The Met to Present the First Major Exhibition Dedicated to Influential Modernist Architect Paul Rudolph
The City Life
Staff - August 27, 2024
Paul Rudolph (American, 1918-1997), Perspective section drawing of the Art and Architecture Building, Yale University, New Haven, 1958. Pen and ink, graphite, and plastic film with halftone pattern, on illustration board. 36 7/8 x 53 5/8 x 2 in. (93.6 x 136.2 x 5.1 cm) School of Architecture, Yale University, Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library.
Exhibition Dates: September 30, 2024–March 16, 2025
Location: The Met Fifth Avenue, The Helen and Milton A. Kimmelman Gallery, Lila Acheson Wallace Wing, Floor 1
From Halston’s spectacular town house to Yale’s iconic Art and Architecture Building, unrealized utopian megastructures to immersive interiors, the exhibition will survey the fascinatingly diverse career of one of the most significant, yet underrecognized architects of the 20th century.
The show will be the first major exhibition of 20th-century architecture at The Met in over 50 years
The Metropolitan Museum of Art will present the first-ever major museum exhibition to examine the career of the influential 20th-century architect Paul Rudolph, a second-generation Modernist who came to prominence during the 1950s and 1960s alongside peers such as Eero Saarinen and I.M. Pei. Materialized Space: The Architecture of Paul Rudolph, on view from September 30, 2024, through March 16, 2025, will showcase the full breadth of Rudolph’s important contributions to architecture—from his early experimental houses in Florida to his civic commissions rendered in concrete, and from his utopian visions for urban megastructures and mixed-use sky¬scrapers to his extraordinary immersive New York interiors. The exhibition will give visitors the opportunity to experience the evolution and diversity of Rudolph’s legacy and better understand how his work continues to inspire ideas for urban renewal and redevelopment in cities across the world. The presentation will feature a diverse range of over 80 works in a variety of scales, from small objects that he collected throughout his life to a mix of material generated from his office, including drawings, models, furniture, material samples, and photographs.
The exhibition is made possible by The Modern Circle.
Additional support is provided by The Daniel and Estrellita Brodsky Foundation, Ann M. Spruill and Daniel H. Cantwell, and the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts.
The exhibition was organized by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, in collaboration with the Library of Congress’s Paul Marvin Rudolph Archive.
“Paul Rudolph was a pioneer and an iconic figure among the architectural community, and this long-overdue presentation analyzes the immense impact that his trailblazing work continues to have on contemporary architects and the development of our urban spaces,” said Max Hollein, The Met’s Marina Kellen French Director and Chief Executive Officer. “Materialized Space not only underscores the radical thinking that Rudolph imparted to the Modernist era, but also invites viewers into the complex artistic process of architectural development, illuminating the ways in which the spaces we occupy come to life.”
“The refusal to be categorized makes Paul Rudolph a challenging architect to summarize, but this same quality also makes him a fascinating topic for research, driving new audiences to discover, or rediscover, his work every day,” said Abraham Thomas, The Met’s Daniel Brodsky Curator of Modern Architecture, Design, and Decorative Arts. “Rudolph’s intricate, visionary drawings and dramatic completed buildings represent a singular voice within the crowded, variable terrain of architectural late Modernism—one that will continue to prove both spellbinding and confounding for many years to come.”
Materialized Space will be divided into thematic sections that follow the many stages of Rudolph’s architectural practice, highlighting his work in housing, civic projects, megastructures, interiors, and his commissions in Asia. Through a careful selection of projects, the exhibition will show how Rudolph’s work engaged with key moments of cultural, economic, and political significance during the 20th century, including post-war construction and expansion, urban renewal and housing policies in the 1960s, and the economic boom in Asia in the 1980s.
The exhibition will explore many of Rudolph’s well-known New York projects—most notably Robert Moses’s unrealized Lower Manhattan Expressway scheme, a controversial proposal to link New Jersey to Brooklyn, Queens, and Long Island via the Holland Tunnel and the Manhattan and Williamsburg Bridges. Designed to leave the city’s infrastructure intact, Rudolph’s proposed Y-shaped corridor introduced a new approach to city building in which transportation networks would bind communities rather than dividing them. Ultimately, this project was never realized due to strong opposition citing that the project would destroy a vibrant urban neighborhood and displace communities.
Materialized Space will also examine why Brutalism—a 1950s post-war era architectural style that prioritized structural elements over decorative deisgn—and architectural projects in concrete during the 1960s and ’70s continue to be extremely divisive and controversial. These ideas reflect on a form of architecture that once represented 20th-century utopia and that is now synonymous with many of the social issues surrounding the projects of late Modernism. Rudolph’s regular use of concrete and Brutalist methodology was a factor in his own fall from public favor during the 1970s, perhaps offering insight into why so many of his projects have been demolished during the past decade and lost forever.
The exhibition will also highlight the primacy of drawing as a practice within architecture and, in the case of Rudolph, an opportunity to showcase the stunning renderings and perspective drawings that he became famous for. Although technology has given rise to new tools for creating architectural schematics and plans, these handmade drawings set the precedent for creative development and remain key teaching tools in architectural schools today.
Just before his death in 1997, Rudolph bequeathed to the Library of Congress his architectural archive of more than 100,000 items, encompassing drawings, models, photographs, and printed ephemera. Materialized Space will feature extensive loans from the Library of Congress, including several objects that have never been on view before and in some cases have never been photographed. Additional loans, from the Paul Rudolph Institute for Modern Architecture, include important examples of furniture and other objects from the architect’s estate – in addition to other key institutional and private lenders.
Materialized Space: The Architecture of Paul Rudolph is organized by Abraham Thomas, the Daniel Brodsky Curator, Modern Architecture, Design, and Decorative Arts in The Met’s Department of Modern and Contemporary Art.
The exhibition is organized by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, in collaboration with the Library of Congress’s Paul Marvin Rudolph Archive.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue.
The catalogue is made possible by the Samuel I. Newhouse Foundation, Inc.
The Met will host a variety of educational opportunities in conjunction with the exhibition, including in-gallery conversations, panels, demonstrations, and hands-on activities inspired by Rudolph’s legacy. Programming and activities are available for all ages.
Materialized Space: The Architecture of Paul Rudolph will be featured on The Met’s website, as well as on social media.
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