It's not easy being "Green" — If you tear-down a Landmark

Meet Martine Rothblatt, CEO of United Therapeutics. She owns Rudolph’s Kerr Residence in Florida & should be a fan. After promising to preserve it, her company tore down the only Rudolph in NC – the Burroughs Wellcome building in RTP. Now she’s going to lecture on Green Construction…

Burroughs Wellcome was recognized as landmark-worthy in a HABS report by the National Park Service. We fought, along with other organizations, to save the building & thousands of you signed a petition to stop the demolition. But what did Martine do? She sent her PR team to ask us to take down parts of our website that referred to the petition and demolition…

She cares about ‘green construction, including the world’s largest zero carbon building & laboratories, office buildings & residences.’ Zero carbon is not ‘green’ when you send 546,335 cubic feet of construction & 3,100 tons of steel to the dump to make way for your new project…

#Greenbuild invited her to give a keynote at tomorrow’s Global Health & Wellness Summit on Sept 9, 2021. According to https://informaconnect.com/greenbuild/summits/ the summit will ‘discuss how spaces are being redefined amid the ongoing climate crisis’ but does Martine’s solution make the problem worse in order to ‘fix’ it? The greenest building is the one that already exists…

PLEASE SHARE & IF YOU’RE GOING TO ATTEND ask WHY she tore down a Paul Rudolph landmark. Ask if the millions of $$ a year she makes as CEO of the company is the GREEN they mean in ‘Green Construction.’ More about the building is on our website (which Martine’s PR team doesn’t want you to see) at www.bit.ly/rudolphdemo

#PaulRudolph #greenbuild #greenbuilding #greenconstruction #RTP #architecture #brutalism #climate #wellbeing #UnitedTherapeutics @WELLcertified @USGBC @rickfedrizzi @docomomous @WorldGBC @ArchitectsJrnal @AIANational @archpaper @ArchRecord @usmodernist @preservationaction @bwfund @presnc @preservationdurham @c20society @brutalism_appreciation_society @sosbrutalism @ncarchitecture @savingplaces @modarchitecture

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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:

Photograph of Martine Rothblatt: Andre Chung, via Wikimedia Commons; Photograph of the Burroughs Wellcome building, in the process of demolition: detail of a photograph 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; Logo of the Global Health & Wellness Summit: from the web page devoted to the event.

Burroughs Wellcome: Geometry and Rudolph's Design

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

Paul Rudolph’s sketch study for the East elevation of administration wing of the Burroughs Wellcome building in North Carolina. © The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation

THE UNITY oF ARCHITECTURE AND GEOMETRY

Geometry emerging out of wild nature? In fact, this is a natural formation—perhaps showing that nature itself has inherent geometric tendencies. Pyrite cubic crystals on marlstone. Photo by Carles Millan. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

“Architecture is. . . .at least the geometric pattern of things, of life, of the human and social world.”

— Frank Lloyd Wright

Architects and geometry—are they not eternally linked? Even in the most organically curvilinear design, a trained eye can detect the underlying geometric order.

Perhaps their indissoluble marriage can be traced to the essence the architectural task. Rocco Leonardis—an architect and friend of Paul Rudolph’s—has stated it this way:

“Architects create wholes."

and such is the power (and flexibility) of geometry that it is the prime discipline and tool by which architects can bring a sense of order and “wholeness”—unity—to their designs.

POWER IN WRIGHTIAN GEOMETRIES

An ornamental detail from a Frank Lloyd Wright building in Pennsylvania. Hexagonal shapes are implicit in the forms Wright used here.. Image courtesy of Montgomery County Planning Commission via Wikimedia Commons.

Among the founders of Modern architecture no one knew this better than Frank Lloyd Wright.

It’s worth underlining that Wright was one of the most powerful influences on Paul Rudolph—something he never failed to acknowledge. Wright’s impact on Rudolph started from a very young age. Rudolph recounts:

“I was twelve or fourteen when I first saw a Frank Lloyd Wright house. That was in Florence, Alabama. I forget how I knew about this house, but I did, so I got my parents to drive over. . . . .There are very few architects whose work I would go out of my way to see, but I would always go to see anything, even the worst, of Wright’s.”

Hexagonal seat back for the “Peacock Chair” which Frank Lloyd Wright designed, in the early 1920’s, for the Imperial Hotel in Japan. Photo by Tim Evanson. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

And no one had greater virtuosity than Wright, when it came to utilizing geometry for generating and taming architectural form.

As an example: Wright’s floor plans often utilized geometric grids. But although he was a master at using orthogonal [square] grids for the layout of residences and other building types, he used a variety of grids: triangular, diamond, and hexagonal. One can see this in a number of Wright’s works, from smaller objects to which he turned his attention (like a chair for the Imperial Hotel he designed in Japan) -to- his elaborately developed and detailed floor plans for the Price Tower (one of which is shown below).

In the three Wright house designs, shown below, he uses geometric grids (one diamond and two hexagonal) to help regulate the placement of walls and other elements.

Berger house.

Bazett House

Richardson house.

RUDOLPH: CRYSTAL GEOMETRY IN THE ELEVATIONS

A crystal, Labradorite—in this example, showing a hexagonal geometry. Photograph by Martin Thoma. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Hexagonal geometry is of particular interest, as it relates to several examples of Rudolph’s work—and, in particular, to one of Rudolph’s best buildings: the US headquarters and research center that he designed for the pharmaceutical giant, Burroughs Wellcome.

What’s also interesting—and is manifest in Burroughs Wellcome’s design—are what appear to be the geometries associated with nature’s crystals. At Burroughs Wellcome, this is most noticeable in his use of “extended” hexagons—the kind where the form appears to be stretched out.

Nature provides an abundance of examples, both from mineral and snow crystals.

ABOVE: Pale blue transparent beryl crystal, surrounded by hexagonal crystals of muscovite. Photo by Carles Millan. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

RIGHT: A snow crystal, in which extended hexagonal geometries can be seen. Image by the Electron and Confocal Microscopy Laboratory, Agricultural Research Service, U. S. Department of Agriculture.

In Rudolph’s design these extended crystal volumes appear to pulse forward and backward, giving a sense that the building has a vivid metabolism of its own—a most appropriate symbolism for a major center for biomedical research!

A general view of one wing of the Burroughs Wellcome Building, showing the that the crystalline geometry primarily manifested along its ends. Image courtesy of the Wellcome Collection.

The extended hexagonal volumes, pushing forward and receding, at one end of the building.. Image courtesy of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, photograph by G. E. Kidder Smith

Nobel Prize winners Gertrude Elion and William Hitchings, who did much of their research work at Burroughs Wellcome. Photo by Will & Deni McIntyre. Courtesy GSK RTP Heritage Center.

Main Building Addition from 1976. It manifests extended hexagon geometries, but in a stacked and rhythmic pattern. © The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation.

Rudolph extended these geometries into his design for the interiors—showing up in hallways, passages, and the dramatic dining room that he created for one of the building’s additions.

ABOVE: Dining Room, designed by Rudolph. © The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation. RIGHT: Hexagonal derived geometry at a doorway passage. Photo by Henry L. Kampenhoefner. © Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation

RUDOLPH: CRYSTAL GEOMETRY IN THE PLANNING

Like any architectural design, Burroughs Wellcome went thorough development, revision, and refinement. An early design scheme of Rudolph’s shows the building’s entry plaza would have featured large stepped areas. These would have created an impressive, ziggurat-like entry experience (and visual platform) for the building. While we can’t argue with the final (and superb) design that was built, it is intriguing to contemplate what the entry experience of the building would have been like, had they gone forward with this earlier approach.

Early scheme for the building. ©The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation.

Detail of rendering of early scheme. ©The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation.

Rudolph freely admitted that he was influenced by everything he experienced—or as he put it:

“Well, I am influenced by everything I see, hear, feel, smell, touch, and so on.”

So discerning the exact influences any of his designs is never easy, if at all possible. Indeed, architects are rarely—if ever!—completely conscious of how they arrive at their design solutions. Looking at the above stair-focused design, one might sense an echo of the ziggurat forms of the stepped pyramids of ancient Egypt or Mexico—but the designs could just as well have derived from other sources, like the kind of rectilinear structure of the below quartz titanium crystal.

This example of a natural quartz crystal rainbow titanium cluster presents an intruding set of rectilinear geometries.

Nature’s crystals—or inspiration for stairs?

YOU CAN HELP SAVE BURROUGHS WELLCOME !

Image courtesy of Joseph W. Molitor architectural photographs. Located in Columbia University, Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Department of Drawings & Archives

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.

Rudolph at work: Architect—and master of geometry.

New BOOK On Burroughs Wellcome's Home: Research Triangle Park

An aerial view of the Burroughs Wellcome building, within North Carolina’s Research Triangle Park. Image courtesy of Google Maps.

Brain Magnet is an historical study of Research Triangle Park—of which Burroughs Wellcome is its most architecturally distinguished resident.

North Carolina’s Research Triangle Park (RTP) is one of the most prominent research developments in the country. Founded in 1959, it is the largest research park in the US, with numerous distinguished firms and organizations locating their headquarters and research centers there. It includes facilities for: IBM, Cree, BASF, GlaxoSmithKline, Cisco, Lenovo, Wells Fargo, the National Humanities Center, the EPA, and Underwriters Laboratories

Within Research Triangle Park, some organizations have attempted to construct facilities of architectural merit—and of all of them, it is Paul Rudolph’s BURROUGHS WELLCOME building which stands out.

Newly published, by Columbia University Press, is: Brain Magnet: Research Triangle Park and the Idea of the Idea Economy. It is a fascinating study of the park’s context, origins, development, and flourishing (including the arrival of the Burroughs Wellcome headquarters)—and the area’s evolution and prospects.

The author is Alex Sayf Cummings, an associate professor and director of graduate studies in the History Department at Georgia State University. A prolific scholar and author, she has conducted research into a great variety of areas—as shown in her numerous publications and commentaries. She describes herself as “. . . .an historian of law, technology, labor, public policy, and American cities.”

We first encountered Dr. Cummings’ work in a post she wrote for Tropics of Meta—a history blog (where she is senior editor) that “aims to offer a fresh perspective on history, current events, popular culture, and issues in the academic world.” In that post, she reported on a tour 2016 tour of the Burroughs Wellcome building, commenting on its design and condition, and showing photos from the visit (you can see the full article here.) From that post, “Into the Spaceship: A Visit to the Old Burroughs Wellcome Building,” we learned that she was conducting in-depth research on Research Triangle Park—work which has happily resulted in her new book.

Dr. Cummings describes some of her intentions in writing Brain Magnet:

Brain Magnet: Research Triangle Park and the Idea of the Idea Economy is about the way Americans came to think and speak differently about the economy in the late twentieth century. It uses North Carolina’s Research Triangle Park (RTP)—an ambitious development project launched in 1959 that rapidly became the largest research park in the United States—to consider how the very concept of an economy dedicated to the production of ideas and information emerged since the 1950s. Local boosters talked incessantly of creativity and creative workers, of cultivating a “stimulating” intellectual climate around the universities of Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill, in a bid to convince high-tech corporations and the scientists and engineers they hoped to employ to relocate to the so-called “Research Triangle.” As Durham banker John Stewart put it in 1967, “Progress goes where there are brains and water”—and North Carolinians aggressively sought to attract as many “brains” as possible by courting companies such as IBM (1965) and Burroughs-Wellcome (1969), as well as nonprofit institutions like the National Humanities Center (1978).

For North Carolinians, of course, theory hardly mattered. Without using exactly the same terminology, they set out to build, beginning in the 1950s, an economy that privileged the skills and knowledge of highly educated workers, the scientists and engineers who created software, pharmaceutical patents, and other new technologies. Brain Magnet tells the story of this new form of “cognitive capitalism”. . . .and how it evolved on the ground.

THE BURROUGHS WELLCOME BUILDING: “A SPACESHIP LANDS IN THE SUNBELT”

Brain Magnet has a section which focuses on the Burroughs Wellcome building, with the vivid title: A Spaceship Lands In The Sunbelt. Illustrated with two views of the building (which shows its bucolic setting and landscaping), it describes the context and motivations of the decision, by Burroughs Wellcome’s leadership, to relocate to this part of North Carolina—and what qualities were possessed by the building which resulted from their choice of Paul Rudolph to design their US headquarters and research center.

As Dr. Cummings writes,

The most striking thing about Burroughs Wellcome’s move to RTP was undoubtedly its building, which was featured in countless stories about the park and the company to underline its radically futuristic veneer. The building, designed by celebrity architect Paul Rudolph, has been compared with everything from a honeycomb to spaceship. It features “soaring inner spaces and a dramatic interior . . . a symbol not only of the company’s futuristic vision but also of the high-technology park,” as local preservationists later put it. (The structure was later named the Elion-Hitchings building, after two Nobel Prize-winning scientists who worked at the pharmaceutical giant and did pioneering work on the early HIV drug AZT.)

This section also examines the building’s spatial organization, and the design’s practicality (noting both pros and cons)—and allows us to hear the warm memories of several people who worked there.

Alex Sayf Cummings’ highly articulate Brain Magnet is indispensable for comprehending the historical-cultural-economic reasons for the creation of Research Triangle Park—and the multiple forms it took and the energies it released.

BOOK INFORMATION AND AVAILABILITY

• TITLE: Brain Magnet: Research Triangle Park and the Idea of the Idea Economy

• AUTHOR: Alex Sayf Cummings

• PUBLISHER: Columbia University Press

• FORMATS: Paperback, Hardcover, or E-book

• BOOK WEB PAGE: here

• AMAZON PAGE: here

• BARNES & NOBLE PAGE: here

In addition to Brain Magnet, Alex Sayf Cummings has written, edited, or contributed to numerous books, including: Democracy Of Sound; East Of East; The Bohemian South; City By City, and Sound In The Age Of Mechanical Reproduction.

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.

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

NOW— THERE ARE TWO THINGS YOU CAN DO:

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

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