Patricio del Real presents his book, Constructing Latin America. Architecture, Politics, and Race at the Museum of Modern Art (Yale University Press, 2022)—a nuanced look at how, through architecture exhibitions, this New York institution became a key agent in cultural politics in the United States and in the consolidation of “Latin American architecture” as a modernist category. Del Real demonstrates how The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)’s curatorial activities generated and naturalized “Latin America” not only as a stylistic and cultural variant of international modernism but also as a racializing concept at a critical global conjuncture. The idea of “Latin American architecture” was seminal for the interpretation of modern architecture in the twentieth century and, moreover, for MoMA’s international projection as cultural arbiter in the Cold War period. It remains an active category that underpins studies on architectural modernism as a global phenomenon. Constructing Latin America was supported by a grant from the Graham Foundation in 2021. This talk is presented in conjunction with Latinitudes: A Collection of Latin American Modern Architecture by Leonardo Finotti, on view at the Graham Foundation through July 18, 2026.

Patricio del Real is known for his expertise in the field of architecture and architecture history, with a focus in the Americas. His work examines the intersections of buildings, politics and cultural identity. As an architectural historian, he contributes to a deeper understanding of the global dimensions of modernism, shedding light on its unique transformations and adaptations. One of his notable contributions is his focus on institutions and the transnational flows of ideas and practices and how these migrations have impacted both the development of architectural forms and the practices of architects in the second postwar period. Del Real is associate professor in the department of the history of art and architecture at Harvard University. Before his appointment at Harvard, he worked at The Museum of Modern Art’s architecture and design department on several temporary and collection exhibitions, and cocurated Latin America in Construction: Architecture 1955-1980.

Image: Louise Dahl-Wolfe, Fashion shoot in front of the Ministério da Educação e Saúde (MES), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, as published in, “Urban Cotton: For Being at Ease,” Harper’s Bazaar, May 1946

For more information on the exhibition, Latinitudes
A Collection of Latin American Modern Architecture, click here.