'Materialized Space' traces the tangled legacy of architect Paul Rudolph
Stir World
Sunena V Maju - October 23, 2024
Walker Guest House In Florida, US by Paul Rudolph Image: Ezra Stoller for House Beautiful
The exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art revisits Rudolph’s contributions to architecture, from his early modernist roots to his bold experiments in brutalism.
There were more chances of American architect Paul Rudolph’s professional life becoming a movie first than it adorning the galleries of The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Materialized Space: The Architecture of Paul Rudolph, curated by Abraham Thomas, The Met’s Daniel Brodsky Curator of Modern Architecture, Design, and Decorative Arts, is the first-ever major museum exhibition to examine the career of the renowned 20th-century architect. In architectural circles, this exhibition raises the question, "Was Paul Rudolph as influential as his contemporaries like Eero Saarinen and I.M. Pei?" For the general public, however, the pressing inquiry is, "Who was Paul Rudolph?" Though an architect, I like the latter more. This question is vital, as his life exemplifies the fleeting nature of architectural fame, encapsulated in a three-structured act of recognition, criticism and eventual retreat.
Materialized Space features a straightforward layout showcasing 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. These elements are categorised by building typologies—housing, civic projects, megastructures, interiors and his commissions in Asia—effectively illustrating Rudolph's architectural language and key projects. The beauty of his sketches is undeniable, reflecting the vision he consistently upheld. Unlike those of his contemporaries, the sketches on display are final drawings, meticulously perfected with scaled figures, vegetation and renderings.
In the exhibition’s press release, Thomas notes, “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.” The first act of Rudolph’s career begins at Harvard Graduate School of Design under Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius. His studies were interrupted by the Second World War, during which he served in the United States Naval Reserve at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, designing merchant marine ships. After three years, he returned to Harvard and graduated with a master's degree in 1947. Shortly thereafter, he moved to Sarasota, Florida, a point in his life that would later come to be a key step in the creation of an influential architect.
Post the Second World War, Florida became a vibrant hub for modern development, driven by a housing boom and an influx of diverse immigrants. This dynamic environment fostered a flourishing of post-war modern architecture. Rudolph entered this scene, drawing on his experiences in American architecture and his Naval Reserve training. Alongside Ralph Twitchell, he designed vacation homes that innovatively used materials like plywood and plastics, blending these with principles of the International Style. Although their collaboration yielded many notable structures, the duo parted ways in 1952, allowing Rudolph to pursue his own architectural path.
The architect gained significant fame with the Walker Guest House (1952), which architecturally stands in close quarters to Mies van der Rohe’s Farnsworth House and Philip Johnson’s Glass House. Featuring symmetry, raised platforms, an open plan and geometric forms, the Walker Guest House marked a pivotal shift in Rudolph's career, pushing beyond modernism's constraints. By this time, he was not only practising architecture but also teaching at institutions like Cornell, Harvard, MIT and Yale and designing exhibitions, such as MoMA’s 1952 Good Design. However, Materialized Space doesn’t significantly discuss this multifaceted phase of his career and focuses primarily on his identity as an architect.
By the early 1950s, Rudolph began to question the ideologies of modern architecture and the International Style. The tension between his earlier influences such as art deco and Frank Lloyd Wright at Alabama Polytechnic and the functional modernism he encountered at Harvard played a crucial role in shaping his design language. The Paul Rudolph Institute for Modern Architecture mentions, “Rudolph re-examined his early work in Florida and was not satisfied with its quality, concluding that it lacked sufficient psychological control of light and space. He started to question the fundamentals of the International Style and the rigid principles of the Sarasota School.”
Transitioning to the East Coast, Rudolph established his practice in New York and was appointed Chair of the School of Architecture at Yale University in 1957. This marked the beginning of his second act, with the 1960s becoming a defining decade for him. His architectural style evolved into a more brutalist, monumental and expressive form, solidifying his status as a key figure in American brutalism and earning him the moniker "mastermind with building blocks."1 Materialized Space presents interesting magazine articles of the time where Rudolph and his architecture were praised and studied.
One of Rudolph's pivotal projects was the Yale Art and Architecture Building, often called the A&A Building and later renamed Rudolph Hall. Completed in 1963, it is regarded as one of the finest examples of Brutalist architecture in America, though many occupants expressed dissatisfaction with it. In his essay, Thomas mentions, “The paradoxical nature of his work was apparent even at the height of his career, when a 1967 New York Times Magazine cover story posited Rudolph as a natural successor to Le Corbusier, suggesting that his emphasis on intuition was the driving force behind an architectural unpredictability that could “turn out to be anything: a staggered complex of cubes or a soaring, sweeping affair, plain or fancy, lovely or lousy.”
In 1969, a fire severely damaged the A&A Building. After leaving Yale in 1965, Rudolph moved his practice to New York while continuing to create notable brutalist structures in Boston, including the Boston Government Service Center (1971) and First Church in Boston (1972). In 1967, he proposed the Lower Manhattan Expressway, a controversial project intended to connect New Jersey with Brooklyn, Queens, and Long Island via major bridges and tunnels. Although this concept remains utopian today, it garnered significant attention and critique in later years. Materialized Space features intriguing sketches of this ambitious proposal.
The fire at Yale and the 1972 publication of Learning from Las Vegas marked the beginning of a challenging phase for Paul Rudolph, the third act of his career. The 1970s were unkind to him, as critics who once celebrated his modernist-brutalist style began to scrutinise and doubt his work. Interest in post-war architecture was waning. In the book, The Architecture of Paul Rudolph, art historian Timothy M. Rohan wrote, “At a time when modernism was being widely questioned, Rudolph became more symbolic of its failures than any other architect of his generation.”
In the latter part of his career, Rudolph focused on projects in East Asia – contributed by the economic boom in Asia and the criticism for his work in the US, producing notable works such as Wisma Dharmala Sakti (1982), Burroughs Wellcome Addition (1982) and Bond (Lippo) Centre (1984). He also proposed several unbuilt projects, including the Sino Tower in Hong Kong (1989) and the International Building for Hong Fok Corporation in Singapore (1990). A magnificent model of the Sino Tower at the exhibition introduces a three-dimensional understanding of Rudolph’s architecture. He battled cancer in the last years of his life and passed away in 1997.
Lastly, was Rudolph as influential as his contemporaries? The answer is both yes and no. His tangled legacy links him to Brutalism, Sarasota and modernism, but his broader architectural journey is still less traceable. The exhibition offers a glimpse into the wider aspects of his life as an architect. At Materialized Spaces, take time to look beyond the sketches on the sheet, on the edges are coffee stains, pen scribbles, ink drops, imperfect tears and pin-up and tape marks.
Materialized Space: The Architecture of Paul Rudolph is on view at The Metropolitan Musem of Art from September 30, 2024 - March 16, 2025.
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