked in MoMA’s Architecture and Design department for several years. For example, Elizabeth Mock’s plea in Chapter 3 to make sure curators actually ‘see’ the buildings they propose to include in exhibitions rather than rely on gorgeous photography—‘Then you will never be embarrassed’ as she was in 1944 by some selections included in Built in the USA: 1932–1944 (p. 54)—is one that echoed my own experiences and that anyone curating architecture should take to heart. Moments like these, spread throughout the book, bring readers into the messy world of MoMA exhibitions, helping to demystify them.

  PublisherDOI

• Object Lessons: Early Modernist Interiors at the Museum of Modern Art

  West 86th · 2018-03-01

  article1st authorCorresponding

  The Museum of Modern Art opened the Architecture Room in February 1933 as a dedicated exhibition space for its newly created Department of Architecture, headed by Philip Johnson. Its inaugural display consisted of two concurrent exhibitions whose juxtaposition threatened to undermine the vision of modernity that Johnson embraced: one showcased functionalist furniture by Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneret, and Charlotte Perriand, staged as an example of “modern interior architecture”; the other presented collotypes after the work of Mexican muralist Diego Rivera. Responding to MoMA’s engagement with Rivera’s work, the Architecture Room became the contested site of an entangled modernism where a serial logic in exhibition practice was used to contain the threat of muralism’s artisanal technique and revolutionary themes. The intersection of Mexican muralism and the International Style in Johnson’s domestic modern imaginary exemplifies the heterogeneity and hybridity of modern culture and offers the possibility of decolonizing the story of modernism.

  PublisherDOI

• Disarming Architecture

  Bitácora arquitectura · 2016-08-26

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Joseph L. Scarpaci

  2 shared

• Anna Cristina Pertierra

  University of Technology Sydney

  1 shared

Labs

• Curating Architecture Across the AmericasPI

Awards & honors

• 2017 Philip Johnson Exhibition Catalogue Award