When the Right Client Comes Along: John McAndrew and Paul Rudolph at Wellesley

Paul Rudolph’s perspective rendering of the design for the Jewett Arts Center at Wellesley College—the distinguished liberal-arts college in Massachusetts. As director of Wellesley’s art museum, John McAndrew’s support for having Rudolph be the architect (and his input during the design process) was key to making this project go forward to success.

JOHN MCANDREW’S MODERNIST VISION is Mardges Bacon’s study of the life and accomplishments of an accomplished—but too little known—figure. McAndrew’s name often comes up in the histories of Modernism in design and the arts in the US—but, before this publication, little coherent and concentrated information had been available about him and his activities, projects, and connections.

IN THE BACKGROUND—BUT THEY’RE DECISIVE

If one studies the history of any topic, discipline, or historical era, you’ll come across an intriguing phenomenon: a few names that keep popping-up, often-enough that these persons must have had some real significance—but about whom little is known. No biographies have been published about them, their Wikipedia entries—if they exist at all—are thin, and their obituaries are brief and opaque.

Such figures are almost never in the foreground, yet there’s enough hints about their activities that they come to seem quietly ubiquitous and influential:

• they’re involved in significant projects

• they have key jobs/positions/appointments

• they are thoroughly networked—socially, through family, class, school, profession, or other affinity

• they have access to the famous and powerful people of their era or discipline

• in the acknowledgements sections of project reports, speeches, books, and dedications, they’re thanked (but it’s never clear for what)

• they’re a member of significant boards, committees, commissions, and juries

They just keep showing up.

John Dee (1527 –1609), who performed multiple duties for Queen Elisabeth —including as a national policy advisor, court astronomer, and science advisor. The full extent of his activates and influence still remains a tantalizing mystery.

IN FICTION AND IN LIFE

Fiction has characters similar to this: the cinema has given us Forrest Gump and Zelig; they seemed to saturate TV’s X-Files, and Robert Grossbach’s hilarious novel, A Shortage of Engineers includes the mysterious “OMIT B” (the initials standing for “Old Man In The Back”)—the hidden ultra-expert that one appealed-to when problems seemed insolvable.

But history gives us real examples in every field and era. John J. McCloy is a name that will elicit a shrug from most people—but looking at his resume, one discovers that he was central and active at some of the most important points in the history of mid-20th century international relations, war, and government affairs. François Vatel—the can-do majordomo of France’s Louis IV era—has only recently received a bit of name recognition, due to movie in which he’s depicted by Gérard Depardieu.

Because little is known of them, these figures often become subjects of suspicion: being characterized as éminence grise—one who has power, but is behind the scenes. John Dee, the multifaceted magician-scholar that worked for Queen Elizabeth I, is—four centuries after his passing—still such a figure of tantalizing mystery. But sometimes they later became known as benign or positive forces (who had been forced to remain out of the spotlight because of the prejudices of their era)—Edith Wilson and Bayard Rustin being prime examples.

While McAndrew was associated with the Museum of Modern Art, he wrote several important publications that helped the public begin to understand the Modern movement in design: “What Is Modern Architecture?” (co-written with Elizabeth Mock), and “Guide To Modern Architecture: Northeast States”

JOHN McANDREW AND MODERNISM

JOHN McANDREW was one such figure. McAndrew (1904-1978) was active during some of the most exciting years of the introduction of Modernism in America. He was networked with other campaigners for the cause, and engaging in a wide range of projects and roles in the fields of architecture and art. Yet, until the recently published full biography by architectural historian Mardges Bacon—John McAndrew’s Modernist Vision—the full extent of his multiple contributions was not known.

Even now, McAndrew still does not have a Wikipedia page—and this indicates the intractability of anonymity. Yet his CV is broad, deep, and impressive. McAndrew—

• Became a friend, associate, and/or colleague of other important activists and scholars in the field of Modern art and architecture, including Henry-Russell Hitchcock, Philip Johnson, Julien Levy, and Alfred Barr—and, later, Paul Rudolph.

• Studied and practiced architecture and interior design

• Was a key staff member of the Julien Levy Gallery in New York—the premiere gallery showing (and advocating for) Modern art in the US in the 1930’s and 40’s

• Helped helped develop (and became head of) the Department of Architecture and Design at New York’s Museum of Modern Art—the world’s first curatorial department devoted to Modern work in those fields.

• While there, he mounted landmark exhibitions on the Bauhaus, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater, Modern Furniture, and a comprehensive show on Wright’s career. He also co-designed the first version of the museum’s garden, and was involved with numerous museum exhibits, activities, and publications.

• Wrote (for the Museum of Modern Art) Guide To Modern Architecture: Northeastern States (1940), and the popular book (co-written with Elizabeth Mock, who became director after him) What Is Modern Architecture? (1942, with a second edition in 1946)

• Wrote several books on architecture—modern and traditional

• During World War II, while based in Mexico, coordinated inter-American affairs for the US government

• Lectured internationally for the US Information Service

• Taught at Vassar, Wellesley, the Hartford Art School, and New York University

• Designed the Vassar College Art Library—possibly the first modern interior on a US college campus

• Director of the Wellesley College Art Museum, from 1948-to-1958

• Founded (and was later president) of the Save Venice fund, devoted to preserving that treasured—but ever threatened—city

A page from the Mardges Bacon’s study of McAndrew. The book delves into the subject’s networks and colleagues—making us aware of the connections, without which McAndrew’s life (or anyone’s) cannot be understood. Shown are photos of three key figures in McAndrew’s life (left-to-right): architectural historian Henry-Russell Hitchcock (who also worked closely with Philip Johnson), modern art gallery dealer Julien Levy, and museum curator A. Everett Austin.

Another page from Mardges Bacon’s McAndrew biography, showing the lively design of an invitation to a 1932 opening of Surrealist art at the Julien Levy Gallery. McAndrew was a key creative and organizational force in the gallery, and might well have coordinated the production of this graphic. This graphic object is significant because it was designed by Joseph Cornell (whom, near that year, began creating the diorama artworks which would bring him world-wide fame.)

McAndrew is well-deserving of the attention he’s now received via Madres Bacon’s book, which reveals the banquet of his involvements and accomplishments—but it’s his connection with Paul Rudolph that we seek to highlight.

An aerial photograph of the completed Jewett Arts Center at Wellesley, showing approximately the same set of elements as in Rudolph’s perspective rendering below—including the dramatic staircases that took visitors up to the reception area and large art gallery (which bridged over a ground-level passage.)

WELLESLEY’S ARTS CENTER: A BREAKTHROUGH PROJECT FOR RUDOLPH

Up through the mid-1950’s, Paul Rudolph was primarily an architect of houses. That’s not unusual for the trajectory of most American architects, whose work usually commences with residential projects—and, in the era just after WWII, Rudolph was preeminent in designing some of the US’ most creative, inventive, and elegant Modern homes. For Rudolph, this was soon to change. He continued to do residential design throughout his half-century career, but he became as well-known for his non-residential works: civic buildings, offices, churches, laboratories—and especially educational buildings.

In that career path, the Mary Cooper Jewett Arts Center, at Wellesley College was the breakthrough project for him—the one in which Rudolph (who was always ambitious to try new design challenges) branched-out from residential work.

Paul Rudolph become known as a master of architectural perspective drawing—and above is a one of his renderings for the Jewett Arts Center at Wellesley. In this drawing, Rudolph showed some key features of the building’s design, including the rooftop skylights and the exterior screens.

Rudolph’s site plan shows the new arts building complex at the upper-left. It completes the quadrangle which had already been partially defined by the existing Wellesley buildings at the top, right, and bottom.

THE CHALLENGE—AND RUDOLPH’S STRATEGY

Wellesley College, in Wellesley, Massachusetts, was founded in 1870, and is an elite private liberal arts college with a stellar list of alumni. When Paul Rudolph received the commission to design a new arts center, he was working within an existing context of buildings that were built in a style most often characterized as “Collegiate Gothic.”

Rudolph’s challenge was to complete one side of an existing quadrangle (on whose other sides were situated the vintage college buildings.) The new complex would have to accommodate a variety of spaces and uses: a reception area, theater workshop, auditorium, two art galleries, two libraries, research facilities, classrooms, and storage.

In the 1971 book, Paul Rudolph (which featured photographs of Yukio Futagawa, and was the first independent monograph devoted to the Rudolph) Rupert Spade (the pseudonym of writer-editor-critic Martin Pawley) gives a concise description and Rudolph’s strategy:

“Built in association with Anderson, Beckwith, and Haible, and commissioned at a time when Rudolph had never designed anything larger than a three-bedroom house, the Wellesley Arts Center represents his tour de force of integration with an existing style—in this case the pseudo-gothic. Careful study of proportion and massing led him to create a design combining the dimensional basis of the original with a novel massing and use of materials—including the use of porcelain-enameled aluminum sun-screens conceived as a kind of ‘built-in ivy’. The structure of the extension is in reinforced concrete and the facing materials are brick and limestone. The art department itself is linked to a classroom and auditorium block by a bridging exhibition gallery. The conical skylights—much criticized by opponents of Rudolph’s eclecticism—are intended to echo the repeated gables of the existing building.”

[By-the-way: Spade is not-quite-accurate in saying that Paul Rudolph, up to that time, had never designed anything larger than a house. He had designed several larger buildings—but Spade is correct in spirit: none of those projects had been built. So Jewett was the first, large, non-residential design of Rudolph’s to progress all-the-way to construction.]

A Rudolph-designed construction detail of the Jewett Arts Center building, as shown in Design With Glass.

John Peter’s 1964 book on the use of glass in Modern architecture, Design With Glass, looks further at the building’s materials. Speaking of the harmony that the Rudolph’s complex achieved with the campus’ older buildings, Peter asserts:

“It would be difficult to find a better example of this in in detail than the way in which the glass is handled. The pointed skylights of the visual arts wing recall the pattern of triangular dormer visible all over the older campus. the slot-like windows of the performing arts wing echo the perpendicular windows of the existing Neo-Gothic building. The large applied wood strips provide a deep reveal with structural solidity backed by solid lumber which eliminates exposed fastener heads on the interior. Perhaps the most intriguing example of planned relationship is the great porcelain-enamel of aluminum grille protecting the north and south windows of the visual arts wing. Designed to the lacy scale of “man-made ivy” it matches in color the limestone of the other campus buildings.”

Philip Johnson, in a 1960 article in Art In America, “Great Reputations in the Making: Three Architects,” presented architects whom he [then] defined as “under-recognized artists”: Louis Kahn, Paul Rudolph, and Frederick Kiesler—and he characterized Rudolph as: “. . . .articulate, inventive, mercurial, tough.” Rudolph’s section included a photo of Jewett with its metallic screens, and Johnson uses their form to conclude:

“This is an example of Rudolph’s strong linear quality combined with his discontent with plain surfaces.”

That “discontent with plain surfaces” would manifest throughout Rudolph’s later work, as is evident in Rudolph’s most famous masterwork, the Yale Art & Architecture Building—whose ribbed concrete (and other texturing techniques) he’d continue to utilize in other projects.

Rudolph himself spoke about Wellesley’s design challenge:

“The problem was to add to a pseudo-gothic campus in such a way as to enhance the existing campus and still make a valid twentieth century building. The siting, manipulation of scale, use of materials, and silhouette helped to extend the environment.

Wellesley’s alumni magazine covered the project several times, from beginning to completion—as can be seen in these two examples:

In a March, 1956 issue: showing the proposed design in model form, in the context of the campus’ existing buildings

In a November, 1958 issue: after completion, showing an interior of one of the center’s two art galleries.

Looking back, more than a decade later, Rudolph was frank in his own assessment of the result:

The sequence of spaces leading under the connecting bridge up to the raised courtyard and the tower beyond works, but the interior spatial sequence is unclear, overly detailed and in many cases badly proportioned.”

Whether the Jewett Arts Center met with Rudolph’s ultimate approval is one thing—but it did get broad coverage in the architectural press, indicating that—at least to journal editors—the design seemed interesting and fresh. Wellesley maintains a website with a fascinating collection of such articles, including a 1959 issue of the distinguished French architectural journal, L'Architecture d'Aujourd'hui. Here, in one representative page from that magazine’s coverage of Rudolph’s design, one can get an idea of the visual richness that he achieved:

Another of Rudolph’s perspective renderings for the Jewett Arts Center: here he shows the entry plaza that was part of the arts center complex—and, centered in the near-distance, is the bridging section of the building (which connected its two main volumes.). McAndrew moved the college’s art museum into these expanded quarters in 1958.

McANDREW AND RUDOLPH

John McAndrew joined the faculty of Wellesley College’s Art Department in 1946, starting as a lecturer, and rising to a professorship—and would stay there for over two decades, retiring in 1968.

In 1948, he was appointed to be Director of the Wellesley College Museum—and remained so for a decade, until 1958. According to Wellesley’s website, “He was a robust collections builder, and under his leadership the collections came to include works by many pioneers of European modernism.”

The Jewett Arts Center commission was given to Paul Rudolph in 1955—but how did he obtain this project, one which was so important to his career?

It turns-out that the connections between McAndrew and Rudolph were multiple:

• John McAndrew was familiar with Paul Rudolph’s work in Sarasota

• McAndrew would have known of Rudolph’s design work for the Museum of Modern Art (where McAndrew had been a key staff member)

• They both knew Philip Johnson—another major campaigner for architectural Modernism, and a pillar of the Museum of Modern Art

• In 1941 McAndrew had received his graduate architecture degree at Harvard (under Gropius), and 1941 is the year that Rudolph started in the same program—so the two of them may have first intersected on the Harvard campus

Mardges Bacon is illuminating about McAndrew’s contribution to the project, and relation to Rudolph’s work there—and we’ll let her tell the story:

For a decade McAndrew served concurrently as a professor and as director of the Wellesley college Museum, known as the Farnsworth Museum (1948-1958). In that capacity he represented the college as client for the new art museum, the Mary Cooper Jewett Arts Center. In the fall of 1955 Paul Rudolph received the commission as a result of a closed competition among a short list of candidates drawn up by McAndrew, which included Eero Saarinen, Edward Durrell Stone, Marcel Breuer, Hugh Stubbins, and Paul Rudolph. Most were experienced and highly respected architects with whom McAndrew had previously worked during his curatorship at MoMA. That was not the case with the young Rudolph. McAndrew knew Rudolph and his early work with Ralph Twitchell in Sarasota, Florida, at least since the spring of 1950. . . . Impressed with Rudolph’s Sarasota buildings, McAndrew expressed the Department of Art’s preference in a letter to Wellesley president Margaret Clap inferring that Rudolph would be “likely to produce the most distinguished design . . . one of quality.”

 Bacon continues:

McAndrew seemed to have had a personal stake in shaping Rudolph’s final design During the two-year phase of the project’s design development, the museum director worked with the Department of Art chair Agnes Abbot to supply Rudolph with continual critiques, especially on the articulation of the building’s exterior.

And Bacon give further confirmation of McAndrew’s own thoughts about his contribution the project:

To accompany a 1960 editorial by McAndrew, the editors Museum News included a text that. . . .also affirmed his advisory role in planning the Jewett Arts Center. Find an architect ‘sympathetic to your needs,” McAndrew counseled readers in his editorial: “if the building is fine, part of the credit is yours; if not, yours may be half the fault.” Clearly, McAndrew felt that he was responsible for selecting the right architect and helping to craft the building’s design such that he could also share its success.

The history and development of the Jewett building is complex: Rudolph struggled over the design, seeking a contextually sensitive solution that would also be true to the principles of Modernism. He came up with a succession of schemes, and the story of the building’s evolution is described in Timothy M. Rohan’s monograph on Rudolph—and also studied, in-depth, in “The Landscape & Architecture of Wellesley College.”

JOHN McANDREWS—INTO THE LIGHT

While there are a variety of sources about the history of the Jewett Arts Center (like the ones mentioned above) we are especially glad to have Mardges Bacon’s book—both for what it shares about McAndrew and Rudolph; but even more because she has brought a key “background” player in 20th culture out of the shadows, and given him the biography and acknowledgments he deserves: John McAndrew.

The proposed Revere Development, for Siesta Key, Florida, a project from 1948. The drawing appears to be a tempera-gouache rendering, and it is signed by Rudolph.

P.S. - PAUL RUDOLPH AND HIS RENDERING

The rendering of the proposed Jewett Arts Center (shown at the top of this article) is of a different character from most of the presentation drawings which Rudolph created during his half-century career. Rudolph is most well-known for his pen-and-ink perspective drawings (and especially his perspective-sections)—but this drawing was done in tempera or gouache.

We do know of a very few drawings from the Rudolph office which appear to be in that medium—notably his aerial view of the Revere Development project in Florida (which is signed by Rudolph), and a rendering of his 1957 Blue Cross-Blue Shield Building in Boston. But examples of tempera-gouache drawings become rarer as Rudolph’s career progresses.

In fact, we have some testimony about Paul Rudolph’s attitude to that drawing medium from his former student, Robert A. M. Stern. In an interview with the editors of Paprika (the student publication of Yale’s School of Architecture), Stern remarks:

Question: “Have you ever been ‘Bobbed’ during a review or presentation?”
Answer: (confused) “ ‘Bobbed’? What’s that mean? I think it’s a common term amongst students. What does that mean? You mean, given hell? (editors laugh) I think that’s down to the point. Oh, of course! First of all, as a student… I mean, Paul Rudolph took no prisoners. If you think I’m a tough critic, you don’t know what a tough critic is. (laughter) Once there was a student, I think we were in second year, and he hung up a drawing—there used to be things like sketch problems and short problems in studios in a term, you did two projects in a term, not one. Anyhow, he put up a drawing, which was a tempera rendering. Rudolph thought tempera drawings were terrible, and certainly thought this guy’s was terrible and he said, ‘Mr. X,’—I won’t use his name,—‘that is the single ugliest drawing I have ever seen.’ ”

BOOK INFORMATION AND AVAILABILITY:

• TITLE: John McAndrew’s Modernist Vision

• AUTHOR: Mardges Bacon

• PUBLISHER: Princeton Architectural Press

• PRINT FORMAT: Hardcover, 9-1/2” x 7'“, 192 pages, numerous black & white and color illustrations

• ISBN: 9781616896409

• ELECTRONIC FORMAT: Kindle (Amazon) and Nook (Barnes & Noble) versions available

• PUBISHER’S WEB PAGE FOR THE BOOK: here

• AMAZON PAGE: here

• BARNES & NOBLE PAGE: here

The exterior stairs of the Jewett Arts Center at Wellesley College, centrally located in the building complex This view is looking away from the building, and towards the other side of the campus quadrangle.

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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 and LEFT-TO-RIGHT:

Wellesley Jewett Arts Center Building, perspective rendering, in color: © The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation;  Cover of Madres Bacon’s biographical study of John McAndrew, “John McAndrew’s Modernist Vision”: from the publisher’s page for that book;  Line engraving portrait of John Dee: from the Wellcome Collection gallery, via Wikimedia;  Cover of “What Is Modern Architecture”: from the Amazon page for that book;  Cover of “Guide to Modern Architecture: Northeast States”: from the Amazon page for that book;  Sample pages from Madres Bacon’s book: screen captures from on-line images of the book;  Aerial view of the Jewett Arts Center: from the archives of the Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation, © The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation;  Wellesley perspective rendering (in black & white linework) by Paul Rudolph: © The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation;  Wellesley campus plan, showing Rudolph’s proposed new building (drawn in black & white linework) by Paul Rudolph: © The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation;  Wellesley glazing construction detail drawings, as reproduced in “Design With Glass” book, drawings by Paul Rudolph (in black & white linework: © The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation;  Covers of Wellesley Alumnae Magazine: screen captures from Wellesley’s “Jewett in Print” archive page;  Page from L'Architecture d'Aujourd'hui coverage of Rudolph’s building: screen capture from Wellesley’s “Jewett in Print” archive page;  Wellesley perspective rendering, by Paul Rudolph: © The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation; Revere Development rendering by Paul Rudolph: © The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation; Exterior stairs at Wellesley Jewett Arts Center: from the from the archives of the Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation, © The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation

The Plan's The Thing: Comparing the Plans of Master Architects (including Rudolph)

COMPARING ARCHITECTS: DIFFICULT AND DANGEROUS

Trying to compare architects (or more precisely: comparing their bodies of work) is a dangerous game—for the challenge immediately brings up a number of thorny, imponderable questions:

Balancing the factors to be judged, as listed at left, is part of the challenge.

• Where would one begin?

• What exactly is one comparing? [Technical mastery? Efficient planning? Aesthetic delight? Spatial variation? Contextual sensitivity? How much they changed the direction of architectural history? Diversity of building types? Energy efficiency? The satisfaction of their clients?. . . ]

• If one is looking for an assessment of overall excellence, judging on a multi-factorial basis (including the above items), how does one balance and weight the factors?

• For each factor, hat would one measure?

• On what scale would one measure?

• Is the notion of “measurement” meaningful in this domain?

• Who are to be the judges?'

• What values do the judges (the ones doing the comparing) bring to their decision-making?

All of these questions become ever more fraught in the context of our present culture, one whose behavior vibrates between two modes: pluralist, permissive non-judgementalism -vs- abrupt severity when making judgements. In architectural matters, we often feel sure of the rightness of our assessments (even the ones offered off-the-cuff) —yet we can crumble if ever asked to seriously and patiently address the questions of Who are we to judge? and Where do our standards originally derive from?

THE UNAVOIDABLITY OF JUDGEMENT

Philip Johnson: “We cannot Not know history” —a point which Johnson and Rudolph could both agree upon (but these long-time friends each used that lesson in very different ways.)

Paul Rudolph’s friend, Philip Johnson once scandalized the Modern architecture community by asserting:

“WE CANNOT NOT KNOW HISTORY.”

When offered, at mid-century, it seemed an outrageous claim. At that time many architects believed that (with the advent of Modernism) architecture had left history behind as something irrelevant to current practice.

[By-the-way: Johnson’s claim is one which we believe Rudolph would have agreed with—though with his own, very different ideas about what to do with such historical knowledge.]

Just as Johnson is reminding us that history is something that an honest and cultured architect cannot pretend to ever transcend, we also cannot pretend that we are exempt from making judgements—however difficult it is to try to make them.

Not only is it in our nature to offer judgement, but we are constantly called upon to do so in numerous domains and occasions, as when we are selecting collaborators, teaching, assessing what’s worth preserving, participating in juries, and prioritizing what to focus upon when working on a design (including where to allocate the budget). Most consequent of all judgements is when a client, about to enter upon a building project, makes the judgement about which architect to select for the commission. So we can make a parallel assertion to Johnson’s:

WE CANNNOT NOT MAKE JUDGEMENTS

—and, since in our education, work, and personal development, we model ourselves after the designers we admire, that inevitability of judgement applies to architects: we’ll never stop comparing them.

MAKING THE TASK A LITTLE LESS IMPOSSIBLE

Even though we’ll never stop trying to compare architects (judging their relative worth), we’ll never arrive at a broadly agreed-upon method for making “final and ultimate” assessments—and that’s owing to the fact that the scales-of-value shift in each era, as does the culture’s changing mood about what it finds interesting or crucial.

So the task is impossible—and even if it wasn’t impossible, it would be overwhelming because there are too many factors to consider. The good news is that the path is sometimes made a bit smoother for us by researchers who focus-in on a single aspect of architecture. By doing so—by showing how various architects have dealt with a specific issue—-these writers bring some clarity to the discussion. The seeming narrowness of their investigations calms the storm of mental overwhelm, and opens-up space for clearer thinking.

An excellent example is the work done by Kevin Bone and his associates, shown in the book “Lessons from Modernism,” which looked at the various ways that Modern architects—Wright, Aalto, Bo Bardi, Niemeyer, , Rudolph, and others—dealt with environmental issues, especially how they handled solar loads.

Lessons from Modernism, edited by architect and educator Kevin Bone, focused on strategies several prominent architects used when dealing with environmental concerns—especially solar loading. Two of Rudolph’s houses are analyzed in the book, and his Walker House is shown above.

Another example of this type of highly focused study are books which highlight the use of a particular architectural material (i.e.: glass, concrete, ceramics, metalwork…) and show a banquet of photos and drawings of how various architects used and detailed them. “Design With Glass” and the two-volume “Aluminum in Modern Architecture” (see image at right), both by architectural writer John Peter, are classic examples of such books from the “mid-century Modern” period—and the one he wrote about glass included Paul Rudolph’s Jewett Arts Center at Wellesley College.

COMPARING ARCHITECT’S PLANS

Hideaki Haraguchi’s book— A COMPARITIVE ANALYISIS OF 20TH-CENTURY HOUSES — is in this tradition of studies which concentrate on one aspect of architectural creation. The author focuses-in on floor plans designed by the most prominent and creative architects of the Modern period—and he shares his research and conclusions in three illuminating ways:

• Chapter essays (“Tripartite Composition”, “The English Tradition”, “Towards Universal Space”…) about the various families of approaches used in the the design of house plans—richly illustrated with many examples from each era

• An extensive timeline, from the 1400’s to the 1980’s, showing transformations in the design of residential plans—with examples of representative plans inserted within the chart

• Numerous illustrations of the houses, based of the plans: over 100 axonometric drawings

Paul Rudolph’s work is cited in the chapter in which the author analyzes how Mid-century designers began to depart from the use of the “Universal Space” concept for residential planning (an approach which had previously been favored among Modern architects.)

The book includes a fold-out timeline to show the evolution in Modern architects’ approaches to residential planning. Rather than just name the architects (or the houses), the author places small images of the each of the plans on the chart—a graphically helpful method.

GRAPHIC AND SPATIAL ANALYSIS

The author’s depiction of two levels of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Robie House—one of the numerous drawings in the book which use the axonometric drawing technique to convey spatial quality as well as the plan layout.

The author, via those 3 ways of telling the story of the changes in house design, offers rich insights into master architects’ planning philosophies, techniques, and styles—and the historical context in which they operated.

But the real glory of this study are the abundance of drawings which the Haraguchi created for the book. These drawings show the plans, but also convey a sense of the each house’s spaces by also showing the walls, columns, and window & door openings—and the author does this in through axonometric drawings.

That’s a type of drawing where it looks like the walls are being extruded upward from the plan—so it an axonometric drawing not only shows the layout of the rooms, but also tangibly suggests the type of spaces which the layout gives rise to. [Although Paul Rudolph was known as a master of perspective drawing, he sometimes also utilized the axonometric drawing technique—and we posted an article about that here.]

In addition to using this explanatory drawing technique, Haraguchi’s drawings are reproduced as white images on a black background. This not only evokes the authority of traditional architectural blueprints, but this graphic approach also adds a sense of visual drama which focuses the reader’s attention.

RUDOLPH, IN WHITE ON BLACK

Those drawings are the real treasures of this book. Using that technique, Haraguchi drew over 100 axonometric plans of house designs, by forty-five 20th Century architectural masters, including:

Wright, Hoffmann, Lutyens, Niemeyer, Taut, Sharoun, Le Corbusier, Rietveld, van Doesburg, Chareau, Mies, Breuer, Neutra, Kahn, Venturi, Eisenman, Tigerman, Botta, Rossi—and Rudolph!

Paul Rudolph is represented by houses designed across a quarter-century of his prolific career—from the 1948 Siegrist Residence -to- the 1972 Micheels Residence. The author gives emphasis to one of Rudolph’s finest designs: the Milam Residence of 1959, showing both levels of the house.

The two-page spread wherein Haraguchi explores—via axonometric drawings—three of Rudolph’s house designs. LEFT-HAND PAGE: the 1959 Milam Residence (showing both levels.) RIGHT-HAND PAGE: the 1972 Micheels Residence (shown lower-left), and the 1948 Siegrist Residence (shown upper-right.)

A closer view of the page with the Haraguchi’s drawings of Rudolph’s Milam Residence in Ponte Verda Beach, Florida. It shows the house’s two levels, and the use of axonometric drawings convey information not only abut the layout of the rooms, but also about how the walls, windows balconies (and double-height planning) shape the interior spaces.

THE POWER OF COMPARISONS

Brian Sewell was one of Britain’s most perceptive art critics (and one of the most controversial.) In this powerful video segment, about developing one’s aesthetic sense, he cites the effective use of comparison.

Comparison can be a powerful tool—especially when a scholar provides opens up the question by providing materials which allow us to intensely focus-in on an aspect of architectural design.

Brian Sewell (1931-2015), the British art critic known for his fiery opinions, as well as the depth and sensitivity of his knowledge, spoke inspiringly about the importance of comparison—what he called “a repeat experience”—for developing a deeper sense of what’s significant and beautiful. He was speaking of painting and sculpture—and the same approach can be applied to the art of architecture.

For gaining an in-depth knowledge of the approaches that were used in designing the Modern masterworks of residential architecture—how such strategies evolved, varied, an reflected larger issues and philosophies in the architecture of that century—Hideaki Haraguchi’s A Comparative Analysis of 20th-Century Houses is an indispensable resource, guide and well of insight. That he included several examples of Paul Rudolph’s work is additional evidence of the author’s wisdom.

Returning to our original theme—the difficulty of comparing architects—and the multiple obstacles entailed in such a task: this book’s concentrated examination of a single aspect of architects’ work is the sort of study that can aid—via its focus and profound clarity—in making such challenging assessments.

BOOK INFORMATION AND AVAILABILITY:

• TITLE: A Comparative Analysis of 20th-Century Houses

• AUTHOR: Hideaki Haraguchi

• PUBLISHER: In Great Britain: Academy Editions; In the US: Rizzoli International

• FORMAT: Paperback, 11-1/2” x 11-1/2”, 92 pages, hundreds of illustrations

• YEAR OF PUBLICATION: Great Britain: 1988; US: 1989

• ISBN: 0-8478-1023-2

• AMAZON PAGE: here

• ABEBOOKS PAGE: here

A broader view of the timeline in Haraguchi’s book, in which the author traces the evolution of architects’ residential planning over the course of the several centuries. Plans, representative of changing philosophies of design, are inserted into the chart—aiding the clarity of the presentation.

IMAGE CREDITS:

Balance scale: photo by Poussin jean, via Wikimedia Commons; Photo portrait of Philip Johnson: photograph by Carl Van Vechten, from the Van Vechten Collection at the Library of Congress

Megastructure — The Reissue of a Modern Classic (and Rudolph's on the cover!)

The cover of the new edition of “Megastructure: Urban Futures Of The Recent Past” which has been reissued by Monacelli Press. Paul Rudolph’s LOMEX project is featured on the cover.

A CLASSIC aBOUT THE FUTURE

The original, 1976 edition of Megastructure also featured Rudolph’s perspective-section of LOMEX on the cover (but in black and white). Over the years, copies of this edition have become rare and expensive.

“Megastructure” was architectural historian Reyner Banham’s book on one of the most exciting architectural developments the post-World War II era: MEGASTRUCTURES. It was originally published in 1976, and that edition became a rare book (if you could find a copy at all, it could cost hundreds of dollars.)

The good news is that Monacelli Press has brought out a reprint of this fascinating book. Monacelli is known for publishing books on design and the arts, and doing so with superb production values—and they live up to their fine reputation with this new edition.

The original had featured Paul Rudolph’s perspective-section drawing of his LOMEX project on the cover—and the new edition retains that image, but now shows it in color. It also includes a new foreword by Todd Gannon, the head of the Architecture Section at Ohio State University’s Knowlton School, and a scholar of Reyner Banham’s work. Banham’s book was published nearly 45 years ago, and Professor Gannon’s essay provides important context.

MEGASTRUCTURES

Above: Habitat, a housing complex built for the Expo 67 World’s Fair in Montreal. Designed by Moshe Safdie, it is sometimes cited as and example of the small percentage of megastructure proposals which actually got built. Middle: A street-level corner view of the Pompidou Center, the museum-arts-exhibition center which opened in Paris in 1977. As is evident here, it embraces some of the formal language often associated with megastructures: a celebration of articulated structure, and the explicit display of the building’s mechanical systems. Bottom: The Nakagin Capsule Tower, built in Tokyo in 1972. The possibility of growth and change—one of the characteristics associated with megastructures—is implied by the building’s cellular design.

Megastructures can be capsulized as vastly scaled and ambitiously conceived architectural designs—the size of a chunk of a city (or a whole metropolis.) But megastructures are not just defined by size. History already provides us an abundance of examples of built structures which awe by their scale—from the Pyramids -to- NASA’s huge Vertical Assembly Building—but which are not megastructures.

True megastructures usually embrace multiple functions, aspiring to be (or emulate) complete cities within a single armature. They often accommodate transportation (sometimes several types), and places for living, commerce, work, education, and entertainment—all within an infrastructure of structural and mechanical systems which are elaborately developed and expressed. [And if the design incorporated flexibility, to allow it to change or grow (or both), all-the-better—for that gave it an attractive dynamic quality.]

Megastructures were a “thing”—an exciting trend—in architecture, especially in the period when Banham was most well-known: the 1960’s. Architecture and popular magazines published stories about megastructures—either imaginary designs proposed by architects to deal with real (or equally imagined) urban problems -or- less frequently there was coverage of megastructure projects that had actual clients. Models of megastructures were magnets for attention at any design exhibition, and they filled the portfolios of that era’s architecture students (who are ever fascinated with the futuristic.) As one can imagine, relatively few megastructures (even those which were actually commissioned by a real client) were built—but these daring, forward-looking designs continue to excite because of their intriguing forms and the grandeur of their visions.

REYNER BANHAM

Banham (1922-1988) was hard to miss. The architectural historian had a relatively short life, but for a couple of decades—from the 60’s to the 80’s—he seemed to be everywhere. An un-ignorable presence—tall, broad-shouldered, with a full bushy beard, and with the bright-spirited presence of a boisterous English Santa Claus—he was inserted into the architectural community’s consciousness through his continuous lecturing, teaching, traveling, and via captivating books and journal articles. Those appearances—whether in person or print—were always accompanied by a sense of wonder: one resonated to Banham’s own combination of surprise and delight at what he had discovered and the enthusiasm with which he shared it. He always produced an intellectual an aesthetic thrill for those who followed him into exploring new areas of thought, or by looking into chapters of design history that had been left untended for too long.

THE “FIRST APROXIMATION” HISTORIAN

The Ponte Vecchio in Florence—Banham quotes Paul Rudolph as citing it as an example of a megastructure.

Le Corbusier’s perspective drawing of his urban design for Algiers, a project from the early 1930’s. The architect-designed overall structure provides space and flexibility for a variety of uses and designs (and even styles) which could be built within. This project is cited by Reyner Banham as an early example of a megastructure within the Modern movement.

While the prime era of megastructure design is the 1960’s, Banham’s book points out proto-megastructures—designs from throughout architectural history that share the characteristics of megastructures. He cites design complexes like Rockefeller Center -or- Medieval/Renaissance city bridges (upon which were accommodated a multiplicity of buildings and functions) -or- Le Corbusier’s urban design project for Algiers—and one of the pleasures of Banham’s work (both in this book and his other writings) was his ability to vividly connect seemingly new ideas with older architectural works which exemplified those theories.

With his work on megastructures—research he initiated in the mid-1970’s—Banham was engaged in what he called “first approximation history.” That’s his term for when an historian first attempts to grasp the outlines (and write the history) of a very recent movement or phenomenon. There’s always danger in doing that close to the era being studied: for without the perspective and wisdom that comes from viewing things at a distance of years (or decades), no historian can, with a high level of confidence, discern what was truly significant about an event or period. Yet, Banham asserted, somebody has got to be the first take on making an estimate and assessment of what happened—and that is what he termed the “first approximation.” He specifically cited the megastructure movement (which, when he started doing the research for the 1976 book, was passing out of its high-energy phase) as a subject for which he was acting as the first approximation historian.

PAUL RUDOLPH: MASTER OF MEGASTRUCTUES

A page spread, from within the Megastructures book, in which Rudolph and his LOMEX project are discussed.

Most megastructures are visionary, and such visions—dreams of an ideal life though residing within a singular and coherent vision of a highly advanced architectural structure—will inevitably remain in the land of the imagination.

But some megastructures did get built—and Paul Rudolph is notable as an architect for the ones that he designed—several of which were constructed.

Paul Rudolph was very conscious of the possibilities that megastructures offered—as shown in this portion of an interview of Rudolph conducted by Jeffrey Cook and Heinrich Klotz (to be found in their 1973 book Conversations With Architects—which is also quoted in Banham’s book):

Cook: What is the dominant tendency in architecture since Mies?

Rudolph: After Mies, the megastructure.

Cook: Are there any models for understanding the megastructure visually? Or does it remain in the realm of ideas. . . . Did you have any examples to work from for this idea?

Rudolph: Oh gosh, a lot of people have worked on megastructure. The best model I have found is the bridge in Florence.

Cook: Ponte Vecchio.

Rudolph: The Ponte Vecchio— the shops along the pedestrian way and over it marvelous housing. The scale of supports is in keeping with the vehicular way, and then there is a working down of scale. There is nothing new. That is a megastructure, and probably the purest example in traditional architecture.

It’s also worth noting that Rudolph was in Japan in 1960, at an international conference of architects where Metabolism—that Japanese architectural movement which most fervently embraced megastructures—was born. [We wrote about this in an earlier article, here.]

Rudolph having, digested (and maybe contributed to) the megastructure concept, designing using it—and this can clearly be seen in several significant projects. This approach was most manifest in his work in the 1960’s—the richest era, worldwide, for the design of megastructures.

Some of these designs from Rudolph’s oeuvre are among his most significant built works: the UMass Dartmouth campus, the Boston Government Service Center, and the Burroughs Wellcome headquarters and research center in North Carolina. The latter, Burroughs Wellcome, was specifically designed with flexibility for expansion—and, over the course of a decade, Rudolph did create several additions to it.

Even the unbuilt projects, like LOMEX, remain icons of design—and strong evidence of that project’s power is that Banham chose LOMEX for the cover of his book.

Rudolph returned to the megastructure approach in several large designs later in his career, and none more clearly than in his 1990 Gatot Subroto project for Jakarta.

1962: Rudolph’s Boston Govt. Service Center

1963: Rudolph’s UMass Dartmouth campus

1967: Rudolph’s Graphic Arts Center for NYC

1967: Rudolph’s LOMEX project for Manhattan

1969: Rudolph’s Burroughs Wellcome in North Carolina

1990: Rudolph’s Gatot Subroto for Jakarta

We congratulate and thank Monacelli Press for bringing out this excellent, new—and much needed—edition of Reyner Banham’s Megastructures.

BOOK INFORMATION AND AVAILABILITY:

• TITLE: Megastructure: Urban Futures Of The Recent Past

• AUTHOR: Reyner Banham; with a new foreword by Todd Gannon

• PUBLISHER: Monacelli Press

• FORMAT: Hardcover; 8-1/2 x 11 inches; 232 pages; 222 illustrations

• ISBN: 9781580935401

• PUBISHER’S WEB PAGE FOR THE BOOK: here

• AMAZON PAGE: here

• BARNES & NOBLE PAGE: here

IMAGE CREDITS:

Habitat at Expo 67: Photo by ProtoplasmaKid, via Wikimedia Commons; Pompidou Center: Photo by Gabriel Fernandes, via Wikimedia Commons; Nakagin Capsule Tower: Photo by Kakidai, via Wikimedia Commons; Ponte Vecchio: Photo by Amada44, via Wikimedia Commons; Boston Government Service Center: Photo by G. E. Kidder Smith, courtesy of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; UMass Dartmouth: Photograph by Kelvin Dickinson, © The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation; Graphic Arts Center: Photographer unknown; LOMEX: © The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation'; Burroughs Wellcome: Image courtesy of the Wellcome Collection; Gatot Subroto: © The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation

Design at the Largest Scale: Paul Rudolph as Urban Designer

Pantai Timur Surabaya: the design for a proposed new town for 250,000 people—a 1990 urban planning project by Paul Rudolph, to be located in Surabaya, the capital of the province of East Java in Indonesia. This city center drawing is one of several which Rudolph prepared for the project. © The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation

WHAT WAS RUDOLPH? — HIS MULTIPLE ROLES

Rudolph is thought of in many ways—but urban designer is not often among the categories with which he’s linked. Yet he was intensely engaged—both intellectually and practically—in urban design. Here he’s shown, at far right, with key players in the development of the Boston Government Service Center, surrounding an architectural model of the complex—one of Rudolph’s strongest urban interventions.

Our ongoing research shows that Rudolph was many things. If you met him, he’d probably introduce himself as an architect (and in interviews he referred to himself as such)—but if one looks at his half-century career, what emerges are the multiple roles he played, both as a prolific professional, and in the lives of those with whom he interacted:

• Architect— with well over 300 commissions, across the US and internationally, designing in a variety of building types and scales

• Interior Designer— both as an aspect of his architectural projects, and as separate commissions

• Furniture Designer— whether as built-ins or as freestanding units, Rudolph created numerous furniture designs for many of his buildings and interiors

• Lighting Designer— virtually obsessed by light, Rudolph custom-designed light fixtures for individual projects; and later co-founded the Modulightor lighting company—for which he designed their line of lighting products and systems

• Educator— at first, as guest lecturer or instructor at numerous schools; and later as the the Chair of Yale’s School of Architecture, where he revised and energized the school’s curriculum, staff, culture, and environment

• Writer and Lecturer— although Rudolph worked on more-than-one book project, none were published in his lifetime—but he did speak in public, was interviewed, and published a number of illuminating articles in which he shared his thinking

• Mentor— his former students and employees have testified to the power of Paul Rudolph’s example—as well as Rudolph’s ongoing, contributory relationships with them

• Artist and Patron— creating murals for selected commissions, or working with artists whose artworks were integrated into his buildings

But where, in this broad list of his roles and engagements, is URBAN DESIGN?

Rudolph repeatedly focused his thinking, writing, and speeches on urban design—and judging from the way the topic keeps recurring in his public statements, it may well have been his most compelling concern. So it’s time that we consider Rudolph’s work as an urban designer.

PAUL RUDOLPH aND URBAN DESIGN: FOUR MODES

Rudolph’s’ engagement with urban design took several forms, scales and types—and it can be clarifying to categorize them into four modes:

1. URBAN DESIGN THINKING/PRIORITIES

2. URBAN INTERVENTIONS

3. COMMUNITY PLANNING

4. CAMPUS PLANNING

There are multiple manifestations of his work in each of these domains, and we offer some examples below (though this is not an exhaustive list of his ventures in each category).

1. URBAN DESIGN THINKING/PRIORITIES

Rudolph wrote & lectured throughout his career. This anthology, edited by Nina Rappaport, contains essays by him, interviews, and copies of his speeches. Numerous of those texts reveal his thinking on urban design.

Timothy Rohan’s monograph, on the life and career of Paul Rudolph, looked deeply into Rudolph’s urban design philosophy. In an important journal article, and in the book, he characterized Rudolph’s approach as “Scenographic Urbanism.”

Rudolph thought about what was wrong—and could be changed, improved, and fixed in our cities. Further, he was emphatic about what was missing in the Modern Movement’s approach urban design. He expressed his observations and thoughts in numerous speeches, writings, and interviews.

Key urban design issues for Rudolph, to which he kept returning, were:

• The importance of the urban context, and seeing that even the most cleverly designed building is a part of larger whole. As Rudolph expressed it: “We think of buildings in and of themselves. That isn’t any good at all. That’s not the way it is, not the way it has ever been, not the way it will ever be. Buildings are absolutely and completely dependent on what’s around them.” -and- “Every building not matter how large or small, is part of the urban design.”

• The existence (new to human history) of the automobile—and the need to work with that fact. But Rudolph was not speaking of just giving-in to the auto’s voracious demands for routes and resources (‘though he knew we’d have to deal with those practical matters). Rather: he was pointing to the new ways that we experience streets, architecture, and space when traveling in a car, and at speeds which citizens had never before known.

• Coincident with that are the changes in the scale of the structures that were newly being constructed—works of a size unimagined by past ages. Of this he said: “Things are quite chaotic. We are faced with a vast change of scale, new building forms which have not really been investigated, and the compulsions of the automobile. When faced with the truly new, the serious architect must search for solutions equally dramatic.”

• The need for variety with intensity, when shaping urban space. He expressed this point in this memorable passage: “We desperately need to relearn the art of disposing our buildings to create different kinds of space: the quiet, enclosed, isolated, shaded space; the hustling, bustling space, pungent with vitality; the paved, dignified, vast, sumptuous, even awe-inspiring space; the mysterious space; the transition space which defines, separates, and yet joins juxtaposed spaces of contrasting character. We need sequences of space which arouse one’s curiosity, give a sense of anticipation, which beckon and impel us to rush forward to find that releasing space which dominates, which acts as a climax and magnet, and gives direction.”

A deeper look into Rudolph’s thinking on urban design—and how he put those ideas into practice—can be found by reading his own words (in the book of his writings), and in the monographs on his career.

2. URBAN INTERVENTIONS—PROPOSED AND BUILT

Sometimes architects and planners get to work in “clean slate”, tabular rasa locations: sites where there is a relative lack of constraints about how a project is to be shaped, and what design decisions can be made. But that’s the minority of situations which architects urban designers find themselves in, and the preponderance of their work is within existing contexts which simultaneously pose multiple, convoluted, and intractable problems.

In such cases, some designers look at their work as “interventions”—a term more familiar from the cultures of medicine or therapy. But the concept has become a useful addition to the design discourse, as it can help designers to think—with clarity and responsibility—about the the limits of what should be done, the power(s) available to make change, and what is just and appropriate to propose or do.

Below are three examples of Rudolph’s urban design work, which could be characterized as “interventions":

Architectural Forum’s January 1963 issue Image courtesy of USModernist Library

RUDOLPH: A WASHINGTON INTERVENTION

John F. Kennedy, during his presidential inauguration auto ride in Washington, noticed the tawdry state of the capital’s most prominent streets and avenues—and asked/urged that action be taken to transform the city, so that it would live-up to its status as the capital city of the world’s most powerful free nation. This brought focus to the state of the city, and Architectural Forum devoted an entire issue to the design Washington, DC.

Architectural Forum, up until it ceased publication in 1974, was one of the US’ three major professional architectural journals, and was known for its “eye”: publishing some of the most interesting new buildings and interiors from around the world—and also for exploring the controversial issues of the day (and looking at their architectural and urban design implications). Thus it makes sense that they’d asked Paul Rudolph—the dynamic Chair of Yale’s School of Architecture, a prolific and creative designer, and a young star of the profession—to participate in looking at Washington, and proposing what might be done to fix it’s design problems while enhancing the city’s existing assets.

Paul Rudolph’s article, in that Washington-focused Architectural Forum issue, was titled “A View of Washington As A Capital—Or What Is Civic Design?” He reviewed the initial intentions of the city’s layout, as conceived by Pierre Charles L’Enfant (the original planner of the city, who’d received the assignment from George Washington)—and looked at the developing history of the city, the importance of density, the use of monuments, the state of official architecture, and the condition of major avenues and the Mall. He then offered suggestions on redeveloping a portion of Capitol Hill and the overall reorganization of that important central area.

Paul Rudolph’s article, in that Washington-focused issue of Architectural Forum, included this image: an aerial photograph of downtown DC, on which Rudolph drew his ideas for improving this part of the city. He focused here on the Capitol, the Mall, and surrounding buildings and key axes—and suggesting interventions that would increase the coherence of the ensemble. Image courtesy of USModernist Library

RUDOLPH: A NEW YORK INTERVENTION

Paul Rudolph’s LOMEX (Lower Manhattan Expressway) project was intended to address issues of cross-town traffic—but Rudolph took it to another level, with a visionary (if controversial) proposal: an intervention that would have transformed life in that southern section of the city. His design would have integrated transportation (of several kinds), housing, other building-function-types, and services—all within an innovatively shaped and planned infrastructure, and using a prefabricated modular construction system for the housing units. Of his proposal, Rudolph asserted:

“A conventional urban expressway might very well be more abusive to the city. On the other hand, building a new type of urban corridor designed in relation to the city districts through which it passes and engineered in such a way as to be capable of dissolving traffic and diminishing noise, exhaust, environmental and surface-street problems that have plagued the corridor area for decades might just be the most desirable approach.”

In Rudolph’s LOMEX drawing above, the routes between bridges at the edges of New York City’s Manhattan island are shown, surmounted by a titanic building project of housing and other building types. © The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation

An important part of Rudolph’s concept for LOMEX was the housing system. Individual apartments, which he called “the brick of the future”: were to be manufactured and trucked to the site, and lifted into place onto structural towers. One can see several such tower assemblies in this model of a portion of LOMEX. © The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation

LOMEX would have integrated housing with pedestrian, train, and automotive movement, and a full range of services needed to allow them to all function. All this was to be accommodated within a megastructure that was to span the width of Manhattan, as shown here in Rudolph’s perspective-section drawing. © The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation

RUDOLPH: A BOSTON INTERVENTION

The BOSTON GOVERNMENT SERVICE CENTER is situated on a large triangular site, and was envisioned as a part of Boston’s downtown “Government Center” (whose other prominent Modern structure is the Boston City Hall.) About 2/3 of the complex was built in the way that Rudolph envisioned it. Within a set of muscular and sculptural concrete buildings are housed state offices offering varied services. The buildings enclose a quiet plaza, which was meant to be a peaceful respite in the city as well as part of the building’s entry sequence.

The size, location, and complexity of such a large complex was bound to have an effect on the adjacent parts of the city—and Rudolph thought carefully about its urban design aspects, and shaped and scaled the buildings based on his observations of Boston.

Here is some of his thinking about the design, taken from various public statements and interviews:

“The three buildings are purposely designed so that they form a specific space for pedestrians only and read as a single entity rather than three separate buildings. In terms of urban design, this is undoubtedly one of the first concerted efforts to unify a group of buildings that this country has seen in a number of years.”

“The irregular and complex form [of the plaza] is derived primarily from the irregular street pattern of Boston.”

“The generating ideas of most traditional cities are pedestrian and vehicular circulation, streets, squares, terminuses, with their space clearly defined by buildings. This means linked buildings united to form comprehensible exterior spaces. The Boston Government Service Center is the opposite of Le Corbusier’s dictum “down with the street.” It started with three separate buildings, their clients, architects and methods of financing. We didn’t build three separate buildings, as others had proposed, but one continuous building which defined the street, formed a pedestrian plaza. . . .The scale of the lower buildings was heightened at the exterior perimeter (street) so that it read in conjunction with automobile traffic (columns 60-70 feet high plus toilet and stair cores at the corners were used). The scale at the plaza was much more intimate using stepped floors which revealed each floor level, making a bowl of space. As one approaches the stepped six-story-high building it reduces itself to only one story. . . .”

Progressive Architecture published a 1964 article on the design for the Boston Government Service Center. LEFT: the opening page, featuring a photo looking down into a model of the full-block complex, which encloses a pedestrian plaza—and, below, the editors included intriguing comparison images of urban plazas in Sienna and Venice. Image courtesy USModernist Library. ABOVE: a site plan of the complex (circled in Red) and adjacent streets in Boston. For a comparison of scale, the Boston City Hall—itself a building of significant size—is shown at the lower-right (the rectangle circled in Blue.)

3. COMMUNITY DESIGN

There are several examples of Rudolph taking-on the design of whole communities, whether it be a new town, a new neighborhood, or a development so large that it could legitimately be considered a work that engages urban design challenges.

Probably the largest such assignment that he worked on was the design of new town in Indonesia for 250,000, people. Had it been built, it would have been a sizable new settlement—and below are drawings for that project.

Below that are several other projects where Rudolph is working at a large, urban scale—both with respect to the populations that would have been housed, and/or the geographical area that was to be covered.

Paul Rudolph’s Phase One study for the city center of Pantai Timur Surabaya—a proposed town for a quarter-million people in Indonesia. While this project never proceeded into construction, the urban ideas which it embodied are well worth studying. © The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation

Above is a further drawing by Rudolph—a site plan sketch—from his town planning project for the Pantai Timur Surabaya in Indonesia. Note: Larger versions of these drawings (this one, and the drawing at left) can be seen on the project page, here. © The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation

Buffalo’s Shoreline Apartments was a housing complex designed in 1969, a portion of which was completed in 1974. The full scheme (partially shown in the above model) included terraced high-rises around a marina, school and community center facilities, and low and mid-rise apartment buildings and townhouses, with green spaces woven through the site. © The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation

A federally aided project in the late 60’s, designed to solve housing shortages in New Haven, Oriental Masonic Gardens offered 148 units of housing, ranging from 2-to-5 bedrooms. An attempt at bringing prefabrication to the housing crisis, the homes were made from 333 modules, placed in configurations that provided a separate outside space for each family. © The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation

To be situated in the North-West portion of Washington, DC, the Fort Lincoln Housing project from 1968 was designed to be woven into the existing urban context, providing abundant (and much needed) housing, and offering a variety of apartment types. © The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation

In 1974 Rudolph received a commission for an immense Apartment Hotel (a.k.a. the JERUSALEM HOTEL), which would have encompassed over 300 units, plus the many facilities to support them—all under a multitude of stone-clad, concrete barrel-vaults. © The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation

Comprising a master plan, and the design for townhouses, apartment houses, a hotel and boatel, and commercial spaces, Rudolph’s mid-60’s Stafford Harbor resort project in Virginia was the first time he’d ever worked on the planning of an entire town. Designed to take full advantage of its waterside location, it embraced the site’s existing topography. © The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation

Rudolph’s 1967 Graphic Arts Center project would have included 4,000 prefabricated apartment units, as well as spaces for a multiplicity of other functions. Stretching into the Hudson River, its vast scale can be perceived by comparing it with the World Trade Center complex, whose site plan (including the WTC’s two square towers) is shown at the right edge of the drawing. © The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation

4. CAMPUS PLANNING: DISTILLED URBAN DESIGN

A large portion of Paul Rudolph’s oeuvre were educational buildings, done at all levels—from an elementary school to designing spaces for advanced research. Many were stand-alone buildings, but Rudolph was always aware (and respectful of) context. Even his most famous work, the Yale Art & Architecture Building (which has been cited as the paradigmatic example of individualism in design) is an example of Rudolph’s careful consideration of the setting—and one can see this in his drawings for the building, which purposefully showed the proposed design as it was to be situated within New Haven’s urban context.

More directly pertinent are his designs for whole campuses. The campus of a university, college, or educational institute has to simultaneously fulfill multiple functions: housing classrooms, laboratories, arts and athletic facilities, administrative space, a library, and—literally—housing for students (and sometimes faculty as well). Moreover, efficient and pleasant connections and travel between the buildings which house these activities—via interior and exterior routes—must be integrated into the plan. Finally, an oft-stated client goal is that the ensemble has a look of unity, so as to promote a sense of shared campus identity.

Accommodating such planning complexity, within a distinct area, is a concentrated version of an urban design problem—a distillation of trying to design a small city. Rudolph was commissioned to take on this challenge by several institutions, both across the US and internationally—with interesting results and in highly varying forms. Below are examples of his work in this domain.

The Tuskegee Chapel, of 1960, was one of the works for which Rudolph is most famed. But, over the decades, he was engaged by Tuskegee Institute for other buildings and purposes—for example: in 1958 they asked him to do the above Master Plan for the campus. © The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation

If having “repeat customers” is the sign client happiness, then Tuskegee must have found Paul Rudolph quite satisfying to work with—a manifestation of which would be this 1978 commission to him for a Tuskegee Master Plan and College Entrance. © The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation

The planning of the new campus for Southeastern Massachusetts Technological Institute—now UMass Dartmouth—commenced in 1963, and design work and construction continued over many years (and is ongoing). A pedestrian campus with an encircling parking system, it was conceived as a series of extended buildings based on a single structural-mechanical system, to be constructed of one material. A spiraling mall, created by the buildings, organizes the heart of the complex. © The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation

The East Pakistan Agricultural University, south of the district town of Mymensingh (now Bangladesh Agricultural University) was a project from the middle 1960’s. It included a master plan to expand the existing campus, and the design of buildings for a full range of functions: auditorium, dormitories, laboratories, instructional spaces, and recreation facilities. A portion of Rudolph’s designs were constructed. Part of the model, for the overall design, is shown above. © The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation

THE CONTEXT OF PAST AND CURRENT URBAN DESIGN THINKING, PLANNING, AND BUILDING

Paul Rudolph placed immense importance on urban design, and that necessitates being an astute and careful observer—as he Rudolph was—of the life and shaping of cities.

Cites are pivotal: the rise of civilization and cities go together, so a deep consideration of their forms is essential—and even pre (or non) urban settlements can have formal structures and layout rules of great civil sophistication.

This history—of the evolution and multiplicity of the forms cities have taken, and the forces which guided their shaping—is of enormous complexity, as is the literature which has been focused on these greatest of human artifacts. Influential books have been published (and continue to be) on urban design—often with implicit or outright declarations on how city-making should move forward. Among the most prominent have been Edmund Bacon’s Design of Cities, Kevin Lynch’s Image of the City, Rudofsky’s Streets for People, and works by Le Corbusier, Jacobs, Buras, Koolhaas, Howard, Rossi, and Mumford.

These authors/researchers/designers make profound contributions to our understanding of urban design—both as history and as lessons for today’s practice. But few offer the comprehensive, encyclopedic view of urban design history and form as to be found in a newly issued book: Urban Grids: Handbook for Regular City Design.

The result of a titanic 8-year study, and the work of an army-sized team of researchers and designers, this single volume is a deep review of urban design history, theory and practice—but the real value of the book is in its “case study” approach: comparing dozens of cities, world-wide, on the basis of their geometry, density, block configuration, street width and street-wall height, relation to topography, mix of uses, integration of various transport modes, growth patterns, and other factors. Over hundreds of pages, utilizing thousands of illustrations, this one volume makes available and synthesizes a body of information daunting in its richness and complexity—and will become an indispensable tool for all concerned with urban design.

Two adjacent pages from the book, on which the case studies of two cities—Algiers and Alexandria—are compared utilizing numerous diagrams and data.

A further spread from the book, from a section in which the history and evolution of urban design—including grid layouts—is explored.

BOOK INFORMATION AND AVAILABILITY:

• TITLE: Urban Grids: Handbook for Regular City Design

• AUTHORS: Joan Busquets, Dingliang Yang, and Michael Keller

• PUBLISHER: ORO Editions

• PRINT FORMAT: Hardcover, 8-1/2” x 12'“

• PAGE COUNT & ILLUSTRATIIONS: 680 pgs., thousands of black & white and color illustrations

• ISBN: 978-1-940743-95-0

• ALTERNATE EDITION: A Spanish language version (“Ciudad Regular”) is also available:

• PUBISHER’S WEB PAGE FOR THE BOOK: here

• AMAZON PAGE: here

• BARNES & NOBLE PAGE: here

The GIFT GUIDE for Architecture Lovers (and especially for Rudolph fans!)

Even the counterweights at Paul Rudolph’s Walker Guest House seem to have the festive, holiday spirit! Glory Curtis Williams took this intriguing detail photograph of the replica of the building, when it was on display during the 2019 Palm Springs Modernism Week.

Philip Johnson—a long-time friend of Rudolph—most famous work is his own home: the Glass House. Even this building—a work of architecture of world-wide renown—has become “giftable” in the form of this snow globe, offered by National Trust for Historic Preservation.

With the arrival of the Holiday Season, our thoughts turn to gifts. For the very young, it’s the the anticipation of receiving them—but for the rest of us, the focus (and sometimes agony) is on search, selection, and shopping for presents that are simultaneously available, affordable, and appropriate—and, we hope, something that’s un-anticipated: a real and pleasurable surprise.

How hard can that be? Very—if the intended recipient is a design-savvy architect or fan of architecture. They’re probably already aware of most of the design/building-themed books, accessories, and “lifestyle” tools. But help is available…

That assistance is in the form of the gift guides. Published annually, this proliferating phenomenon proffers guides for almost every interest, from those who obsessed with cooking -to- those who (like in our group) are aficionados of concrete. More than ever, one can find annually-issued gift guides for architects—and this year, so far, we’ve encountered at least four that are abundant with attractive ideas:

“Concrete After Lightning”—a concrete-scented candle to light up the holidays.

ARCHITECT MAGAZINE

Architect is the official journal of the American Institute of Architects, and they have issued their “Gift Guide 2020”

It offers numerous choices, and included is a shirt which highlights the contributions of women in architecture, a set of modular lights that pulsate with different colors, Lamy’s Safari fountain pen (always a favorite among designers), the beautiful series of Ruth Asawa stamps issued by the United States Postal Service, and some colorful bowls made from recycled skateboards.

The items that will no doubt delight Rudolphians most are a concrete-scented candle made by D.S. & Durga; and the two cleverly shaped, architecturally-themed concrete planters from Rosenwood Studio.

Borson’s list of “essential” books includes monographs on Corb, Scarpa, Lutyens, and Saarinen, several volumes by Frank D. K. Ching, and key works by Christopher Alexander and on Dieter Rams.

LIFE OF AN ARCHITECT

Bob Borsons’s always interesting blog (in which he shares about the realities of the profession) has an established track record for issuing annual gift guides—ones in which he is quite articulate about what would make each suggested gift meaningful and useful.

This year, his “Holiday Gift Guide For Architects” is his 11th such entry. It has some of the things that one might already have guessed could be included (like an Aalto vase or the Vignelli wall calendar—both staples in the homes and offices of the tasteful demographic), and something delightfully outrageous: a $55,000 utility vehicle. Best for this year, he gives us a selection of 40 books—and what makes that book list distinctive is that they’re volumes which are in his own personal collection. Borson tells us that he’s been building up his library for decades—and these are the books which he personally recommends as “essentials”.

The Architray, which can hold pens, pencils, and other such items—and makes them easily accessible.

ARCHITECTURE LAB MAGAZINE

Their list, “47 of the Best Gifts for Architects in 2020,” has a large number of Alessi products—particularly ones designed by Zaha Hadid. Her centerpiece, composed of 5 repositionable parts, captures the adventurous form-making of that architect—as does another Alessi suggestion: a rattan centerpiece by the Campana brothers.

The other kind of gift which is prominent in this list are various types of “blocks” construction sets: not just Lego (though they are included), but also two different ones in the Blockitecture series, as well as a house from Wise Elk (which is composed of parts made from real plaster and ceramic.) Concrete-o-philes will appreciate the “Brutalist Concrete Architray” which was designed by 7thFl Studio.

The “My Little Architect” set, with it’s colorful and flexible system, might well intrigue all age groups.

GIFTHEM

Gifthem is a site that specializes in creating gift lists for different professions and interests—a practical and useful service. Thus they have lists for almost any domain of practice or interest, including Judges, Dentists, Basketball Enthusiasts, Minecraft Fans, Barbers, Quilters, Doctors…—and yes, Architects. This year’s list starts by acknowledging that “…architects are too picky and investigative in everything due to the nature of their field so finding the gifts for architects is a bit tricky”—and one will not find a more honest assessment of the situation!

They do come up with some unique suggestions, like a pair of socks whose pattern suggests avantgarde architectural plans from Italy in the 1960’s, a wallet whose exterior faces are printed with a residential floor plan, frameable prints that show patent drawings for traditional drafting tools, and—for the younger members of the profession—a “My Little Architect” building set, composed of colorful, transparent plastic tiles which assemble via a clever system of magnets.

The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation includes a “SHOP” page on it’s website—which is useful year-round, but especially for the holiday shopper.

A BETTER CHOICE: GIVE RUDOLPH tHIS HOLIDAY!

With all the suggestions contained in the above gift guides, one might think that the possibilities have been exhausted. True, a number of the choices in those lists include items that are cleverly made of concrete—and whose interest, in part, rely on the power of surprise, as such objects rarely use that herculean material.

But if the person you’re shopping for has tastes and interests which lean in the direction of the work of Paul Rudolph, there are gifts which are more focused on him—his life and career—and the great body of work he created.

The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation’s website has a “SHOP” page, which offers a variety of items which will illuminate the vast range of creation that emerged from Rudolph’s innovative and prolific career. During his half-century of practice, he was engaged in architecture, interior design, product design, furniture design, lighting design, education, issues of urbanism, mentorship, and the invention of systems of construction. Rudolph—for those who look into the prodigious number of projects he took on—is an endless resource of interest and inspiration.

The books, offered through our SHOP page, highlight and investigate his many contributions. Here are four studies which are prime sources for leaning about Rudolph’s multiple talents and accomplishments.

Celebrating Rudolph’s 100th birthday, this pair of catalogs are the official publication of the centennial exhibitions: “Paul Rudolph: The Personal Laboratory” -and- “Paul Rudolph: The Hong Kong Journey.” The former exhibit looked at how Rudolph used his own residences as places for experimentation with space, materials, and light—truly as “laboratories” of design. Though Rudolph was based in the US, he was called upon by clients in Asia to design a variety of projects, both commercial and residential. In the latter exhibit there was a focus on Rudolph’s work in Hong Kong, with an emphasis on the Bond Centre: the double-skyscraper towers which he designed, that are prominent on the Hong Kong’s skyline. The set of catalogs are available HERE.

Paul Rudolph’s creative & prolific half-century career extended to nearly the end of the 20th century—and this book focuses on the work from the latter part of his oeuvre. It includes: buildings for many parts of the US, fascinating ambitious projects for Asia, the Modulightor Building (the headquarters for the lighting business which he co-founded, and whose lines of light fixtures he designed), and the design of his own intriguing residence (his “Quadruplex” penthouse on Beekman Place in New York City). Hand-picked by Rudolph himself, the 27 projects profiled in Roberto de Alba’s book are shown through a broad selection of drawings, sketches, photographs, plans, and perspective views. The book includes illuminating introductory texts by Roberto De Alba, Mildred F. Schmertz, and Robert Bruegmann; as well as a fascinating in-depth interview with Rudolph by Peter Blake. It is available HERE.

On of Paul Rudolph’s most interesting later projects is the “Quadruplex” penthouse which he built for himself in New York City, with dramatic views of the East River. That residence was the cover story of this issue of “FDR: The FLORIDA DESIGN REVIEW”, and the article included the most complete photographic documentation ever published of the rich set of spaces within that project. Copies of this rare publication are available HERE.

Moleskine, in collaboration with Princeton Architectural Press, has brought out a series of books focusing on the drawings and sketches of innovative designers—-including this volume on Paul Rudolph. It features an insightful introduction by John Morris Dixon. It is available HERE.

OTHER GIFT BOOKS FROM oUR SHOP

While the monographs on Rudolph, above, are exceptional gifts, also available through the SHOP page are several other works of profound interest. These studies are impressive in the depth of their research, and stimulating in their insights and revelations.

R.D. Chin is an architect who worked for Paul Rudolph, and knew him well. Mr. Chin’s career has included working on numerous building types—and he then trained to become a Feng Shui master (whose practice includes consulting on a variety of architectural projects.) In this well-illustrated and colorful volume, he shares the wisdom of that system, and how it can be applied to the practical challenges of architecture and interior design. It is available HERE.

Beatriz Colomina explores the enormous impact of medical discourse and imaging technologies on the formation, representation and reception of twentieth-century architecture. It challenges the normal understanding of modern architecture by proposing that it was shaped by the dominant medical obsessions of its time—and traces the psychopathologies of 20th century architecture, suggesting that if we want to talk about the state of architecture today, we should look to the dominant obsessions with illness and the latest techniques of imaging the body. It is available HERE.

Caroline Rob Zaleski’s “Long Island Modernism 1930-1980” belongs in the library of anyone interested in the history of Modernism in America. It has eye-opening archival photographs and surprising discoveries about pioneering architecture by visionary architects, such as Rudolph, Breuer, Wallace Harrison, Wright, and Albert Frey with A. Laurence Kocher. The Architects Newspaper praised It, saying: “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.” It is available HERE.

Celebrating Modernism in North Carolina (the home of Burroughs Wellcome)

Victoria Ballard Bell’s new book, TRIANGLE MODERN ARCHITECTURE. Her well-illustrated and deeply-researched history covers the movement to bring Modern architecture to the “Triangle” region of North Carolina. The book shows Modernism’s flourishing—and the generations of architects who have practiced in that area.

ARCHITECTURAL MODERNISM iN NORTH CAROLINA— INCREASING (AND WELL-DESERVED) ATTENTION

The Carolinas have always attracted significant architectural scholarship: from Plantations of the Carolina Low Country, Samuel Galliard Stoney’s study of the great antebellum mansions and their estates -to- Charleston Architecture 1670-1860 by Gene Waddell—and, of course, the books by that comprehensive historian of the buildings of the Old South: Mills Lane. All are magisterial studies, but they focus on the architecture of earlier eras. It is only in recent years that the richness and range of Modern architecture in North Carolina has received the attention which it deserves.

Pioneering the appreciation of Modern architecture in the state was the organization founded in 2007 by George Smart. Originally named Triangle Modernist Houses, it was renamed North Carolina Modernist (also known as NCMODERNIST) in 2013. It has grown to be active on many fronts, including: tours, preservation, archiving, education, providing technical and legal assistance, and encouraging scholarship—in all ways moving to open people’s eyes to the excellence and depth of Modern architecture in North Carolina. In 2016 they created USModernist, an award-winning educational organization for the documentation, preservation, and promotion of residential Modernist architecture. With their archive, podcasts, tours, and an unparalleled on-line magazine library (making available nearly 3,000,000 pages of architecture journals,) USModernist is America's largest open digital archive of Modernist houses and their architects—an accessible and treasured resource for all researchers.

Up to now, there’s been no book-length study which focuses, in-depth, on the beginnings and flourishing of Modern architecture in state. Such a book, Triangle Modern Architecture, has recently been published—and we report on (and welcome) it here. But first: a little background on what’s meant by “Triangle.”

THE NORTH CAROLNA “TRIANGLE”

You’ll hear references to the Triangle—indeed, the word was part of the original name of NCMODERNIST. The Tringle term has two primary uses:

• A region within the state of North Carolina: approximately defined by a triangle with three cities at its points: Durham, Chapel Hill, and Raleigh.

• Research Triangle Park: the celebrated research development—founded in 1959, and still flourishing today—which is the site of many of the country’s most dynamically innovative companies and research centers. It is located within the above, geographically larger triangle.

There’s a strong relationship between these two senses of the term, as the "Triangle" name was cemented in the public consciousness in the 1950’s with the creation of Research Triangle Park, home to numerous tech companies and enterprises. Although the name is now used to refer to the geographic region, the “Triangle" originally referred to the universities—whose research facilities, and the educated workforce they provide, has historically served as a major attraction for businesses to locate in the region.

The North Carolina “Triangle”—a triangular region roughly defined by Durham, Chapel Hill, and Raleigh.

LEFT: Alex Sayf Cummings fascinating history of Research Triangle Park: the US’s largest research development—located within North Carolina’s “Triangle” region. Read our article about the book here. ABOVE: Paul Rudolph’s Burroughs Wellcome building (shown circled), within North Carolina’s Research Triangle Park. Only a portion of Research Triangle Park is shown here, but even this partial view captures some of Burroughs Wellcome’s distinguished neighbors: IBM, Cree, Toshiba, RTI, the North Carolina Biotechnology Center, United Therapeutics, and the National Humanities Center.

THE “TRIANGLE” AS A HOME FOR MODERNISM

All the above is prologue to celebrating the publication of a new book, TRIANGLE MODERN ARCHITCTURE by Victoria Ballard Bell. A licensed architect and writer who has lived in North Carolina for decades, she is the author (with Patrick Rand) of two other architecture books: Materials for Design and Materials for Design 2.

Bell recounts:

“When we first moved here. . . .I heard snippets about architects and Kamphoefner. I wondered: ‘Why has someone not written a book?’ Nobody’s told the story.”

And tells it she has! Bell is referring to Henry Kamphoefner, and architect who—primarily in role of a long-time, dynamic educator—was key to the seeding and growth of Modern architecture in the Triangle region of North Carolina. He, and architects he brought to the School (now College) of Design at North Carolina State University, and other architects who came to settle and/or work in the region, created a body of buildings which are diverse and elegant, caring in their detailing and contextual in their character.

Architects of international stature (Frank Lloyd Wright, Matthew Nowicki, Buckminster Fuller, Paul Rudolph) are, in varying degrees, part of the story. But where the book excels is how it reveals, though depthful research and careful telling, the overall story of the migration into the culture of what must have originally seemed like radically modern design (when contrasted with the existing design traditions of the region.)

Bell shows how lesser-known designers brought forth a wealth of work that can now be proudly considered part of the the state’s (and country’s) cultural heritage.

Several of the excellent works of that are included in TRIANGLE MODERN ARCHITECTURE:

TOP-TO-BOTTOM: Architect Eduardo Catalano’s own residence, in Raleigh, as featured on the cover of the August, 1955 issue of House + Home magazine; Architect George Matsumoto’s own house, in Raleigh, was on the cover of 1957’s Record Houses (the annual issue in which Architectural Record published what they considered to be each year’s most significant residential designs); Architect G. Milton Small’s own architectural office building in Raleigh, which was included in a Architectural Record’s 1969 article on the design of architect’s offices; Paul Rudolph’s perspective rendering of Burroughs Wellcome, situated within Research Triangle Park.

These architects, who practiced in the Triangle region, should be better-known and studied, but they have not had the attention they deserve. A few, like Catalano and Harris, did achieve recognition in during their career, but have fallen out of the “repertoire” of recent architectural historians’ thinking. Others never had more than a very local renown. All deserve to be commemorated, and Triangle Modern Architecture brings salutary attention to the work of this group, among them—

• G. Milton Small

• George Masumoto

• Eduardo Catalano

• Harwell Hamilton Harris

• Arthur Cogswell Jr.

• Jon Andre Condoret

—and several others.

The latter half of the book profiles contemporary firms who are carrying on in this tradition. There is certainly some diversity among them—via their affinity for varying palettes of materials, uses of color, and their choices about the proportion of glazed to solid areas, as well as the different building types (residential/institutional/commercial) with which they’re each engaged. But they all are clearly working within the formal vocabulary established by the first generation of Modern architects who worked in North Carolina’s Triangle region. Among the architects in this section is Frank Harmon, who wrote the book’s preface—and that’s book-ended by George Smart, who writes this volume’s moving epilogue.

TRIANGLE MODERN ARCHITECTURE has a profusion of illustrations, both in black & white and color. Unlike many architecture books, this one is not afraid of including drawings, ranging from Rudolph’s perspective drawing of Burroughs Wellcome -to- a colorful pastel by Nowicki -to- Macon Strother Smith’s study-sketch for a building corner detail. Photos are abundant, including lively snapshots of Frank Lloyd Wright visiting the area, architectural models, and mid-century Modern interiors.

Marlon Blackwell, FAIA, recipient of the 2020 AIA Gold Medal, has said of the book:

“Triangle Modern Architecture provides us a timely insight into the rich history and bold future of modern architecture in North Carolina, reminding us that the modernist project here is alive and well and most vital in its interpretations and adaptations to local places and typologies.”

We congratulate Victoria Ballard Bell, and her publisher, for bringing out TRIANGLE MODERN ARCHITECTURE, her new (and much needed) book on the origin and growth of Modern architecture in that region.

BURROUGHS WELLCOME —THE TRIANGLE’S MOST IMPORTANT MODERN BUILDING— IS THREATENED

Above and Below: the Burroughs Wellcome building, designed by Paul Rudolph, and located within North Carolina’s Triangle Research Park

YOU CAN HELP SAVE IT!

The Burroughs Wellcome building is threated with imminent demolition.

Its loss would be a disaster—a titanic waste of our nation’s cultural heritage. Remember:

When a great building is destroyed, there are no second chances.

NOW— THERE ARE TWO THINGS YOU CAN DO:

• Sign the petition to save Burroughs Wellcome— Please sign it HERE.

• We can keep you up-to-date with bulletins about the latest developments—

  To get them, please join our foundation’s mailing list: you’ll get all the updates, (as well as other Rudolphian news)—you can sign-up at the bottom of this page.

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IMAGE CREDITS

North Carolina Triangle map: U.S. Geological Survey; Aerial view of a part of Research Triangle Park: courtesy of Google Maps; House + Home (Catalano House), Record Houses (Matsumoto House), and Architectural Record (Small office building): courtesy of US Modernist Library; Burroughs Wellcome perspective rendering by Paul Rudolph: © The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation; Photograph of Burroughs Wellcome building (black and white): photograph courtesy of Columbia University, Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, Joseph W. Molitor Photograph Collection ; Photograph of Burroughs Wellcome building (color): photograph courtesy of © PJ McDonnell, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation Archives

Burroughs Wellcome: Let the CRITICS & USERS speak!

Entry court of the Burroughs Wellcome building. Image courtesy of Joseph W. Molitor architectural photographs. Located in Columbia University, Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Department of Drawings & Archives

NOW IT’S THE CRITICS’ & USERS’ TURN TO SPEAK…

In a recent post, we shared the various views, assessments, and judgements, made by several architectural historians, of the Burroughs Wellcome building. Historians have several roles, and one of the main thrusts of their work is to take “the long view”—striving to show how any one building can be understood within broader context of the architect’s overall career (and the architectural culture of the time). But there are other viewpoints which call for our attention:

• Critics have a different role. Yes, architectural journalists/critics/bloggers also seek to share deeper understandings of a work of architecture. But their writings are usually more of-the-moment—a result of their immediate interaction with building (and of news about it.)

• Users are the ultimate critics. The actual occupants of the building (those who lived or worked there, day-after-day—but also including visitors) have an intimacy with the architecture which cannot be exceeded. Their voices must be heard.

Here, we present the examples of architectural criticism/journalism from the era when the Burroughs Wellcome’s design was first presented (and the building finished), as well as more recent thoughts by members of the architectural-critical community. The last example, below, includes copious comments from people who worked for Burroughs Wellcome—those who had an ongoing experience of the building, and warm memories of being there.

PAUL RUDOLPH: WORK IN PROGRESS

Architectural Record, November, 1970

This article, by Architectural Record’s distinguished editor-writer Mildred Schmertz, showcased three new projects by Rudolph: a large central library, to be built in Niagara Falls (and the article leads off with his tour de force isometric drawing of the building, shown at right); a housing development which was partially built in Buffalo (“Shoreline”); and the Burroughs Wellcome building. The article begins with an articulate assessment of Rudolph’s design concerns & commitments—and then it provides text about each project. Below are excerpts from both sections.

It has been said before that Rudolph's superb drawings so enchant the eye that one is diverted from the designs themselves into contemplation of the wonders of his draftsmanship. To counteract this tendency, it may be useful to set forth those attributes of his work which form its essential design content and which Rudolph himself considers most characteristic.

For him the site is a key consideration. His design is a response to the site and its environment. Where a strong environmental ambiance exists, he reinforces it. Where it does not, he creates it.

His concern with the environmental aspects of design leads him to freshly restate the design problem each time, and causes him to utilize a great variety of forms, scales and materials. His buildings are designed to be read from varying distances and from the air. Buildings are often dramatically articulated from story to story. Clearly expressed and essentially simple structural systems are juxtaposed to specific elements such as stairs, elevators and mechanical and toilet shafts which have been elaborated as forms. ln general, fixed elements are juxtaposed to more flexible generalized uses. The fixed elements often play a dual role acting as "hinges" and "joints" as his buildings sinuously move to follow a street pattern, turn a corner or form a plaza. Frequently these elements are used to lead the eye around the building. Such elements are essential means by which Rudolph manipulates scale. They take many shapes, thus a small conference room might be circular, elliptical, square, a rectangle or a triangle. Often the choice of shape becomes a highly personal one and leads to qualities which Rudolph realizes are easily misinterpreted as arbitrary.

Rudolph designs buildings which simultaneously defer to the past, yet accommodate the future. He creates definable exterior spaces which relate to existing buildings which are to remain, but he indicates the future by open-ended concepts, infinitely expansible in every direction. His buildings always embody broader design concerns than those represented by the building itself. They are conceived as interventions in behalf of tomorrow—the walls, gates, landmark towers and bridges of a higher urban order to come. Rudolph's interiors are characterized by the flow of space-horizontally, vertically and diagonally. Again his primary principle is one of juxtaposition—agitated space is opposed to quiet, contented space, tight coves of space flow into multistoried central space, diagonal space passes through vertical space. The control of natural light within the interior is a major concern of Rudolph's. ln most cases it is indirect, admitted by almost invisible skylights and reflected from broad sloping planes.

A final characteristic by which Rudolph's work may be readily recognized is his use of space modules as integral elements forming the building complex. . . . Those projects by Rudolph in which space modules are clearly articulated, although not totally prefabricated, can be considered prototypes being developed to hasten the arrival of this technological advance.

Burroughs Wellcome

This building may be considered a summation of the characteristics by which Rudolph's architecture may be identified. The site has been a key consideration and the building is essentially topographical, single stories are clearly articulated to define scale, specific elements are elaborated within a clear and regular structural system, the plan is infinitely expansible in each of its three major blocks, and great attention has been paid to the flow of interior space as well as to the handling of reflected light. The building, although it doesn't actually consist of totally prefabricated space modules inserted within a structural frame, almost looks as though it does, and thus it prefigures and helps lay the groundwork for future technological development.

SCULPTURAL FORMS FOR PHARMECEUTICAL RESEARCH

Architectural Record, June, 1972

This cover story was the major presentation of the finished building in US architectural journals. Below are excerpts from the unsigned article: these were chosen because they focused on the critic’s/journalist’s assessment of the design.

Springing in inclined forms from the summit of a long ridge in North Carolina's Research Triangle Park, the laboratory and corporate headquarters of the Burroughs Wellcome Co. is marked by the sculptural invention that has long made Paul Rudolph's work so arresting. It is also filled with the characteristic complexities that make his work, in some quarters, controversial.

The client wanted a building that was shaped to his needs but remained architecturally distinctive-a building that would leave a forceful after-image in the minds of all who see it. Rudolph wanted the building to be a man-made extension of the ridge. He also wanted an opportunity to explore the variety of spatial relationships that diagonal framing could produce.

With only minor reservations, both owner and architect are well pleased with the final product.

Flexibility was a primary programmatic goal. Each major area in Rudolph's plan-laboratories, administration and support services-can be expanded by simple, linear addition. To prepare for this eventuality, the architect left the expansible ends of the building expressed in a somewhat random pattern of flattened hexagons. Any of the elements can be extended horizontally without disturbing the building's visual order. This device, combined with an elaborate articulation of parts, complicates the elevations considerably but gives the building an agreeable scale and plunges it squarely into the realm of dynamic architectural sculpture. The complications of the exterior assert themselves inside with no less force. The three-story lobby space closes dramatically overhead in a turbulent and visually compelling spatial composition. The administrative offices are shaped at the exterior wall to receive skylights that admit daylight from an unseen and unexpected source. The board room, over the cafeteria, opens out through a canted window wall to one of the fairest scenes in North Carolina: a timbered Piedmont plain with the spires of Chapel Hill in the distance.

The spaces are particularized and personal; as much the opposite of universal space as Rudolph could make them. A simple and consistent vocabulary of finishes gives the administrative areas an easy continuity and flow.

The Burroughs Wellcome building is not for those who are disturbed by departures from the norm. The sharp-eyed visitor may find details that are not completely resolved. But if there is bravura here, it is more than balanced by solid accomplishment. The building is functional—probably no more and no less so than similar facilities of more routine design. What is best about Burroughs Wellcome is the sense of exhilaration and spatial excitement it awakens. That it achieves so much of each is a tribute to both architect and owner.

PAUL RUDOLPH’S BURROUGHS WELLCOME HEADQUARTERS BUILDING IN NORTH CAROLINA THREATENED WITH DEMOLITION

Architect’s Newspaper, September 11, 2020

Matt Hickman, associate editor of The Architect’s Newspaper, wrote one of the first major articles about the current threat to the Burroughs Wellcome building. In it, he quotes from Liz Waytkus of Docomomo US.

“Burroughs Wellcome is a significant design of architecture that rises to the level of exceptional. There is absolutely nothing else like it and it would be devastating to Paul Rudolph’s canon of built works to lose it,” said Liz Waytkus, executive director of Docomomo US, when reached for comment. “While Rudolph’s homes continue to be highly valued, many of his civic and commercial designs have been severely compromised, threatened and destroyed. Docomomo US has advocated for years if not decades for the preservation of many of his major projects and we are frustrated as to what it will take for this country to recognize this true American Master of modernism.”

INTO THE SPACESHIP: A VISIT TO THE OLD BURROUGHS WELLCOME BUILDING

Tropics of Meta, June 13, 2016

Alex Sayf Cummings is an associate professor and director of graduate studies in the History Department at Georgia State University. Dr. Cummings, who is senior editor of the history blog, Tropics of Meta, recently published a study of Research Triangle Park (in which the Burroughs Wellcome building resides): Brain Magnet: Research Triangle Park and the Idea of the Idea Economy. In June, 2016, she was part of a tour of the Burroughs Wellcome building—which is currently unoccupied—and below are excerpts from her post, reporting on the visit. Her post elicited numerous responses: many from people who, having worked Burroughs Wellcome, knew the building well and had warm memories of being there—and we also include a selection of those comments.

No longer supplied with power, the building becomes a dark warren of workspaces and hallways, occasionally illumined by natural light from outside. Undoubtedly [the building] felt different when it was electrified and occupied, with the presence of people and the trappings of business, work, and research. . . . tour participant Cynthia de Miranda—an architectural historian whose father was a scientist at Burroughs Wellcome—averred that the building always struck her as warm and pleasant during her visits as a child.

As scholars and lovers of architecture, we look forward to the day when the building’s remainder is restored to its former greatness, an emblem of the wild aesthetic ambitions of modernism in its late heyday and the information economy at the moment of its emergence. Love it or hate it, Rudolph’s design remains an impressively audacious creative gesture and an important part of the history of both architecture and Research Triangle Park.

COMMENTS:

Simply amazing, I worked in this building for many years, very fond memories of it.

I never found it claustrophobic during my 25 years. The building was alive with interesting people.

I will never forget the first time I drove up and saw this “out of this world spaceship!” I spent many good years there, and was fortunate to be employed in such an incredible building, with incredible people. I still feel honored to have been part of the Burroughs Wellcome family.

. . . .all of us who recall the vibrancy of this building . . . .I count myself very fortunate to have worked there. It was an amazing structure. We were young, and life was full of hope and promise. We were all witnesses, if not direct contributors, to amazing scientific discoveries and their promotion, during an exciting time for medical research.

I spent 32 years with [Burroughs Wellcome]. . . .and helped work on the layout of the labs to fit the 22.5 degree sloping walls of bright orange and blue. At that time, if any space was conceived to bring out the creative, inspirational, thoughts—this was it, in my opinion. I loved working there. We invented and developed more pharmaceutical products in those years. . . .We were “family” but more to the point we were colleagues who were allowed to trust the expertise of each other.

I have such special memories of my time at Burroughs-Wellcome. . . .Every Christmas there was a huge Christmas Tree in the lobby that almost reached the ceiling and the bottom was covered with several rows of the most beautiful poinsettia plants. With only about 400-500 employees in the entire building, it felt like a large family. The colors in the building were bold and bright, mostly dark blue and orange. As you entered the research area the carpet was orange and the administration side of the building had blue carpet. On the top floor of the administration wing the custom seats that ran around the walls were covered in a dark tan suede leather. The conference table in the boardroom was huge. The bottom was thick plexiglass and the top was covered in tan leather strips that were woven together. . . . it was a fabulous experience to work at Burroughs-Wellcome and one that I will never forget. The people I worked with changed my life and I have nothing but fond memories.

This is fascinating! When I was 9, my parents took me to the opening of the building, and for many years I wanted to be an architect because of it.

According to the Historic American Building Survey’s report the building (from which this image comes): “Archival records reveal that a softball field was positioned behind the Burroughs Wellcome building for leisure activities.”

YOU CAN HELP SAVE BURROUGHS WELLCOME !

Burroughs Wellcome’s loss would be a disaster—a titanic waste of our nation’s cultural heritage.

When a great building is destroyed, there are no second chances.

NOW, THERE ARE TWO THINGS YOU CAN DO:

• Sign the petition to save Burroughs Wellcome. You can sign it here.

• We’ll send you bulletins about the latest developments. To get them, please join our foundation’s mailing list: you’ll get all the updates, (as well as other Rudolphian news.)—you can sign up at the bottom of this page.

The Burroughs Wellcome building presents multiple impressive facets. Image courtesy of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, photograph by G. E. Kidder Smith

Rudolph at Burroughs Wellcome: Concept, Development, and the Caring Details

The Burroughs Wellcome was designed for growth—and this is a section drawing study by Paul Rudolph, for an extension to the building. Such a colorful drawing might look exuberantly and boldly “arty” (as though the architect had only a nebulous relation to practicalities)—but a close inspection shows that, while Rudolph was developing the overall concept, he was simultaneously paying close attention to dimensions, adjacencies, floor heights, and the locations of different functions. This kind of drawing—seemingly florid, but layered with distilled, practical information—is typical of the kind of study drawings which Paul Rudolph did at the beginning of his design process. © The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation.

"We Must Understand That After All The Building Committees, The Conflicting Interests, The Budget Considerations, And The Limitations Of His Fellow Man Have Been Taken Into Consideration, The Architect’s Responsibility Has Just Begun. He Must Understand That Exhilarating, Awesome Moment.

When He Takes Pencil In Hand, And Holds It Poised Above A White Sheet Of Paper, He Has Suspended There All That Has Gone Before And All That Will Ever Be." 

—Paul Rudolph

ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN: THE MYSTERY

In looking at Burroughs Wellcome—one of Paul Rudolph’s best (and best loved) creations—one naturally wonders: How did such a design come to be? With a prolific architect like Rudolph, whose creativity took him along so many different paths, that’s a compelling inquiry.

“How does the magic happen?” That’s one way of putting one of the most fascinating questions about the creation of architecture—for it’s indeed a wonder how one gets all-the-way from a client’s request to a tangible, solid, building that’s ready-for-occupancy.

The least mysterious phase happens at the end of the process: once a “construction set” of drawings (sometimes called “working drawings” or the “contract set”) has been drawn-up by he architect and issued to the general contractor, the process of construction is fairly well understood. [Although, as anyone who’s ever been involved in building project can tell you, it is also fraught with possible pitfalls, detours, and surprises.]

But perhaps it would be useful to return to the beginning of the process….

ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN: THE PROGRAM

Initially, the architect receives requests and information from the client: the “program”. Sometimes this is nebulously articulated—or conversely, sometimes the client’s needs are enumerated in intimidatingly calibrated detail. Rudolph wrote urgently about the need to get, early on, as much info as possible:

“Always, always, always, everything, everything, everything at the beginning. I'm a great believer in the big bang. You cannot isolate parts, ever. That's the reason why it's so important to know as much detail as possible at the very beginning.”

“I'm just saying that for me it's a matter of getting your fingers on what you can and cannot do from a legal viewpoint . . . . You have to know what's possible. Architecture is not a question of the purely theoretical if you're interested in building buildings. It's the art of what is possible.”

A sketch by Paul Rudolph, in which he’s working out the design of a hallway within Burroughs Wellcome. This sort of drawing shows another aspect of the architect’s working method: the section is sketched adjacent to the plan, and at the same scale (so that both can be well coordinated). At top right one can clearly see part of the plan layout, including rooms and what appear to be laboratory benches. © The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation.

At Burroughs Wellcome—which functioned as not only a corporate headquarters, but as also an active pharmaceutical research center with extensive laboratories and testing facilitates (where Nobel Prize winning work was conducted!)—Rudolph would have received a careful listing of the functions that the 300,000 square foot building had to accommodate, including the approximate sq. ft. area needed for each. Sometimes programs also indicate significant “adjacencies” (what specific spaces need to be nearby each other).

Just as important (as the above “material” needs) are the intangible ones: what the project means to the client, and what it will communicate. Significance and symbolism: they’re as much part of the program as the list of required rooms. It’s not always easy to determine this, and clients are generally not used to articulating such matters. As Rudolph states, it’s important to find out..

“…what it is the owner truly wants to do— but he doesn't necessarily tell you, you have to read between the lines— and what should be done ideally.”

ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN: THE GRAND SYNTHESIS

It is at this point that the mystery truly begins. The architect creates an overall concept for the building’s organization: the “parti”—and with it will be the architect’s most central decisions about the building’s placement on the site, the organization of the plan, and the shaping of spaces and volumes—along with concepts about which structural system and what materials are to be used.

Looking over the architect’s shoulder—in the process of creation? Here Paul Rudolph is photographed working at his drawing board in his New Haven office, with members of his staff in the background.

How this happens—the very process of creation—is one of the great human questions, whether it be examined in the context of painting, music, literature, or architecture. Some architects refuse even to talk about it, claiming it’s a very intimate matter (and likely, one they don’t even quite understand themselves.) Some are prolix in their explanations, offering either theoretical, meat-and-potatoes, or poetic rationales for what they do. At the other end of the spectrum are “functionalist” architects like Hannes Meyer (who, for several years, was director of the Bauhaus): he claimed that arriving at design solutions was like solving an a mathematical problem, and he offered a stark equation: Function x Economy = Architecture. Rudolph repudiated such such an extreme position, saying:

All I'm really saying is that the most rational architect in the world is not to be trusted at all because there is no such thing as true rationalism when you are speaking of architecture.

Rudolph himself acknowledged the mystery of the phenomena of creation:

“In terms of how one goes about designing anything, you don't really know, or at least I don't know, until after the fact. There are so many elements that come into play that if you wait to figure out what it is you truly want to do once you have a project to work on there won't be enough time. You have to, as I see it, have a reservoir of things that you feel should be done and then you draw on that reservoir and hopefully apply elements from that reservoir in an intelligent fashion. . . . . You can have one hundred reasons why you do things after the fact.”

“I can say that in spite of all the rationalizations that architects go through, including myself, you can pay no attention to what architects say, you can only pay attention to what they do.”

Because architecture must deal with very practical issues—from space needs -to- the structural capacity of steel—the truth about the nature of architectural creation would necessarily be a merging of the functional and the artistic ways of solving problems. Beyond that, the essential nature of the “synthetic leap” is conjectural (though the topic of design creativity has been an area of ongoing serious research.)

ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN: DEVELOPMENT

Burroughs Wellcome allows us to see another aspect of architectural creation: “design development.”

Architects use “development” in a different sense than is used in the real estate field. Architecturally, it means taking the designer’s original conception of the building and working out the particulars.

A section sketch drawing, by Paul Rudolph, showing him in the process of designing the canopy for the main entrance to the Burroughs Wellcome building. A good example of design development, the drawing shows how Rudolph was working out his idea about the shaping of the space and volumes—yet simultaneously thinking through the structure (steel beams and possibly steel joists are shown), scale (his placement of figures), choice of materials, and key dimensions. His use of color, to indicate different materials and planes, is part of the language of architectural drawing which extends back to the 18th century. © The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation.

For example: it’s not enough that the architect might have started out by envisioning a lobby with cantilevered balconies, supported by a steel structure. In the design development phase, the exact heights, projection, angles, and materials of those balconies would begin to be thought through (including their relationship to the building’s structure.)

Below is Rudolph’s perspective- section rendering through the Burroughs Wellcome building and site:

Paul Rudolph’s perspective-section rendering through Burroughs Wellcome, cutting though the main entry lobby, and showing the building’s relation to the site. © The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation.

In the middle of it, he shows one of the building’s most famous features— it’s entry lobby:

Enlargement of a portion of Paul Rudolph’s perspective-section through the Burroughs Wellcome building, focusing in on the main entry lobby. © The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation.

Clearly, he already—even at this stage—has a thorough conception the layout and features of this lobby. In this rendering one can see important features, including: the stepped volumes at the right side of of the second floor’s balcony, the steps and platforms in the foreground and in the distance, the beam crossing from one side of the third floor’s balcony to the other, and the angled columns.

And in the actual, built space—

Burroughs Wellcome’s main entry lobby. Image courtesy of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, photograph by G. E. Kidder Smith

—these aspects of the design were almost exactly carried out.

Enlarging a portion of that section-perspective rendering reveals that Rudolph was already thinking about the structural aspects of the building—and not just the diagonal columns. Below you can see that the section cuts through steel beams—and, allowing for perspective, that steel-work would have framed directly into the diagonal vertical structure.

Close-up of Paul Rudolph’s perspective-section through the Burroughs Wellcome building, here focusing in on the main lobby’s third floor balconies. © The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation

One might imagine that, for an architect of Rudolph’s vast experience, inclusion of such structural elements in a rendering (and placing them in the right locations) would be almost intuitive. Perhaps—so for a clearer example of development, let’s look at what happens when the Burroughs Wellcome building section needs to move in the direction of constructable drawings.

Close-up of Paul Rudolph’s perspective-section rendering of Burroughs Wellcome, focusing on the main body of the building and its entry lobby. © The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation

Above is an enlargement of the main body of the building’s section-perspective. It’s beautiful to look at, and Rudolph’s legendary skill as a perspectivist pulls us in, fascinated by the forms he’s chosen and the rich ways he’s depicted them.

But this is where design development begins: those forms and spaces need to be exactly defined and dimensioned, materials need to be specified, and the relationship of all the parts needs to be coordinated with precision (including with the structural system). Below is the a drawing, from Rudolph’s office, which does this: it’s filled with notes, dimensions, and shows the relationship of the section to adjacent parts of the building which are beyond. This development will then lead to more drawings—which contain even more construction information (including final details)

Section drawing, through main entrance, of the Burroughs Wellcome building. © The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation.

ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN: CARE IN THE DETAILS

When someone refers to “details,” they are usually peaking of the smallest (or least important) aspects of a project or situation—and the use of the term is often dismissive. But in architecture, the opposite is true: the “details” are intensely important. When architects say “details,” they mean the particular ways that the parts (and assemblies of parts) and materials of a building are selected, shaped, located, and connected together.

Rudolph’s attention to the detail was comprehensive, and even extended to the drainage channels (which he used to form striking angled lines on the building’s exterior), aligning them with the window divisions (“muntins”) and designing a ground-level concrete element (“splash block”) that further carried out the linear theme. Photograph © PJ McDonnell, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation Archives

This can extend to from things that occupants would hardly ever notice (like how waterproofing materials are positioned), to things they directly see and engage with daily (like the design of railings, elevator buttons, and even the choice of typeface for the building address numbers.) These visual elements may, in themselves, be small—-but cumulatively they convey a sense that the building was designed with thoroughness and unflagging attention. It shows that the architect cared, and that each decision (whether it be about the shape of a stair nosing or the tint of the windows) is consistent with an overall vision for the building. [And if such care is not exercised, even a new building can convey a sense of disheartening sloppiness.]

Rudolph cared.

He learned this not only from his teachers, like Gropius (the drawings for whose projects are detailed with surprising care), but also from the beginning of his practice, when he had to become inventive with inexpensive materials in order to work within modest construction budgets. And of course, Mies van der Rohe—one of the titans of Modernism—had a famous saying that all architects knew well: “God is in the details.”

A building’s construction set, which includes drawings of all the details, occupies a large part of an architect’s (and their staff’s) attention. This can mean generating dozens (and for some very complex buildings: hundreds) of drawings. It’s a challenge to maintain the architect’s original “vision” of the building, so that it does not get distorted or diluted in the course of creating the construction documents from which it will be built.

A CASE STUDY: DETAILS AT BURROUGHS WELLCOME

At Burroughs Welcome, we can follow an example of the care which Rudolph and his team brought to the details.

Below-left is reproduced the right side of Rudolph’s perspective-section through Burroughs Wellcome. In it we can see that the edges of the floors typically terminate in a set of continuous architectural elements: a band of angled windows, a band of angled skylights, and a band of angled portions of the exterior wall.

Below-right is an enlargement of the uppermost example of that floor-window-wall-skylight assembly. The architect, in doing the construction drawings, will be concerned about each juncture:

• Where the top of the skylight meets the building (in this case: there’s a small upright, at the end of the floor, at the top of the skylight—possibly forming a rainwater drainage channel.)

• The bottom of the skylight, where it meets the top of the angled wall.

• The bottom of the angled wall, where it meets the top of the angled window.

• The bottom of the window, where it meets the angled skylight of the next floor down.

Left: a portion of Rudolph’s section-perspective, showing the the right side of the building. Above: an enlargement of one of the assemblies at the edge of the uppermost floor. It includes the angled skylight, angled exterior wall, and angled window. Both drawings © The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation.

Exactly how each one of these adjacencies (architects’ term for them is: “conditions”) is to be detailed is one of the great challenges of an architect’s practice—especially if they care that the details are consistent with (and supportive of) their original vision for the building.

In working out the details, an architect will not only be conscious of their general concept for the building, but they will simultaneously be focused on a large number of practical questions, such as:

• Can these conditions be made waterproof?

• Is there sufficient thermal insulation?

• Are the proposed materials available?

• Will building this assembly fit within the construction budget?

• Can the proposed arrangement be built by available construction methods?

• Does the proposed design allow for regular maintenance to be performed?

• If something needs replacement(like a window pane), can it be easily repaired?

• Will the materials age well?

And—-

• If any of the above presents a problem, what alternatives can be devised (which will not violate the architect’s overall conception for the building)?

Below is one sheet from the extensive set of construction drawings that Rudolph and his office prepared for the Burroughs Wellcome building—and it shows the very assembly we’ve been considering!

Detail of inclined window and skylight section and construction details, from the set of construction drawings prepared by Paul Rudolph and his office for the Burroughs Wellcome building. © The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation

Below is an enlargement of the right side of that drawing. It goes into great detail about all of the adjacencies (from top-to-bottom: roof to skylight; skylight to wall; wall to window, and window to skylight.) Materials, dimensions, connections, required features, and relationships to other parts of the building are noted with thoroughness.

But even that is not sufficient. To get the building built—in the way the architect envisioned it—even more information needs to be provided to the contractor.

An enlargement of a portion of the above drawing, focusing on the inclined window and skylight. The circled area indicates the areas of the assembly where the glazing meets the building’s walls—and those adjacencies are worked-out in great detail below, in a sheet from the same set set of construction drawings.© The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation

The great English architect, Sir Edwin Lutyens, said construction drawings were like “a writing letter to the builder” telling him what to do. For Burroughs Wellcome, even more detail had to be put into Rudolph’s “letter” to the contractor—and within the the area we’ve circled (above) are three conditions that needed to be magnified further, in order to really show how they’re to be built.

Below is the drawing which resulted—another sheet in the construction set. These details are drawn-full size, and show precisely the shapes, configurations, materials, and dimensions of every component—metalwork, structure, glass, waterproofing, drainage channel, glazing gaskets, connectors, and even an anchor for the window washer—needed to make the assembly buildable, and practical for ongoing life of he building.

Inclined window and skylight construction details, from the set of constuction drawings prepared by Paul Rudolph and his office for the Burroughs Wellcome building. © The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation.

Rudolph himself recognized the challenge of doing thorough construction drawings (including the detailing)—and the consequences if the challenge is not met and the vision is lost:

“Architecture is a personal effort, and the fewer people coming between you and your work the better. … This is a very real problem, and you can only stretch one man so far. The heart can fall right out of a building during the production of working drawings, and sometimes you would not even recognize your own building unless you followed it through.”

All that work, all that thinking, all that time—just to get the details right.

Easy? No. Important? Supremely! Did Rudolph do it? Absolutely!

SAVE BURROUGHS WELLCOME !

Losing Burroughs Wellcome would be a cultural disaster—a titanic loss to our country’s cultural heritage.

When a great building is destroyed, there are no second chances.

FOR NOW, THERE ARE TWO THINGS YOU CAN DO:

• Sign the petition to save Burroughs Wellcome. You can sign it here.

• We’ll send you bulletins about the latest developments. To get them, please join our foundation’s mailing list: you’ll get all the updates, (as well as other Rudolphian news.)—you can sign up at the bottom of this page.

Models were also part of Rudolph’s design process. This would be a “presentation model”—shown to the client for their final approval, as well as for the corporate leadership to use to communicate about the project to stakeholders and the public. But “alumni”—former staff members of his office—have also told us that Rudolph also used models to develop his designs. © The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation.

Burroughs Wellcome was a pharmaceutical company, whose corporate symbol was a unicorn. In Rudolph’s model of the building (at left), he proposed a large unicorn sculpture as part of the main entrance plaza. It did not work out to include that sculpture—so Rudolph developed and distilled the idea. What he came up with (and got built) is a prominent flagpole, angled and pointed to evoke a unicorn’s horn—a brilliant feature and detail.