The Rudolph Years: Yale and the World Florida / Caribbean ARCHITECT Diane D
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The Rudolph Years: Yale and the World florida / caribbean ARCHITECT Diane D. Greer* spring 2009 In the fall of 2008, Sarasota archi- tect Carl Abbott, FAIA, was invited to take part in Yale University’s “Paul Rudolph Celebration.” The celebra- tion focused on the restoration and rededication of one of Yale’s most im- portant modern structures, the Art & Architecture Building designed by Paul Rudollph in the early 1960s. The building has now been renamed Paul Rudolph Hall. Carl Abbott was one of three members of a panel that included two of his classmates at Yale, Lord Norman Foster and Lord Richard Rogers, all of whom were students of Rudolph’s in the Master’s pro- gram. Both Foster and Rogers have offices in London and have designed buildings around the world and both Above, L to R: Norman Foster, Richard Rogers and Carl Abbott at Yale in 1962. Photo courtesy of Carl Abbott. Below, In the Master’s design studio at Yale, Paul Rudolph and Serge Chermayoff, seated and Carl are recipients of the Pritzker Prize. Abbott standing during a 1961 jury. Photo courtesy of Carl Abbott. Only Abbott has remained stateside, working from an office in Sarasota of Frank Lloyd Wright during a Paul Goldberger, architecture where nearly everything he has de- semester break trip to Chicago, editor for the New York Times, served signed has been recognized with Taliesin and Falling Water. They now as panel moderator. In his opening a design award. In 1982, when agree that Wright’s buildings had remarks, he noted that it is difficult Abbott’s Casa del Ceilo was cited a profound impact on their own to separate the A&A, as it is known, with an Award of Excellence in work, just as it had on Rudolph who from any discussion of Rudolph, as Architecture by AIA Florida, Paul described Wright as the greatest an architect or an educator. It was Rudolph served on the design jury. architect of all time. Coming to both one of the greatest successes Rudolph’s comment about his for- Yale from England, Foster and Rog- and the greatest failures of his career. mer student’s project was that “the ers only knew Wright’s work from At the time he designed the build- balancing of solids to voids and the books. But, since Abbott had a car ing, he was Dean of Yale’s flow of space horizontally and ver- at the time, he was able to introduce Department of Architecture and it is tically is handled in a remarkable them to Wright’s buildings in person. hard to imagine that once the final way.” Last year, the Casa was recog- design was approved, there was no nized with the 25-Year Test of Time discussion about it between the Award by AIA Florida. Abbott’s architect and his students. Since all work, like Rudolph’s, has been iden- three of the panel members gradu- tified with the architecturally sig- ated in 1962, they never actually stud- nificant movement known as the ied in the A&A, but all three had Sarasota School. seen it in later years and knew its his- Abbott, Foster and Rogers were tory. As Carl Abbott noted, “the not just classmates at Yale, they were building was coming up out of the great friends who studied and trav- ground, the basements were being eled together, experiencing the work formed and the walls, it was discov- ered, had to be hand-hammered to florida / caribbean ARCHITECT spring 2009 achieve the desired effect.” “Rudolph’s poured-in-place concrete And so it was on November 8, 2008 Although Rudolph declined to dis- castle” through a fire of suspicious when Abbott, Foster and Rogers cuss the building years after it was origin in 1969 and finally into dis- returned to New Haven to partici- completed, probably owing to the respect in the 1980s when postmod- pate in a discussion about Yale’s De- love-hate relationship that students, ernism and its nostalgia for history partment of Architecture when Paul faculty and critics had with it, he did were in vogue. It was during this pe- Rudolph was Dean and professor. say in a 1988 interview published in riod that both the building and its ar- Paul Rudolph was born in 1918 Architecture that talking about the chitect found their reputations suf- and died in 1997. For seven years, building was “a very painful subject” fering. Again quoting Kamin: from 1958 to 1965, he chaired Yale’s and that he didn’t think he could “Rarely have soaring architectural Department of Architecture. Having “look very objectively at it.” ambition and the simple quotidian won a Winchester Fellowship and a Working with materials gener- needs of users clashed as violently as Fulbright Grant, he was awarded they have at the corner of York and the Brunner Prize from the Ameri- Chapel Streets.” This is a reference can Academy of Arts and Letters in to a building that did not function 1970. In 1990, he was honored with well, was uncomfortable and diffi- a Lifetime Achievement Award from cult to maintain. It was not until the the New York State Society of Archi- late 1980s when a reaction to post- tects. In 1989 Rudolph received the modernism and its superficial deco- Florida AIA Gold Medal. ration set in, that the building and Rudolph began to regain the respect It begins in Florida.... that they both deserved. It could be said that Rudolph’s Even as it was opening in 1963, career in architecture began in Rudolph admitted that the build- Florida when in the late 1940s af- ing’s interior space was inadequate ter graduating from Harvard under despite his packing 37 levels into its Walter Gropius, he went to work in 10 floors. An addition had been the Sarasota office of Ralph Twitch- planned from the beginning ell, AIA. According to John How- although Rudolph never participat- ey, FAIA, author of The Sarasota ed in its design. That commission School of Architecture, 1941-1966, The newly renovated Art & Architecture Building at Yale. Designed by Paul Rudolph, the building fell many years later to another Yale Rudolph was “enamored with Frank opened in 1963 and has recently been remodeled graduate, Charles Gwathmey, FAIA, Lloyd Wright’s recent work, par- and added to by Charles Gwathmey, FAIA. It was who was an undergraduate when ticularly Florida Southern College... renamed Paul Rudolph Hall in 2008. Photo cour- tesy of Yale University. Abbott, Foster and Rogers were and [he] was attracted to tropical there in the early 60s. The difficult Florida.” ously provided to me by both Carl task of restoring and reserving a Rudolph’s influence on archi- Abbott and Yale University, I have landmark, and adding to it, was for- tecture cannot be overstated. Ac- pieced together the sense of a build- midable and probably made more so cording to Howey, his “aesthetic ing that I have never seen in person by the fact that Gwathmey worked development began with the Florida and a man I only met once. Most for Rudolph when he was a student residential box he separated into recently, the November 2008 issue at Yale. The success or failure of structured roof planes and float- of the Yale Alumni Magazine con- Gwathmey’s addition is a subject for ing platforms subdivided by simple tained an expansive article entitled another discussion, but everyone screen walls.” In five short months in “Love It? Hate It? Or Both? Yale’s seems to agree that his restora- Sarasota, “Twitchell’s own residence Most Controversial Masterpiece.” tion/rehabilitation of the A&A is and three others were designed The author, Yale graduate Blair magnificent. Kamin describes it as: with Rudolph’s help.” Rudolph and Kamin, is architecture critic for the “Here, space flows in completely Twitchell worked together for a Chicago Tribune and his article traces unexpected ways - up, down in, while, but ultimately dissolved their the history of the building from the out, sideways. Light entering partnership in 1951 to establish glory days of its opening in 1963 through skylights bathes the muscu- separate offices. Between 1952 and when almost everyone appreciated lar concrete columns.” 1960, Rudolph designed many sig- florida / caribbean ARCHITECT spring 2009 including a number of residences, and he went on to say: “It seemed to was painted of Rudolph as an incred- Riverview High School and Sara- me that (as a teacher) I should never ibly powerful, forceful personality and sota High School. talk about myself as an architect, and yet, at the same time, not someone It is extremely important to indeed I didn’t. I never talked about who tried to force his own style and note that the Sarasota School of what I was doing. I tried to talk in work on anybody. He did not want Architecture is not a regional style of terms of principle and to this day I the school to be churning out ‘mini- architecture that is exclusive and think that’s very important - the dif- Rudolphs.’ He saw himself as bring- unique to Sarasota County, as some ferentation between an architect and ing out the student’s own voice. That might believe. It is an international- a teacher or a theoretician or a critic is particular combination of broad- ly important style that rose from the the difference between day and night. mindedness does not always go with a melding of two major architectural movements, Wright’s organic archi- tecture and Gropius’ International Style. Rudolph arrived in Sarasota fresh from Harvard where Walter Gropius was his teacher and he came steeped in the traditions of the Bauhaus.