We need to fight harder to protect the future of our past

FROM AN EXAMPLE OF CORPORATE PRIDE AND CUTTING EDGE RESEARCH—

—TO DEMOLITION BY NEGLECT AND MISINFORMATION.

The Burroughs Wellcome Building is no more.

• One of America’s most forward-looking buildings, an icon of design, and -

• the site of Nobel Prize-winning and life-saving research, and -

• a research center designed for growth - a feature so appreciated by the client that they brought the architect back (three times!) to expand the building, and -

• a building made, inside and out, to inspire and foster innovation, and -

• a design so striking that it was used as sets for film and television, and -

• a landmark of its region and state, and -

• one of architect Paul Rudolph’s largest creations -

—is gone.

Modern architecture is part of America’s cultural legacy - and buildings designed by Paul Rudolph are among some of the best examples of the our architectural achievements: Rudolph’s architecture simultaneously displays practical innovation, creative exuberance, spatial richness, and symbolic depth.

Built as Burroughs Wellcome’s US headquarters and research center (and a prominent landmark within North Carolina’s Research Triangle Park), the building was praised by the company leadership which commissioned it:

“This building is an exciting and ingenious combination of forms [in which] one discovers new and different qualities of forms and spaces . . . a splendid climate for scientific scholarship and for the exchange of ideas.” — Fred A. Coe Jr., President of Burroughs Wellcome

and was hailed by:

• architectural historians

• architectural critics

• heritage preservation organizations

• and—most meaningfully, by the people who worked there:

“. . . .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]. . . 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.”

United Therapeutics - the current owner of the site - had asserted that a significant portion of the building would be restored and reused, but - despite Burroughs Wellcome’s important history and innovative design - they decided to demolish the structure without discussion. So little discussion, that local preservation groups we reached out to about the demolition permit thought it must be for an anticipated asbestos abatement. Wholesale demolition was not considered a possibility.

When supporters learned of its impending demolition, there was enough people trying to see it that security had to push an existing fence farther from it to hide the destruction from the public. People we spoke to who tried to photograph the building were threatened by security guards with trespassing and had photos deleted from their cameras.

PROTECTING THE FUTURE OF THE PAST

Burroughs Wellcome, a significant work of architecture, is now permanently, irretrievably lost. This puts a spotlight on the need to protect America’s cultural heritage—and that includes this country’s great buildings.

The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation and other organizations are engaged in that fight to preserve our past.

The destruction of Burroughs Wellcome led the United States chapter of the international preservation organization Docomomo to create The Advocacy Fund:

As part of our #ModernLove campaign, and in response to the recent demolition of Burroughs Wellcome, Docomomo US is announcing the creation of a new initiative: The Advocacy Fund. Gifts to this new initiative will go directly to critical advocacy efforts and will support local and national work.

Modern Love means many things to us: it means celebrating iconic sites like the Ford Foundation Center for Social Justice that received a 2020 Modernism in America Award of Excellence; it means fighting for significant sites like the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden; and it means avoiding the loss of significant buildings like Burroughs Wellcome designed by Paul Rudolph that was demolished earlier this year because it lacked appropriate preservation protections.

With your support, Docomomo US can provide assistance to local advocates and campaigns, participate in local and national preservation review meetings including the Section 106 process, and continue to speak out on the issues that concern you the most.

If the loss of the Burroughs Wellcome building makes you angry, please consider donating to the Advocacy Fund. All gifts up to $10,000 will be matched by the Docomomo US Board of Directors!

Buildings by Rudolph—among the world’s most significant works of Modern architecture—are continually threatened with demolition or abuse. Vigilance and advocacy is needed.

We are committed to urging, advising, and campaigning for the preservation (and proper care) of PAUL RUDOLPH’s architectural legacy.

Please give to the Advocacy Fund to preserve the richness of Paul Rudolph’s contributions—and to show:

Demolition is never the answer.

FROM AN ICON OF AMERICAN DESIGN —

— TO DEMOLITION DEBRIS.

And if you see something going on at a Rudolph site—that a building may be threatened, or is not maintained, or is about to be marred by an insensitive ‘update’ - please let us know (we’re easy to contact.)

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IMAGE CREDITS:

Top photograph of the Burroughs Wellcome Building: image courtesy of the Joseph W. Molitor architectural photographs collection, located in Columbia University, Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Department of Drawings & Archives; Photographs of the Burroughs Wellcome building, in the process of demolition: photography by news photojournalist Robert Willett, as they appeared in a January 12, 2021 on-line article in the Raleigh, NC based newspaper The News & Observer; Perspective-section drawing, by Paul Rudolph, through the main body of the Burroughs Wellcome building: © The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation

Adding To Our Knowledge of Paul Rudolph: his 1994 interview with Zak Ghanim

Paul Rudolph (left) with Zak Ghanim (right) during the 1994 interview at Rudolph’s Beekman Place home-office in NYC.

THE HISTORICAL MISSION

The mission of the Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation is to spread knowledge about the profound legacy of Paul Rudolph, and to preserve the work of this great and internationally-important 20th century architect - and we do accomplish this in many ways, including:

• Education

• Advocating for preservation

• Actively engaging with the scholars, students, and journalists

• Publications

• Encouraging the proper care and stewardship of Rudolph-designed buildings

And— some of our most rewarding activities involve historical research. Rudolph, across a half-century career (and hundreds of projects), created an enormous body of work. Moreover he was involved in a variety of other activities (education, writing, travel, research, entrepreneurship…). While Rudolph left a large body of documents, and several important books have been written about him, we still find that that numerous questions emerge—and the mysteries are compounded by gaps in the records. So we become detectives (which is part of a historian’s role): seeking out clues that lead to further insights and facts about Paul Rudolph. When we find another a new facet of Rudolph’s work and thought (another “piece of the puzzle”), we’re thrilled.

That is why we were happy to discover an interview with him, one which we were not aware of until recently. It was conducted in 1994 (a few years before Rudolph’s passing in 1997), at Paul Rudolph’s “Quadruplex” residence-office on Beekman Place in New York City.

At the time of the interview, Paul Rudolph was still very active, with several projects underway (especially in Asia)—but, at age 78, he also had a long-view perspective on his life and career, and ZAK GHANIM, the interviewer, was able to elicit some fascinating comments from Rudolph. The fact that Mr. Ghanim is an architect, with an active practice of his own, no doubt enhanced his ability to question Rudolph with the insight of a fellow professional.

Architect Zak Ghanim—who conducted this insightful interview with Rudolph.

THE INTERVIEWER: ARCHITECT ZAK GHANIM

Zak Ghanim is an award-winning architect, urban planner, interior designer, illustrator, writer, lecturer, editor and journalist. He was born in Egypt and received his degree in Architecture from Alexandria University. His office is based in Toronto, and he has produced over 1,000 international projects---including in the domains of commercial, hospitality, religious, retail, and residential design, as well as community centers and factories.

He has received awards from a variety of distinguished organizations—and his projects have appeared on the covers of numerous publications, and featured in international newspapers, periodicals and books—as well as having been in exhibitions and featured on television shows and primetime news.

Mr. Ghanim is in the process of publishing two books: New Visions on Architecture (which will include this interview with Paul Rudolph), and Travel Photography: a collection of architectural and artistic images photographed by him in over 5 continents. The full text of his books—as well as his comprehensive design portfolio—can be found on Mr. Ghanim’s website, which you can see here.

We are grateful to Zak Ghanim for giving us permission to share his interview with Rudolph, and to include it as part of our documentary archive.

GHANIM ON ARCHITECTURE aND INTERVIEWS

In the introduction to his book of interviews of architects, New Visions on Architecture, Mr. Ghanim offers some insights on his interest in architecture and intentions for the interviews—and here are several excerpts:

“Since my early undergraduate years, I have been fascinated with the work of the masters of architecture. I have tried to comprehend how they evolved their ideas and opinions, where they drew all that creativity from, and how can an ambitious young designer be a part of that process.”

“Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe had all made their marks in the early 20th Century, but now their disciples must come forth and develop their own styles. It is time for the new generation to stand on a higher plateau. Our needs have altered and our understanding of nature's role in architecture has been redefined. As lifestyles, change so do values, both artistically and socially.”

“As we come to the dawn of a new century, I wanted to present the words of these leaders to everyone who is interested in art and architecture, so that they can understand where the future of architecture is taking us. It has become more evident that the ordinary person on the street is concerned and intrigued with the role of architects. I feel by committing their words to paper, many can gain an insight into their creativity and understand the discipline and aspiration that it takes to become a pioneer in a specific domain.”

EXCERPTS FROM THE INTERVIEW

The interview covers many aspects of Paul Rudolph’s life and career, and below are several examples of Zak Ghanim’s questions and Rudolph’s responses:

ZAK GHANIM:  YOUR FATHER WAS A METHODIST MINISTER, DID THIS HAVE AN EFFECT ON YOUR ARCHITECTURE AS BEING CONSERVATIVE, PRAGMATIC OR DISCIPLINED?

PAUL RUDOLPH:  Most definitely. When I was six years old, my father built a church and of course an Architect was involved. When I saw his drawings and models, I knew instantly it was for me, and I have never changed my mind.

Z.G.  SO, YOU ALWAYS WANTED TO BE AN ARCHITECT?

P.R.  I had no choice, I was very lucky. If someone asked me should he/she be an architect, I would say, you cannot teach people to be talented, you cannot teach people to design by showing what others have done, you can only clarify principles, but you cannot really teach youth to be designers. I have always been able to draw easily, since I was a child, and still do.

* * *

Z.G.  WHAT KIND OF EXPERIENCE DID YOU GAIN FROM THE BROOKLYN NAVY?

P.R.  Apparently, you did some homework. They thought they could make a Naval Architect out of me, in four months, by sending me to M.I.T. for a ridiculous course. I found myself in charge of 300 people making repairs to destroyers in the Brooklyn Naval Yard. That was some fantastic experience. I saw how a very large organization went about dividing its work. Trying to utilize talents of a person was of the utmost importance, I could understand drawings while other people could not, and I began to understand the relationship between the administration and the people who were building, so I really had a fantastic job.

* * *

Z.G.  BACK IN 1954, YOU WERE AWARDED THE TITLE OF "OUTSTANDING YOUNG ARCHITECT" AT THE INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION HELD IN SAO PAULO IN BRAZIL, THAT MUST HAD A THRILL FOR YOU AT YOUR EARLY STAGE OF YOUR PROFESSION.

P.R.  Not only was it a thrill, it helped me financially.

Z.G.  WHAT WAS THE BASIS OF YOUR SELECTION?

P.R.  I entered that completion with the design of the Walker guest house that was built in Sanibel Island, Florida back in 1953. It was a 24 by 24 foot wooden house. It had three 8 by 8 foot bays. One of glass, the other two clad with solid panels. There was an arcade around the outside of the house to support the panels. These panels changed the interior space from a cozy room, in terms of closure and light, to a wide-open pavilion.

* * *

Z.G.  IN YOUR EARLY CAREER, YOU SPENT SOME TIME IN EUROPE, THROUGH A SCHOLARSHIP. WHAT KIND OF IMPACT DID THIS HAVE ON YOU?

P.R.  The United States was built in the nineteenth century, and has never been strong in terms of Urbanism. The U.S. is essentially based on eclecticism, where Europe is the exact opposite. The strength of Urbanism in Europe to this day is fantastic. You could not believe the effect which European Cities had on me. I began to understand that architecture is about Urbanism, that the small must be related to the large and vice versa, that you cannot ignore the environment. I began to understand the importance of the relationship between the vehicular architecture and the so-called high style architecture, the importance of building types, the relationship of transportation of all kinds to the city. I understood that the chariot entrance to the Acropolis was formed absolutely beautifully in relationship to the pedestrian entrance. Until today, we have not learned how to relate our automobile, which is our chariot, to the vehicular system in this country. We build the ugliest cities in the world and this is so painful, because I do not think it has to be that way.

* * *

Z.G.  BUT YOU STUDIED UNDER GROPIUS WHO BELIEVED IN COLLABORATION IN DESIGN.

P.R.  I do not work with other designers, but I do believe in that concept, because for many people it may be the only way they can work. Gropius himself would be the first one to say there are many ways for teamwork; it's a question of what you mean by teamwork. If there is a team of architectural designers, goodbye, but if the architect teams up with a structural engineer, a mechanical engineer, an acoustical engineer, an electrical engineer, a geographer, an economist and so on, but not five architectural designers. You see, Gropius believed that through discussions, one could reach a clarification and a higher level of understanding, but then I say if that is true, I believe it depends on who you are discussing things with. It is a very complicated issue. I make no bones about what I do, I know what I do well and what I don't do well. I just want to be used in a good way, that's all.

* * *

Z.G.  I UNDERSTAND THAT YOU WERE NOT HAPPY WITH THE FINAL LOOK OF THE MARY COOPER JEWETT ARTS CENTRE FOR WELLESLEY COLLEGE, WELLESLEY, MASSACHUSETTS BACK IN 1955. WHY IS THAT?

P.R.  In the U.S. architects tend to think that the nineteenth century has spilled over into the twentieth century, and that one should build only twentieth century architecture. I am very proud that this building was part of the very beautiful campus, and one had to say it was built in this century. That was the basic notion. In other words, I am talking about urbanism, which I did not really learn in school. I am a great believer that education is based on many things. In any event the idea of adding a 20th century building to a Gothic campus created a form of space, kind of Acropolis, looking down south to the lake. If I were to have the same commission today, I would do it the same way, in principle. The thing I feel inferior about the building, has to do with the interior space, which was not developed exactly the way I wanted. Regardless, in my opinion, Wellesley College was one of the first buildings that tried to marry the new and the old United States.

* * *

Z.G.  WHAT DID YOU CONTRIBUTE AS A CHAIRMAN OF YALE SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE?

P.R.  I do not know if I made any contribution. I patterned my eight years there very much after Gropius, not stylistically but in principle. What Gropius basically said, was that architecture, in the real sense of the word, is a means by which people express their aspiration. In that sense, we really are servants to society. I genuinely believe that things are constantly changing, and that is based on the series of principals that we started speaking of. I tried to teach that architectural space is what determines, any project whether religious, governmental or housing, and that scale is of the utmost importance, especially in terms of Urbanism.

* * *

Z.G.  I WOULD LIKE TO HEAR YOUR OPINION ABOUT THE LATEST TRENDS IN ARCHITECTURE; POST- MODERNISM, DECONSTRUCTION....

P.R.  The only thing I like about Post-Modernism is its light interest in urbanism, but it is far too nostalgic and stylish. If you had a bunch of Cape Cod cottages, according to Post-Modernism, the only thing to do is to build more cape cod cottage. I don't believe in this, I am totally against Post- Modernism, as conceptually seen, other than what little it has to say about urbanism. Modernism does not have all the answers, I do not think it does, but it tends to address this century's problems, and has within its concepts a great many possible solutions.

* * *

Z.G.  HOW DO YOU LIKE THE AT&T BUILDING?

P.R.  No comment.

* * *

Z.G.  FOR THE PAST EIGHTEEN YEARS YOU HAVE BEEN DEALING WITH DIFFERENT INTERNATIONAL PROJECTS. WHAT KIND OF EXPERIENCE DID YOU OBTAIN FROM SUCH INVOLVEMENT?

P.R.  I have been working mostly in South East Asia, and I have found that very rewarding on many levels. The attitudes are very different from the United States. It is also the idea that the labor is still relatively very inexpensive, and what I want to do is very labor intensive. The Pacific Rim is in its most important stage economically, but artistically it is not very clearly defined yet. I think it will be soon.

* * *

Z.G.  HOW DO YOU VISUALISE THE FUTURE OF CONTEMPORARY ARCHITECTURE? ARE WE GOING IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION?

P.R.  First of all, do you see that each new trend cancels out the other, and leaves you with nothing. I really, honestly believe in movements that add to urbanism or add some dimensions to human life. Then I am for it, but if I do not see that, then I am against it. I feel sad about things right now, but I also feel very hopeful. Many false paths have been perceived, and I believe the problems that one sees everywhere will not go away. Architects right now, as I see, tend to solve or address themselves to problems which are fine in terms of magazines, but have nothing to do with human needs or aspirations.

* * *

Z.G.  YOU PRODUCED SOME OF THE MOST METICULOUS AND ORDERLY DETAILED BLACK AND WHITE COLLECTION OF PERSPECTIVES. HOW MUCH WERE YOU PERSONALLY INVOLVED IN THE PRODUCING OF THOSE RENDERINGS?

P.R.  When I was very young, I personally drew every line. In many ways those are the only drawings which I like. Then I became very busy, and what I would do perspective and almost everything in pencil, then I had staff to fill in certain passages. But when it came a matter of gradation, I would always do that, and when it was a matter of hatching, someone else could do that. So I always had some assistance.

* * *

Z.G.  WHAT IS ON THE DRAFTING BOARD NOW?

P.R.  I am still working in South East Asia and Hong Kong. I don't know why, but I have a bunch of projects I'm working on, a total of six private homes and a small office building in Indonesia. An office building in Singapore, also I'm working on a town in Indonesia.

Z.G.  HOW ABOUT THE US?

P.R.  One house!

THE COMPLETE INTERVIEW

The complete text of Zak Ghanim’s interview with Paul Rudolph can be found at the Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation’s ARTICLES & WRITINGS page (which has a large collection of written resources on and by Rudolph)—and a direct link to the full interview is here.

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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:

Photos of Zak Ghanim interviewing Paul Rudolph: courtesy of Mr. Zak Ghanim; Photo of Zak Ghanim: courtesy of Mr. Zak Ghanim.

Celebrating EERO SAARINEN

Saarinen’s “Tulip Chair”—part of the “Pedestal Group” of furniture which included designs for tables and other forms of seating. These designs—these objects—became icons of Modern design in the Mid-20th Century.

Saarinen’s St. Louis Gateway Arch—the winner of a design competition held in 1947. A feat of design, engineering, and construction, it is sheathed in stainless-steel and was completed in 1965, rising to 630 feet.

EERO SAARINEN (August 20. 1910 - September 1, 1961)

This week, we celebrate the birthday of a profound shaper of Modern Architecture:

EERO SAARINEN

EERO SAARINEN (Aug. 20. 1910 - Sept. 1, 1961) was a creator at every scale—an architect concerned with all aspects of a design, from the most subtle shaping of a mullion -to- the overall form of a national monument -to- the user experience of airline passengers -to- the planning of entire academic, research, and corporate campuses.

At one end of the scale: his furniture—as exemplified by the Tulip Chair (part of the “Pedestal Series”, shown above)—was not only practical and comfortable, but also became iconic in creating the Modern interior.

At the other end of the scale: he was unparalleled in his ability to create shapes that were meaningful and appropriate for each challenge—-often expressing the spirit of an energetic, optimistic, upward-bound, “can do” era of America. This is reflected in the Gateway Arch-Jefferson Expansion National Memorial (above), and his TWA Flight Center in New York and Washington Dulles International Airport (both below).

Eero Saarinen’s TWA Flight Center, the airline’s terminal at JFK Airport: even when under construction—as shown here—it shows the drama of it’s conception.

Dulles International Airport—the main airport for Washington. Here too, one can see his skill at creating forms and spaces which combine function and drama.

The skylit interior of the Chapel at MIT. The suspended metal screen behind the altar is by Harry Bertoia (1915-1978), a prominent artist and furniture designer.

Yet for projects that would be better served by a different level of formal and spatial energy, Saarinen was just as adept at creating environments of a quieter kind, evoking reverence and serenity—and his Chapel at MIT would be a prime example. Further—to the extent that research can be a contemplative activity—this could said to be true of the several corporate research centers designed for Bell Labs, General Motors, and IBM.

The buildings mentioned are among Eero Saarinen’s “greatest hits”—the ones for which he is most well-known (the quality of work whose character got him on the cover of TIME Magazine in 1956).

Eero Saarinen died unexpectedly young: he was only 51—and it is interesting to speculate what Saarinen would have produced if he’d been able to practice for two-or-three additional decades. Some architecture critics complained about his fluid and mutable approach to solving design challenges (a quality that is also manifest in the work of a number of creative architects, from John Nash -to- Bruce Goff -to- Paul Rudolph). But in essence what they said was true: Saarinen could never quite be pinned-down to a particular “style”. So we can’t say what he’d have produced—but, we could predict that (had he a another two-dozen years to work) he would have created many more memorable designs.

SAARINEN’S FINAL DESIGN ?

For Eero Saarinen, the project is an airport terminal—his final one: a large facility for Athens, Greece. He was already quite famous for his other airport designs—TWA and Dulles. Yet this project is one of his least-known—and that is strangely so, as it was a sizable building, on a prominent site, and one which was completed and in full use for several decades.

ELLINIKON INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

Ellinikon (or Hellinikon) International Airport was originally built in 1938, and for 63 years served as the major airport of Athens (being later replaced by the the new Athens International Airport). It was a busy complex: just before the airport’s 2001 closure, it had recorded a 15.6% growth rate over its previous year, serving 13.5 million passengers per year and handled 57 airlines flying to 87 destinations.

An aerial view of the airport, with Mount Hymettus in background. Saarinen designed one of the airport’s two terminals.

The airport had two terminals: the West Terminal for Olympic Airways; and the East Terminal for all other carriers. The East Terminal building was designed by Eero Saarinen (just before his unexpected passing in 1961), and it opened in 1969.

SAARINEN: ON THE WAY TO A DESIGN

Saarinen’s proposed design was covered by major architectural magazines. But, before looking at Saarinen’s presentation model and drawings, it’s worth considering his thinking as revealed in his sketches. Below are several that are in the collection of the Canadian Centre for Architecture (the CCA), and they show some of the directions which Saarinen was exploring.

The Canadian Centre for Architecture (the CCA) has a collection of drawings by Saarinen and his office, illustrating the development of several of his projects. Above is a screen-grab from their web-page which shows some of their Saarinen drawings for the Athens Airport. At the lower-left is his sketch of the Parthenon—showing, we suspect, part of his process by which Saarinen was attempting to assimilate the spirit of the country’s most famous building. In the center (upper and lower) are drawings whose sectional profiles are reminiscent of the silhouette of Saarinen’s Dulles Airport—-though the Athens sections show an interior development that is different from the “one room” space of Dulles. The upper-left drawing and the ones at the right (upper and lower), and some of the sketches in the upper-center drawing, show a columnar rhythm that is resonant with the spirit of the Greek temple colonnades. Of this set of sketches, the top-most drawing, at the upper-left, is closest to the airport building’s final design.

A sketch by Eero Saarinen for the Athens airport terminal—done on yellow legal pad paper—a design is close to the final version of the building.

Architects are frequent owners of sketchbooks - but when an architect is suddenly inspired, or needs to quickly communicate their idea to another person, sometimes they’ll grab any paper at hand. [The archive of the Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation has examples of Rudolph doing just that: we’ve found sketches on every kind of paper and document.].

In books on Eero Saarinen, it is interesting to come across his first sketch of the TWA terminal—drawn on a menu. The design sketch for Yale’s Ingalls Hockey Rink is even more well known: not only for its sweeping curved lines (which were carried-over to the building’s final design)—but also for the medium: it was sketched on a piece of yellow legal-pad paper. Perhaps that was one of Saarinen’s favorite mediums, for it also served for one of his sketches for the Athens airport terminal (shown at right)—and this sketch is very close to the design that was used for presentation drawings and models.

THE PREVALENCE OF A PARTI

Eero Saarinen was not alone in using this type of composition. Nor was he the only one to turn-to regularly-spaced rows of columns to give a building a sense of classical dignity. In the very same August 1962 issue of Architectural Record (in which Saarinen’s Athens terminal appeared) there was a news story about Minoru Yamasaki’s design for the Woodrow Wilson School building, to be built on the Princeton University campus.

The Woodrow Wilson School building (Robertson Hall) for Princeton University, by Minoru Yamasaki—as it appeared in a news story in the same issue of Architectural Record as the article on Saarinen’s Athens terminal design.

The similarities between the two building concepts are striking. This “Colonnade and Roof” (or “Colonnade and Attic”) combination was named, remarked upon, and illustrated in Arthur Drexler’s 1979 Museum of Modern Art exhibition and book: “Transformations In Modern Architecture.” Drexler showed two pages of examples, including the Wilson School (and you can find a copy the full catalog here.)

Both Saarinen and Yamasaki (and the others whose work Drexler showed) were turning to a classic parti which they knew had the power to express what they felt was appropriate to the building’s type and context. This composition’s use in Yamasaki’s project sought to evoke the dignity of government and be sensitive to the vintage campus setting; its use in Saarinen’s project resonated with Greece’s architectural heritage—and Saarinen specifically referenced that when describing his design.

THE DESIGN AS PRESENTED

The August 1962 issues of both Progressive Architecture and Architectural Record had articles about the design. Both articles described the building’s goals, strategies for handling practical aspects of this kind of project (especially circulation), key statistics, and the architect’s intentions—and were illustrated by images of the model, as well as plan, section and rendering drawings.

Progressive Architecture’s coverage of the Athens terminal design led-off with a photo of the model.

Architectural Record’s opening of their coverage included quotes from Eero Saarinen on his goals for the project.

A longitudinal section through the building. From the land, passengers would arrive on the Left (driving through and stopping under a covered area.) The air field would be toward the Right. The large, cantilevered portion of the building (it’s slab-like “hat” volume, which provides protective shade for the areas below) is at the Upper-Right.

The following passages are from the two articles, and from the architect:

Two more views of the Athens terminal architectural model, produced by Saarinen’s team. TOP: The building as seen from the land side (roadways for arriving and departing cars are in the foreground). BOTTOM: a view of the building as seen from the airfield.

From Architectural Record:

The final design for the terminal building for Athens Airport was presented to the Greek Government by Eero Saarinen in May 1961, less than four months before his death on September 1, and was accepted. . . .

In form, the terminal building is essentially two boxes, directly expressing the interior volumes ; the lower one (260 ft long by 240 ft wide by 20 ft high) contains all functions concerned with arrivals and departures and passenger handling; the upper one (250 ft long by 120 ft wide by 10 ft high) cantilevers out above the main block 22 ft in three directions and contains public and transit passenger restaurants ·and airline and government offices.

And from Progressive Architecture:

A third dramatic air terminal will be added to the late Eero Saarinen's collection, which already includes TWA Terminal in New York and Dulles Terminal in Washington. At the time he died, Saarinen was working on a new airport for Athens, which, he said, gave him "the challenge of creating a building which would belong proudly to the 20th Century, but would simultaneously respect and reflect the glorious tradition of Greek architecture."

The terminal will be a stately building of concrete with pantellic marble aggregate, recalling the white buildings of an earlier Greece. . . .

Structurally, hollow beams will hang from cruciform-shaped columns. They will also serve for air circulation. The columns will penetrate the slab and their capitals will return to pick up the beam. The columns on the field side extend up and branch out to carry the cantilevered section.

And from Eero Saarinen himself:

“In contrast to many airports in which the high façade and monumental entrance face the city, this building faces the field. The majority of arriving visitors will approach it along beautifully landscaped terraces, instead of in enclosed fingers-an advantage due to the special, virtually rainless climate of Greece.”

”The form of the building grows out of its site. Whereas the site slopes grandly down from Mount Hymettus to the Bay of Saronikos, the dominant form of the building is a dramatic counter-thrust upward. Thus, the deep cantilevers over the sheer walls on the field side (cantilevers which, incidentally, will also make a huge shadow to help protect the windows of the field façade from the afternoon sun).”

”Post and lintel construction is characteristic of ancient marble buildings of Greece; this post and beam construction developed into long spans with daring cantilevers is natural to concrete and to our time. Built of concrete with Pentelic marble aggregate, which becomes a very beautiful material, the building will have the shimmering white texture which looks so magnificent in the Greek landscape.”

— EERO SAARINEN on his ATHENS AIRPORT TERMINAL DESIGN

An interior perspective rendering—probably in ink, watercolor, and gouache—of the Second Floor. Passengers and visitors could promenade around a large opening in the floor, which looked down upon the Ground Floor waiting area. A large stair (the top of which is shown at the lower-right) allows travel between the two levels. The promenade was to have views of the airfield (which is primarily to the right) though large windows on three sides. [Floor plans, showing the relationship between these two levels of the terminal building, are below.]

The Ground Floor Plan of the main part Saarinen’s Ellinikon International Airport building. The waiting area is at the bottom-center of the drawing, and the airfield would be below that. The upper two-thirds of the drawing show accommodation for other facilities necessary to terminal operations.

The Second Floor Plan of the main part of the terminal. The promenade is toward the bottom of the drawing, and the opening in the floor (which looks-down upon the Ground Floor seating area) is the white rectangle in the bottom-center). At the left side of that opening is the stairway between the two levels.

BUILT—AND ACTIVE

Completion was originally projected for 1964, but took a half-decade more before the terminal opened in 1969. The airport was busy—and, over more than three-decades, multiple-millions of passengers flowed through its facilities.

Eero Saarinen’s airport terminal for Athens: it is worth comparing this as-built view with Saarinen’s early design sketches, as well as the presentation drawings (shown earlier in this article).

A view of the land side of the terminal, at which passengers would arrive and depart by automobile. The airfield is on the other side of the building.

The busy interior of the Ground Floor’s waiting area. At the rear is the grand stair which connects this level to the Second Floor’s promenade area above.

ABANDONMENT—AND POSSIBLE FUTURES

Ellinikon International Airport was closed in 2001—and the terminal buildings were largely abandoned, presenting sad views of architecture that was un-cared for. There were several plans for using the site, and one of them is Hellenikon Metropolitan Park. That development would encompass a park, luxury homes, hotels, a casino, a marina, shops, offices and would include Greece's tallest buildings.

By contrast, there are counter-proposals for a less commercially-focused use of the site and surrounding urban areas, and planning based on alternative ecological, economic, and social models. An organization, Recentering Periphery, has a web page on Ellinikon airport which shows its abandoned state (including the below view of Saarinen’s terminal building), and then offers information leading to re-imagining a different future for area.

The airport closed in 2001, and the facilities were largely abandoned. This view shows the terminal in it’s un-used state.

The un-used terminal—this view showing the interior from Second Floor promenade, looking down to the Ground Floor waiting area. [The airfield would be on the right.]. This is the same view as the shown in the rendering, earlier in this article—and, even in this abandoned state, one can sense the grandeur of the space. Some plans for the site speak of adaptive=reuse and renovation of the building—and one can imagine the possibilities for this dynamic space.

The works of all architects—no matter their level of fame, or their high valuation in architectural history—are subject to danger. Eero Saarinen’s only skyscraper, the CBS Building in New York—a refined example of Modern high-rise building design—has just been sold. Will the new owners be good stewards of this celebrated work of architecture? What will be it’s future?

The same questions apply in Athens—and, allegedly, some plans for the site include renovation and adaptive reuse of the Saarinen-designed terminal building.

AS WE CELEBRATE SAARINEN’S BIRTHDAY, WE HOPE THAT THIS PROJECT—ONE OF HIS LAST DESIGNS, AND A LANDMARK OF MODERN ARCHITECTURE IN GREECE—WILL BE PRESERVED.

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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 LEFT-TO-RIGHT and TOP-TO-BOTTOM:

Tulip Chair, designed by Saarinen: photo from Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal, via Wikimedia Commons; Gateway Arch, designed by Saarinen: photo by Chris English, via Wikimedia Commons; Photo portrait of Eero Saarinen: photo by Balthazar Korab, via Wikimedia Commons; TWA Flight Center, designed by Saarinen: photo by Balthazar Korab, via Wikimedia Commons; Dulles Airport, designed by Saarinen: photo by Carol M. Highsmith, via Wikimedia Commons; MIT Chapel interior, designed by Saarinen: photo by Daderot, via Wikimedia Commons; Aerial view of Ellinikon airport: photo by Konstantin von Wedelstaedt, via Wikimedia Commons; Saarinen sketches for Athens airport: screen capture from the website of the Canadian Centre for Architecture; Saarinen sketch on yellow legal pad, for Athens airport, and news stories about Yamasaki’s Princeton Woodrow Wilson School and on Saarinen’s Athens airport (including photos of model and the drawings): from Issues of Progressive Architecture and Architectural Record via US Modernist Library; Vintage views of Athens airport: via Pinterest and Internet Archive; View of abandoned Athens airport terminal: from the website of Recentering Periperhry

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

THE BOOK

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

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

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

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

THE AUTHOR

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

ENDORSEMENTS & REVIEWS

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

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

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

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

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

BOOK AVAILABILITY

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

BOOK DATA

• Title: Long Island Modernism 1930-1980

• Author: Caroline Rob Zaleski

• Publisher: W. W. Norton

• Publisher’s web page for the book: here

• ISBN: 978-0-393-73315-D

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

• Format: Hardcover

• Pages: 336

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

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IMAGE CREDITS

NOTES:

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

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

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

CREDITS, FROM TOP-TO-BOTTOM:

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

Japan's CAPSULE TOWER — Losing a National (and International) Treasure?

The Nakagin Capsule Tower in Tokyo, designed by Kisho Kurokawa, and completed in 1972—a building of national (and international) importance in the history of Modern architecture.

AN ARCHITECTURE OF OPTIMISM

Looking at it today, Tokyo’s NAKAGIN CAPSULE TOWER—with its streaky surfaces, hanging cables, and patina of aging—the building may seem like it emerged from a dystopian Japanese anime series, the kind which shows a future world of high-tech slums. Several times, its immanent destruction has been announced—and now it seems to be edging closer to that fate—though a final decision may not have yet been made. Indeed, it has real problems that only a well-funded restoration program could fully solve. But such a program (however costly) would be worth it:

Because this building, above all, is about OPTIMISM

Tokyo, at the end of World War II, showing the devastated city. On a plain of destruction, only a few of the more substantially-constructed buildings remained (and even those were terribly damaged.)

A CONTEXT OF DESTRUCTION, REBIRTH—AND QUESTIONING

At the end of World War II, Japan was devastated: It had lost its empire of colonies and territories; it had nearly 3,000,000 dead (military personnel and civilians), its cities and industrial infrastructure were in ruins, and it had to face a history of war-crimes, and adjust to a vastly new form of government. Perhaps most difficult of all was to submit to having a subservient position in the world.

A combination of post-war policies and actions—economic, political, and diplomatic—brought forth the “Japanese Economic Miracle,” and by the mid-1950’s the economy had exceeded pre-war levels, and with that came the beginnings of a consumer economy. But destroyed urban areas had yet to recover, and widespread quality-of-life improvement for all was a long way off.

Kenzo Tange’s metal-covered Shizuoka Press and Broadcasting Tower, of 1966, looked like its cantilevered wings could start rotating at any movement.

METABOLISM

Even with its economic renewal, no country—and especially a highly-integrated, intensely hierarchal, and sophisticated civilization as Japan had been—could go through such trauma and change without being profoundly affected—to the point where the deepest assumptions about life were ripe for questioning and reevaluation. That is the historical context in which a major Japanese architectural movement, METABOLISM, came to exist.

While its birth involved a large number of influences and architects, meetings, conversations, and changes in personnel, what resulted—by the time of the proclamation of its existence in 1960—was a movement of immense creative vitality. Since the Metabolist Manifesto spoke in forward-looking generalities, there were no rigid rules about what building or urban design had to look like.

From the METABOLIST MANIFESTO:

“Metabolism is the name of the group, in which each member proposes further designs of our coming world through his concrete designs and illustrations. We regard human society as a vital process - a continuous development from atom to nebula. The reason why we use such a biological word, metabolism, is that we believe design and technology should be a denotation of human society. We are not going to accept metabolism as a natural process, but try to encourage active metabolic development of our society through our proposals”

Like the the BAUHAUS, the architectural works of the Metabolist architects were diverse in form. But—equally like the BAUHAUS—there’s a shared family resemblance among their designs. Their buildings embraced a characteristic frequently found in future-oriented projects: a machine-like vocabulary—even sometimes looking like giant machines. Also, their buildings had a module or “systems” look—as though constructed from a kit-of-parts, with the implication that such a modular approach would allow for ongoing change and growth. Finally, perceiving the titanic challenges involved in rebuilding the country, rising population growth, and the issues of land use, urban design, infrastructure, and re-industrialization, they “thought big”—and so came up with designs of “mega-structural” scale.

Kyoto International Conference Center by Sachio Otani

Aquapolis City, for the Okinawa Ocean Expo, by Kiyonori Kikutake

The Yamanashi Broadcasting and Press Centre, by Kenzo Tange

Beyond these formal qualities, what one discerners in Metabolist designs are HOPE, a sense of NEW OPPORTUNITES, OPTIMISM, and looking to A BETTER FUTURE—often through architectural expressions of the possibilities of technology. These are not trivial or side-effects of their designs: looking at the multitude of sketches, writings, proposals, drawings, and models they produced—and they were prolific!—one senses the JOY of CREATION.

Arthur Drexler’s book, “Transformations in Modern Architecture” had a page that was devoted to the NAKAGIN CAPSULE TOWER. Shown when it was fresh and new—an a vision for the future of architecture.

NAKAGIN CAPSULE TOWER: INNOVATIVE IN CONCEPTION AND CONSTRUCTION

The NAKAGIN CAPSULE TOWER was designed by one of the leading Metabolist architects: Kisho Kurokawa (1934-2007). It was constructed between 1970 and 1972—and is considered one of the the prime examples of Metabolism (and one of the few of their many proposed designs to get built)

It is mixed-use, providing space for both residential and office use, and is composed of two concrete towers, to which are attached 140 self-contained prefabricated capsules. Each capsule is approximately 8 feet by 13 feet, with a circular window at one end, and each is connected to the main shafts only four high-strength steel bolts

As with such capsule-oriented designs, construction combined both on-site work (the reinforced concrete core towers and the main lines of the electrical and mechanical systems, as well as stairs and elevators) —and— off-site work (the prefabricated capsules, whose parts were fabricated and assembled in a factory.) The capsules are lightweight steel-truss boxes, clad in galvanized, rib-reinforced steel (which was coated with rust-preventative paint and finished with a sprayed-of glossy spray coat).

In our time, when factory-fabricated residential structures and hotels are an increasingly encountered fact, none of the above may seem exciting enough to gain our attention today—yet when NAKAGIN CAPSULE TOWER was created, the approach and technologies were new and hardly tried. Moreover, the form of the tower—which so directly expressed its modular construction—was fresh and powerful.

It was thought that the market for the apartment units would be Tokyo’s abundant population of white-collar bachelors, and each residential capsule included carefully designed, built-in kitchen appliances and cabinets (including a built-in bed, television set, and tape recorder, and a fold-out desk.) An ultra-compact bathroom unit, not much larger than the size of an airplane lavatory, uses part of the capsule space. A large, circular window—each of which originally had an inventive radial shade— is seen on-axis from the entry door.

The inside of the tower’s residential capsules were all fitted out with built-in cabinetry and equipment.

Inside a residential capsule, looking toward the circular window, showing built-in cabinetwork and bed.

An axonometric diagram, from a Japanese publication, showing the layout of a single capsule. The view is looking downward on the unit, and included in this drawing are: the single circular window (at the lower-right); the bed (the large, light rectangle under the window); the full bathroom (at upper-left): and the wall of built-in cabinets, including a fold-out desk, integral tape recorder and TV, and storage (all along the upper-right wall). Some indication of the unit’s connections to building services (power, telephone, plumbing) seems to be indicated by the pipes and conduits emerging at the top-center of the drawing. A marvel of compact, efficient (and delightful) planning, the Nakagin Capsule Tower is a monument of Modernism that is worth saving.

Included in the Museum of Modern Art’s comprehensive exhibit, Transformations in Modern Architecture and catalog, (shown above) were several other examples of the modular/capsule approach to building design.

PREDEDENTS, CONNECTIONS, AND CROSS-CURRENTS

METABOLISM—of which this building is a prime example—had connections to the thinking and works of architects (as well as movements and cultural trends) in other parts of the world. This could be seen in the major 1979 exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, “TRANSFORMATIONS IN MODERN ARCHITECTURE” and its catalog-book (in both of which Paul Rudolph was also prominently included.) Not only did it prominently show the NAKAGIN CAPSULE TOWER, but it also included buildings—by other architects in France and Japan—with similar ideas and configurations.

Paul Rudolph, more than a decade before the NAKAGIN CAPSULE TOWER, had been thinking along these lines lines—as is shown in his 1959 project for a Trailer Apartment Tower. About this design, Rudolph said:

Rudolph’s 1959 design for a tower of prefabricated residential units, which would be mounted to a central shaft—not unlike the concept for NAKAGIN CAPSULE TOWER, which was built over a decade later in Japan.

“For a number of years now I have felt that one way around the housing impasse would be to utilize either mobile houses or truck vans placed in such a way that the roof of one unit provides the terrace for the one above. Of course the essence of this is to utilize existing three dimensional prefabricated units of light construction originally intended as moving units but adapted to fixed situations and transformed into architecturally acceptable living units. One approach would be to utilize vertical hollow tubes, probably rectangular in section, 40 or 50 stories in height to accommodate stairs, elevators and mechanical services and to form a support for cantilever trusses at the top. These cantilever trusses would give a ‘sky hook’ from which the three dimensional unit could be hoisted into place and plugged into its vertical mechanical core.”

In the following decades, Rudolph would continue to explore variations of this idea—part of his ongoing interest in modularity—at various scales and in a variety of projects (and you can read about those projects here. )

There are further verifiable connections and possible cross-influences: Rudolph had been aware of the basic tenets of the METABOLIST movement from its official founding. Along with fellow architects Alison and Peter Smithson and Louis Kahn (and other distinguished practitioners from around-the-world), he was present at the 1960 World Design Conference in Tokyo, where the ideas of the Metabolists were first announced. Rudolph even proposed to Arthur Drexler, then curator of the Museum of Modern Art’s Architecture and Design Department, that Kikutake’s Metabolist Marine City be included in the museum’s 1960 exhibition Visionary Architecture—the exhibition which introduced the ideas of the Metabolists to the United States.

Megastructures were a key part of METABOLIST thinking—and one could argue that the Nakagin tower is a “megastructure in miniature.” Like Paul Rudolph’s Graphic Arts Center (one of Rudolph’s megastructure designs), Kikutake’s Marine City is constructed of tower cores and plug-in residences set atop artificial landmasses—and the parallels shared by the works of the two architects are striking (and you can read more about these resonances here.)

LIFE Magazine’s December 15, 1972 Special Double Issue on the Joys of Christmas included an article showing Paul Rudolph exploring the potential of LEGO bricks to create architectural forms and configurations. Among the designs shown, for which he used the LEGO system, is a tower made of prefabricated residential units that would be mounted to vertical structural supports and service shafts—another clear manifestation of the idea that he first began to work with near the end of the 1950’s

Architectural historian Reyner Banham’s book, “Megastructure: Urban Futures Of The Recent Past” was his “first approximation” look at the history of this important international architectural movement—one to which METABOLISM contributed key thinking and iconic projects. The original edition was published in 1976, and is long out-of-print—but Monacelli Press has come out with a new edition (and, as before, Rudolph’s LOMEX project is featured on the cover.)

The streaked façade of the capsule tower.

DECADES OF USE AND SUCCESS—THEN DECLINE

Kelvin Dickinson has observed that “50 years is a dangerous age” for a building: it’s just about at that point in a building’s life when—

• mechanical and electrical systems have worn-out, and need replacement and/or updating

• significant repairs are probably needed to the building envelope

• changing demographics or business practices may have made the original use of the building seem old-fashioned and less attractive to tenants—and so the building may need to be adapted for re-use

• changing regulations can require upgrades or alterations (i.e.: for energy use; accessibility; containing toxic materials; fire safety; and earthquake or storm resistance)

And so a tough decision has to be made on whether to make the major investments needed to maintain and revivify a building -or- to demolish it and rebuild.

The NAKAGIN CAPSULE TOWER not only became world-famous as a work of architecture—but also had full occupancy (with a waiting-list). So it was a success, but—

But the building is approaching 50 years-of-age, and has accumulated numerous problems—ones that can’t be dismissed, and which will take large expenditures to fix. Also: it sits on land which can be more profitably utilized if a higher building is built on that site—and that always energizes the forces arguing for demolition.

Japan Forward’s recent article on the projected destiny of the NAKAGIN CAPSULE TOWER

CAN THE NAKAGIN CAPSULE TOWER BE SAVED?

The seemingly imminent destruction NAKAGIN CAPSULE TOWER is being protested by some residents, by the Japanese Institute of Architects, and by admirers world-wide—and there’s even a Facebook page for the SAVE NAKAGIN CAPSULE TOWER PROJECT

WANTED: VISION

It takes vision—being able to understand design greatness—to see the value of a work of architecture beyond immediate economic pressures.

The Facebook page for the SAVE NAKAGIN CAPSULE TOWER PROJECT

Of course, practical issues must be dealt with—but the motivation (to come up with creative solutions to those challenges) only emerges when there’s a clear sense that a building is worthy of the significant effort and investment needed to save it.

We’ve seen what happens when that energy does not come forth—because that’s recently happened with two of Paul Rudolph’s works: the Burroughs-Wellcome headquarters and research center in Durham North Carolina, and the Orange County Government Center in Goshen, NY: they were both demolished. These were two of the most significant buildings of Paul Rudolph’s career—high points showing how he could powerfully, beautifully, and practically integrate creative forms and space-making with corporate, scientific, and civil functions—and now they’re lost forever.

Great architecture is part of a country’s cultural heritage. The NAKAGIN CAPSULE TOWER is one of Japan’s national treasures (as were those Rudolph buildings for the US)—and they were as significant as each country’s most valued artworks, documents, and historic monuments.

Beyond their national significance, these are international treasures that transcend borders: they are part of the profound legacy given by great artists, architects, and thinkers and creators of all kinds.

We must not lose these gifts to us. Save the Nakagin Capsule Tower. Save Culture.

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UPDATE — END OF AN ICON OF MODERN DESIGN?

Searching for “Nakagin Capsule Tower” on Amazon yields several items which testify—as this screen-capture shows—to the esteem with in the building is held: several books, a video, and even a face-mask.

The NAKAGIN CAPSULE TOWER is incontrovertibly a Modern architecture landmark—one of international fame and importance. Its design has inspired several books, a video, clothing (including a face-mask)—and even atmospheric music: “Sleepless in Nakagin Capsule Tower” from the album "E S P E R”—you can hear an excerpt from the song here. [Yet another example of the fascinating relationship between architecture and music, which we explored in another article.]

The moves to remove the tower began a number of years ago. There was push-back from the tenants and from the Japanese architect’s professional association; various counter-proposals were put forth; funding to save the building was sought; the 2008 recession put a break on things—and, most recently, the Covid shut-down also created a delay in moving ahead to demolition. But all that, it seems, has not been enough to save the building. According to a July 16, 2021 article by India Block, on the Dezeen website:

. . . .owners and residents of Nakagin Capsule Tower have decided to sell their homes and divvy up the capsules after attempts to find a buyer prepared to fund the restoration failed.

A module is already on display at Japan's Museum of Modern Art Saitama and the Centre Pompidou in Paris is reportedly keen to acquire one for its collection.

The owners are now crowdfunding to renovate the remaining 139 capsules so that they can be donated to institutions, or be relocated elsewhere in Tokyo and rented out to people who want to experience staying in one.

In 2007 the collective of owners announced they would sell to a developer who planned to demolish the building and build a new apartment block in its place.

However, the developer went bust in the 2008 recession, leaving the future of the tower uncertain.

In 2018 the owners started renting out the capsules on a monthly basis to architecture enthusiasts while the search for a buyer continued, until the coronavirus pandemic shut down negotiations.

A few days later, a July 19, 2021 article by Ryan Waddoups on the SURFACE website, reports:

The tower’s fate now appears to be sealed. Despite attempts to find a buyer who would fund its restoration, building owners have decided to disassemble the tower to make way for new development. “Aging has been a major issue in recent years,” Tatsuyuki Maeda, who owns 15 capsules, told a local magazine. “I was looking for a developer who would leave the building standing while repairing it. We think that it’s difficult for the management association to take measures against aging.” 

The owners are currently crowdfunding to renovate the capsules so they can be donated to museums or relocated throughout Tokyo for short-term stays. One module is already on display at Japan’s Museum of Modern Art Saitama; the Centre Pompidou has also expressed interest in acquiring one for its permanent collection. Nicolai Ouroussoff, former architecture critic for the New York Times, wrote during one of the many demolition scares that the Nakagin Capsule Tower is “the crystallization of a far-reaching cultural ideal. Its existence also stands as a powerful reminder of paths not taken, of the possibility of worlds shaped by different sets of values.” And while losing one of the few examples of this rare architectural movement feels like an undoubtedly sad occurrence, it’s rare to see buildings physically preserved as art post-demolition. 

Although one hopes for a last-minute reprieve from a far-sighted and wealthy architecture-loving patron—such things have happened in the history of preservation—at the moment the future of the NAKAGIN CAPSULE TOWER looks bleak. We’ve lost numerous masterworks of Modern Architecture—the recent demolition of Paul Rudolph’s BURROUGHS WELLCOME headquarters and research center being a particularly great and painful loss. Such short-sighted destruction of our national and international cultural treasures must stop.

The Nakagin Capsule Tower in Tokyo—an icon of Modern Architecture

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:

Capsule Tower, general view: photo by Kakidai, via Wikimedia Commons;  Capsule Tower, looking up to capsules; photo by scarletgreen, via Wikimedia Commons;  Tokyo, at the end of World War II: photo by 米軍撮影  , via Wikimedia Commons;  Shizuoka Press and Broadcasting Center in Tokyo: photo by Jonathan Savoie, via Wikimedia Commons;  Kyoto International Conference Center: photo by Daderot, via Wikimedia Commons;  Model of Aquapolis; photo via Wikimedia Commons;  Page devoted to the Nakagin Capsule Tower, from the “Transformations In Modern Architecture” book, via the Museum of Modern Art on-line archive website;  View of the Nakagin Capsule Tower: photo by marcinek, via Wikimedia Commons;  View of the Nakagin Capsule Tower: photo by yusunkwon, via Wikimedia Commons;  View of interior of a residential capsule, showing built-in cabinetwork and equipment: photo by Dick Johnson, via Wikimedia Commons;  View of interior of a residential capsule, looking toward window and bed: photo by  Chris 73, via Wikimedia Commons;  Page devoted to projects similar to the idea of the Nakagin Capsule Tower, from the “Transformations In Modern Architecture” book, via the Museum of Modern Art on-line archive website;  Paul Rudolph’s drawing of his 1959 design for a Trailer Apartment Tower, © The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation;  Cover of “Megastructure” book: screen capture from the Amazon web page for the book;  View of the exterior of many capsules: photo by Michael, via Wikimedia Commons;  Japan Forward’s article about the Nakagin Capsule Tower: screen capture of their page with the article;  Save Nakagin Capsule Tower Project’s Facebook page: screen capture from Facebook; Nakakin Capsule Tower merchandise available from Amazon (books, video, facemask): screen-capture from Amazon web search; General exterior view of Nakagin Capsule Tower: photo by Jordy Meow, via Wikimedia Commons

Rudolph On Fire: July 14th, 1969

Saturday, 3:38 AM, July 14, 1969 — the moment that New Haven police were alerted that the Yale Art & Architecture Building was on fire. The blaze was quickly contained, but serious damage —from fire, smoke, and water—extended across several floors of Rudolph’s most iconic building.

When we say that someone’s “on fire”, it usually means something positive— that they’re in a state of great productivity, or they’re achieving their goals, or they’re becoming famous—or sometimes all of those. In that sense, the late 50’s and the 1960’s was certainly a period when Paul Rudolph was “on fire”: important commissions—often large scale, with significant budgets, and in a variety of building types—were coming into the office in abundance, and Rudolph was creating some of his most iconic buildings.

Rudolph was widely published, and seen as the face of a lively and creative American Modernism—and in 1957, at age 39, he was appointed Chair of the school of architecture at Yale (taking office in 1958). Soon after his appointment, he was given the commission to design Yale’s new Art & Architecture Building.

In February, 1964. something occurred which had probably never happened in the history of architectural publishing (and may never happen again): All three major American architectural journals—Architectural Record, Architectural Forum, and Progressive Architecture—had the same building as their cover story: Rudolph’s Yale Art & Architecture Building. John Morris Dixon, an editor at Progressive Architecture at the time, told us that there was no coordination for this—and, given that magazines generally avoid covering the same projects (and would certainly never want to make the same project their “cover story”), it is all-the-more evidence that this building was powerful enough to warrant such across-the-board coverage.

Rudolph’s Yale A&A Building on the cover of the February 1964 issue of ARCHITECTURAL FORUM

Rudolph’s Yale A&A Building on the cover of the February 1964 issue of ARCHITECTURAL RECORD

Rudolph’s Yale A&A Building on the cover of the February 1964 issue of PROGRESSIVE ARCHITECTURE

Reports on the building were nearly ecstatic—and the venerable critic Sibyl Moholy-Nagy—whose Modernist credentials could not be questioned—had an essay in Architectural Forum that can be taken as emblematic of the design’s initial reception. With insight and numerous historical references, she plumbed the building’s formal and spatial roots—and offered some qualifications—but her overall assessment was glorious. Here ae some of her remarks:

Architectural Forum’s February 1964 issue gave extensive coverage to all aspects of the Yale building. Shown here is a page from that issue, with Rudolph’s famous perspective-section drawing, as well as the main floor plan.

“It is gratifying to know that the world of academic honors and medals has so profusely acknowledged the Bauhaus doctrine of architectural education as taught at Harvard since 1937; because never before has a curriculum turned out such a star roster of infidels. Johnson, Lundy, Barnes, Rudolph, Franzen, and others have revered their teacher [Gropius—ed.] while confounding his teaching. They all have left the safe anchorage of functionality, technology and anonymous teamwork to start the long voyage home to architecture as art. A few faithfuls still repeat the old incantations, but the guns by which they struck have stopped firing while those of the apostates are blazing.”

“. . . . [Rudolph’s] latest building. It is a splendid achievement, crystallizing potential solutions for some of the most vexing propositions facing architecture today.”

“The concrete surface has been widely criticized as being arty in an age of technology. However, the visual relief from the beton brut cliché of random formwork in the wake of Le Corbusier's revolution is so pleasing, and the purpose of the building so nontechnological, that the artifice seems wholly justified.”

“Space is an abstraction that must be conceived for its specific purpose. Every user is a judge. It is from their total involvement in this dichotomy of idea and realization that the architectural students will learn the essence of their profession. The Yale school is Paul Rudolph's confessional proof that architecture is not a commodity but an infinite potential of art, and therefore free and imperishable.”

“Earthrise”—probably the most famous photograph to come out of the US space program. The photo was taken in 1968 during the Apollo 8 mission—the first time a manned ship had gone to the moon-and-back.

GOOD TIMES, AND…

After 6 years as chair, during which he revolutionized architectural education at Yale, Rudolph left in 1964—relocating his home and office in New York City (where he’d reside for the rest of his life). The later 60’s continued to be a good period for him, and in a previous article we surveyed how a representative year—1968—was both a time of cultural and political churning in the country, and a creatively rich time for Rudolph.

Things were going well in the US economy, and technology and culture [including architecture] were advancing in multiple directions—but that cultural & political “churning” (referred-to above) also involved protests of increasing number and intensity: of the war in Vietnam, the lack of rights for Women and minorities, the devastation of the environment, and of inequalities in wealth and community resources.

The Yale’s Art & Architecture Building’s main atrium drafting room, after the 1969 fire. The space’s signature statue of Minerva, though streaked by smoke, was undamaged.

…FIERY TIMES

Moreover, the very consumer/conformist culture which was so celebrated in mainstream media—and the values on which it was founded—were being questioned by a younger (and increasingly activist) generation. This led to campuses ablaze with protest.

The 1960’s—with all its growing openness and freedoms, as well as its clashing bitterness—is the subject of numerous historical-cultural studies, and has been dramatized in literature. For our purposes, we just want to note that it is within this heated atmosphere that Rudolph’s Yale Art & Architecture Building caught fire.

[RETROSPECTA 40 (the 2016-2017 issue), published by the Yale School of Architecture, has a section on the campus cultural context within which the fire occurred—as does Robert A. M. Stern and Jimmy Stamp’s history of a century of architectural education at Yale, “Pedagogy and Place” (which also covers the fire’s aftermath).]

Paul Rudolph, in the uniform of an officer in the US Navy during World War II. He was stationed at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and engaged in the repair of damaged ships.

DID RUDOLPH CAUSE THE YALE A&A FIRE?

Rudolph left Yale in 1964, and his stated reason was to deal with his expanding professional practice—and, given the number and complexity of the commissions he was receiving, one can see that as a legitimate reason. Yet there may be an additional cause—emerging from Rudolph himself.

The sensitive and reticent country fellow, who went into the Navy during World War II, emerged as an experienced 0fficer who had commanded hundreds, working in a navy yard on the repair of damaged warships. Rudolph retained that mood and mode of command for the rest of his career. Even his look changed: gone was his pre-war bouffant, replaced by a severe flat-top cut that he wore for another half-century. While he was capable of showing warmth and generosity, he was known to students, faculty, and employees as a leader who was assertive and demanding. This brought forth superb achievements from students and staff—and often evoked life-long appreciation and loyalty to Rudolph—but, as the 60’s got going, the culture was changing: anything that had an authoritarian feel was ripe for questioning and push-back. Perhaps Rudolph began to feel this—and wanted none of it. So 1964 was the right time for him to depart.

Moreover, Rudolph’s own building—his great legacy to Yale—conveyed that same feeling of forcefulness. By the later 60’s, it too was being questioned—both functionally and conceptually—with its almost aggressive use of materials and “overdetermined” spaces were being undermined by the way it was used (and, some say, abused) during the chairmanship of Charles Moore, Rudolph’s successor as chair.

So if there was on-campus anger in the air (directed at a menu of legitimate grievances), there was also anger at the building—or rather, what it represented: power and authority, and the society (the campus and beyond) in which that was solidified and wielded.

Rudolph may have been gone, but his building felt like a tangible manifestation of what was wrong with the world.

The photographer of this scene, taken within Yale’s Art and Architecture Building in 2008, labeled it as having “crowded desks” and “littered with food, models, draft designs, and instruments of architectural design”. The studios in 1969—also a time of widespread smoking—were even denser with combustible materials.

WHAT REALLY CAUSED THE YALE A&A FIRE?

Many causes were advanced for the fire. Several that have been put forth are:

• The boiling, angry atmosphere, in that era of campus protest, was the context for student acts of violence and possibly arson.

• The above—a period of profoundly “anti-establishment” (anti-authoritarian) protest—combined with the almost aggressively powerful character of Rudolph’s design, made the building itself an attractive target for a protesting act of destruction.

• The building was permeable, and known to be subject to occasional petty theft, so local “kids”—delinquent teenagers—have been alleged to have started the fire.

• The studios were allowed—during Moore’s chairmanship—to become “favelas”: divided up by makeshift partitions of highly combustible materials—an environment of tinder, and in an era when smoking by students and faculty was still prevasive.

• The materials used by students—-paper, cardboard, glue, brushed and sprayed paint, wood, rubber cement…—are highly flammable. Moreover, as anyone who has ever visited an architecture school studio will report, these environments often become anarchic with scraps and debris on every surface.

Investigations of the fire were conducted, but never identified a distinct culprit. The local fire marshal said the cause was “undetermined” and possibly accidental, and cited the mass and density of combustible materials—but the local fire chief publicly said it was “of suspicious origin".

The Yale Art & Architecture Building did eventually receive a thorough renovation (and upgrading of systems), and was rededicated as Rudolph Hall in 2008.

REBIRTH OF THE PHOENIX

When Rudolph was asked about his reaction to the fire, he said:

“I felt as if somebody had died.”

Others reflected on the fire as symbol and message. A student said:

“. . . .the building burst into flames out if its own psychic guilt. It was the only solution.”

Peter Blake—an architect, journalist, and architectural magazine editor (and friend of Rudolph) wrote:

“The Yale fire did dramatize a state of concern. . . .a profound uneasiness among students (and some faculty) about the priorities that today govern American architecture and American architectural education”

In the fall of 1988, Yale students created an exhibit about the building—one to which Rudolph gave his full cooperation (including lending drawings.) The catalog had essays by Alan Plattus, George Ranailli, and Thomas L. Schumacher—each expressing their insights about (and appreciation of) the building—but the contribution by the late Michael Sorkin, “Auto da Fe”, meditated on the fire, and ends by evoking the mythical and immortal phoenix bird that regenerates out of fire:

“Too soon, but not too late for the Phoenix. The ruin waits to blaze again.”

The fire left the building was unusable, and the school had to move-out while repairs were done—not returning until 1971. Even without the fire, Rudolph had not been happy with way the building had been left subject to poor maintenance, and allowed to fall into disrepair. This was compounded by the way the subsequent administration (Moore’s) seemed to encourage a disrespect for the building and the values—Rudolph’s values—it represented. It was many years before Rudolph would even visit the building.

The building continued to decline, and Yale even considered demolition. Fortunately, it eventually received a complete and respectful interior & exterior renovation, undertaken with the support of Sid R. Bass (for whom Rudolph had designed an elegant residence, as well as other projects)—and in 2008 it was rededicated as

RUDOLPH HALL

Another view, taken after the 1969 fire, showing internal damage to the Art & Architecture Building. When Rudolph later remarked about his reaction to the fire: “I felt as if somebody had died.”

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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:

Yale Art & Architecture Building, during the 1969 fire: courtesy of Yale University; Photo of earth from space: photograph by US astronaut William Anders; Covers of the February, 1964 issues of Architectural Forum, Architectural Record, and Progressive Architecture, courtesy of USModernist Library; Yale Art & Architecture section and plan: page from Architectural Forum, courtesy of USModernist Library; Interior views of the Yale Art & Architecture Building, showing fire damage: courtesy of Yale University; Rudolph in US Navy officer’s uniform: © The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation; Renovated Yale Art & Architecture Building (Rudolph Hall): photo by Sage Ross, via Wikimedia Commons; Studio interior, within the Rudolph Hall (the Yale school of architecture building): photo by Ragesoss, via Wikimedia Commons

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

Celebrating RICHARD NEUTRA

To be on the cover of TIME Magazine is to be identified as one of the most important persons in your field. While most of TIME’s covers are devoted to the dramatic news of the week or political figures, they also include people of cultural importance—even, occasionally, architects. Above is a screen-grab of a Google Image Search for “‘Time Magazine’ cover architects”—and you can see that the magazine’s editors chose some of the most influential practitioners of the 20th Century, including Le Corbusier, Wright, Fuller, Saarinen, and Johnson—and among them is RICHARD NEUTRA (second row from top, second from right). NOTE: To be chosen is a rare honor, for in the 56 years between Time’s founding in 1923 and 1979, only 14 architects appeared on their covers—no more than an average of once in four years. [There’s been academic attention to the phenomenon, like this article and this one, looking at its meaning in a larger cultural/political context.]

WE CELEBRATE THE RECENT BIRTHDAY OF ARCHITECT RICHARD NEUTRA

Richard Neutra (1892–1970) was a vital part of that generation, early in the 20th Century, which created and spread Modern Architecture in the USA. He was active for more than four decades of practice, and helped to infuse European Modernism (what would later be called the International Style) into American design—as well as extending the realm of architecture through is own creative explorations and contributions.

Neutra had a rich career, designing buildings for almost every type of client: government, educational, military, commercial, and religious—but he is probably most well known for his many residential designs, starting in the late 1920’s—and particularly in Southern California.

The Lovell “Health” House, designed by Richard Neutra

The most famous of these is his Lovell “Health” House of 1929, which is dramatically perched in the hills of Los Angeles (in the Los Feliz area).

This house—like much of Neutra’s work—embodies many of the best values of Modern design: openness, innovative use of materials, an intensely focused attention to the client’s needs, sensitive siting, an embrace of the outdoors, and an overall light touch. The Lovell House is part of the Historic American Buildings Survey, as well as being on the US National Register of Historic Places, and on the list of Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monuments in Hollywood, (which includes the neighborhood of Los Feliz, and several other areas)—a list created by the city's Cultural Heritage Commission.

Perhaps Richard Neutra’s other most-known residential work of is the Kaufman Desert House in Palm Springs, from 1946. It was designed for the Kaufman family—the same client as Frank Lloyd Wright’s for Fallingwater. While the house has its own inherent beauty—from the qualities which Neutra put into it—it also became famous as the site of one of society-celebrity photographer Slim Aarons’ iconic photograph, “Poolside Gossip” (which was featured on the cover of one of his books, “Slim Aarons: Women.”)

The Kaufman Desert House in Palm Springs, California, a Richard Neutra design of 1946 — and…

… as it is shown in a famous photo, on the cover of “Slim Arrons: Women”, published in 2016

Richard Neutra was not only a designer, but also an author of well over a dozen books. His many writings consider aspects of architecture, and include his sensitivity to the problems of design, urbanism, our relationship to nature, and issues of siting, planning, and building. Through them all, Neutra is looking towards the human element—and how to build better and more sensitively for our needs.

“Where we have employed our technological progress, it has usually been steered towards a techno-economically motivated standardization, and a frustrating monotony. Architects must have a heart for individuality. If they produce an unidentifiable sameness, they smother the individual and his creativity in a cage of monotony.”

— Richard Neutra

The book, by Arthur Drexler and Thomas Hines, published in association with MoMA’s 1982 Richard Neutra exhibition. It can be read, in full, here.

The work of Richard Neutra has been celebrated by scholars, and in numerous publications and exhibitions.

In 1982, the Museum of Modern Art had the first large-scale exhibition that concentrated almost entirely on his residential designs: “The Architecture of Richard Neutra: From International Style to California Modern” The exhibition was curated by the head of the museum’s Department of Architecture and Design, the pathbreaking Arthur Drexler; and by Thomas Hines, the distinguished architectural historian. In association with the exhibition, MoMA also published a book by Drexler and Hines, which remains a landmark in Neutra studies. You can see installation images of the exhibition here—and gain access to the full text of the Drexler/Hines MoMA book here.

As with Paul Rudolph, Neutra’s buildings have not always been maintained with respect—and some have been sadly lost. The Cyclorama Building at Gettysburg is a prime example. In the late 1950’s, Neutra was commissioned to design a visitors center for the famous Civil War battlefield at Gettysburg. The building would be the home to a distinguished panoramic panting, “The Battle of Gettysburg” (by Paul Philippoteaux), and include an observation deck and visitors services. It was dedicated in 1962 and served a half-century of visitors—before being demolished in 2013. The proposal to demolish it was controversial, and it was not destroyed without a fight, and Dion Neutra (Richard Neutra’s son, and eventually a partner in the Neutra architectural practice) was the most energetic of the Cyclorama’s defenders.

Richard Neutra’s Cyclorama Building at Gettysburg, a visitor and education center at the famous Civil War battlefield, was opened in 1962. After serving generations of visitors, it was, sadly, demolished in 2013. Before demolition, it was documented by the Historic American Buildings Survey (you can see their comprehensive set of drawings and photos here.)

The legacy of of Richard Neutra lives on, through the NEUTRA INSTITUTE FOR SURVIVAL THROUGH DESIGN. Dr. Raymond Richard Neutra is the youngest son of Richard Neutra, and—after a career in science, medicine, and public health—Dr. Neutra is now focused on the legacy of his father and his brother Dion. He serves as the president of the Institute’s board, and is joined on the board (or the family advisory board) by members of the Neutra family, as well as other distinguished members of the community.

The NEUTRA INSTITUTE FOR SURVIVAL THROUGH DESIGN has an important vision—and two prime missions to carry out that vision and embody their values:

Vision:  Surviving in the climate crisis through well-researched design that helps humanity and the planet thrive.

Mission One:  Promoting current research and responsible design

Mission Two: Providing interpretation and stewardship of the Neutra legacy 

We Value:

Promoting and deploying climate-responsive technology and natural features to benefit humanity and the planet.

Listening, researching, and inter-disciplinary teamwork for steady improvement

Evidence-inspired solutions, and learning from our successes and failures

Designing for affordability, social justice, and unique individual needs

Designing for delight

Preserving and learning from designs of the past that exemplified these values

You can learn more about their goals, programs, and activities here.

The sign from outside of the Neutra live-work building—one of the facilities belonging to the organization which promotes research and responsible design, and the interpretation and stewardship of the Neutra legacy: THE NEUTRA INSTITUTE FOR SURVIVAL THROUGH DESIGN

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IMAGE CREDITS

NOTES:

The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation (a non-profit 501(c)3 organization) 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:

Screen-grab of a Google Image Search for “‘Time Magazine’ cover architects”; Lovell House: credit and further info at Wikimedia Commons;  Kaufman Desert Home: photo by Pmeulbroek, via Wikimedia Commons; Slim Aarons book cover: via Amazon; Richard Neutra book by Arthur Drexler and Thomas Hines: via AbeBooks; Cyclorama Building at Gettysburg: photo by Jay Boucher for the Historic American Buildings Survey, accession number HABS PA-6709-8, via Wikimedia Commons;  Sign from Neutra Institute Museum of Silver Lake: excepted from a photo by Bruce Boehner, via Wikimedia Commons

RICHARD NEUTRA QUOTATION:

Quotation from: “Architects On Architecture: New Directions In America” by Paul Heyer, page 140, Walker And Company, New York, 1966

You call that "Preservation" ? — UPDATE on the plight of the Biggs Residence

Paul Rudolph’s Biggs Residence in Delray Beach, Florida. Here it is shown in a 1956 photograph, in a prime, just-completed condition, as Rudolph had conceived it. But decades of changes by subsequent owners marred Rudolph’s design—and those included insensitively installed air conditioning equipment, and visually obtrusive additions. The intention: New owners and their architect declared that they wanted to “Bring it back to the way it should look..” and “Bring it back to the original layout and then assess what their next step will be.”

And what happened: Applying for a Certificate Of Appropriateness, they said: “The addition does not change or effect any of the distinctive features, finishes or construction techniques of the historic house. The house is being preserved and restored as originally designed by Paul Rudolph without any compromise arising out of the addition proposal, except for the connector at the rear, least public view.” In a report, commissioned by Delray Beach, the city’s consulting architect says: “In my professional opinion this is a false statement.”

“The demolition of this unique site has far reaching consequences for the legacy of Paul Rudolph, the Sarasota School of Architecture, the much-prized historical character of the city, and the neighbors who now have to contend with prolonged construction.”

—Official statement by the city of Delray Beach

THE BIGGS RESIDENCE: ITS IMPORTANCE—AND THE PROPER PROCESS FOR CHANGE

The city of Delray Beach’s map showing the buildings on their Local Register of Historic Places. The Biggs Residence (number 35) is within the red oval near the map’s right-hand edge. A larger version of the map is here.

The Biggs Residence—a Paul Rudolph design of 1955—is an important part of his oeuvre. It is also a prime example of Florida’s Mid-Century Modern architecture, by that era’s (and region’s) leader of Modern American design.

The Biggs Residence has been recognized as a significant part of Florida’s cultural heritage: in 2005 the city of Delray Beach’s Historic Preservation Board recommended that it be added to the city’s Local Register of Historic Places—and that was approved by the City Commission.

Any proposed changes to a building on that Register must be fully reviewed by the city’s preservation officer and and the historic preservation board. If approved by them, the project will receive a “Certificate of Appropriateness” (COA).

BIGGS: CHANGES AND CONTINUITIES

The Biggs Residence in 20i6, showing an accumulation of changes and/or additions.

Over the decades, subsequent owners to the Biggs Residence have not completely held to Rudolph’s original design. Additions and changes have departed from the building as Paul Rudolph conceived it—and the results have often been visually obtrusive. And, of course, any distinguished building that’s reaches a half-century of age will be in need of multiple kinds of care—just like a classic car—and how each owner handles that care & repair will vary with their knowledge, sensitivity, and means. Consequently, their effects on the building will range in quality—and sometimes the accumulated impacts will be profoundly contrary to the spirit of the original design.

Yet the main part of what Rudolph created at Biggs remained—the essential raised volume of living spaces. Also, as shown in the two comparison photos below, significant aspects of its original internal character had been maintained—and that’s to be valued and praised.

LEFT: An interior view of the Biggs Residence in 1959—showing the house in its original state, as designed by Paul Rudolph. This view of the central living-dining area is towards the dining table at the end of the room, which sits near the storage wall. At the far right is the entry passage to the kitchen. In this photograph, one of room’s pair of large and prominent steel ceiling beams is clearly seen

ABOVE: As of 2016, when this photograph was taken, the house’s main living space still retained its essential character of a spacious openness in its center, as well as other Rudolph-designed features: the emphatically displayed steel structure, and the wall of storage (behind moving panels) at one end of the room

CHANGES: The POSTIVE INTENTIONS

New owners acquired the Biggs Residence in 2018, and wished to make changes. That’s not unusual, nor is it to be disparaged: as lifestyles evolve, expectations for our residences change too—so even important and classic works of architecture sometimes undergo alteration, and this happens most often after they change ownership. But when someone buys a distinguished work-of-architecture, it is hoped that they will be sympathetic to the original architect’s conception, and any changes will be discrete and respectful—and, as noted in our last article, there’s a serious body of helpful preservation knowledge about how to proceed in such cases (and a whole profession standing ready to assist in these projects.)

In 2018 the owners visited the Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation at our NYC headquarters in the Paul Rudolph Modulightor Building. They told us about their plans to remove the two additions (and add a discrete new one) that would allow the original home to look as close to Rudolph’s original design in almost 37 years. They also gave us copies of drawings and research they had collected as well as shared drawings and renderings of the final design with us. We were pleased with their proposal and considered this project to be in the “safe” category. We didn’t think anything of it at the time, but this would be the last communication we had with them.

As per proper procedure, the proposed alterations to the Biggs Residence were submitted for review (and re-review with amendments). The owner’s (and their architect’s) stated goals were admirable—and their declared intentions for the proposed work included:

“Bring it back to the way it should look.”

“Bring it back to the original layout and then assess what their next step will be.”

“The addition does not change or effect any of the distinctive features, finishes or construction techniques of the historic house. The house is being preserved and restored as originally designed by Paul Rudolph without any compromise arising out of the addition proposal, except for the connector at the rear, least public view.”

CHANGES: The RESULTS

We don’t dispute the good intentions of the owners and their architects. We realize that there’s often another side (or sides) to any story, and we truly welcome further information, input, and other points-of-view. But we were distressed when a report came in that far more changes had happened on-site than had been approved—as when we saw the March 12th headline from the Palm Beach Post (see it, with the beginning of their story, at right), along with a photo like the one at the top of this article.

We weren’t the only ones to be alarmed. The city of Delray Beach was on-the-case, bringing the owners before a magistrate. As part of their investigation, the city commissioned an investigative report from an independent architect (more about that, later).

THE CITY OF DEL RAY ISSUED THE FOLLOWING STATEMENT:

Delray Beach values and protects its historic buildings. The city’s Historic Preservation staff work hand-in-hand with property owners, architects, and builders to guide them through the approval process and serve as a resource when restoring or renovating historic buildings and sites.  

The site at 212 Seabreeze Avenue, known as the Sewell C. Biggs House, was designed in 1955 by internationally renowned architect Paul Rudolph, who was part of the Sarasota School of Architecture and later Chairman of the School of Architecture at Yale University. The Sewell C. Biggs House is a historic structure listed on the Delray Beach Local Register of Historic Places. 

During August 2020, the Sewell C. Biggs House was demolished down to its metal frame. This action was not approved by the city and is a stark contrast to the original plan presented to and approved by the city’s Historic Preservation Board, which emphasized a desire to respectfully rehabilitate and restore Paul Rudolph’s original building with minimal changes. 

The decision not to inform the city effectively denied staff the ability to determine if the demolition was warranted, and the opportunity to inspect the site to assess how much of the original, historically significant, structure could have been saved. 

The demolition of this unique site has far reaching consequences for the legacy of Paul Rudolph, the Sarasota School of Architecture, the much-prized historical character of the city, and the neighbors who now have to contend with prolonged construction. 

Moving forward, the city’s goal is to work with the owners and the Historic Preservation Board to bring this historically significant building back to a state of historical integrity, as much as may be possible. The city has hired an architect with expertise in historic buildings to provide guidance to staff and help establish a path forward for the owners.

THE INVESTIGATION REPORT

A page from the report. It includes a photo, taken at the construction site in 2020, showing the remaining steel after the house’s roof and walls had been demolished.

When Delray’s Principal Planner in their Historic Preservation department sent us the above statement, they also sent along.

“. . . .the consultant report we received from Mr. Richard Heisenbottle, the architect the city hired to review the project following the demolition.”

Richard Heisenbottle’s report traces the history of the project, including: proposals and the documents submitted for review, testimony made before the Historic Preservation Board, revisions offered and reviewed, decisions made—and what he observed during a site visit.

The report compares what he owners and/or their architects stated, and what Mr. Heisenbottle assesses as to what really is the case—and some of the contrasts are stark (and you can read the full report here.)

Below are a few excerpts. First, the report’s author quotes from a promise or assertion made by the owners or their architect—and then (in parenthesis) is his assessment of the actuality of the situation.

• “The proposed work does not involve any removal of any characteristic features of the original house, such as the previously proposed plan to remove the 2nd floor and the galley kitchen, both of which will stay intact.” (This is an incorrect statement or a statement that has been violated. The work performed most definitely involved removal of characteristic features. The entirety of the perimeter walls, siding and roof framing have been removed. The galley kitchen has also been removed.)

• Distinctive features, finishes, and construction techniques or examples of craftsmanship that characterize a property shall be preserved. “The characteristic elevated steel columns and steel beam structure will be structurally rehabilitated, but otherwise preserved as is with respect to its original design. (The steel column and beam structure are the only element of the original structure being preserved. All else, wall framing, roof framing, windows, doors and siding are all being replaced and replicated.)

• The proposed work does not add new features or elements from other buildings. (The Applicant’s plan does add new features.)

• “Deteriorated historic features shall be repaired rather than replaced. Where the severity of deterioration requires replacement of a distinctive feature, the new feature shall match the old in design, color, texture and other visual qualities and, where possible materials.” The existing steel structure will be repaired and rehabilitated not replaced. The characteristic features of the historic house such as the grooved wood siding, will be restored and replaced, and if damaged beyond restoration, will be replaced with matching materials.” (None of the grooved wood siding or exterior wall studs were saved or restored, everything was replaced without providing any notification to HPB of the need for or extent demolition.)

The report offers several conclusions, some key ones being:

• Upon review and evaluation of all materials submitted to the City by the Owner in support of their Certificate of Appropriateness Application No. 2 and Building Permit Application, and as a result of my on-site inspection of the property to access its current condition, I have concluded that the owner and his general contractor have gone well beyond what was authorized in the COA and what was authorized on the approved Building Department Permit Plans.

• The extent of demolition could not have been anticipated under the approved COA submittal documents or under the proposed Construction Documents.

• In addition to non-compliance with the LDR requirements for demolition of more than 25% of a historic structure, the owner raised the structure in violation of the approved COA and without advising and receiving permission to do so from the Building Department and the HPB.

He then looks at the option for reconstructing the building. “Reconstruction” has a specific and rigorous meaning and set of standards, as defined by the U.S. Department of the Interior’s “Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Reconstruction and Guidelines for Reconstructing Historic Buildings” (and you can read more about them here.) The report’s author reviews the standards, in preparation for his final recommendation—one which we feel needs to be contested.

AUTHENTICITY?

While we applaud the thoroughness of the report, we dispute one of its conclusions—the one wherein its author says that a—

“. . . .properly executed rehabilitation and partial reconstruction can continue to be listed as a historic resource on the Delray Beach Local Register of Historic Places.”

Our experience, and supported by a professional preservation expert we reached out to about this matter, is that no reconstruction of a building can authentically match the original. That’s because of the several real and intractable phenomena of the construction process:

• No documentation is ever complete enough to convey all aspects of a building. Even the most through records will not include all of a building’s varying connections, adjacencies of materials, details, and the incorporation of various systems both material, structural and mechanical. [What architects term the “conditions”.]

• Current building, life-safety, and energy codes; rules imposed by insurance companies; and desired upgrades due to higher quality-of-life expectations can be accommodated—but one can only make a best guess at what the original architect would have done had they been commissioned to deal with these latter-day challenges.

• When one is trying to integrate such changed standards into a yet-to-be-built building (because the original had been demolished), there is no “push-back” from the material presence of an extant building—and hence nothing to discipline the new decisions.

• Every building project—no matter how thoroughly thought-out in advance (and no matter how complete the drawings and specifications seem to be)—has gaps in its conception. Questions inevitably come-up during construction: issues whose decisions definitely will affect the look and quality of the outcome of the project. Ideally, the architect is consulted on each of these issues (either during site visits, or during frantic phone calls from the site)—and gives their solutions. Each architect will solve things in their own way, and Paul Rudolph was well known to be demanding during such site visits. How, during a “reconstruction” could his reactions to construction issues possibly be anticipated? They cant.

We acknowledge that a “reconstruction” might proceed in the most conscientious and well-intended way, carefully attempting to recreate the original Briggs Residence. But, for the above reasons, the Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation will not support such a rebuilding as an authentic Rudolph design—and we will note that in our comprehensive list of the works of Paul Rudolph. The original residence will remain ‘demolished’ in our project list.

Even with all the changes and additions over the years, this photo shows that essential aspects of the Biggs Residence were still extant as of 2016—prior to the recent act of demolition.

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IMAGE CREDITS

NOTES:

The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation (a non-profit 501(c)3 organization) 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 Wikimedia Commons links are provided, they are linked to the information page for that particular image. Information about the rights to use 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:

Biggs Residence in the 1950’s: photo as shown in the report, “Evaluation of COA Approval 212 Seabreeze Avenue, Delray Beach, FL 33483 RJHA Project No. 20-3494”, commissioned by the City of Delray Beach;  Biggs Residence condition after current demolition work: photo as shown in the report, “Evaluation of COA Approval 212 Seabreeze Avenue, Delray Beach, FL 33483 RJHA Project No. 20-3494”, commissioned by the City of Delray Beach;  Delray Beach Local Register of Historic Places: courtesy of City of Delray Beach;  Biggs Residence with additions in 2016: © Linda Lake / The Fite Group Luxury Homes;  Biggs Residence Living-Dining area in the 1950’s: photo by Ernest Graham, from a vintage issue of House & Home magazine, June 1959, courtesy of US Modernist Library;  Biggs Residence Living-Dining area as of 2016: © Linda Lake / The Fite Group Luxury Homes;  Biggs Residence as of 2016: © Linda Lake / The Fite Group Luxury Homes

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to great architects ALBERT KAHN & ERICH MENDELSOHN !

Albert Kahn’s Shipfitter’s Shop, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii

Erich Mendelshohn’s Einstein Tower, in Potsdam

SUNDAY, MARCH 21, 2021 WAS THE 152nd BIRTHDAY OF ALBERT KAHN—AND THE 134th BIRTHDAY OF ERICH MENDELSOHN—AND WE CELEBRATE THESE GREAT FIGURES OF MODERN DESIGN

ALBERT KAHN, Architect (1869-1942)

ALBERT KAHN

Can there be too many “Kahns” in Architecture? Not by our accounting! There’s Louis Kahn and Eli Jacques Kahn, and even Kahn & Jacobs (Eli Jacques Kahn’s successor firm, which did some quite interesting work)—all distinguished practitioners and creators. And there’s at least one more significant “Kahn” to add to the list, making a triad of excellence and achievement: Albert Kahn (March 21, 1869 - December 8, 1942).

Kahn’s oeuvre was gargantuan, as was his organization (ultimately growing to hundreds of staff, when he had to handle the creation of numerous war plants for World War II). He and his firm designed and almost unimaginable number buildings, with—to give you an idea of the scale of his oeuvre—more than 1,000 commissions for Ford alone.

Although most appreciated for his industrial structures, his nearly half-century of practice also included a significant number of buildings of other kinds: corporate offices, religious buildings, apartment houses, private homes, civic buildings, performance spaces, memorials, college buildings for a broad range of disciplines (especially at the University of Michigan), banks, and other building types (even an impressive monumental lighthouse!) And though it is Kahn’s “industrial aesthetic” which attracted the eyes of Modern architects, he worked in many other modes—and particularly showed mastery of the classical and deco styles. Indeed, George Nelson (who was a design journalist before launching his own industrial design career) noted the great irony that Kahn considered his traditionally-styled work to be his “real” architecture.

ABOVE: Albert Kahn’s Shipfitter’s Shop, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. BELOW: Albert Kahn’s Chrysler Corporation Tank Arsenal Plant–Press Shop

[Nelson’s report on that aspect of Albert Kahn’s attitude to architecture is an occasion to point-out something important: While Kahn and his team’s process of designing industrial structures sometimes produced buildings of intensely striking form—ones that continue to be profoundly appealing to the Modern architectural “eye”—that was not their creators’ central goal. Kahn and his designers certainly had an aesthetic sense, but they were primarily problem-solvers. If a building could achieve a pleasing form, they might well have been glad—but such aesthetic results would be largely secondary to a preponderantly engineering-oriented mode of design and planning.]

While immensely successful, Albert Kahn was probably not widely known and appreciated beyond the prime region of his architectural work (Michigan), or outside of the clientele for which he designed buildings in his great specialty: large-scale industrial structures (which might be more geographically dispersed). Moreover, didn’t help his renown that architectural journals published industrial buildings only rather intermittently. That didn’t change until World War II, when professional magazines—joining in the spirit of the war effort—started showing buildings which highlighted the country’s productive capacity. That included the work of the Kahn firm—but he never rose to the level of fame of the architectural superstars of his era.

There was, however, a way in which Kahn’s industrial oeuvre (or at least his type of work) became the subject of the Modern movement’s affection—and that was because it was consistent with that community’s aesthetic and conceptual agendas and preferences. The demonstrably functional forms and spaces which Kahn designed were precisely in-line with Modernist thinking about creating “machines for living”—and Kahn’s buildings’ pared-down architectural palette appealed to their purist aesthetics.

THE IDEALIZATION OF ENGINEERING

One of the sources from which this admiration came from was the ideology of functionalism. Albert Kahn’s buildings looked more like the product of an engineering approach to design (as was, in large part, the case), without any malignant interventions from fussy traditionalist architectural values—or so the European Modernists imagined. The functionalists had great praise for the figure of the Engineer and his products—at least as those manifesto writers conceived him to be: one whose actions and decisions come from crystalline thinking, a creator of logical solutions, and one who would be dismissive of all that was not contributing to the function of factually-determined measures. In Le Corbusier’s view:

“The Engineer, inspired by the law of Economy and governed by mathematical calculation, puts us in accord with universal law. He achieves harmony.”

Among those Modern architects of the “Heroic” period of the 20’s and 30’s, this notion of how architectural problems were to be solved was expressed in its most distilled form by Hannes Meyer (the head of the Bauhaus who succeeded Gropius) in his stark formula:

Architecture = Function x Economy

THE AESTHETIC OF ENGINEERING

ABOVE: A US grain elevator, prominently pictured in Le Corbusier’s 1923 book, “Vers une Architecture.” Its clean, cylindrical geometries would have appealed to Modernists’ eyes—especially Corbusier, with his orientation to Purism. BELOW: The east tower of NYC’s George Washington Bridge—Mies’ candidate for the most beautiful building in New York.

The other reason that Albert Kahn’s work would have pleased the leaders of the Modern movement is the allure of the industrial—which is not just functionalist, but is also part aesthetic.

Industrial buildings (and similarly production-oriented structures) stand in strong contrast to “Buildings that look like buildings” (to use Robert Venturi’s phrase). Factories, water towers, processing facilities, chemical plants, storage tanks, great turbines (and the halls within which they’re made, like the famous AEG Turbine Factory by Behrens), and assemblages of titanic piping and ducts: they have a directness and power—and that gives them an attractive freshness to the eyes of designers who were seeking escape from the weight of centuries of accumulated architectural styles (and also an escape from those styles’ associations with a culture that was felt to be unjust, failed, and ossified.)

Thus the leaders of the Modern movements showed an appreciation for buildings which eschew ornament, which exhibit strong geometries, which celebrate their structural elements, and which are bold in form. Le Corbusier pointed to American grain elevators as platonic examples of what to aim for, writing:

“Thus we have the American grain elevators and factories, the magnificent FIRST FRUITS of a new age. THE AMERICAN ENGINEERS OVERWHELM WITH THEIR CALCULATIONS OUR EXPIRING ARCHITECTURE.”

And Mies van der Rohe, when asked what he thought was the most beautiful building in New York City, cited the George Washington Bridge—a complex of unadorned steel girders, which opened in the Northern part of Manhattan in 1931 (Othmar Ammann, chief engineer).

MIES NEEDS KAHN

Below is the interior of one of the factories which Kahn and his team designed: the Glenn Martin aircraft assembly plant, built in Maryland in 1937. The space, the spans, and the business-like organization of many layers of functional elements is indeed impressive. But….

But look at the below collage—for it is by this image that Albert Kahn’s reputation reached its apotheosis among architects.

It is, of course, one of the most famous images produced by Mies van der Rohe: his vision for a concert hall—created by him in 1942, and depicted using the medium of collage. The background is the same Albert Kahn-designed industrial building as in the photo above. Mies could certainly design buildings and structures that sit solidly (and immovably) upon the ground—-but there’s another, equally powerful motif that can be seen in his work: an urge towards weightlessness, a desire to have the power to make architectural elements levitate. That’s hard to pull-0ff in the real world—but it didn’t stop generations of architects (Mies, Kiesler, numerous Constructivists…) from creating dramatic visions of such possibilities. Here, in Mies concert hall design, the planes which define the musical performance space (and which assist in its acoustics) float or are suspended. It’s a alluring vision of purity, elegance, and even magic—-and it could only be set within a space big-enough to accommodate such architectural ambition. Such a space would need to have strong, long, open spans—a space of the kind which Albert Kahn designed!

Albert Kahn’s oeuvre was large, as was his organization (ultimately growing to hundreds of staff, when he had to handle the creation of war plants for World War II). He and his firm designed multiple-hundreds of buildings, with—to give you an idea of the scale if his work—more than 1,000 commissions for Ford alone.

Below is a selection of his work. As you can see, other than the large interior spaces (so appreciated by Mies), Albert Kahn’s work could appeal to Modernist architectural taste in other ways: the forms, materials, and detailing of his buildings had the boldness, sparseness, engineering feel—all creating an aura of directness and powerful, pure freshness which they sought. Even now, his firm continues onward: Albert Kahn Associates offers their expertise in “. . . .architecture, engineering, interior design, program management, and master planning, and spans through commissioning, business and management needs, strategic facilities planning, value and sustainability analysis.”

Below is a sampling of Albert Kahn’s work—and one can be continually nourished by these examples of design which is simultaneously meticulous in its’ planning and construction method, and yet bold in vision and resultant forms. For these gifts to us—expressions of architectural power emerging from rigorous problem-solving—we are eternally grateful.

Albert Kahn, We Wish You A HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Chrysler-Dodge Half-Ton Truck Plant–Export Building, Detroit

Shipfitter’s Shop Building, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii

Willow Run Bomber Plant-Assembly & Engineering, Detroit

Detail of Chrysler DeSoto Plant–Press Shop, Detroit

Chrysler-Dodge Half-Ton Truck Plant–Assembly Building, Detroit

Chrysler Tank Plant, Warren, Michigan

ERICH MENDELSOHN, Architect (1887–1953)

ERICH MENDELSOHN

ERICH MENDELSOHN (21 March 1887 – 15 September 1953) had a long career which spanned three continents. Often, due to changes in the national and international situations of the countries in which he resided, he moved his home repeatedly: from Germany-to-England-to-Israel-to-America—and started (and restarted) his architectural practice in each of these locations.

A very successful architect, Mendelsohn’s practice encompassed residences, factories, scientific/medical centers, and buildings for recreational, religious, and, academic uses—and, during his time in Germany, he was also prolific as a designer of department stores.

Schocken Department Store, Stuttgart, Germany—showing how strongly (and with what vivacity) it contrasts with the city’s older, traditionally-styled buildings.

Those stores—most done for the Schocken department store chain—were high-profile designs, as they were strikingly Modern (often with prominent areas of curved glazing) and stood in lively contrast to the traditionally styled neighborhoods in which they were set.

But Mendelsohn’s designs were not limited to the zippy-curvy forms (some even verging on Deco/Streamline) with which he has been so strongly identified. Some of his work was gravely rectilinear—and that design tendency seems to have become ever stronger in the latter phases of his career. [Though his ability to use emphatic, non-orthographic forms was never blotted out—especially in his later work on religious buildings.]

The single work-of-architecture for which he is most famous is not geometric at all. Labeled as “Expressionist,” it relies neither on the right angles nor on the circles (or segments of circles) with which he composed most of his other works. Instead, it comes-off as a sculpture of freely-flowing curves (though symmetrically allocated). We are, of course, referring to Mendelsohn’s Einstein Tower (“Einsteinturm”) in Potsdam, Germany.

This building—which seems to grow and flow with the organic pulse of a living creature—was made for rigorous scientific research in physics. The earliest conceptions for it dated to 1917, and it was completed and ready-for-operation in 1924. It was constructed to house a solar telescope, with the intention of using the facility’s scientific instrumentation to help prove -or- invalidate Einstein’s theory of relativity. [Einstein didn’t work there, but he supported the project, and characterized the building as “organic.”] It is still in use as a solar observatory.

Below is a sampling of Erich Mendelsohn’s work—and we are continually nourished by such exemplars of vivid design. For these gifts to us—life-filled expressions of architectural creativity!—we are eternally grateful.

Erich Mendelsohn, we wish you a HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

The De La Warr Pavilion, at Bexhill on Sea, England; designed in collaboration with Serge Chermayeff.

Mossehaus in Berlin

Park Synagogue, Cleveland Heights, Ohio

Schocken Department Store, Chemnitz, Germany

Krasnoe Znamya factory-Power Plant, Russia

Petersdorff department store in Wroclaw, Poland

Haus des Deutschen Metallarbeiterverbandes, Berlin

A poetic portrait of the Einstein Tower in Potsdam, Germany, with a bow sundial in the foreground.

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IMAGE CREDITS

NOTES:

The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation (a non-profit 501(c)3 organization) 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 in our non-profit scholarly and educational efforts. If any use, credits, or rights need to be amended or changed, please let us know.

Note: When Wikimedia Commons links are provided, they are linked to the information page for that particular image. Information about the rights to use 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:

Shipfitter's Shop interior: HABS photo, within the collection of the Library of Congress, via Wikimedia Commons;  Einstein Tower: © Astrophysikalisches Institut Potsdam, via Wikimedia Commons;  Albert Kahn photo portrait: Fair Use, via Wikimedia Commons;  Shipfitter's Shop interior: HABS photo, within the collection of the Library of Congress, via Wikimedia Commons;  Chrysler Corporation Tank Arsenal Plant–Press Shop: vintage photo, source unknown (see general notes above); Vers une Architecture: page from vintage book, published in 1923, (see general notes above); George Washington Bridge: photo by Beyond My Ken, via Wikimedia Commons; Glenn Martin plant interior: vintage photo, source unknown (see general notes above);  Mies van der Rohe collage: vintage image, source unknown (see general notes above);  Chrysler-Dodge Half-Ton Truck Plant–Export Building, Detroit: vintage photo, source unknown (see general notes above);  Shipfitter’s Shop Building, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii: HABS photo, within the collection of the Library of Congress, via Wikimedia Commons;  Willow Run Bomber Plant-Assembly & Engineering, Detroit: vintage photo, source unknown (see general notes above);  Chrysler-Dodge Half-Ton Truck Plant–Assembly Building, Detroit: vintage photo, source unknown (see general notes above);  Chrysler Tank Plant, Warren, Michigan: vintage photo, source unknown (see general notes above);  Erich Mendelsohn photo portrait: photographer unknown, via Wikimedia Commons;  Schocken Department Store, Stuttgart, Germany: photo by Manfred Niermann, via Wikimedia Commons;  The De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill on Sea, England: photo by Dr-Mx, via Wikimedia Commons;  Mossehaus in Berlin: photo by Fred Romero, via Wikimedia Commons;  Park Synagogue, Cleveland Heights, Ohio: photo by stu_spivack, via Wikimedia Commons;  Schocken Department Store, Chemnitz, Germany: photo by Altsachse, via Wikimedia Commons;  Krasnoe Znamya factory-Power Plant, Russia: via Wikimedia Commons; phot by Rones, via Wikimedia Commons;  Petersdorff department store in Wroclaw, Poland: photo by Volens nolens kraplak, via Wikimedia Commons;  Haus des Deutschen Metallarbeiterverbandes, Berlin: photo by Alex1011, via Wikimedia Commons;  Einstein Tower: photograph by DrNRNowaczyk, via Wikimedia Commons

Rudolph's BIGGS RESIDENCE: Demolition (but No Permission?)

The Biggs Residence—a Rudolph design of 1955-1956, in Delray Beach, Florida—has just now been demolished. It is pictured here from the time it received a Merit Award in the 1959 Homes for Better Living Awards sponsored by the AIA.

AN ACCELERATING RATE OF DESTRUCTION

The Burroughs Wellcome headquarters building and research center, in Durham, North Carolina—one of Paul Rudolph’s most iconic designs, and a structure of historic importance—has been turned into demolition debris.

In the last several years, it seems like we’ve experienced an acceleration in the destruction and threats to our architectural heritage—and this has hit the works of Paul Rudolph especially hard. Several important Rudolph buildings are now threatened, or have been outright destroyed or removed—and they are some of Paul Rudolph’s profoundest, key works:

• Burroughs Wellcome: DEMOLISHED

• Walker Guest House: REMOVED—taken apart, and moved to an unknown location

• Orange County Government Center: DEMOLISHED—partially, with the balance changed beyond recognition

• Niagara Falls Main Library: THREATENED

• Boston Government Service Center: THREATENED

• Milam and Rudolph Residences: SOLD -or- ON THE MARKET—with no assurances that new owners won’t demolish or change them beyond recognition

The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation advocates for the preservation and proper maintenance of buildings designed by Rudolph—and is available to consult with owners about sensitive adaptive reuse, renovation, and redevelopment of Rudolph buildings (especially as an alternative to demolition!)

But, vigilant as we are, sometimes we’re taken aback by news of a precipitous demolition or marring of one of Rudolph’s great designs.

THE LATEST DESTRUCTION OF A RUDOLPH BUILDING

The opening of Mike Diamond’s article about the demolition of the Biggs Residence, which appeared in the March 12, 2021 issue of the Palm Beach Post.

We’re shocked that yet another of Paul Rudolph’s fine works of architecture has been demolished—and, if the news report is accurate, it’s been allegedly done without even a permit.

The Biggs Residence is a Rudolph-designed residence in Delray Beach, Florida, from 1955-1956. Over the years, the subsequent owner or owners have not been kind to it: there have been numerous and highly conspicuous changes and additions which cannot be called sympathetic to Paul Rudolph’s original design. New owners have, in the last few years, been planning to remove the offending changes and accumulated construction—and have been lauded for their good intentions. Repairs and restorations were to be done, as well as alterations and additions that were to be sympathetic to the building (and be resonant with Paul Rudolph’s approach to planning and construction.) Plans were filed, and the owner’s architect—an award winning firm—produced a well-composed “justification statement” which offers some interesting and convincing thinking about how they intended to proceed with the project, their design strategies and solutions, and how they were to have the property “rehabilitated.”

But—

But, according to March 12th article in the Palm Beach Post, much more has actually happened at the site. Their reporter, Mike Diamond, reports that the current owners “. . . .were found to have violated the city’s building code by demolishing the house without a permit from the city’s Historic Preservation Board.”

This site photo shows that, as of the moment it was taken, some of the Biggs Residence’s structural steel was still in place—but most of the rest of the house (exterior and interior walls, windows, ceilings, finishes, cabinetry, fittings…) has been demolished and removed.

The article further says that the owners “. . . .must obtain an after-the-fact demolition permit. . . . They also face steep fines for committing and ‘irreversible’ violation of the city’s building code.” The owners are disagreeing, and claiming that the city misinterpreted their documents and, in the article’s words, their lawyer claims that “. . . .the city should have realized that the approvals for renovation could have resulted in the house being demolished based on its deteriorating condition….”

That is a claim which an attorney for the city and a city planner both dispute.

SERIOUS QUESTIONS

Perhaps there were good reasons for the owners to proceed this way—but there are serious questions:

• What were their compelling reasons?

• What were the building’s actual conditions, which led them to decide for demolition?

• What alternatives were considered?

• Could there have been other approaches?

• What did the architect think of this decision to demolish?

No doubt, there will be further developments in this case, and we will be following it.

PAUL RUDOLPH’S DESIGN AT tHE BIGGS RESIDENCE: PURITY OF CONCEPT

The Biggs Residence was—and now, unfortunately, we’ll have to speak of it in the past tense—an important part of Paul Rudolph’s oeuvre. There he continued exploring several design themes he’d been working on, ever since he’d returned from service in World War II and restarted practice in Florida—and at Biggs, perhaps, he brought one of those themes to its most perfect realization.

Rudolph’s perspective rendering for the Biggs Residence—a drawing which shows his original platonic intent: a pure “rectangular prism” floating above the ground.

Illustrations from Le Corbusier’s manifesto, “Vers une Architecture” (“Towards An Architecture”), in which he speaks of the compelling beauty of pure forms.

As you can see from Rudolph’s perspective rendering (above-left), his conception was quite “platonic”: he was intent on creating a pure form, “floating” above the earth, and tethered to it as lightly as possible—in this case, by an open staircase and a few slender uprights. Even the service block (presumably to contain or screen the boiler, and maybe an auto,) sheltering below, was fully detached from the prime living volume. Such a conception (and goal) comes out of one of the root obsessions of the Modern movement in architecture: a kind of purism which is animated by a love of geometric forms, and which eschews all that might obscure that purity. Le Corbusier, in his foundational book, “Vers une Architecture” (“Towards An Architecture”) puts it boldly:

“Architecture is the masterly, correct and magnificent play of masses brought together in light. Our eyes are made to see forms in light; light and shade reveal these forms; cubes, cones, spheres, cylinders or pyramids are the great primary forms which light reveals to advantage; the image of these is distinct and tangible within us without ambiguity. It is for this reason that these are beautiful forms, the most beautiful forms. Everybody is agreed to that, the child, the savage and the metaphysician.”

Of course, interest in (and obsession with) such “pure” geometric forms goes back to the ancients (i.e.: the term “platonic”), and even in the 18th century—a time when classical architecture was dominant, including its full ornamental armamentarium—architects like Claude-Nicolas Ledoux and Étienne-Louis Boullée produced visionary drawings of architectural projects that embraced such purity (with perhaps the most famous being Ledoux’s design for a spherical villa.)

Claude-Nicolas Ledoux’s view of a spherical country house. He fully developed the design, including plans and sections.

Paul Rudolph, born during Modernism’s heroic years. was educated by the founder of the Bauhaus himself, Walter Gropius (who was head of the architecture program at Harvard while Rudolph was a student there). He could not have helped being immersed, taught, and saturated in such aesthetic ideals—and he brought them into his work.

Looking at Rudolph’s oeuvre, we can see that he tried this platonic approach to residential design prior to Biggs: with the Walker Residence project of 1951—but that remained unbuilt; and the Leavengood Residence of 1950—but that building had a more complex program, and thus many more appurtenances outside of the house’s main body (and it also had visually firmer connections to the ground.) So Leavengood did not approach the platonic ideal anywhere as closely as Biggs.

THE AESTHETICS (AND DRAMATICS) OF STRUCTURE

An view of the interior of the Galerie des Machines, one of the exhibition buildings erected for the 1889 world’s fair in Paris. The architects (headed by Ferdinand Dutert) and the engineers (headed by Victor Contamin) dramatically showed the potentials of steel and iron—both as spanning structure and as an expressive medium. The size of the building can be judged from the figures in the distance.

In the initial decades of Rudolph’s career—given the simplicity of the programs for which he was asked to design, and the often limited budgets—structure was one of the few ways that he could explore the potentials of architectural design, and he fully used it as an expressive tool. Whether by doubling vertical members (as he did at the 1951 Maehlman Guest House and the 1952 Walker Guest House), or by using a dramatic suspended catenary roof system (as at the 1950 Healy (“Cocoon”) Guest House), or anticipating the utilization of curved plywood for structural roof arches (as at the 1951 Knott Residence project), Rudolph was always looking at ways to transcend structure’s function, and raise it to the poetics of design.

Certainly, this expressive use of structure has always been a concern of architects, from Gothic cathedral builders to the creators of the titanic structures of iron and steel which emerged during the 19th Century (especially in France, England, and the US).

The “masters” of modernism—having abandoned expressive styles, modes, and motifs available to previous generations—often turned to using structural systems as an important part of their architectural palette, and they did so in inventive ways. Mies van der Rohe’s Farnsworth House ((1945-1951) is an icon of Modern architecture and residential design—and one of the most notable aspects of his design is the relationship he set-up between the planes of the floor and roof, and the building’s vertical steel columns. The columns are, or course, supporting elements—yet Mies plays with their role, having them visually slide past the floor and roof’s perimeter steel members. This confers a partially floating quality to those planes—possibly one of Mies’ prime goals. [It’s also notable that Philip Johnson, at his Glass House (1947-1949), took yet another direction with these relationships. He placed the vertical steel structural members inside the house’s volume, and integrating them with the frames which held the walls of glass—and thus absorbed the structure into the design of the building’s envelope.]

The eyes of the architectural world were on Mies’ design (and Johnsons!)—and Rudolph would have known them well. At Biggs, in contrast to Mies or Johnson, Rudolph chose to pull the perimeter structural frame noticeably inward from the outer edge house’s main floor volume above. Thus, instead of experiencing the building as a pair of planes (as with Mies), Biggs main living area is perceived as a separate volume (reinforcing its “platonic-ness”), only resting upon the structure. Moreover, instead of placing the beams in an overlapping relationship (as Mies did), he intersects them boldly—and they appear to be penetrating through each other.

LEFT: The Farnsworth House (1945-1951) by Mies van der Rohe. Its vertical steel columns visually “pass by” the floor’s and roof’s horizontal structural steel “C” members. ABOVE: In contrast to the Farnsworth House, the Biggs' steel columns and beams appear to pass through each other.

Not only can this be seen on Biggs’ exterior, but it is experienced on the inside as well: the large ceiling beams, which dramatically span the living room, also have the same interpenetrating relationship to the interior’s steel columns.

Those column-beam relationships did not exhaust Rudolph’s exploration of structure at Biggs. He had one more occasion in which he used exterior steel elements in an intriguing way: When the perimeter beams met at the outside corners, instead of butting them (as would be done in standard steel construction), he mitered them at the corners. [You can see this in an exterior photo below.] In this way, the upper and lower flanges of the steel beams were not just there for their structural role, but—via this mitering connection—their visual power as a pair of parallel planes was revealed.

THE PRACTICALITIES OF COMFORT AND CONVENIENCE

Even with such geometric ideals, structural intrigues, and the other fascinations in which creative architects like Rudolph engage, he was also a very practical designer—and sensitive to his client’s needs. At the point when he received the Biggs commission, he had nearly three dozen constructed projects “under his belt.” So, whatever his interest in building pure forms, his planning of the Biggs Residence included features which the owners would find gracious and practical.

The main (upper) floor contained:

• two bedrooms (well separated, providing for excellent spatial and acoustic privacy, and each with a significant amount of closets and its own bath)

• a central living/dining area (with large amounts of windows for good cross-ventilation—and the ability to catch breezes from the house’s raised design)

• a kitchen adjacent to the dining area (with a wise balance of openness and enclosure)

• a broad “storage wall” in the central area—a feature of American post-World War II residential design, pioneered by George Nelson

Paul Rudolph’s floor plan of the upper (main volume) level of the Biggs Residence, exhibiting his practical and gracious sense of planning.

The ground floor was also well thought out, and included:

• An exterior sitting area (well shaded from the Florida sun)

• A covered parking area (also shielding the car from solar overheating, as well as Florida’s occasional heavy rains)

• The entry and stairs (up to the main level)

• Additional storage or mechanical space (always useful)

The Biggs living room, in which some segments of the house’s structural steel can be seen—especially the pair of long beams which span the living space.

Another view of the living area—this time, towards the dining table at the end of the room, which sits near the storage wall. At the far right is the entry passage to the kitchen. In this photograph, one of room’s pair of large steel ceiling beams is strongly emphasized.

Raising the body of the building liberates space at the ground level, which is left open for shaded outdoor seating and parking. Structural steel—for the columns, and the inset perimeter and intermediary beams—is exposed, and the connections are composed and detailed with care.

FURTHER DEVELOPMENTS (AND WHAT YOU CAN DO)

We’ll keep looking into the Biggs case, and let you know how this develops.

If you have any information on this situation—or know of any other Paul Rudolph buildings that might be threatened—please contact us at: office@paulrudolphheritagefoundation.org

We can keep you up-to-date with bulletins about the latest developments—and to get them, please join our foundation’s mailing list. You’ll get all the updates, (as well as other Rudolph news.)—and you can sign-up at the bottom of this page.

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IMAGE CREDITS

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

The credits are shown when known, and are to the best of our knowledge. If any use, credits, or rights need to be amended or changed, please let us know.

Note: When Wikimedia Commons links are provided, they are linked to the information page for that particular image. Information about the rights to use 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:

Biggs exterior view: photo by Ernest Graham, from a vintage issue of House & Home magazine, June 1959, courtesy of US Modernist Library;  Section-perspective drawing of Burroughs Wellcome building: by Paul Rudolph, © The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation;  Demolition photo of Burroughs Wellcome building: photography by news photojournalist Robert Willett, as they appeared in a January 12, 2021 on-line article in the Raleigh, NC based newspaper The News & Observer;  Perspective rendering of Biggs Residence: drawing by Paul Rudolph, © The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation;  Mies’ Farnsworth House column-beam relationship: photo by Benjamin Lipsman, via Wikimedia Commons;  Plan of Biggs Residence: © The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation;  Photographs of interiors and exterior of Biggs Residence: photo by Ernest Graham, from a vintage issue of House & Home magazine, June 1959, courtesy of US Modernist Library;  Photograph of Paul Rudolph: © The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation

Happy 119th Birthday to Luis Barragán !

The Torres de Satélite ("Satellite Towers",) located outside of Mexico City—one of the country’s first major monumentally sized Modern sculpture groups (whose highest tower is 170 feet.) It is the result of a combination of input from architect Luis Barragán, painter Jesús Reyes Ferreira, and sculptor Mathias Goeritz., and was inaugurated in 1958.

LUIS BARRAGAN WOULD HAVE BEEN 119 oN MARCH 9, 2012—AND TODAY WE CELEBRATE HIS BIRTHDAY!

If any architect’s work truly exemplifies Dieter Rams’ saying, “Less but Better”, it would be the Mexican architect Luis Barragán (1902–1988). Barragán’s oeuvre was known for an asceticism of form, and an utter avoidance of the casual or frivolous. Yet the buildings and spaces he created were brought to vivid life by careful composition, devoted detailing, keen juxtapositions and choices of materials, and—most famously—a florid use of color.

His work encompassed whole residential districts, artwork (like the Torres de Satélite show above), a chapel and convent, and other projects—but he is probably most well-known for individual homes he created, both for clients and for himself.

WITH BARRAGAN, MATERIAL BECOMES SPIRITUAL

Architect Luis Barragán (1902–1988)

Barragán is often classified as a “Minimalist”—but this would be an error, as the interior and exterior spaces he created are alive with a sensuous serenity. His is a body of work that aspires to embrace (and invoke) the spiritual. As Barragán himself put it:

“…the words beauty, inspiration, enchantment, magic, sorcery, charm and also serenity, silence, intimacy and amazement have disappeared at an alarming rate in publications devoted to architecture. All of them have found a loving welcome in my soul, and even if I am far from claiming to have made them complete justice in my work, they have never ceased to be my beacon.”

And:

“Any work of architecture which does not express serenity is a mistake.”

For those not familiar with Barragán’s oeuvre, here is a mosaic of images which may serve to convey the flavor—and, as important, the atmosphere—of his work:

Casa Gilardi

Fuente de los Amantes

Fountain spout and pool at Casa Barragán

Roof patio at Casa Barragán

Casa Gilardi

A close-up of the Torres de Satélite

A stair within Casa Barragán

Faro del Comercio

FAME, INFLUENCE—AND THE AFTERLIFE OF AN ARCHITECT

The book, by Emilio Ambasz, which accompanied the Museum of Modern Art’s 1976 landmark exhibit on Barragán

Luis Barragán received the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1980 (and you can read his insight-filled acceptance speech here)—but he had not been very well-known, outside of Mexico, until the 1976 retrospective exhibition of his work at New York’s Museum of Modern Art. That exhibition was accompanied by a book, “The Architecture of Luis Barragan”—also published by the MoMA—whose complete text (by Emilio Ambasz, who curated the exhibit) and luminous photographs and informative drawings you can see here.

He was a direct influence on Louis Kahn (who received advice from him about the great open space at the heart of Kahn’s Salk Institute) and he was consulted by designers from both Mexico and other parts of the world.

Barragán—besides the inspiration which can, ongoingly, be taken from his work—has had another kind of afterlife. After he passed in 1988, his will directed that his estate be divided into different categories of materials, and allocated to several people who had been important in his life. The legacy that comprised his professional archives and copyrights went through more-than-one ownership, until this important body-of-work reached its current residence in Switzerland at the Barragan Foundation.

But that was not the end of the story. Jill Magid is an artist (working in various media), writer, and film-maker—who has had exhibitions at major venues around-the-world. She became fascinated with the numerous facets of the Barragán estate—-not the least of which include its location an ocean away from the architect’s homeland, Mexico; and (at the time Magid was doing her work) the perceived restrictions on access to the archive. Her artistic activism on this topic resulted in works in a number of forms: several exhibits, a 2016 book, and a 2018 film (both titled “The Proposal”)—and Magid’s project achieved further prominence when it was written about in a series of articles in The New Yorker.

Her project asked important questions about art, creativity, relationships, identity (both personal and national,) and artistic legacies (both their control and protection). We know that these are complex matters, and all sides can bring forth pertinent evidence and cogent arguments. Moreover, there seems to have been further developments since Magid’s exhibits, book and film came out—so we can offer no pronouncement about the important issues she raises. Nevertheless, what Magid presents is compellingly told (and includes a strikingly unorthodox proposal!) and you might find it of interest to view the film. You can see the trailer here; as well as view a more recent symposium about her project here.

BARRAGAN: AN ARCHITECT TO CELEBRATE !

Whatever the issues around the archives—and however their status may stand or change—the important thing about Luis Barragán is the amazing body-of-work which created during more than a half-century of practice. So, for this, the 199th anniversary of his natal day, we wish him a HAPPY BIRTHDAY !

A twilight view of the Torres de Satélite, a project on which Barragán collaborated.

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IMAGE CREDITS

The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation gratefully thanks all the individuals and organizations whose images are used in this scholarly and educational project. If any use, credits, or rights need to be amended or changed, please let us know.

Note: When Wikimedia Commons links are provided, they are linked to the information page for that particular image. Information about the rights to use 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:

Torres de Satélite: photo by Octavio Alonso Maya Castro, via Wikimedia Commons;  Photo portrait of Luis Barragán: photo by Tomjc.55, via Wikimedia Commons;  Casa Gilardi with pool: photo by Ulises00, via Wikimedia Commons;  Fuente de los Amantes: photo by Susleriel, via Wikimedia Commons;  Fountain spout and pool at Casa Barragán: phot by Daniel Case, via Wikimedia Commons;  Roof patio at Casa Barragán: photo by  Ymblanter, via Wikimedia Commons;  Casa Gilardi interior: photo by Ulises00, via Wikimedia Commons;  A close-up of the Torres de Satélite: photo by ProtoplasmaKid, via Wikimedia Commons;  A stair within Casa Barragán: photo by  Francesco Bandarin, via Wikimedia Commons;  Faro del Comercio: photo by Cvmontuy, via Wikimedia Commons;  A twilight view of the Torres de Satélite: phot by Correogsk, via Wikimedia Commons  

Celebrating The Half-Century of a Modern Classic: “New Directions in American Architecture”

The cover of a much coveted book. Robert A. M. Stern’s 1969 survey and assessment offered an intelligent and concise (and well illustrated) overview of the main pathways of then-current American architecture—and the work of its most prominent practitioners (including Paul Rudolph).

A GOLDEN ANNIVERSARY

It’s hard to believe, but New Directions in American Architecture, the landmark book by Robert A. M. Stern, came out a half-century ago. First published in 1969 (with a new, enlarged edition in 1977) it is worth acknowledging and celebrating a work that was so intensely studied, discussed, and turned-to for inspiration by architecture students and professionals. It was a book that made a difference.

A WORTHY PREDECESSOR

Paul Heyer (1936-1997) was a New York-based architect, educator, and author—and his colleagues and students remember him as the most urbane of Englishmen. His 1966 book, “Architects on Architecture” was later published in an expanded edition in 1993.

For context, we note another book which covered an overlapping range of work (and—at least partially—of the same era): Paul Heyer’s Architects on Architecture: New Directions in America.

Heyer’s book came out in 1966, a few years before Stern’s New Directions, and—while the territory had similarities (both showing what was being built in America, and by whom)—the material covered, and the manner it was covered, was different. Heyer’s book was, in its way, more comprehensive: it had individual chapters on many of the architects that Stern would write about—but it also included a profusion of talented, prolific American architects who would get hardly a mention (if named at all) in Stern’s book (i.e.: John Carl Warnecke, Hugh Stubbins, Craig Elwood, William Wurster…). It also had sections on architects like Mies van der Rohe and Walter Gropius—forefathers of architectural Modernism—who were, at the time of publication, still alive and practicing.

What Heyer had created could be characterized as an informationally (and visually) rich grand survey—and the book remains fascinating to dip into, and is a fine resource for researchers.

Subsequently, Paul Heyer brought out a different study: “American Architecture: Ideas and Ideologies in the Late Twentieth Century,” which looked at a similar (though updated) set of architects, and examined their work through formal./stylistic/ordering themes.

STERN’S BOOK: THE GO-TO GUIDE TO WHAT WAS HAPPENING—AND WHO THE PLAYERS WERE

A page from New Directions in American Architecture, on which are illustrated designs for the Boston City Hall. At top is Mitchell, Giurgola’s second prize-winning entry (shown in a perspective drawing); below is Kallmann, McKinnell, and Knowles winning entry (shown under construction).

In contrast to Heyer’s more encyclopedic approach, Stern’s book was focused on the Now, and—just as important—the meaning of what was shown (and how those meanings might propel the design process.0 New Directions in American Architecture offered a compelling report—and provisional assessment—on the cultural churning then happening within the world of architecture, which was an era of crisis, excitement, and creativity in all domains of modern life.

Yes, several prominent architects of the post-WWII generation (like Philip Johnson and Paul Rudolph) were included—and received respectful coverage of the their work. But one can speculate that it was necessary to show them. Perhaps it was because they were not only quite active professionals, but also so that their work could act as a contrast to the the more recently risen stars shown in the rest of the book. And those pages are abundant with the exciting work of the rising (or recently risen) stars: Kahn, Charles Moore; Venturi and Rauch; Carlin and Millard (a firm whose work is not widely discussed now, but which is well worth studying); Davis, Brody and Associates; DMJM; Tigerman; Mitchell, Giurgola; Roche, Dinkeloo and Associates, and numerous others.

Stern’s voice is hardly that of a reporter aiming only for journalistic neutrality. G. E. Kidder Smith’s review of the original edition (published in the March, 1972 issue of the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians) puts it well:

A provocative, vexing, hence far tooo brief (three-page) introduction sets the stage for New Directions in American Architecture, and one will find that the subsequent pages both inform and irritate—all of which makes for a slender but simulating volume. Beginning with the very choice of the seven bellwethers shown to typify the “new directions”—like any panel of architects or selection of buildings, a process automatically insuring challenges—a philosophy unfolds that at times will startle.

Along with his reservations, Kidder Smith does acknowledge:

The author’s critical analysis and appraisals command respect for their often penetrating incisiveness.

And those analyses and appraisals are conveyed through clear language—which today seems undervalued in architectural writing—and layered with Stern’s high intelligence and knowledge of history and the national architectural scene.

PRICE— AND TRUE WORTH

The book’s price when it first came out—as shown on the cover.

The book was a medium-size paperback of moderate length (128 pages), with numerous black & white illustrations. What would one expect the price to be for such a volume? The cover (shown at the top of this article) has a cover price of 25S—that’s twenty-five shillings, indicating that the example pictured was a British edition. The cover of the American edition—the one in the library of the Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation—shows it in US currency: $2.95

That may seem jaw-droppingly inexpensive—can one buy anything today for such an amount?!—but that’s hardly the case. The current, inflation-adjusted equivalent for both the American and British prices is a bit over $20—which is about par for books of similar format today.

Even so, it’s worth considering the book’s “worth” in an enlarged sense—for New Directions in American Architecture that holds up well: it continues to be a fascinating resource on the creative voices of that era—a body of accomplishment and ideas which retain their presence and power.

BRAZILLER: A PUBLISHER OF DISTINCTION

The book was published by Braziller—a name dear to architecture book lovers, for they published—and continue to offer—fine books on the topic. During the 1960’s-70’s, when the New Directions series came out, they were particularly prolific in architectural publishing.

George Braziller (1916-2017) and Marsha Braziller (d. 1970) started in the book business in 1940’s, and began their own publishing firm in 1955. The company is well-known for their visually-oriented books on art, as well as publishing serious works of literature, criticism, history—and architecture! After his retirement, George Braziller wrote an intriguing memoir of his publishing adventures (highlighting the fascinating characters he encountered.) The firm is run by their sons, and their books are currently distributed through another distinguished publisher: W.W.Norton.

PART OF A SERIES—AND A CROSS-CULTURAL PANORAMA

Udo Kultermann’s book on the work of African architects—one of the volumes in Braziller’s New Directions series.

"New Directions in American Architecture was part of the “New Directions” series published by Braziller. Other volumes in that series, published or announced, were on:

• Japanese Architecture

• African Architecture

• British Architecture

• German Architecture

• Soviet Architecture

• Latin American Architecture

• Italian Architecture

• Swiss Architecture

These were authored by some of the most eminent architectural historians of that era—scholars like Kultermann, von Moos, Boyd, Kopp, and Gregotti. The author of the American volume, Robert A. M. Stern—relatively unknown at the time—has gone on to some prominence of his own….

A FRESH CONTINUATION…

Less than a decade later, Robert A. M. Stern and Braziller brought out a New Enlarged Edition of the book. Published in 1977, it included the full body of the earlier, 1969 text—but the volume was extended by the addition of further works by Venturi, Moore, and Mitchell Giurgola.

An important added section, titled Postscript: At The Edge of Postmodernism, also gave coverage to newer participants whose work and voices were widening the architectural discourse: Eisenman, Meier, Greenberg, Graves, and Gwathmey / Siegel (names not even mentioned in the first edition). Stern’s office (Robert A. M. Stern and John S. Hagmann) was also represented by two of their most interesting early residential projects: the Lang House; and a newly constructed townhouse fronting on Park Avenue.

Like the original edition, the 1977 enlarged edition gave the reader a chance to encounter not just the design work of a vital group of architects, but also the ideas which were the philosophical underpinnings of this fresh oeuvre.

Rudolph And His Architectural Photographers — PART ONE

A compelling photo by G. E. Kidder Smith of Paul Rudolph’s Burroughs Wellcome US headquarters and research center, shown near the time of the building’s completion. Here, the photographer gives us an image which simultaneously captures the architecture’s play of volumes, structural and geometric adventurousness, aspects of its siting, and scale. Photo courtesy of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

PHOTOGRAPHIC POWER

What’s more important: a great building -or- a great photograph of it?

It’s an impossible question to answer—not because of its difficulty, but rather: because the question itself attempts to compare such different entities. The “actuality” of architecture—the way one would come to know a building, in-person, by entering and moving through it and experiencing the spaces sequentially (truly a four-dimensional phenomenon), and also through other senses (sound and touch)—is wholly different from the way that one takes-in the information embodied in a two-dimensional photograph.

Then how are architectural photographs important?

The answer: in their potential for influence.

ENDURING AND WIDESPREAD INFLUENCE

No matter how many people see a building in-person, an uncalculable greater number can see it in photographs—-and those viewings continue onward, even if the building ceases to exist.

Probably the most famous case is Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona Pavilion. It was built for a 1929 international exposition, and—from the time of its inauguration-to- its demolition—it only existed for less than a year. Since then, it has been known from a handful of photographs and its plan.

Mies’ Barcelona Pavilion, was built in 1929 and demolished within the following year. Of the handful of photographs recording what it looked like when extant, this is probably the most famous image.

Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona Pavilion of 1929 was built for an international exposition. It is preponderantly known only through a handful of photographs and two drawings (the plan, above, and a detail of a typical column.) Yet on the strength of this small group of images, it gained—and retains!—world-class status as one of the ultimate icons of architectural Modernism.

Of that small group of photographs, the most famous image is probably the one shown above. Those photos, combined with the plan drawing, have been included in countless books, articles, lectures, curricula—-and, even more important: they’ve become integrated into the thinking of every Modern architect. [We’ve written here about Rudolph’s own interest in the Barcelona Pavilion, and also here about his relationship to Mies’ work.] Now, coming-up on a century since it’s demolition, this iconic building continues to resonate through architectural education, scholarship, and practice— mainly because of photographs.

Further: try as we may to visit the great, iconic examples of architecture, they are just too dispersed. So even a devoted architectural traveler could spend decades just trying to see most of them. So, practically speaking, we have to experience and learn about most of of the world’s architecture from photographs.

THE GREAT PHOTOGRAPHERS OF MODERN ARCHIECTURE—CREATING THE ICONS WE REMEMBER

The 20th and early 21st centuries have been graced with architectural photographers that can be considered “artists-in-their-own-right”. That’s because they’ve not only been able to capture the formal essence of architectural works, but—like visual alchemists—they have also created images which (through their choices of point-of-view, lighting, focus, and composition) have virtually created the vital identities of those buildings.

Prime examples would be the powerful photo that Ezra Stoller took of Paul Rudolph’s Yale Art & Architecture Building—it’s the image we “have in our head” when we think of the building; Yukio Futagawa’s chroma-rich capturing of the interior of Rudolph’s Tuskegee Chapel; and Balthazar Korab’s photos of the soaring wings of Saarinen’s TWA “Flight Center” terminal at Kennedy Airport. To many of us, those images are the building.

Ezra Stoller’s photograph of the exterior of Paul Rudolph’s Yale Art & Architecture Building became the iconic image of it—and it’s included on the cover of his book on that famous building.

Each issue of Futagawa’s journal, GA (Global Architecture) focused on one or two buildings. This one is on Rudolph’s Tuskegee Chapel and Boston Govt. Service Center—and Tuskegee is on the cover.

Balthazar Korab photographed a number of designs by Eero Saarinen, including the TWA terminal for Kennedy airport. His photographic work on that project ranged from recording the Saarinen office’s working models, to construction photos (like the one above), to the finished building. Even in its construction stage, when it was only raw concrete, Korab was able to capture the drama of the building. Photo courtesy of the Balthazar Korab Photographic Archive, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.

RUDOLPH AND HIS PHOTOGRAPHERS

Paul Rudolph worked with some of the century’s greatest architectural photographers—the ones who are celebrated for working with the leading figures in the world of architectural Modernism. While Rudolph might have been directly involved with some photographers—commissioning them, or requesting that they focus on certain aspects of a building—in other cases, even without Rudolph’s involvement, great photographers have been engaged (by others) to shoot his work; or have done so just out of their own interest in his oeuvre.

While not exhaustive, we’ll review a round-up of many of the photographers who have been focused on the work of Paul Rudolph—and we’ll do this in two parts:

• PART ONE (this article) looks at the great architectural photographers of the early-to-late 20th Century, who have worked on Rudolph’s oeuvre.

• PART TWO will look at photographers—most still very active—who have more recently focused on Rudolph’s work.

EZRA STOLLER

(1915-2004) When one thinks of architectural photography in America, the name—or rather: the images—of Ezra Stoller are what probably first come to mind. For decades, he photographed many of the 20th Century’s most significant new buildings in the US (by the country’s premier architects), thereby creating an archive of the achievements of Modern American Architecture. More than that, Stoller’s views are some of the most iconic images of that era.

STOLLER AND PAUL RUDOLPH: Of the several photographers that Rudolph worked with, Ezra Stoller is probably the one with which he had the most involvement and lasting relationship. Stoller photographed much of his residential work in Florida—including some of Rudolph’s greatest and most innovative houses like the Milam Residence (as seen on the over of Domin and King’s book on the Florida phase of Rudolph’s career—see image at right), the Walker Guest House, the Umbrella House, and the Healy “Cocoon” House—the Yale Art & Architecture Building in New Haven, Sarasota Senior High School, the Temple Street Parking Garage in New Haven, Endo Labs, the UMass Dartmouth campus, Tuskegee Chapel in Alabama, the Hirsch (later: “Halston”) townhouse in New York City , the Wallace House, Riverview High School in Florida, the Sanderling Beach Club in Florida, and numerous others—including the Burroughs Wellcome US headquarters and research center in North Carolina’s Research Triangle Park. One can access the extensive and fascinating archive of Ezra Stoller’s work (including the Rudolph projects that he photographed) here—and an extensive selection from throughout Stoller’s career (including numerous images of Rudolph’s work) can be viewed in the book “Ezra Stoller, Photographer” (see cover at right).

The first monograph on Rudolph which featured extensive color photography, all of which was done by Futagawa.

YUKIO FUTAGAWA

(1932-2015) The dean of architectural photography in Japan, and with a world-wide reputation, for over six decades Futagawa made magnificent and memorable photos of important buildings (new and traditional) around the world. Interestingly, he created his own “platform” to publish his work: he founded GA (“Global Architecture”), GH (“Global Houses”), and published other series and individual books. Those contained not only of photography, but also architectural drawings and full project documentation of distinguished works of architecture.

FUTAGAWA AND PAUL RUDOLPH: Futagawa traveled the US to make the photographs for the monograph, “Paul Rudolph” (part of the Library of Contemporary Architects series published by Simon and Schuster)—and the archives of the Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation posseses a note by Rudolph, testifying to his appreciation of Futagawa’s work. In the GA series, he published one on the Tuskegee Chapel and the Boston Government Service Center. Futagawa extensively photographed the work of Frank Lloyd Wright and, as part of the GA series, he asked Rudolph to contribute the introductory essay to the issue on Wright’s Fallingwater. He also published the large monograph on Rudolph’s graphic works (copiously including his famous perspective drawings): Paul Rudolph: Architectural Drawings.

Kidder Smith’s two-volume “A Pictorial History of Architecture in America,” published in 1976, includes Rudolph’s work. Below: one of his photographs of the Niagara Falls Central Library, taken near the time of its completion. Photo courtesy of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

G. E. KIDDER SMITH

(1913-1997) Along with the other ultra-prominent names we’ve been mentioning, in the world of architectural photography, we must include G. E. (George Everard) Kidder Smith. Trained as an architect, Kidder Smith was not only a photographer of architecture, but also an historian-writer, exhibit designer, and preservationist (helping to save/preserve the Robie House and the Villa Savoye.) His numerous books are still important resources for anyone doing research on the architecture of America and Europe His series of “Build” books (“Brazil Builds” “Italy Builds” “Switzerland Builds” “Sweden Builds”) provide abundant images and information about the rise of Modern architecture in each of those countries.

KIDDER SMITH AND PAUL RUDOLPH: Kidder Smith’s “A Pictorial History of Architecture in America” is a 2-volume work that was published in 1976, and—utilizing the photographs that Kidder Smith had made—it covers all eras of American architectural history, region-by-region. Kidder Smith must have admired Paul Rudolph’s work, for it shows up throughout this major, encyclopedic work, and includes: Rudolph’s Boston Government Service Center, Tuskegee Chapel, Niagara Falls Central Library, UMass Dartmouth, the Orange County Government Center—and Burroughs Wellcome (whose double-page spread image is the photographic climax at the end of Volume One.). This set of buildings are of particular poignance and and meaning to us, as they include a major Rudolph building that has been altered/disfigured (Orange County); and three which are currently threatened (Boston, Niagara Falls, and Burroughs Wellcome.)—and we are using Kidder Smith’s images to help fight for their preservation.

This monograph from 1984 shows work from the several generations of photographers who have worked for Hedrich-Blessing, and the book includes an image of Paul Rudolph’s Christian Science Student Center. An even larger monograph of Hedrich-Blessing’s work was published in 2000, which also included that photo of Rudolph’s building.

HEDRICH-BLESSING

(1929-Present) The other photographers of Rudolph’s work, mentioned in this article, were primarily based on or towards the US’ East Coast. But for the middle of the country, the kings of architectural photography were Hedrich-Blessing. The firm was founded in 1929 by Ken Hedrich and Henry Blessing and—though based in Chicago and famous for photographs of buildings in that region—they have done work all over. Among the distinguished architects, whose work they photographed, were: Wright, Mies, Raymond Hood, Keck and Keck, Albert Kahn, Adler & Sullivan, SOM, Harry Weese, Breuer, Saarinen, Gunnar Birkets, Yamasaki, and Alden Dow. Since its founding, the firm has employed several generations of photographers, and is still very much active today.

HEDRICH-BLESSING AND PAUL RUDOLPH: To our present knowledge, Hedrich-Blessing did not photograph many of Paul Rudolph’s buildings. [Perhaps because Rudolph did not build much in their part of the country. That may have been different had Rudolph become dean of IIT’s School of Architecture in Chicago—an offer he briefly considered.] We do know of at least one superb photo Hedrich-Blessing took of his Christian Science Student Center. This building, which Rudolph designed in 1962 near the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana, was unfortunately demolished in the mid-1980’s. So it is important that we have Hedrich-Blessing’s photograph, which was taken by their staff photographer Bill Engdahl in 1966: it shows the building at night: dramatically shadowed on the outside, but enticingly glowing from within.

Above: Shulman’s extensive oeuvre is documented in a three-volume monograph published by Taschen. Below: One of Shulman’s photographs of Rudolph’s Temple Street Parking Garage. © J. Paul Getty Trust. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2004.R.10)

JULIUS SHULMAN

(1910-2009) Shulman was an almost exact contemporary of some of the other legendary architectural photographers on this list (i.e.: Stoller and Kidder Smith), and his professional career extended over 7 decades—from the 1930’s into the 2000’s. The body of work for which he is most well known is the large set of photographs he took of Modern architecture in California—centered in Los Angeles, but extending to cover buildings in other parts of the state. His clients included some of the most famous makers of Modern architecture: Pierre Koenig (for whom he took a night time photo of the Stalh House which became the iconic emblem of modern living in Southern California,) Neutra, Wright, Soriano, the Eames, and John Lautner. Christopher Hawthorne, of the Los Angeles Times, said of his work: “His famous black-and-white photographs. . . .were not just, as [Thomas] Hines noted, marked by clarity and high contrast. They were also carried aloft by a certain airiness of spirit, a lively confidence that announced that Los Angeles was the place where architecture was being sharpened and throwing off sparks from its daily contact with the cutting edge.” Shulman also had commissions in other parts of the country, as in: his photographs of Lever House in New York, a house by Paolo Soleri in Arizona, and work by Mies in Chicago—and he worked internationally, for example: photographing a residence by Lautner in Mexico. He authored 7 books, participated in 10 others, and his extensive archive is in the Getty Research Institute.

SHULMAN AND PAUL RUDOLPH: While Julius Shulman is identified with the photography of key examples of architectural Modernism in California, he also took assignments for other locations, and his images of Paul Rudolph’s works in New Haven are strong examples of Shulman’s image making. Several can be seen on the Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation’s project pages for the Temple Street Parking Garage, and the Yale Married Students Housing. The photographs of the garage are intense with visual drama, highlighting its scale and sculptural qualities.

Above: Molitor’s photo of UMass Dartmouth. Below: Niagara Falls Central Library. Images courtesy of Columbia University, Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, Joseph W. Molitor Photograph Collection

JOSEPH W. MOLITOR

(1907-1996)  We are fortunate that the the Joseph W. Molitor Photograph Collection is now part of the Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, where it is made available to scholars, researchers, writers, and students. The Avery Library describes Molitor and his career: “Joseph Molitor, recognized as a peer of such leading 20th-century American architectural photographers as Hedrich-Blessing, Balthazar Korab, Julius Shulman, and Ezra Stoller, documented the work of regional and national architects for fifty years. Trained as an architect, he practiced for twelve years before briefly working in advertising. Molitor turned exclusively to architectural photography in the late 1940s, maintaining his studio in suburban Westchester County, New York. Working primarily in black and white, Molitor's images appeared in Architectural Record, The New York Times, House & Home, and other national and international publications.”

MOLITOR AND PAUL RUDOLPH: Avery’s text also mentions “His iconic photograph of a walkway at architect Paul Rudolph’s high school in Sarasota, Florida, won first place in the black and white section of the American Institute of Architects’ architectural photography awards in 1960.” You can find Joseph Molitor’s photographs on several of the project pages within the Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation’s website, including the pages devoted to the Milam Residence in Florida, and the Niagara Falls Central Library—and his book, Architectural Photography, published in 1976, features an abundance of images of Rudolph’s work. Recently, the Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation has been focused upon Molitor’s work because of the endlessly intriguing set of photographs he made of the Burroughs Wellcome building—showing them with a crispness and sense of drama that few other photographers have approached.

Above and Below: two of Henry L. Kamphoefner’s photographs of interiors within the Burroughs Wellcome building in North Carolina—both images displaying the striking geometries which Rudolph used in the design.

HENRY L. KAMPHOEFNER

(1907-1990) Unlike the above figures, Henry Leveke Kamphoefner is not primarily known as an architectural photographer—but he was well-known in the South as a champion of Modern architecture, especially in North Carolina. Graduating from the Univ. of Illinois with a BS degree in architecture in 1930, in the following years he received a MS in architecture from Columbia and a Certificate of Architecture from the Beaux Arts Institute of Design in New York. From 1932 until 1936, he practiced architecture privately, and one of his most well-known works is a municipal bandshell Sioux City (which was selected by the Royal Institute of British Architects as one of "America's Outstanding Buildings of the Post-War Period.") In 1936 and 1937, he worked as an associate architect for the Rural Resettlement Administration, and during summers after that he was was employed as an architect for the US Navy. He had an ongoing and significant involvement with architectural education: in 1937 he became a professor at the Univ. of Oklahoma and during 1947 was also a visiting professor at the Univ. of Michigan. In 1948 Kamphoefner became the first dean of the North Carolina State College School of Design, creating strict admissions policies and instituting a distinguished visitors program which brought in architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright. He remained dean until 1973, but continued teaching until 1979. From 1979 to 1981 he served as a distinguished visiting professor at Meredith College. Kamphoefner’s importance has been highlighted in a new book, Triangle Modern Architecture, by Victoria Ballard Bell.

KAMPHOEFNER AND PAUL RUDOLPH: The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation has included several of Kamphoefner’s photographs of the Burroughs Wellcome US headquarters and research center on its project page for that building. It is natural that, as a resident of North Carolina, and as an advocate for Modern architecture, that he would be focused on that building. His photographs of the interiors highlight the striking diagonal geometries that Paul Rudolph incorporated into the project. We have included his images of Burroughs Wellcome in several of our blog articles, as part of our fight to preserve this great work of architecture.

COMING SOON: PART TWO

Be sure to look for PART TWO of this study of Paul Rudolph And His Architectural Photographers. It which will look the more recently active photographers, each of whom have focused on the work of Paul Rudolph.

MEETING ALERT - The Future of Rudolph's BOSTON GOVERNMENT SERVICE CENTER - December 17th

Paul Rudolph’s overall design drawing for the Boston Government Service Center. A significant portion of the complex—the Hurley Building at left—is still under threat of full or partial demolition—but we’ve heard that the state agency that’s seeking to develop the site may be open to including preservation as a central tenet of the project. You can help reinforce that direction at the upcoming Public Meeting on December 17th.

THE SITUATION:

The BOSTON GOVERNMENT SERVICE CENTER—one of Paul Rudolph’s largest and most multifaceted public buildings - remains threatened.

The state has proposed developing the site—and a key part of their plan is handing-off an integral part of the complex—the HURLEY BUILDING—to a developer. There have been various reports and meetings to present the state’s plans—and they’ve received a lot of push-back.

We’ve published several articles on the building, including ones examining and questioning this development project (like this one, which looked at the alternatives the state’s been considering.) Several critical letters, statements, and reports—protesting the assumption that demolition is the only path to a positive future for this complex—have been issued, including from the Boston Preservation Alliance and Docomomo-New England.

Even so, the state’s “messaging” about the project (while offering some useful information and ideas) also persists in trying to divorce Paul Rudolph from design responsibility for the building—thus attempting to undermine the Hurley Building’s architectural significance (and we’ve addressed that myth here.)

MEETING ALERT:

TONIGHT - Thursday, December 17th, at 6:30PM —there will be a VIRTUAL [Zoom] PUBLIC MEETING about the project.

DCAMM says that:

• Attendees will learn about the state’s goals for the redevelopment

• Staff will present draft Project Proposal for the redevelopment

• Staff will ask for your comments

You are invited to attend (and attendance is Free)

TAKE ACTION:

• Attend the Public ZOOM meeting on Thursday, December 17th, 6:30 PM—and speak out: Important information will be shared and your presence will show support for the preservation of this important work of public architecture. Full meeting info is below—but you must RSVP (see link below.)

• Sign the petition: “Save the Boston Government Service Center” — sign it HERE - and share it with your friends and all who appreciate great architecture.

A corner view of the Hurley Building (with a portion of the body of the building in the background at right)—an integral part of of the Boston Government Service Center designed by Paul Rudolph. Public input is invited at November 19th’s ZOOM meeting—and you’re urged to attend and comment (see registration info below).

HOW TO ATTEND THE MEETING:

NAME OF EVENT: Charles F. Hurley Building Redevelopment

DATE & TIME: Thursday, December 17, 2020 — 6:30 PM

FORMAT: Virtual (“ZOOM”) Public Meeting

TO ATTEND: the meeting is Free and Open-To-The-Public—but you must RSVP (see below)

RSVP HERE: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Zw1ed5LORHqn_M2OsqgqBg

SPONSORED BY: Massachusetts’ Division of Capital Asset Management and Maintenance (DCAMM)

ZOOM REGISTRATION ASSISTANCE: If you need assistance accessing the ZOOM registration link, please email apoggenburg@reginavilla.com -or- call (617) 357-5772 x 26

DCAMM WEBSITE [Note: this is the government’s current info page on the project]: https://www.mass.gov/service-details/charles-f-hurley-building-redevelopment

QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS TO DCAMM ABOUT THIS PROJECT: e-mail them to: HurleyReDev.dcamm@mass.gov.

The artist’s impression of the Great Seal of the United States—a section of one of Constantino Nivola’s impressive and inspiring murals within the Boston Government Service Center’s Hurley Building. These murals cannot be moved—adding to the urgency that the Hurley building be preserved.

PHOTO CREDITS:

Paul Rudolph Drawing of Overall Design of the Boston Government Service Center: © The estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation; Corner View of the Hurley Building: Image courtesy of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, photograph by G. E. Kidder Smith; Nivola Mural Eagle: Photo by Kelvin Dickinson © The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation

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.

---

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

Meeting Alert: the Future of Rudolph's BOSTON GOVERNMENT SERVICE CENTER - November 19th

Paul Rudolph’s overall design drawing for the Boston Government Service Center. A significant portion of the complex—the Hurley Building at left—is still under threat of full or partial demolition—but we’ve heard that the state agency that’s seeking to develop the site may be open to including preservation as a central tenet of the project. You can help reinforce that direction at the upcoming Public Meeting on November 19th.

One of the earlier reports, commissioned by DCAMM (the state agency planning to move ahead with development of the site—including possibly demolishing all or part of the Hurley Building.). We examined the various options they were considering, presented in that report, in an article here.

On of the strategies of those who want to demolish all or part of the Boston Government Service Center’s Hurley Building is to spread the idea that Rudolph was not the prime designer of the complex (including Hurley)—a myth we’ve addressed here.

Shown above is a model of the complex, with the Hurley Building closest to the front-left of the picture (the model also includes the unbuilt office tower.) In the background can be seen architectural drawings of the complex: an elevation and numerous floor plans. Around the model are key players in the creation of the Boston Government Service Center: (left-to-right) Nathaniel Becker, Dick Thissen, Charles Gibbons, Joseph P. Richardson, Edward Logue, Jeremiah Sundell, Unidentified (George Berlow or William Pedersen?)—and Paul Rudolph at far right.

THE SITUATION:

The BOSTON GOVERNMENT SERVICE CENTER—one of Paul Rudolph’s largest and most multifaceted public buidings—remains threatened.

The state has proposed developing the site—and a key part of their plan is handing-off an integral part of the complex—the HURLEY BUILDING—to a developer. There have been various reports and meetings to present the state’s plans—and they’ve received a lot of push-back.

We’ve published several articles on the building, including ones examining and questioning this development project (like this one, which looked at the alternatives the state’s been considering.) Several critical letters, statements, and reports—protesting the assumption that demolition is the only path to a positive future for this complex—have been issued, including from the Boston Preservation Alliance and Docomomo-New England.

Even so, the state’s “messaging” about the project (while offering some useful information and ideas) also persists in trying to divorce Paul Rudolph from design responsibility for the building—thus attempting to undermine the Hurley Building’s architectural significance (and we’ve addressed that myth here.)

A POSITIVE DEVELOPMENT?

Now the project will be opened to additional public feedback at a November public meeting.

That’s important because: the state agency that’s planning on developing the site (DCAMM: the Division of Capital Asset Management and Maintenance) seems to have become receptive to including preservation as a central tenet of the project. Their recent statements about the Hurley development indicate they are going in this positive direction—and it would be good to reinforce this in the upcoming public meeting. So you’re invited to attend and speak out about preserving the integrity of this Rudolph design.

MEETING ALERT:

Soon— Thursday, November 19th, at 6:30PM —there will be a VIRTUAL [Zoom] PUBLIC MEETING about the project.

DCAMM says that:

• Attendees will learn about the state’s goals for the redevelopment, and how they’ll work to ensure getting a “redevelopment partner” that will help to achieve those goals

• Staff will present draft Design Guidelines for the redevelopment

• Staff will ask for your feedback

You are invited to attend (and attendance is Free)

TAKE ACTION:

• Attend the Public ZOOM meeting on Thursday, November 19th, 6:30 PM—and speak out: Important information will be shared and your presence will show support for the preservation of this important work of public architecture. Full meeting info is below—but you must RSVP (see link below.)

• Sign the petition: “Save the Boston Government Service Center” — sign it HERE - and share it with your friends and all who appreciate great architecture.

A corner view of the Hurley Building (with a portion of the body of the building in the background at right)—an integral part of of the Boston Government Service Center designed by Paul Rudolph. Public input is invited at November 19th’s ZOOM meeting—and you’re urged to attend and comment (see registration info below).

HOW TO ATTEND THE MEETING:

NAME OF EVENT: Charles F. Hurley Building Redevelopment

DATE & TIME: Thursday, November 19, 2020 — 6:30 PM

FORMAT: Virtual (“ZOOM”) Public Meeting

TO ATTEND: the meeting is Free and Open-To-The-Public—but you must RSVP (see below)

RSVP HERE: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZckduCqpj4oE9cIeuXZcbcV34qntuuqoSyV

SPONSORED BY: Massachusetts’ Division of Capital Asset Management and Maintenance (DCAMM)

ZOOM REGISTRATION ASSISTANCE: If you need assistance accessing the ZOOM registration link, please email apoggenburg@reginavilla.com -or- call (617) 357-5772 x 26 by no later than Friday, November 13th

DCAMM WEBSITE [Note: this is the government’s current info page on the project]: https://www.mass.gov/service-details/charles-f-hurley-building-redevelopment

QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS TO DCAMM ABOUT THIS PROJECT: e-mail them to: HurleyReDev.dcamm@mass.gov.

The artist’s impression of the Great Seal of the United States—a section of one of Constantino Nivola’s impressive and inspiring murals within the Boston Government Service Center’s Hurley Building. These murals cannot be moved—adding to the urgency that the Hurley building be preserved.

PHOTO CREDITS:

Paul Rudolph Drawing of Overall Design of the Boston Government Service Center: © The estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation; Key players in the creation of the Boston Government Service Center: news photo, source unknown; Corner View of the Hurley Building: Image courtesy of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, photograph by G. E. Kidder Smith; Nivola Mural Eagle: Photo by Kelvin Dickinson © The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation

DOCOMOMO's “Auction For Modernism” (and we’re donating something you’ll definitely want to bid on!)

DOCOMOMO US HAS A CLEAR AND COMPELLING MISSION:

Enriching our communities and our culture through the understanding, appreciation and preservation of modern architecture and design.

DOCOMOM US does that through advocacy, education, documentation, and providing leadership and knowledge to demonstrate the importance of modern design principles for these important parts of American history and culture.

They’re energetic, creative, resourceful—and they never stop!

Whether it’s fighting to preserve significant buildings, advising on adaptive reuse, or serving as a resource for local groups and activists, they’re always ready to generously share their knowledge and positive energies. At right you can see part of their recent newsletter, with some updates on what they’ve been involved with—including our fight to save Paul Rudolph’s Burroughs Wellcome building.

THE AUCTION FOR MODERNISM (IT’S STARTING NOW)

To keep their DOCOMOMO US’ work going forward, they’re having the most amazing fundraising auction—The Auction For Modernism—and we’re proud that the Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation is participating.

What can you bid for? Superb examples of Modern Design: furniture, architect’s original drawings, rare books, architectural prints and photos, private tours, original artworks, jewelry, ceramics, overnight or weekend stays in modern masterworks (and even an I.M. Pei doll!)

BID FOR: A VIP TOUR OF A PAUL RUDOLPH MASTERWORK

We’re helping: the Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation is donating—for you to bid on—a private tour of the Paul Rudolph-designed Modulightor Building, and the winning bidder will also receive two books on Rudolph’s life and legacy.

At the top of this post and below you can see photos of some of the richly layered private interiors in the Modulightor Building. You and your guests will get a VIP tour, and have time to explore these intriguing, intimate spaces in a building designed by Rudolph at the height of his powers.

To see all of auction’s many tempting items, go here.

But if you want to go directly to bid for your Modulightor Building tour and book package, go here.

PHOTO CREDITS:

Evening view of the exterior of the Modulightor Building: Photograph © Joe Polowczuk, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation Archives

Interiors of the Modulightor building: Photographs © Anne Broder, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation Archives

Auction page view (at top) of an interior of Modulightor Building with Picasso sculpture and staircase: Photograph by Donald Luckenbill © The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation Archives

Rudolph's "Vocabulary” of Form—at BURROUGHS WELLCOME and Beyond

The Burroughs Welcome building, using a vocabulary of forms which combine a mountain-like profile (reflecting the context of the North Carolina terrain where it is located); along with growing cells (possibly communicating the nature of the biological research conducted within). Image courtesy of the Joseph W. Molitor architectural photographs collection, located in Columbia University, Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Department of Drawings & Archives

AN ARCHITECT’S “VOCABULARY” OF FORM

Architectural historians and critics sometimes speak of an architect’s “vocabulary”—by which the don’t mean the words a designer chooses when talking or writing about their work. Rather: they primarily mean the set of forms—-volumes, shapes, geometries—with which the architect usually works, and to which they most often turn when dealing with architectural challenges. Like an individual’s most frequently used vocabulary of words, these forms are the terms which an individual architect characteristically utilizes for design solutions.

Biomorphic forms are part of the design “vocabulary” of the architect of this design: the Saldarini House by Vittorio Giorgini. Photo by MPThompsonCO1, via Wikimedia Commons.

For example, if one reviews an architect’s work, and curvaceously shaped and organically linked spaces seem to be the designer’s most often used set of shapes, then one can say their design “vocabulary” is composed primarily of organic (or biomorphic) forms of great plasticity. The work of architect Vittorio Giorgini, like the house he designed in Italy shown at right, would be an instance. Giorgini, though he could design in a variety of modes, most often seems to have used a vocabulary of organic forms.

A similar claim about “vocabulary” could be made if an architect’s work had a preponderance of rectilinear/grid-like forms, like Mies -or- alternatively, if the architect used lines that seemed to continually fracture and angle with the surprise and grace of the later work of Rudolph Steiner.

N.B.: It’s important to note that an architect’s formal “vocabulary” is a little different from an architect’s “style” (though they do overlap.) Architectural theorist Michael Brill defined style as the observable problem-solving “tendencies” of an architect. When a particular architect is confronted with a design problem, and they almost always react a particular way (that they show a tendency to approach design challenges with a frequently used solution or technique)—that would be a significant aspect of their style. Thus, if an architect always used symmetry for solving design problems, (or conversely, like Paul Rudolph, almost never used it!) that’s a facet of their style. Of if an architect, when dealing with a planning problem, often disperses the spaces over the site (or, conversely, compacts them densely,) such a tendency would be part of that architect’s “style.”

WHEN AND ARCHITECT’S VOCABULARY IS HARD TO DEFINE

We have to acknowledge that—with some architects more than others—it’s hard to define their architectural “vocabulary.” Indeed, it would be dishonest (and dishonoring) to rigidly circumscribe those designers who are amazing creative spirits, whose vocabulary has ranged over the whole universe of form—and that would certainly be true for Rudolph.

Paul Rudolph’s perspective rendering and plan for a Manager’s Office for the Parking Authority. © The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation

In a recent post—BURROUGHS WELLCOME: GEOMETRY AND RUDOLPH’S DESIGN—we focused upon geometry (and especially crystalline forms) as a possible design source or inspiration in Paul Rudolph’s work.

But that hardly defines Paul Rudolph, whose extensive work (produced over a half-century career) engaged with the greatest range of forms. A small (but telling) counter-example, to the use of crystal forms, would be this regrettably unbuilt design from 1961: a Manager’s Office for the Parking Authority for New Haven. Certainly, if one knows Rudolph’s work, one can sense that it fits well into his oeuvre. Yet it has almost nothing to do with any kind of crystalline geometry—indeed, it seems to be on the opposite end of the range of forms.

BUT AN ARCHTIECT’S VOCABULARY IS A LEGITIMATE AREA OF INQUIRY—EVEN FOR THE MOST CREATIVE DESIGNERS

Even with the caveat above—reminding of us to avoid pigeonholing architects by a too-limited view of their architectural “vocabulary”—it still can be illuminating to look for patterns that repeat in their work, as well as similar forms in the works of their contemporaries (so that the possibility of creative '“cross-pollination” can be discerned.)

There are forms which come up, repeatedly in Rudolph’s work, which have a “family resemblance"—and the form we’ll focus upon here is the most powerful to be found in nature: the Mountain.

“BUILDINGS LIKE MOUNTAINS”

Hugh Ferris (1889-1962) was the the architectural profession’s favorite renderer from the 1920’s to mid-century. He was the “go to” visualizer, whose charcoal perspective drawings were utilized by numerous (and famous) architects of the era—especially during the building boom of the teens and 1920’s, a time when hundreds of skyscrapers and ambitious projects were being proposed (and many erected) across the US.

In the early 192o’s he was called upon to create a set of renderings that would show the volumes which could arise under the proposed NYC regulations for building zoning/height/volume/floor area. The images he produced make clear that even a by-the-book adherence to the rules was no barrier to creating architectural work of profoundest power.

Although these drawings were done by Ferriss for practical, illustrative purposes, what interests us here is the mountain-like quality radiated by these images.

In another inspired drawing, captioned by Ferriss “Buildings Like Mountains,” he conveyed a sense of solidity and elemental, dramatic power—a spirit which architects could bring to their designs. His vision is of a building which seems in the process of birth, emerging from the rock of a towering mountain range.

Hugh Ferriss’ drawing, “Buildings Like Mountains.” Courtesy of Columbia University, Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Department of Drawings & Archives

This is design power—and most architects embrace the dramatic possibilities of such architectonic power.

MOUNTAINS THAT ARE BULDINGS

Our earlier post, on crystalline/hexagonal form, included looking at Frank Lloyd Wright—one of the architects Rudolph supremely admired (perhaps the most of all), and Wright’s use of those geometries.

One example serves to show Frank Lloyd Wright’s work in this vein (and also that his mastery—both geometric and architectural—extended to the end of his seven active decades as a designer.) The below-left photo is of the Beth Sholom Synagogue in Elkins Park, PA, a Wright project from the 1950’s. Below-right is a model of the building, lit from within like a glowing crystal. [That’s not an illusory effect, as most of the roof of the building is made of a translucent material—so not only did this allow abundant light in during the day, but at night it sends out a glow.]

But look at the scale of the thing (which one can estimate from the size of the doors)! The building comes across as a human-constructed mountain, rising and receding with serene majesty and power, almost aloof from pedestrian concerns—or as Jane Austen put it:

“What Are Men To Rocks And Mountains?”

RUDOLPH AT BURROUGHS WELLCOME

For the Burroughs Wellcome Building, Paul Rudolph explicitly referenced the North Carolina context, and how it led him to a mountain-like (or hill-like) form. He wrote:

“This complex climbs up and down a beautiful ridge in the green hills of North Carolina and is architecturally an extension of its site.”

And one can see that shape in his drawings:

Paul Rudolph’s section drawing through the central body of the Burroughs Wellcome headquarters and research center, in North Carolina’s Research Triangle Park. This image—a “presentation drawing” meant to dramatically and convincingly convey the architect’s idea—cuts through the famous entry lobby. © The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation

Rudolph’s construction-section drawing through the central body of the Burroughs Wellcome building, cut at almost the same spot as the drawing to the left (and it also includes part of the building’s entry lobby.) It is reproduced here at nearly the same scale as the left’s presentation drawing, so they can be easily compared. © The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation

THE MOUNTAIN (AND HILLS) IN RUDOLPH’S dESIGN VOCABULARY

Paul Rudolph explored and used and abundance of forms—his design “vocabulary” was expansive and embracing of all possibilities (including some he invented).

But there are patterns. We don’t know if we’re the first to look at his extensive oeuvre for mountain-like (or hill-like) forms, but if one looks, they’re there—and in abundance. For example, his proposal for St. Boniface in Florida has the various church structures emerging from the ground, as through pushed-up by geological forces. Below is a selection of projects with such forms, from across Rudolph’s entire career.

St. Boniface Episcopal Church

Beth-El Synagogue

Rudolph’s sketch for the LOMEX project—creating a mountain range?

Apartment Hotel in Jerusalem

Morgan Annex

Knott Residence

East Northport Synagogue Addition

Central Suffolk Office Park

Maris Stella University Chapel

Niagara Falls Central Library

Television Station, Amarillo, Texas The form here is particularly mountain-like, and we have written a whole article about this fascinating building, here.

YOU CAN HELP SAVE BURROUGHS WELLCOME !

The Burroughs Wellcome building is threated with imminent demolition.

It’s 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

Even the currently empty lobby of Burroughs Wellcome still has the awe-inducing grandeur of a geological formation of mountain-range scale. Such a special work of architecture—a part of our national heritage—should not be lost. Photograph courtesy of © PJ McDonnell, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation Archives

PHOTO CREDITS for the two images of the Wright temple, and the eleven examples of mountain-like forms in the work of Paul Rudolph, shown in the above post: Beth Sholom Synagogue, exterior view: photo by Smallbones, via Wikimedia Commons; Beth Sholom Synagogue, model: photo by Ricardo Tulio Gandelman, via Wikimedia Commons; Saint Boniface Episcopal Church: © The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation; Beth-El Synagogue: © The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation; LOMEX: © The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation; Apartment Hotel in Jersalem: © The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation; Morgan Annex: © The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation; Knott Residence: © The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation; East Northport Synagogue Addition: © The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation; Central Suffolk Office Park: © The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation; Maris Stella University Chapel: © The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation; Niagara Falls Central Library: Photograph by Kelvin Dickinson, archives of The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation; Television station, Amarillo, Texas: Photo © Ben Koush