LONG ISLAND MODERNISM: a Book for Architecture Lovers (especially if you admire Paul Rudolph)

Paul Rudolph and Philip Johnson were friends for decades, and both are well represented in Caroline Rob Zaleski’s book on Modern architecture on Long Island. The book’s cover shows Johnson’s Leonhardt House, a work from 1956 in Lloyd's Harbor, NY—a design which combined platonic forms, structural daring, detailing elegance, and efficient planning.

“With eye-opening photographs and surprising discoveries from a forgotten past … Long Island Modernism: 1930-1980 surveys a wealth of pioneering architecture produced locally by famous builders from around the world.”
— The Wall Street Journal

A LINE-UP OF ARCHITECTURAL STARS—AND THEY ALL DESIGNED FOR LONG ISLAND

Wright-Mies-Gropius-Rudolph-Johnson-Breuer-Meier-Harrison-Sert-Johansen-Pei-Raymond-Goodman-Nelson-Stone-Neutra-Lescaze— When it comes to famous architects working in America, did we leave anybody out? .

Within a 50 year period, all of the above-mentioned architects—a constellation of some of Modernism’s most celebrated designers—designed buildings and interiors for sites on Long Island, that island landmass which extends eastward from New York City and into the Atlantic.

To have all the above listed designers working within in the same area is an indication that, with respect to Modern architecture, it must be one of the culturally richest regions in the country. Clearly, this concentration of stellar talent and superb design had a history that needed to be revealed—and architectural historian Caroline Rob Zaleski delves into it, in her fascinating and visually rich book, LONG ISLAND MODERNISM 1930-1980

A rendering of Endo Laboratories, which was built in Garden City, Long Island— a Paul Rudolph design from the first half of the 1960’s. In 1964 it was the recipient of an award from the Concrete Industry Board of New York as “Concrete Building of the Year” for “representing the best in conception, originality, and applicability of concrete in both design and construction.” Caroline Rob Zaleski’s book, “Long Island Modernism,” delves into this fascinating and complex project.

The Siegel Residence is one of several Paul Rudolph designs that are explored in “Long Island Modernism”

THE BOOK

LONG ISLAND MODERNISM 1930-1980 belongs in the library of anyone interested in the history of Modernism in the USA. It engages with the fascinating question: What motivated clients to commission Modern architects for their buildings—in a range of building types: commercial, residential, and institutional—and in an era when Modernism was still emerging as a style that was yet-to-be fully appreciated (and was not as comprehensively accepted as it is now.) As William L. Hamilton, in his positive review of the book in The Architect’s Newspaper put it:

“Zaleski rises to the occasion, as architectural writers so often don’t, when pressed into play to give social context to builders and their buildings.”

The book includes an abundance archival photographs and drawings—often of surprising projects: real “discoveries” that are little-known even to design aficionados. Moreover the book itself, designed by Abigail Sturges, has an expansive character: its reproduced images and large format manifests some of the highest production values in architectural publishing.

Author, scholar, and preservation activist Caroline Rob Zaleski did extensive research to bring forth this book—one that is rich in history, and design excellence.

THE AUTHOR

Caroline Rob Zaleski received her graduate degree in architectural preservation from Columbia University’s School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, and soon after became a leading advocate for the preservation of modern architecture in New York City and on Long Island. Her book, LONG ISLAND MODERNISM 1930-1980, is based on her field survey for the Society for the Preservation Antiquities—recently re-named Preservation Long Island, where she is also a trustee. She has been chair of the Preservation League of New York State “7 to Save Endangered Sites Program” wherein she encouraged the inclusion of applications relating to twentieth-century Modernism and recent New York State history. Her proudest “Save” was working to place the Edward Durell Stone–designed A. Conger Goodyear House, in Old Westbury, Long Island, on the State and National Register and World Monuments Watch. She also led a successful campaign to raise awareness of and civic involvement in the preservation and repurposing of Eero Saarinen’s TWA Terminal at John F. Kennedy Airport.

ENDORSEMENTS & REVIEWS

LONG ISLAND MODERNISM has received significant, positive reviews—including:

“Not only highlights what the island offers in terms of modern architecture, it is an excellent primer on modernism itself.”
—  Regional Planning Association

“Stunningly illustrates how modernism is alive and well on Long Island.”
—  ON: A Global Lighting Publication

“Comprehensive, exhaustively researched, and carefully detailed . . . . This is a book that enriches our understanding of an important component of twentieth-century culture and belongs in the library of anyone interested in the history of Modern architecture in America.”
—  APT Bulletin: Journal of Preservation Technology

“A sweeping and authoritative new book, Long Island Modernism 1930-1980, by Caroline Rob Zaleski thoughtfully covers the astonishing architectural and landscape architectural achievements in the area.”
— Huffington Post

BOOK AVAILABILITY

Long Island Modernism is available through a variety of sellers—but a limited number of copies are still available at a significant discount through the Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation’s “Shop” page, HERE.

BOOK DATA

• Title: Long Island Modernism 1930-1980

• Author: Caroline Rob Zaleski

• Publisher: W. W. Norton

• Publisher’s web page for the book: here

• ISBN: 978-0-393-73315-D

• Cover Size: 12-1/4” tall × 9-1/4” wide

• Format: Hardcover

• Pages: 336

• Illustrations:  200 black-and-white illustrations, 20 color illustrations

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IMAGE CREDITS

NOTES:

The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation gratefully thanks all the individuals and organizations whose images are used in this non-profit scholarly and educational project.

The credits are shown when known to us, and are to the best of our knowledge, but the origin and connected rights of many images (especially vintage photos and other vintage materials) are often difficult determine. In all cases the materials are used in-good faith, and in fair use, in our non-profit, scholarly, and educational efforts. If any use, credits, or rights need to be amended or changed, please let us know.

When/If Wikimedia Commons links are provided, they are linked to the information page for that particular image. Information about the rights for the use of each of those images, as well as technical information on the images, can be found on those individual pages.

CREDITS, FROM TOP-TO-BOTTOM:

Book cover: provided by author; Perspective rendering of Paul Rudolph’s Endo Labs: rendering by Brian Conant, © The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation; Paul Rudolph’s Siegel Residence: photograph by Donald Luckenbill, © The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation; Author’s photo: provided by author

The Buildings Couldn't Be Saved—But the Vision Can Be Honored: the Kickstarter Campaign for the New Book about Rudolph's "SHORELINE"

Learn about the Kickstarter Campaign for the book that takes a fresh look at Paul Rudolph’s partially-realized project for a dynamic, mixed-use neighborhood in Buffalo: SHORELINE

SHORELINE: RUDOLPH’S VISION OF DIGNIFIED HOUSING

Paul Rudolph was a master of architectural perspective drawing—and this is his rendering of a portion of his vison for the Shoreline Apartments development. © The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation

Located steps from Buffalo, NY’s City Hall, Shoreline Apartments was an extensive housing complex designed by Paul Rudolph and completed in 1974. Featuring shed roofs, ribbed concrete exteriors, projecting balconies, and enclosed garden courts, the project combined Rudolph’s spatial radicalism with his innovative designs for human-scaled, high-density housing and a mix of multiple functions.

Rudolph’s scheme featured an arrangement of monumental, terraced high-rises flanking a marina, a sprawling school and community center, and a series of low and mid-rise apartment buildings meant to evoke Italian mountain villages, with green spaces woven through the site.

Arthur Drexler, the powerful director of the Museum of Modern Art’s Architecture and Design Department, included Shoreline in the 1970 MoMA exhibition, Work in Progress. The work, he said, showed—

“With few exceptions, Paul Rudolph’s buildings can be recognized by their complexity, their sculptural details, their effects of scale and their texture.”

And that they manifest—

“. . . .a commitment to the idea that architecture, besides being technology, sociology and moral philosophy, must finally produce works of art if it is to be worth bothering about at all.”

A VISION PARTIALLY FULFILLED

ABOVE: Another of Paul Rudolph’s architectural renderings of Shoreline, this one showing some of the low-rise housing that was built. This drawing is anticipated to be on the cover of the new book. © The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation

LEFT: An aerial view of a portion of Shoreline. Photograph by Donald Luckenbill © The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation

In the end, only two phases of the Shoreline affordable housing development were built, and families moved in and made lives there—as can be seen in the below photos.

Views of Shoreline, occupied and and active with life. ABOVE: Photograph by Joseph W. Molitor courtesy of Columbia University, Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, Joseph W. Molitor Photograph Collection. BELOW: Photograph by G. E. Kidder Smith, courtesy of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

AND A VISION OVERSHADOWED—aND SPURNED

Some of the remains of the demolished Shoreline project. Photograph by William Vogel

After years of occupancy, they became among the most reviled buildings in Buffalo because—like many public housing designs of that era—their inventive, complex forms and admirable social aspirations were overshadowed by disrepair, crime, and vacancy. Even so, some saw positive values in Paul Rudolph’s designs, and attempts were made to save Shoreline.

Following failed attempts at landmarking the structures for preservation, the first round of demolitions began in summer 2015—and In 2017, the site’s current owner accelerated the demolition schedule. As of January 2018, the last holdout was vacated from his unit.

REMEMBERING A POSITIVE VISION

The 2019 exhibition, Shoreline: Remembering a Waterfront Vision, at El Museo

El Museo is a Buffalo-based nonprofit visual arts organization, dedicated to the exhibition of contemporary work by underserved artists, and cultural programming that engages diverse communities. In 2019 they presented an exhibition, Shoreline: Remembering a Waterfront Vision, showing drawings, photographs, documents, and artworks, spanning from the original vision of the Buffalo Waterfront Development in the 1960s to the eventual destruction of Shoreline in recent years. The exhibition materials, drawn from archival sources as well as artistic responses, traced the erosion of an architectural, urban, and social vision for Buffalo’s waterfront, one that was only ever partially realized.

Considering the Shoreline within this context, they looked at the architectural style of Brutalism, the complicated history of urban renewal, and the past attempts by government to play a leading role in developing cities and providing social housing on a mass scale. They asked: Amidst Buffalo’s so-called renaissance, when its historical assets are being reevaluated, preserved, and restored, why was there a race to forget the Shoreline?

Following the exhibition, Remembering Shoreline included a two-day public symposium that brought together architects, planners, researchers, and activists from Buffalo and beyond to take a closer look at the history of the Shoreline Apartments, and discuss Paul Rudolph, Brutalism, urban renewal, housing, and preservation.

SHORELINE— THE BOOK

As of mid-2020, almost all of Shoreline complex has been lost to the bulldozer. While we cannot bring back the buildings, it is important that we remember this history in a tangible way.

El Museo is currently working on collecting the materials and ideas from their exhibition and symposium into a book, to be published in Spring 2021: Shoreline: Remembering a Waterfront Vision. 

It will include the exhibition materials such as drawings and photographs from Paul Rudolph’s archive, as well as works by Avye Alexandres, David Torke, Kurt Treeby, and Rima Yamazaki. Also featured will be essays by and conversations with symposium participants Kelvin Dickinson, Kate Wagner, Mark Byrnes, Susanne Schindler, Henry Taylor, Charles Davis, Jessie Fisher, Aaron Bartley, and editors Barbara Campagna and Bryan Lee.

THE KICKSTARTER CAMPAIGN

El Museo is publishing this book independently, and your contribution will go towards the cost of editing and printing this full-color, perfect-bound, 8x10 volume. The book that will vividly show the importance this example of a vision for the public good—a type of Initiative which leaders had engaged in, and which were embodied in the designs of great architects like Paul Rudolph.

We hope you will help make this project happen—and there’s a Kickstarter Campaign to fund the book. You can find out about it HERE, including the benefits of contributing—like getting copies of the book, photographic color prints of Shoreline, and large-format prints of Paul Rudolph’s compelling drawings of Shoreline.