Ethel Goodstein-Murphree

FAYETTEVILLE — Although it will be months before she returns to her real office, Ethel Goodstein-Murphree is already in love with the place.

For a year and a half, Goodstein-Murphree and the rest of the University of Arkansas Fay Jones School of Architecture have been exiled off campus, to the top floor of a building on the Fayetteville square. It’s a nice spot, as temporary offices go, so Goodstein-Murphree’s not complaining; she’s much more likely to bemoan the items atop her desk, whose mildly cluttered condition she overstates.

Gazing out her seventh-story window, Goodstein-Murphree can monitor Vol Walker Hall, the school of architecture’s real home, as it undergoes an extensive renovation. It’s supposed to be ready by summer, and Goodstein-Murphree is looking forward to returning.

What she may be most excited about are Vol Walker’s windows.

“In the end, that’s one of the things we’re going to be most proud of, because it has been done to the utmost of preservation standards, in terms of keeping the original integrity of the window, of the proportions of the glass ... but it’s also state-of-the-art in sustainability and LEED [Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design] standards,” she says.

Goodstein-Murphree, an associate dean and professor of architecture, doesn’t get worked up about things like paint colors. That’s “ephemeral,” she says; paint comes off as easily as it goes on.

But dramatically altering the windows at Vol Walker Hall, making incompatible additions that change the scale of a place, that “change its meaning,” is something that pains her.

“We’ve got to be careful as citizens,” says Goodstein-Murphree, who has been at the UA since 1992.

“Certainly as architects, there’s a special responsibility to realize that anything we do, whether it’s the great building or the ordinary, every decision about what we build, don’t build, what we preserve, tear down, we’re editing the built environment.”

It’s a thoughtful approach that Goodstein-Murphree advocates, professionally and with the numerous preservation and architectural groups for whom she has volunteered. It’s neither saving everything nor tearing everything down; it’s finding the right balance.

Goodstein-Murphree worked as an architect before stepping away from the big cities and moving to Arkansas in 1978, where she took a position as an architectural historian with the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program. A few years later, she jumped into the world of academia, taking a position at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.

“Her knowledge in history and buildings is just amazing,” says Melissa Harlan of Ann Arbor, Mich., a former student of Goodstein-Murphree’s at UA. “She has a vast knowledge that you can only sort of marvel at. The things she retains are just mind blowing.”

Goodstein-Murphree has been teaching ever since, save for a brief stop at the University of Michigan, where she received a doctorate in architecture, with an emphasis on the history and theory of architecture.

She specializes in midcentury modernism, but that barely touches the surface of her knowledge base. Her work history and education provide her with a level of expertise that is uncommon in her field, says Jeff Shannon, dean of the UA’s School of Architecture.

“Because she is a very well-known and accomplished historian, she understands in ways that typical historians might not about building and design,” Shannon says. “She has maintained that understanding and awareness of the built environment, both from a design perspective and a historical perspective.” CITY WOMEN

Goodstein-Murphree is as much a fighter as she is a scholar.

She didn’t really have much choice. Raised in postwar Brooklyn, N.Y., Goodstein-Murphree descends from a long line of tough Jewish women who fought their way to professional success in eras in which society expected them to stay home with their children.

Her maternal grandmother and great-aunt, both born in the late 19th century, were an accountant and lawyer, respectively. Her mother, the late Shirley Goodstein, was an electrical engineer who designed electrical systems used in Navy ships during World War II.

“These girls have this tough, tenacious nature in growing up in the toughness of the city,” says Goodstein-Murphree’s husband, David Murphree. “Her mom was one of those who changed the status quo for women in the workplace, and Ethel has carried that [attitude] into these modern times.”

Murphree adds that his wife inherited her mother’s intense work ethic. Goodstein-Murphree is an only child and growing up, anything less than a complete effort was deemed insufficient.

She always excelled in school, where she remembers teachers routinely announcing which boy and girl had scored the highest on a test and telling the students who fell short to “go get them.”

More than 30 years after she left the city, Brooklyn’s influence is still plainly seen in Goodstein-Murphree - in the way she talks (wisecracking, a huge vocabulary and an accent that’s pure Brooklyn), the way she dresses (stylish, heavy on the black), the way she reveres the New York Knicks of the early ’70s (bowing her head slightly when she says the name Willis Reed, the renowned Knicks power forward/center who was named one of the 50 greatest players in NBA history in 1997).

“My parents were city dwellers,” Goodstein-Murphree says. “Oh God, did they fight the suburbs. It was a great location, and probably has a lot to do with my worldview - along with my mother, who was not your garden-variety, June Cleaver mother.”

For years, the Goodsteins would get into one of their cars on the weekend and haul out to Long Island and look at houses.

Ethel says this was “probably where the trouble started.” As a girl, she loved exploring kitchens and bathrooms, and she learned to read floor plans at a young age. After graduating high school at 16, she enrolled at City University of New York, where she majored in architecture and graduated magna cum laude.

Yet going into architecture was by no means a sure thing. She was really interested in the arts, literature and history - she would have been “extremely successful in fashion,” David Murphree insists - but was pushed into something considered more serious.

“It was a reluctant choice,” Goodstein-Murphree says. “I loved getting dirty with the arts. I spent my spare time locked up in my bedroom with watercolors.

“But I had this little problem; I was really good at math and science, and baby boom children were not encouraged to go into the arts if they had other skill sets.” EXOTIC LITTLE ROCK

By the late 1970s, Goodstein-Murphree was answering every ad in the National Trust for Historic Preservation that “looked exotic.”

“Exotic” included Little Rock. She became the architectural historian for the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program in 1978, holding the position until 1981.

Decades later, she has a surpassing knowledge of architectural history in the Natural State. Last year, the Historic Preservation Alliance of Arkansas presented its Ned Shank Award for Outstanding Preservation Publication to Goodstein-Murphree, for her article titled “In Memoriam, Carlson Terrace, 1957-2007.”

“She has a very broad knowledge of Arkansas architectural history in general,” says Vanessa McKuin of Little Rock, the group’s executive director. “I was really surprised to discoverthat, because I tend to think of her as being very focused on midcentury [modern] architecture.”

Goodstein-Murphree says she joined the preservation program at a “really exciting time.” The state had a charismatic young governor in Bill Clinton, and the people of Arkansas quickly won over the lifelong Brooklynite.

She was out in the field, researching historic buildings, meeting people from around the state and making nominations to the National Register of Historic Places. Among her most interesting tasks was to delist the Marion and Manning hotels from the National Register, which paved the way for their demolition and the construction of the Little Rock Convention Center.

“It was refreshing because people in Arkansas were not jaded about their resources,” she says. “They could get excited about a little country store in Rison, where a New Yorker would pooh-pooh museum-quality buildings.”

When a position opened for an associate professor of architecture at Louisiana-Lafayette, Goodstein-Murphree took it. Again, she didn’t imagine it being a life-changing decision; she was simply curious about teaching.

It has been more than 30 years since Goodstein-Murphree taught her first college class, and she’s still having fun with it. She returned to Arkansas in 1992, and became the Fay Jones School of Architecture’s associate dean in 2009. Along the way, she has won numerous awardsand honors for her work at the university, writing, teaching and academic advising.

No matter what the class, she always finds a way to capture her students’ attention.

“She’s definitely one of those memorable instructors,” Harlan says. “If somebody was maybe not quite as interested in history as they should be and fell asleep in class, she would not hesitate to drop a book and scare them back to the task at hand.

“At the same time, she always did everything she could to make it lively.

She’d give these great stories, less about the building and more about the person [who designed it], someone long gone, that made you extra interested in what they did.” DUNKS AND DESSERTS

Any architect can break down Eero Saarinen vs. Oscar Niemeyer, but how many can philosophize over the tragic flaws in Carmelo Anthony’s game?

Goodstein-Murphree can. The woman is a huge NBA fan, someone who may still be feeling her way through the “rooting for the Knicks vs. Brooklyn Nets” issue but is resolute on the similarities between professional hoops and architecture. Both feature an amazing number of variations and styles, and there is historical context for both.

“I’m more player-centric than team-centric,” she says. “Basketball for me is the best combination of ballet and military maneuvers that exist.The motion of the teardrop [shot], the moving across court, the very careful motions and subtle variations in the way one shoots a foul shot - it’s beautiful to watch.”

Goodstein-Murphree is a true student of the pro game, her husband says, someone who focuses her sharp mind on players dating back to the days of Wilt Chamberlain. They try to attend a few basketball games a year together - usually in Memphis, Oklahoma City or New Orleans - and one of her regrets is that her mother died just before the start of this regular season, denying them a chance to see an NBA game in Brooklyn. (The Nets moved from New Jersey to Brooklyn during the recent NBA off-season.)

“She is utterly frightening with the amount of information she carries around on a daily basis on the NBA,” David Murphree says with a laugh.

Goodstein-Murphree often uses basketball analogies when an architectural point isn’t being understood by students. Food analogies work pretty well, too, she says. (When all else fails, she tells students about seeing The Rolling Stones and The Doors in concert.)

She’s a serious cook who specializes in “things I can’t eat,” like cheesecakes and lemon mousses. Cooking was a great outlet when she was in graduate school, and today she loves to pore overall the little details that go into making the perfect dinner and dessert.

Cooking speaks to her attentive nature, befitting an architect’s precision. Just as a quarter teaspoon of too much salt can ruin a dish, so, too, can an out-of-context window ruin a historic building.

“She is very focused,” Shannon says. “She is also creative. She has these great insights, and she feels free to share those insights, but as someone committed to being part of a team, doesn’t feel proprietary interests in the ideals she proffers.”

SELF PORTRAIT Ethel Goodstein-Murphree

OCCUPATION associate dean and professor of architecture at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville.

THE BEST THING I COOK IS ricotta pie in the style of the Romans, with golden raisins and candied citron - although my hazelnut-praline pumpkin cheesecake is very popular at this time of year.

IF I HAD AN EXTRA HOUR EACH DAY, I WOULD read 15 minutes more, write 15 minutes more, draw 15 minutes more, and strength train 15 minutes more.

WHAT I MISS MOST ABOUT NEW YORK is the archival collections at the Avery Architectural Library, Peter Martins’ choreography for the New York City Ballet, the American wing at the Met, and my Knicks (not necessarily in that order).

THE BEST ADVICE I EVER RECEIVED WAS “In your business, you have to perform better to be considered equal.” That’s from Shirley Goodstein, circa 1970.

FIVE YEARS FROM NOW, I WILL be aging gracefully, of course! I’m not about to give away the business plan for what comes next.

MY FAVORITE BASKETBALL PLAYER OF ALL TIME is the greatest power forward ever, Karl Malone - with Patrick Ewing and Glen Rice not far behind.

THE LAST GREAT BOOK I READ WAS The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris.

I’ve been a David McCullough fan since The Great Bridge.

THE BIGGEST MISCONCEPTION ABOUT PEOPLE IN ARCHITECTURE is that architects are effete and self important “starchitects,” cast in the shadows of Frank Lloyd Wright and Howard Roark, relentlessly committed to a singular vision for making beautiful buildings.

THE STRUCTURES THAT MOST IMPRESS ME ARE The Lever House, which inspired me to be an architect, and the Tempietto of San Pietro in Montorio, which led me to believe that being an architectural historian might be even better.

A PHRASE TO SUM ME UP A union of opposites.