Remembering Ernst Wagner (1943-2024)

Ernst in 2005.

Ernst Wagner, founder and former President of the Paul Rudolph Institute for Modern Architecture, passed away on Monday, December 23, from complications following a stroke. He was 81 years old.

A young Ernst

Ernst Peter Wagner Jr. was born in Liestal, Switzerland on May 26, 1943, the son of Ernst Wagner Sr. and Claire Guggenheim. He grew up in nearby Wenslingen in a house that belonged to the Wagner family for several hundred years. Ernst attended preparatory school in the village of Schiers from 1950 until 1962 and then Teachers College in Basel from 1962 until 1964 graduating with a teaching diploma. From 1964 until 1968 he taught at a high school in Birsfelden, Switzerland.

In November of 1968 he enrolled at the University of Basel to study economics and marketing. Ernst was invited in the summer of 1970 by Swiss Air to travel as an exchange student to New York City, where he stayed in the dorms at Columbia University until returning to Switzerland that August. He graduated with a BA and MBA in 1974, his thesis on the topic of brand choice and brand loyalty.

In July of 1974 he moved from Wenslingen to New York City, where he lived for the rest of his life. He rented an apartment in the Upper East Side on East 81st street before moving to another on Central Park South in April 1975. In July of that year, he was employed at Phillip Brothers on Park Avenue as a trading trainee.

Ernst and Paul

Ernst met Paul Rudolph that year, and in October moved into Paul’s small rental apartment on the top floor of 23 Beekman Place. From that moment, Ernst’s life would be forever intertwined with Paul Rudolph and modern architecture.

Ernst joined Rudolph’s architectural office as a marketing and import purchasing manager in February 1976 just as the firm was developing a line of furniture, lighting fixtures, rugs and other interior accessories. This effort would ultimately lead Paul to create the Modulightor lighting company in August 1976 and make Ernst the company’s Director. Modulightor operated out of the model shop in Rudolph’s architectural office on 57th street until it relocated to SoHo in 1981.

Ernst’s relationship with Paul had a profound effect on Rudolph’s architectural career and legacy. In June 1976, Ernst received a call from the landlord of 23 Beekman Place saying she intended to sell the building. Paul, away on business, was convinced to buy the building after Ernst provided calculations showing how they could afford the $300,000 purchase. Rudolph later designed a quadruplex penthouse addition that became one of his most celebrated designs and a New York City landmark in 2010.

Ernst and Paul with their friend Emily Sherman and others at Beekman Place.

In 1988, the lease for Paul’s architectural office was up for renewal around the same time as Modulightor’s lease for its SoHo production space.  Ernst saw a ‘FOR SALE’ sign on the front of the existing building at 246 East 58th Street and suggested to Paul that the building could be purchased and developed as an investment given its proximity to both Rudolph’s office at 57th Street and their residence at 23 Beekman Place.

Recognizing the opportunity, Paul decided to design and construct a new building on the site as a home for Modulightor while his office occupied the floors above. He asked Ernst to collaborate with him on the project.  They agreed to jointly finance and own the building, and in February 1989 they purchased the property.

During his lifetime, Rudolph requested the residence at 23 Beekman Place become an architectural study and resource center for the design community of the New York metropolitan area. Inspired by Philip Johnson’s Glass House bequest, he planned to leave the penthouse where he and Ernst lived to the Library of Congress, who would maintain it along with his project archives while Ernst continued to live in it. In 1997, when Paul was sick and near the end of his life, he learned the Library of Congress did not wish to maintain the property. Ernst promised Paul that if the apartment could not be saved, he would turn the Modulightor building into the architectural center Paul had wanted. In response, Paul gave his half of the Modulightor building to Ernst and named him as beneficiary in his will.

In 2001, Ernst founded the Paul Rudolph Foundation to honor Paul’s legacy. After Paul’s death, Ernst moved into the duplex apartment at the top of the Modulightor building. He displayed items that he and Paul had collected over the years throughout the apartment and opened it to visitors. To raise money for the Paul Rudolph Foundation, Ernst rented the apartment out for private events. He also provided the organization office space and access to the apartment for educational and fundraising events.

Ernst talking about Rudolph’s design of the duplex apartment at Modulightor

The Paul Rudolph Foundation grew and in 2014 removed Ernst from the organization after a dispute over the group’s mission. Ernst evicted the Paul Rudolph Foundation from the Modulightor Building and the Paul Rudolph Estate severed all ties with them. Ernst, intent to keep his promise to Paul, created the Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation with several of the original members of the Paul Rudolph Foundation. The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation later changed its name to The Paul Rudolph Institute for Modern Architecture.

In 2010, Ernst self-financed a two story addition to Modulightor inspired by Paul’s original design. Paul had intended to duplicate the design of the third and fourth floor apartments, but Ernst left the floors open so the Institute could display an exhibit of Paul’s work to celebrate his birthday centennial. Ernst later allowed the floors to be used by the Institute to celebrate and educate the public about Paul’s work.

After suffering a stroke, Ernst moved out of the Modulightor building in September 2022. Following its landmark designation, he donated the building and the Modulightor lighting company to the Paul Rudolph Institute for Modern Architecture in December 2023.

Members of the Paul Rudolph Institute For Modern Architecture with Liz Waytkus, Executive Director of Docomomo US (2nd from right) following the public hearing in support of landmarking the Modulightor Building on in November 2023.

Ernst’s life was dedicated to sharing Paul Rudolph’s work with the public. Whether by designing bespoke light fixtures using Paul’s original specifications, or sitting in the living room at Modulightor sharing stories about his life with Paul, he was always happy to meet people and answer questions. He founded not one, but two organizations dedicated to promoting and preserving Paul’s legacy.

Ernst with his rabbit

Ernst loved rabbits, especially large white ones, which was ironic when Ernst played a video about Paul featuring Phillip Johnson calling Rudolph’s work a ‘three-dimensional rabbit warren.’ Ernst loved to show his rabbit - who went by several different names - to visitors who took as many pictures of it as they did the apartment. Ernst was also fond of cats and would talk about the cat he had shared with Paul at Beekman Place.

Ernst’s life revolved around architects and architecture. Through living with Paul, he saw and understood the importance of good design. While neither a scholar of architecture nor an architect himself, he knew many renowned architects and was quick to share stories about the legendary parties that he and Paul had held at Beekman Place.

A lack of architectural training led some in the profession and academia to dismiss Ernst. Some thought they knew better than Ernst how to protect and preserve Paul’s legacy. Ernst responded in a simple way: opening his home for tours and visitors. He believed being exposed to good design was the best teacher. In the end, Ernst let nothing deter him from keeping his promise to Paul.

Ernst attending the opening of the Paul Rudolph exhibit at the Met Museum in October 2024

Ernst leaves behind a legacy of devotion to Paul’s memory. His last words were “I want our project to continue” and we gave him our promise.

He will be missed and continue to inspire all of us who knew him.

César Pelli, 1926-2019

César Pelli, 1926-2019. Image courtesy of Wikipedia; photo from the
Presidencia de la N. Argentina

2019 has been a year that’s encompassed the passing of too many distinguished architects—creative talents of a very high caliber: Stanley Tigerman, I. M. Pei, Kevin Roche, Alessandro Mendini—and, if we’re broadening the list to a wider scope of design, we’d include Florence Knoll and Karl Lagerfeld.
Thus it is with great sadness that we note the passing of a towering figure in the profession:

César Pelli, 1926-2019.

Across a half-century career, Pelli’s work ranged from housing to corporate headquarters, from educational to performing arts facilities, and from shopping spaces to civic buildings—and these works were spread worldwide, from Oklahoma to Japan. He could shock us into awareness of new possibilities for design—his Pacific Design Center, opening in 1975, was an eye-opening example—or work at the limits of structural daring. But he is is probably most well-known for his towers, many of which achieved a sculptural elegance and formal subtlety which is not often found in such titanic constructions. Moreover, he sustained that striving for architectonic grace to the end of his prolific career—his Salesforce Tower in San Francisco (which just opened last year) being a late example of his achievement.

We don’t know to what extent Pelli and Rudolph interacted. They both ended-up settling in New York, and—this being, at least professionally, a “small town”—no doubt encountered each other from time-to-time. They were both selected to be members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and they both participated in the famous (or infamous) 1982 architecture conference at the University of Virginia—the one memorialized in the book “The Charlottesville Tapes”.

The cover of the book, The Charlottesville Tapes, which reported on the 1982 conference of architects—-a meeting in which both Pelli and Rudolph participated. Pelli can be seen at the far-left end of the front row, and we think that’s Rudolph at the rear-center.

There are further intruding connections: Pelli was dean of Yale’s School of Architecture, arriving a dozen years after Rudolph’s departure from the school’s chairmanship (and serving from 1977 to 1984).

A “clipping” from Yale’s newsletter, in which there was an announcement of Sid R. Bass’s donation to renovate Paul Rudolph’s Yale Art & Architecture Building. As an illustration of recent work on a space within the building, they showed an image of a restored gallery space—n which was an exhibit on the work of César Pelli.

We take this moment, in a year of other profound losses, to mark the life and achievements of this fine designer, César Pelli.

CELEBRATING A MASTER[MIND]: WALTER GROPIUS passed 50 years ago, today—and we raise a toast

Walter Gropius standing in front of the rendering of his and Adolf Meyer’s entry in the 1922 Chicago Tribune tower design competition—an event which brought forth hundreds of submissions from architects all over the world. The design which Gropius and Meyer offered was formally aligned with what later came to be known as the International Style. Photo courtesy of The Charnel-House. Their in-depth article on the competition—and Gropius’ and Meyer’s entry in particular—can be found here.

HIS INFLUENCE IS EVERYWHERE…

It’s no exaggeration: every day, in every building, over the entire planet, when architects and designers put pen-to-paper (or mouse-to-pad), his effect is felt and seen. Walter Gropius (1883-1969)—whether you like the results-or-not (and they are controversial)—did change the world. A particular approach to design problem-solving and form—one which Aaron Betsky concisely calls “analytic reduction”—has shaped everything: from titanic buildings to teapots, from side-chairs to the “Simple Living” movement, from city plans to chess sets. Many of the alphabets you read and write with today wouldn’t exist without it—and neither, possibly, would Ikea or Pottery Barn (at least in their present forms). Even designers who reject that whole approach are still reacting to what was wrought by Gropius and his associates.

Gropius would probably identify himself as an architect—and he is credited (often with partners) for some intriguing and significant designs.

The Monument to the March Dead (Denkmal für die Märzgefallenen), in Weimar, Germany, designed by Walter Gropius. Conceived and constructed at the beginning of the 1920’s, it is an example of Gropius’ early Expressionist phase—a mode he’d abandon as a more austere style, associated with later years of the Bauhaus, emerged.

But when we say “mastermind”, we’re mainly speaking of Gropius’ work shaping and leading the Bauhaus—the design school which he led from 1919 -to- 1928—and whose 100th birthday is being celebrated this year.

The Bauhaus in Dessau Germany: the second home of the school which Gropius led. The building complex was also his most famous work of architecture (though it is possible that Gropius worked on the project with others—as he was manifestly devoted to collaboration and had a history of design partners.) Photo: Detlef Mewes

The strange thing about the Bauhaus is that while we readily recognize a “Bauhaus style”—or think we do—the school’s faculty was composed of the widest range of teachers: a diverse group who came (and went!) over the school’s 14 year history. Their names are a Who’s Who of Modern design, and each of the teachers was a strong, distinctive personality, with their own aesthetics, philosophies, and approaches to teaching. So perhaps Gropius’ greatest contribution was gathering and managing this disparate and talented set—and keeping the school going during that tumultuous era between the World Wars. Asked about the great—and sometimes conflicting—diversity of the faculty, Gropius quaintly explained:

“There are many branches on the Bauhaus tree, and on them sit many different kinds of birds.”

THE GROPIUS - RUDOLPH CONNECTION

Paul Rudolph first studied architecture at the Alabama Polytechnic Institute (now known as Auburn University), and then went for his Masters at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design—where Walter Gropius was in-charge of the architecture program. There, Rudolph became one of Gropius’ favored students. Although Rudolph’s initial work, after Harvard, could be characterized as well within the Bauhausian tradition, his later architecture looks to many like a decisive repudiation of Gropius. Yet Rudolph never belittled his old teacher, and would later say that studying with Gropius had given “a good basis” for architectural work.

After Rudolph’s U.S. Navy service in World War II (and after he had graduated from Harvard), Rudolph was in the US Navy Reserve. He achieved the rank of lieutenant, and in 1951 was ordered to report for duty. This was an especially prolific and fruitful moment in the Florida phase of Rudolph’s career, with numerous projects commencing or under-construction—and Rudolph asked for a deferment. Reaching out to his former professor, Rudolph obtained this letter-of-support from Walter Gropius:

Written in 1951, on the letterhead of Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, Gropius gives his reasons for supporting Paul Rudolph’s request for a deferment from Naval service. From the archives of the Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation.

A TOAST!

We’ve learned that there’s a new way to celebrate Walter Gropius: Gropius House Cider (complete with Bauhaus-inspired graphics). As it is described—

Proceeds from the cider will benefit Historic New England’s efforts to restore the apple orchard that originally surrounded the house. Help us plant new trees with root stock identical to the original Baldwin apple trees . . . Gropius House Cider celebrates simple ingredients — Vermont cider, aged in gin barrels, sweetened with just a touch of honey — and a refined result. This crisp and refreshing cider draws its inspiration from the teachings of Bauhaus, and from the intimate dinner parties and gatherings the Gropiuses often hosted at their Lincoln home.

So, on this half-century anniversary of his passing, join us in a toast to Meister Gropius—influential teacher, and ultimately a world-maker—perhaps with a glass of this namesake cider.

The new Gropius House Cider, sales of which will help restore the orchard at Gropius’ own home in Lincoln, MA. Photograph by Tony Luong, from the Historic New England page devoted to Gropius House Cider.

Stanley Tigerman (1930-2019)

Vincent Scully and Paul Rudolph (with arms crossed), observing Yale student Stanley Tigerman present his design project. Photograph from the archives of the Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation.

In his recent memoir, Designing Bridges to Burn, Stanley Tigerman recounts that he was already a practicing architect when he applied to Yale’s architecture program in 1958. Paul Rudolph, department chair, sent an application with a note: “I’m sure I’ll live to regret this.” After two years—thrilling for the quality of education he received directly from Rudolph, grueling for the long hours, shortage of funds, tension, and loss of sleep (plus, in addition to his academic load, working part-time in Rudolph’s New Haven office)—Tigerman graduated. He went on to a colorful and prolific career: designing, building, teaching, curating, writing, and highly articulate (and graphic) hell-raising about all aspects of architecture and urbanism [often in association with his professional and life partner, Margaret McCurry.]

In many ways, Tigerman was a model of how effective (and interesting!) an architect’s life could be: outreaching to every facet of practice, theory, history, and activism. He was one of the most energetic and colorful (and creative) figures of architecture’s last half-century—and could always be counted on to weigh-in with an outspoken (if rarely diplomatic) insight on any issue. [Time did not diminish that fire, as can be shown in his recent comments on the future of a controversial building in his own hometown.]

That candidness of opinion extended to his old teacher-employer-friend, Paul Rudolph—something for which we, at the Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation, are particularly grateful. In a tribute to his mentor, written on the occasion of a 1997 memorial exhibit at the Architectural League of New York, Tigerman praised outlined his experience with Rudolph and praised his many virtues—and pointedly offered:

Paul Rudolph is an example of a man whose peers never satisfactorily recognized his capacious career; e.g., he never won the Pritzker Prize, the AIA Gold Medal or the Topaz Award, yet others of equal (or questionable) stature somehow accomplished those very ends. No one who knew Paul Rudolph would debate his well known apolitical inclinations to suffer fools gladly, which in turn may have limited his potential for recognition. No matter: that only brings into question reward systems generally . . . There is a theory that it is far better to be appreciated after death, such that, that one's innocence is left intact during life. If the way in which adherents of this discipline exercised selective amnesia related to Paul Rudolph's accomplishments is an example of that theory, leave me out.

[You can read the full text of Tigerman’s memorial remarks at the Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation’s Articles & Writings page, here.]

We mourn the loss of this colleague—an architectural volcano whose stature, like Rudolph’s, will only increase with time and openhearted attention.

Sincerely,

the Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation

Stanley Tigerman 1930-2019. Photograph by Lee Bay, via Wikipedia