INTERVIEW WITH PAUL RUDOLPH

Interviewed by Robert Bruegmann

Compiled under the auspices of the Chicago Architects Oral History Project The Ernest R. Graham Study Center for Architectural Drawings Department of Architecture The Art Institute of Chicago

Copyright © 1993-2000 The Art Institute of Chicago This manuscript is hereby made available for research purposes only. All literary rights in the manuscript, including the right to publication, are reserved to the Ryerson and

Burnham Libraries of The Art Institute of Chicago. No part of this manuscript may be quoted for publication without the written permission of The Art Institute of Chicago.

ii. CONTENTS

Preface iv

Outline of Topics v

Interview 1

Selected References 56

Additional References 57

Appendix I: Biographical Sketch 58

Appendix II: Resume 59

Index of Names and Buildings 61

iii. PREFACE

This interview was conducted on February 28, 1986, in two sessions at the office of Paul Rudolph, Architect, at 54 W. 57th Street, New York. The interview was requested by John Zukowsky, Curator of the Architecture Department at The Art Institute of Chicago, in connection with a proposed exhibition of drawings by Mr. Rudolph in the "Architecture in Context" series. The initial concept for the show, which was scheduled to open in the fall of 1986 at the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts in Chicago, was to show how the work of Mr. Rudolph was related to the work of Frank Lloyd Wright. The idea was to exhibit drawings of the Art and Architecture Building at Yale University and to produce a short catalogue written by myself that would explain the links between Wright and Rudolph. After some exploratory research and a visit to the office of Mr. Rudolph on February 10, 1986, it became apparent that such a show might not be advisable. The Art and Architecture Building drawings had already been extensively published and commented on in a number of periodicals over the years, notably in a special issue of Perspecta, and it became clear that not only the Art and Architecture Building but all of the architect's work was indebted to Wright to some degree. Instead, an agreement was reached that the show would consist of two parts: one a small retrospective of Mr. Rudolph's work throughout his career, perhaps with special attention to the Christian Science Organization Building at the University of Illinois at Urbana, then under threat of demolition, and the other part would be a selection of drawings of work then underway in Southeast Asia. The interview concentrated almost entirely on this latter work, with questions at the end about Chicagoans with whom Mr. Rudolph was acquainted. The transcription from the taped interview was edited to remove unnecessarily repetitious and unclear elements. The transcript is available for research in the Burnham and Ryerson Libraries at The Art Institute of Chicago.

Robert Bruegmann Associate Professor of Architecture and Art History University of Illinois at Chicago

iv. OUTLINE OF TOPICS

Page

Foreign Projects 1

Beach Road I, Singapore 1

Importance of Bylaws in Architectural Design 1

Regional Architecture 5

Multiple Use Buildings 8

Design of Beach Road I, Singapore 9

Expression of Structure 12

Enclosed Atria and Outdoor Spaces 16

Grange Road Condominiums, Singapore 17

Wright, Mies, and Le Corbusier—Handling of Space 21

Influences on Design 24

Planning Stages in Architectural Design 26

Columns at Grange Road Condominiums, Singapore 28

Color in Architecture 31

Megastructure, Modules, and the Trailer Industry in Architecture 33

Dharmala Office Building, Jakarta 35

Obtaining Clients and Commissions 39

Vernacular Architecture in Indonesia 40

Bond Centre Office Building, Hong Kong 43

Christian Science Center, Urbana, Illinois 46

Relationships with Chicago Architects 50

Meeting Frank Lloyd Wright at Philip Johnson’s Glass House 51

Relationship with Stanley Tigerman 53

v. PAUL RUDOLPH

Bruegmann: I'm at the office of Paul Rudolph. We're going to talk about some recent Southeast Asian work for a show at The Art Institute of Chicago and also about some topics connected with Chicago. If we could start with the Southeast Asia work, I'd like to review with you for a moment the buildings that, as I understand it, we'll be putting into the show. This will include drawings of two Singapore buildings—the Beach Road complex and the Grange Road complex— as well as the two towers of Hong Kong and the office building at Jakarta. Could you just say a few words about how you first got involved in the Southeast Asian work?

Rudolph: Yes, but first I should say that there may be a third project which we knew as Beach Road II. It was the subject of a competition that we didn't win and therefore it will not be built. Whether or not you include it has to do with drawings of it and photographs and models that we have. In 1979 I received a call from a citizen of Singapore who wanted to talk with me about entering a competition. The reason he had contacted me is that he was the owner of the Hyatt Hotel in Hong Kong and in Singapore. He had asked the staff architects of Hyatt whom they should consider as the architects for their project. The Hyatt staff architect had suggested me because of a previous relationship for a hotel in Jerusalem that was never built. In any event, I made proposals for a hotel in Singapore. It was very peculiar because this competition sponsored by the government of Singapore was in fact given to Portman, but they wanted to build my design for the hotel. Subsequently it was decided not to do this, but we were given another project, which is known as Beach Road I, to do. This was the subject of another competition that we won outright. Perhaps it's worthwhile saying that Singapore sponsors, or used to sponsor in its boon days, which are now over, a series of competitions that developers would enter. It's the only way to get a decent piece of land from the developer's point of view, or it's one of the best ways. This means that the government of Singapore would formulate a program, determine the bylaws applicable, and citizens of Singapore could enter that competition if they showed that they had the financial wherewithal to carry it out, the management capabilities, etc., as well as the architectural aspects of it. There were usually ten, eleven, or twelve competitions a year that were

1 sponsored by the government of Singapore. This produced quite a crop of buildings. But the boon time is over in Singapore and there are no longer these competitions. That's the background of this.

R.B.: How had you gotten involved in the Jerusalem project? Was that from the Hyatt people here in the United States?

P.R.: No, that was through Lev Zetlin, a structural engineer here in town who knew or was related to, I believe, one of many backers of the hotel in Jerusalem.

R.B.: So a lot of these foreign projects had come about somewhat circuitously?

P.R.: I've never known any project that didn't come about circuitously, whether foreign or domestic.

R.B.: Was Jerusalem the first project you had worked on overseas?

P.R.: No. The first project I worked on outside the country was through Belinsky, who was advising the State Department. I designed, but it was not built, an embassy for Amman, Jordan. This was quite early—about 1955 if I recall correctly.

R.B.: Once you won the second competition for Singapore could you tell me something about how the building was designed and how you collaborated with local Singaporean architects?

P.R.: All the foreign work that I've ever undertaken, with the exception of work in Bangladesh, has always been with local architects. It seems to me that that's a much more appropriate way to go about it. There are many things that one doesn't understand or know. The relationship with people is much better if it's essentially being done in collaboration with local people. I'm a firm believer in that. Not every architect would agree with that, but I happen to think that that's by far the best way to do it. It also means that I do not have to have such a large staff, which I have had at one time and which I don't like at all. That has to do with the nature of how one goes about working. The design of the Beach Road I was programmatically determined by the

2 authorities in Singapore. It's essentially one-third offices, one-third commercial, and one-third residential. There are of course many, many bylaws, which is a part and parcel of Singapore. They have determined their bylaws essentially by copying or adapting zoning ordinances and other bylaws developed in the United States and, to a degree, in Europe. They unfortunately followed our mistakes as well as our positive things. The great mistake with the bylaws, in my opinion anyway, in Singapore is that everything ends up, with a few exceptions, as an isolated building that is not connected to its neighbors. This means that from a city-planning viewpoint the definition of the street is compromised a great deal. Setbacks for adjacent property mean that spatially the all-important organizing aspect of the street is not defined three-dimensionally. Therefore this leads to the building as an object rather than the building as a part of a greater whole. One cannot change laws, usually, and you must proceed forthwith, or say "No, I'm not going to do it." In any event, the design of Beach Road I is determined, as always, by many factors. First of all, the environment: the main entrance to the building receives the thrust of a street which is at right angles to the building. The building has a magnificent site: it faces the Pacific and it's on the edge of the central business area. It is a product of the relationship of two adjacent towers and relatively low buildings—two- and three-story high buildings—on the opposite side of street. It seemed very natural to have a tower. Indeed, Singapore is a city of towers because the land area of Singapore is very small and the zoning almost forces you into a tower. By the same token, the commercial area doesn't work very well in a tower and so I put that in a six-story high building. The essential thing, from my viewpoint anyway, is that the building makes the differentiation between the three parts. Unlike Mies, I don't believe that it is sufficient that living units be handled architecturally in the same way as offices. It seems to me that the activities are so different that that needs to be celebrated. In any event, the commercial area is essentially one of circulation: it's organized in a system of pedestrian circulation around a central volume of space. The offices are in two parts. One part is a kind of village on the roof of the commercial area and that is an attempt to treat the roof of the commercial area architecturally so that it is not just acres of asphalt. It also is fair to say that offices are, after all, where most people spend at least eight hours a day. It does not have to be always loft-type universal space. It has many other possibilities. The

3 remainder of the offices are placed in the base of the tower—again, it’s the notion of having many different kinds of office space. The apartments are most logically placed at the top of the building. There is a bylaw in Singapore saying that you cannot use mechanical devices to ventilate bathrooms and kitchens. This lent itself to what amounts to six separate towers in order to naturally ventilate kitchens and bathrooms. In turn, these six towers stop at six different heights at the roof so that there are six penthouses spiraling around the top. This bylaw, incidentally, is one of the more ridiculous bylaws because it would take a long time to pay for the additional effort made to naturally ventilate the kitchens and bathrooms, although you can argue that kitchens and bathrooms for other reasons are much better when they have natural light. In any event, the tower is an effort to celebrate the differences between offices and living quarters and to make a tremendous variety of living quarters in that tower. In terms of how one goes about designing anything, you don't really know, or at least I don't know, until after the fact. There are so many elements that come into play that if you wait to figure out what it is you truly want to do once you have a project to work on there won't be enough time. You have to, as I see it, have a reservoir of things that you feel should be done and then you draw on that reservoir and hopefully apply elements from that reservoir in an intelligent fashion. Sometimes it doesn't work that way. Sometimes one is hell-bent for whatever reason to do certain things no matter what. That forcing can lead to obvious problems. You can have one hundred reasons why you do things after the fact. I'm just saying that for me it's a matter of getting your fingers on what you can and cannot do from a legal viewpoint, what it is the owner truly wants to do—but he doesn't necessarily tell you, you have to read between the lines—and what should be done ideally. Mies was wonderful when he was asked how he went about designing the Seagram Building. He said he read the New York City Building Code. I think that's an absolutely accurate and marvelous answer. It's what all of us do. You have to know what's possible. Architecture is not a question of the purely theoretical if you're interested in building buildings. It's the art of what is possible. I could go into much greater detail about the structure, the space, the scale, the environmental aspects, etc. That's in essence how I go about it.

4 R.B.: Let's talk a little about that in a minute, but before you do, could we discuss a few more things about Singapore? Do you know who did win the rest of competitions? Were they local architects or were most of them from abroad?

P.R.: It varies. Singapore is blessed with many buildings from foreign architects including I. M. Pei. His building was in the competition for the Beach Road II project, which I did not win. Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, Kenzo Tange, and the Australian architect whose name I can't remember, were some others.

R.B.: Of these people, none are the kind of people who would call themselves regionalist architects. There are architects who usually have a pretty strong image and it seems to follow them when they build elsewhere. Did they modify their plans and schemes?

P.R.: The best-known building of Pei's is the bank building in Singapore with the round corners. That building has no regional characteristics that I see, at all. Perhaps I should not say that; it deals with the sun in ways that could be regarded as regional. There are sunshades for instance where the glass is put into shadow. There may be other regional qualities about it. Certainly the siting is a very specific thing. Pei's siting is always marvelous. I would be hard-put to say that it was really a regional building.

R.B.: What is your feeling about this whole question? There are those who believe that regionalism is kind of a moral thing, that you just do things entirely differently if you're someplace else in the world. How do you feel about that?

P.R.: It's a very complicated question. I think the sense of place, which is a close cousin to regionalism, is of the utmost importance. I personally don't think that what you do in Singapore is the same as what you do in New York City. Having said that, the history of architecture seems to belie regionalism. It's no news that Gothic cathedrals were developed in northern France and reached their highest state of achievement there. When they got to Spain, for instance, you can say that they were enriched perhaps by the influence of the Arabs and Spanish architecture, but it never really took off. I've just seen the cathedral in Seville and I'm absolutely fascinated by its relationship to the mosque at Córdoba. I mean, I never saw a horizontal Gothic cathedral before.

5 It's the largest Gothic cathedral in the world, as you undoubtedly know, but it's essentially horizontal. That isn't the way a Gothic cathedral should be. Its whole notion is something else. You can say that regionalism enriches from the viewpoint of a sense of place. It is fantastically important. You can also say that there is something about the art of architecture that suggests that a particular movement is developed in a particular part of the world and that it isn't necessarily improved when it moves across oceans, south, north, east or west. Others would say that it is improved because it is enriched and it gets into what would pass for pluralism today, but that's a very complicated thing. That's why architecture is worth thinking about. There are no easy answers about this kind of thing.

R.B.: I don't know if I should even bring this up: the Charlottesville conference. The transcript is very heavily edited, I understand, so that your part, which comes down to only three or four pages, is rather awkward. One of the things in it was Jaquelin Robertson statement that your Singapore building was one that you had been doing for a long time. I assume he refers to the Boston Government Service Center.

P.R.: I can't help it if Jaquelin Robertson hasn't the slightest idea of what I've been up to. He gets that from Philip Johnson, who says I've been working on the same building for forty years, which is sheer nonsense.

R.B.: I'm curious about that configuration. There's an open entrance space with a low area around it and a tower. That certainly was seen already in Boston.

P.R.: I cannot explain this. I can say that in spite of all the rationalizations that architects go through, including myself, you can pay no attention to what architects say, you can only pay attention to what they do. The reason for that is a very real one. I'm compelled: I have no choice about certain combinations of forms, material, space, or architectural considerations. They egg me on. I know what they are, by and large—but not all of them—and I can be very clear about what they are. Now I can't tell you why spiraling space or the movement of space is what is so compelling for me, but it is. I can't tell you why the cantilever, the juxtaposition of forces, and the light and the heavy in terms of structure, is compelling, but it is. I can't tell you why the

6 purposeful placement of architectural elements so that they catch the light in certain ways is compelling, but it is. I can't tell you why certain combinations of handling scale, which is for me second only to space in its importance, is compelling, but it is. I can't tell you why asymmetry as a method of organizing things is so much more compelling than symmetry—I think I've worked on two symmetrical buildings—but it is. I know some of the reasons for these things. The arrangement of buildings in the swastika form has a long history, especially with European modernism, and has to do with the flow of space. I can't tell you why that is compelling for me, but it is. All I'm really saying is that the most rational architect in the world is not to be trusted at all because there is no such thing as true rationalism when you are speaking of architecture. I can only tell you that I am totally turned off by certain things: the whole of Postmodernism, to start with. I'm equally turned on by certain elements of architecture. I used to wonder about that myself, but now I no longer wonder. I think it's an absolute nature of architecture.

R.B.: To go back a minute to these bylaws in Singapore, there was something very curious here. Are the bylaws reflections of older American practice? For example, in America up through the 1920s you had to have natural ventilation for kitchens and bathrooms. Or are the bylaws in Singapore something that is new and specifically tropical?

P.R.: Kitchen and bathroom ventilation is a new thing that came about with energy crunches. You have to understand that Singapore is a city-state very carefully run, very carefully governed, and some people would say very well-governed. Others wouldn't be so sure. When it comes to bylaws they're second to none. They can think of more things to restrict: for instance, you cannot build a reflective glass building in Singapore. It's against the law. It's not that they have taken European and American notions of bylaws and applied them indiscriminately, that isn't so. They are constantly adding to them. They have a bureaucracy in Singapore that you can't believe and these people have to do something with their days so they cook up additional reasons for why architects shouldn't do things.

7 R.B.: I'm really interested in your introduction of retail, office and residential in Beach Road I. This kind of mixed use is something that's always given lip service but is very rarely done in this country.

P.R.: You have to give the Singaporeans credit for expanding their notions of how cities should be built. One of them is that they had started to foster multiple use buildings. I think they're right on about that. I think we are really tardy in understanding the use of multiple use buildings if for no other reason than that the circulation within cities would be eased, at least in theory. Whether in fact that's true or not, it's difficult to say. At least there should be that choice of being able to walk to work or walk to shop. Quite often we do not have that possibility.

R.B.: Some of these are not restrictions that you consider onerous at all.

P.R.: Like all bylaws there are ones you like and ones you don't like.

R.B.: How did you get your feet wet? You've worked in all these different countries, and of course they each have very different sets of laws. Do you actually try to read them yourself or it that where the local architects come in?

P.R.: I usually request that the local architect make an excerpt of what's really applicable. The interpretation of bylaws is an art completely within itself and it’s also one of the reasons why it's important, from my viewpoint, to work with local architects. There is some possibility of negotiation with regard to laws. That takes a good deal of time and it's also who's doing the negotiating and who knows who.

R.B.: Do you do that or do they do that unless you feel really strongly about something?

P.R.: By and large they do that. On the Grange Road project I interviewed a couple of times, not too successfully. In Grange Road, which is a condominium, the whole notion of the use of outside space, it seems to me, should be encouraged not discouraged because of the climate in Singapore. Their bylaws don't allow that. They say that if you make too large a terrace or a balcony then people

8 will enclose it when you aren't looking. Of course that's true, but it seems to me that's a risk worth taking in order to have larger outside living spaces, especially in a country where there is very little land and where the climate is quite marvelous and where outside space is very appropriate and very useful—outside space specifically for a family.

R.B.: These are presumably very wealthy people who live in something like the Grange Road buildings?

P.R.: Absolutely.

R.B.: It's hard to imagine a little shantytown growing up on these buildings. They must have very strict controls.

P.R.: Civil servants the world over go by the law. Since Singapore is a democracy, it applies equally to the shantytown as to the rich areas. This part of the building cuts back in here in order to get ventilation to this part, as well as natural ventilation to the corridor. This is one, two, three, four, five, six buildings around a corridor.

R.B.: It's easy enough to understand how the configuration of Beach Road I works: the atrium in the central part is ringed by what you were describing as commercial areas within the villages of offices around the top and then there is the tower.

P.R.: This is the entry. There is a drive here and there is a road here. This is the court which is focused on this. Ramps lead down to two basements. It's at a corner, an intersection of two major roads. There is a drive only on the rear side. The automobile circulation is designed so that one unloads here for this building and here for the apartments and here the cars are going down and parking and going out. This is a courtyard, incidentally, which goes down to the basement in order to give some focus to the parking below. One of my problems with parking is that you never know where the hell you are. The light comes all the way down at this point. Also, I'm against podiums for very tall buildings because they are not proportioned to the weight. What goes up also has to go down structurally. The whole notion of a building sitting on a

9 podium is for me an anathema because that's not the way it is at all. I love the idea that it's thrusting up but it's also got roots.

R.B.: Was the parking highly regulated? Did it have to be underground here?

P.R.: No, it did not have to be underground. But in the commercial area, which, after all, takes up half at grade level, street frontage is very important. The Pacific is over here. One could have built the parking above ground, but the commercial aspects need to be contiguous and so it meant putting the parking on the roof. Putting parking on the roof would have worked okay. You could have made it work but it meant a lot of ramps. I preferred not to have this thing too high. I preferred it be low.

R.B.: Is the fact that there is a border around the whole thing—almost the entire thing is surrounded by paving until you get to the actual building itself—due to the bylaws? Or would you have done this differently with a completely free hand? Would you have made a wall along a street, for example?

P.R.: I would have defined the space in the street and I would have had part of the building come absolutely to the property line at each end so that the space in the street was divided. You see, the thing that organizes traditional European cities is the three-dimensional definition of the street and then, in turn, plazas and courtyards and all sorts of devices that have been understood or realized over the years. You cannot do that with our bylaws or the bylaws in most parts of the world. I regard that as a really unfortunate thing.

R.B.: Did you say these are isolated towers on either side?

P.R.: Yes. This is an isolated tower and there is another tower over there. This is actually a vacant piece of land; there may or may not be a tower.

R.B.: Given the necessity then to pile up toward the middle rather than building all the way to the outside, there is quite a bit of logic about the commercial space going on the lower levels.

P.R.: The tower is on the access of this intersection of the road you see.

10 R.B.: Did you develop the podium and then the tower? Or did you conceive of this solution from the first?

P.R.: Always, always, always, everything, everything, everything at the beginning. I'm a great believer in the big bang. You cannot isolate parts, ever. That's the reason why it's so important to know as much detail as possible at the very beginning. It really needs to be somehow anticipated.

R.B.: Then you don't conceive of this as visually two separate things: the podium and the tower?

P.R.: I hope not.

R.B.: But you seem to imply that the tower shouldn't hit the top of a podium; in other words it should have its own integrity?

P.R.: Not only imply, I mean it. The reason why I think all this talk about classicism and the return to classicism is so much nonsense is that our problems are very different. That isn't to say that the essence of classicism doesn't have great meaning, it does. It's just that that which is very large is different from that which is very small. This happened to be very large: it's a forty-five story high tower. It's on a site the size of a New York City block, which is 750 feet long. It's really very large. But how do you really relate a tower to low buildings? That's a unique thing, that's a twentieth century phenomena. The worst thing in the world is to not see how the loads of the tower come down to the ground. Many people, of course, have solved the low to the high by having the high building sit on the low building. That is for me ridiculous. There's no possible way to make that work. The reason why the building is raised above the ground so high is that I wanted to show that the tower came out of that and spirals, and spirals, and spirals back and around so that this generates the whole. I described this as a whirling dervish at the conference in Charlottesville. There are early photographs of the mass models that are really interesting because they show that aspect of it, the relationship of low to the high, more clearly than maybe the final versions. The tower generates the whole. The tower is turning from my viewpoint. It's the reason

11 why there's a spiraling at the top and at the bottom there is a spiraling because it grows out of this thing. It's a big S.

R.B.: How do you conceive of the mass of the tower in relation to the structure? Do you see the structure as something that's static with the spaces rotating around it?

P.R.: No. I don't think of its structure as being static at all, quite the opposite. I think of the columns as leaping. These things are one hundred feet high; they're not static at all from my viewpoint. It's true that the structure in section is never curved; it's always straight. In many ways one can say that the structure is a subsidiary to the whole. I think it needs to be integrated. For me, the space is always the more important thing. If it means bending the structure, it doesn't bother me in the least. Having said all that, the structure has a lot to do with the scale. The building starts very high in order to let the lower part grow from it. The single most important thing about this drawing is that little space right there and the height of those columns. All of this is coming out of there from my viewpoint and then it has subsidiary things too. The scale of these columns from a great distance is of the utmost importance. There is no law saying that you can only use columns to give scale. Obviously there are many different ways to give scale. I happened to have used columns here to allow this height to be commensurate with that height. That's all I'm saying.

R.B.: Let me ask this another way. It's seems that in the 1960s one of the main things that happened in modern architecture generally is that many architects decided that the expression of the parts was limited. There was some expression with the column and then there was some infill, but all the other parts of the building weren't really expressed and you couldn't really tell what was going on. Now it seems that you were one of the people that most clearly wanted to express more in building.

P.R.: The idea of what you express and what you don't express is a tantalizing thing. I think it probably comes as close to getting to the art of architecture as any single thing. You can't say that a building that expresses everything is better than one that doesn't express. I said a long, long time ago that the

12 reason why Mies made great architecture is that he left so much of it out. He was very careful about what he wanted to show. It wasn't necessarily the truth of the matter as we all know, but he made great architecture. He left too much out as far as I'm concerned, but in his hands it was a great work of art. When any other architect does the same thing it becomes a diagram of buildings, not buildings at all. I happened to be very much interested in the phenomena of the conditioned space, the whole mechanical system costing as much as fifty percent of the total sometimes. That bothers the hell out of me. That, incidentally, is an exaggerated case: for most buildings it's thirty percent, if they're air-conditioned anyway. This is another twentieth-century phenomena not anticipated by classicism. The mechanical system and the structural system are exact opposites. The structural system can be very regular, as we all know. As to the mechanical system, anybody who's looked inside of a Ford automobile knows that it’s a very irregular thing and so it is with a building. I'm interested in the play between these two. That's one reason why Norman Foster's work and also Rogers' buildings are so fascinating for me. I'm writing an article on Foster's building in Hong Kong because he has juxtaposed the mechanical system to the structural system. He controls it very, very well. On many levels it's a marvelous building. The celebration of the mechanical system, illustrated at Beaubourg with Rogers' building, now that's a different matter. I may be becoming over-fascinated with something, but that's another matter. Nobody can say that buildings are better or worse because of their articulation of the parts. Nobody can say that a building that shows all of its mechanical system is better than a building that doesn't show any of it. You simply cannot do that. It's not just mechanical systems; you can't say that a building that shows its structure is better than one that doesn't. It seems to me that it has to be implied and that the forces have to be resolved. The literal showing of the structure isn't necessarily better. I mean Wright's structures, for God's sake, they were anything but pure. He really bent it to his own devices. He thought nothing about making the piers of Taliesin West three times the size that they really needed to be or the tent-like roof. I still don't know how it holds up, it's so light. He was a great artist in that sense. The art of architecture deals with why you have certain prejudices about certain things, which I've tried to say nobody knows. The other aspect has to do with what you choose to show and not show.

13 R.B.: Since we're speaking of it, can you say something about how you express structure in Beach Road I? For example, it’s interesting that these columns come up and there appears to be almost a stop at that point where the columns hit the bottom of the tower proper.

[Tape 1: Side 2]

P.R.: Right, and then the structure changes. It changes actually when it gets here. This was not intended but it was shown to be beneficial to change to a series of load-bearing slabs because it was less expensive to do it that way and also it worked acoustically. The structure is anything but a pure one. At least from this view of the commercial area, you can't tell what the structure is at all. On the other side you can. On the inside it's fairly clear. It's really a series of regular bays.

R.B.: Is this concrete structure throughout?

P.R.: It is a concrete structure. That's another law in Singapore that states that you cannot expose concrete. It's all to be sheathed with a while tile, very small.

R.B.: And the reason for that?

P.R.: The humidity in Singapore is very great. It's a tropical climate, and it's no news that the mildew and fungus in concrete is a very real problem.

R.B.: An aesthetic problem? Is mildew a structural problem?

P.R.: It's an aesthetic problem, it's not a structural one.

R.B.: What about your columns? In a classical column, of course, it would come up and it would splay to meet the load above. This does something quite different part of the column seems to get carried up along side of the block that it supports on top.

14 P.R.: Incidentally there is some question about classical columns splaying to receive the load. You can say that about a Doric column, but you can't say that about a Corinthian column. An Ionic column is somewhere in between, I guess, but that's another matter. It does it visually. The fact of the matter is that it doesn't matter. Certainly in Gothic architecture you don't do that.

R.B.: What was your attitude here? It almost looks like one of those Mies I-beams that comes up and is actually welded to the side of a thing.

P.R.: Do you mean the fact that the column is so close to perimeter?

R.B.: It seems to stand up along the side.

P.R.: It does. It's half in and half out. It's a third out. I wanted to make clear that something else is taking over. I should say one other thing. One of my prejudices, if that's the right word, is that the steel moment is for me completely fascinating. It has to do also with the articulation of parts. I suppose that's part of what one is seeing. Quite often for me one thing continues past another; it has to do with the movement implicit in it.

R.B.: You say that the notion of the spaces here developed simultaneously with the structure.

P.R.: Always.

R.B.: So you had this notion that you had a structure but that somehow these spaces could turn in relation to it?

P.R.: In my teaching days I would refuse to look at a student project unless they showed me from the very first day in plan, section and in elevation essentially how the structure is to be. I would let them off on the mechanical system, but I wanted to see that too, later.

R.B.: There is a drawing of the apartments spaces that shows in dotted lines what I imagine must be the columns below. Is there a functional reason for doing that?

15 P.R.: This is only to organize the drawing. The plan here is very different from the plan here and it's very different from the plan there. It's only a reference point.

R.B.: I was wondering why it was because you certainly wouldn't need to do it in the finished drawings.

P.R.: No, no, no. It may be very clear to you what's going on, but I tell you if you're dealing with a lot of people halfway around the world, anything you can do to give them reference points is helpful.

R.B.: As I see it, the users of this building will be walking here in much of this space that you show cast in shadow. I presume that you do that deliberately; you cast a shadow this way because the spaces are more usable in this climate?

P.R.: Yes.

R.B.: I presume that you would never show the shadow cast over the open space for a building, say, in New York.

P.R.: No, I wouldn't. Incidentally, this is where you come out of the building. There are other exits, but this is the principal one, from the basement.

R.B.: You have, in many of these projects, enclosed atrium spaces. You also have, I think in all of them, outdoor spaces. Is it your feeling that you need the variety?

P.R.: Yes. It has to do with climate, of course, but it also has to do with what people do in Singapore. Singapore is a great tourist place, partially because of the climate, and the life outside is very elaborate. There are lots of people around because of the climate. To give the outdoor room significance people need to belong or feel that they are at a place. That's part of it. The inside space is another matter. Shopping in Singapore, partially because of tourism, is a major part of their economy and there's great competition for shopping. There are almost no cultural institutions in Singapore. Those that exist are

16 somehow relatively inaccessible to the foreigner. I mean, Chinese opera is not the easiest thing to understand, for a Westerner anyway. Partially because of the competition they've negated their traditional life in Singapore. You almost think you're in the United States when you're in Singapore. The only viable thing really, from an economic viewpoint, is the shopping center. Therefore you will find great competition and, therefore, architecturally-elaborate interior spaces. Of course we see that in this country too, but only since World War II. There have been some great department store spaces and hotel lobbies. You can't say there isn’t anything else in the United States because, of course, there are museums and institutions that have great interior spaces. In Singapore, though, the commercial interior space is really it.

R.B.: You say that you could almost think you're in the States. Their orientation is toward the United States more than it is to England and more to the Anglo- Saxon world generally than it is to anywhere else.

P.R.: Absolutely. In the simplest terms, the English have long since left. They're still in Hong Kong, of course, but that's a different matter. In Singapore, the English influence is very much there, certainly in terms of their law and their educational system. The American influence is very strong in that part of the world.

R.B.: Just to finish this project, then, the office space in Beach Road I is rather straightforward. There are no outdoor spaces or a multi-story atrium.

P.R.: No.

R.B.: You have done this very interesting thing in section with these apartments that you can clearly see from the drawings.

P.R.: Yes. They are double height spaces. By our standards, they are small apartments, but spatially they are rather developed—it’s not nearly as much as in the Grange Road project, but they're developed. Before leaving I would like to say one small thing about this spatially. There is an atrium here and in plan the atrium is an octagon, an elongated octagon, not a regular one. In section each floor steps back in varying increments so that the space is

17 molded very elaborately. The elevators are kind of staking down this big mix. From that elevator comes a series of—you can just begin to see them, and I've always wanted to make a nice drawing of them and never have—Chinese fans that you see. That's my effort to give a focal point. The movement of space, while fascinating for me, is also a very dangerous thing because if it isn't brought into equilibrium then it can really be upsetting. I know that from some very personal experiences. The interior space of this is a juxtaposition of a fan with a stake, which are the elevators, and a big mix-master of flowing space—molded space, if you will—it’s anything but static.

R.B.: Do the floors project outward as they go up?

P.R.: They step back at varying increments. On one side they're almost vertical. They're only about two meters, if I recall correctly; it's a very precise space. On another side they step back about four meters. On the other side they step back about eight meters. When it comes around to the thrust of the elevators it's literally vertical.

R.B.: Do all of your interior spaces step back like that? Or do you have them come in toward the top as well?

P.R.: It varies. I do both.

R.B.: This kind of atrium of course, as you know, has been very popular in many American spaces. How did you come by it?

P.R.: It has so much to do with the life of the people there, as I tried to explain. The big room really is important. Also this darn shopping. There is something about the Oriental notion of displaying wares that comes from their tradition. It's all very low scale with low ceilings. You really long to have an escape, I think. In this case it's also an entertainment place. You see I had proposed a stage that is an elevator that would go up and down. There is a certain tradition there that people go to these places at lunchtime and in the evening too, but especially at lunch. There is often entertainment and, of course, it has to do with the commercial aspect of drawing people to it. It has to do with the fact that they have few cultural institutions in Singapore.

18 R.B.: Which of these big atria space had you seen here and liked? Do you recollect one or another of them?

P.R.: I still think that the Brown Hotel in Denver is simultaneously intimate and grand, an aspect that appeals to me very greatly. The best of the John Portman atriums, for me, is his first one in Atlanta. There he at least put the elevator core off center. When he puts it in the middle of course, as Wright said, it's like a merry-go-round with the spaces going around it.

R.B.: That first Portman atrium must have created quite an impact.

P.R.: It did.

R.B.: Just in scale it must have been overwhelming.

P.R.: Also, it showed conclusively that you could get around the damn fire laws, at least in Atlanta. It was a very important building, I think, and in a sense very much underrated. I regard the Atlanta building as being a very important building. Also it had its multi-function: you have for the first time almost in the United States an enclosed village square. I appreciate that very much.

R.B.: There was no requirement to do that? Were the bylaws pushing for that kind of thing?

P.R.: No, the bylaws had nothing to do with that here. The owners depend on this in terms of economics. They'd just as soon not have any housing because you don't make very much money with the apartments. You do make money with this, but then to have that as a big attraction is really important.

R.B.: While we're still in Singapore, let's talk a bit about the Grange Road Condominiums. I have a couple other drawings here, but they're very rough ones. Could you just say how this one came about as well?

P.R.: This is not a product of a competition. There are four sons in this family and one of them presented himself to my office here in New York and asked me if

19 I'd be interested in working on this. I guess that is in part because they knew I was working on something in Singapore, although even that I'm not absolutely sure about. This is a completely privately-owned building.

R.B.: These are very sophisticated, cosmopolitan people that own this building?

P.R.: Yes. They are Chinese, of course, and very well-educated. The father has been fantastically successful from a financial viewpoint. The building is organized around a central core. There are essentially four quadrants. These four quadrants start at different heights from the floor. This is the main entry by automobile and that's very high. This is less high; the mechanical system happens to be essentially in the quadrant in back of this and there's an intermediate height between these quadrants on the backside that is open. Unfortunately, this building has never been drawn very well. I hope, for the exhibition, to get it drawn a bit better. The building is intended to be a kind of village in the sky, as opposed to a series of cubicles in a big mass. One of the essences of living quarters is that the bedrooms are the most private of all and then the living and dining room. Terraces become more public. The effort here is to arrange the living spaces so that the private enclosed elements are put in such a way that they shade the more open, therefore more glassy, public areas. It also is a question of scale. Italian hill towns, or French hill towns, or hill towns period I guess I should say, are the most marvelous relationships of parts. That has to do with the scale of the thing. Often, as you of course know, the horizontal and vertical dimensions of the interior spaces are clearly celebrated on the outside. That's part of what I'm trying to say here: the scale is broken down three-dimensionally. When you look at this building from underneath you can clearly see the enclosures and then the open spaces. One of my great disappointments, which does have to do with the bylaws, is that the terraces are not nearly big enough. They are almost room size, but I wanted them to be three rooms. The terraces count for the allowable square meters that can be built. Of course the owners would say quite properly, "Yes, terraces are fine, but you can't live just outside." It started to take away too much from the inside.

R.B.: How do you read the individual unit on this elevation?

20 P.R.: Do you mean how can you read one living unit?

R.B.: Yes.

P.R.: It's not so easy and that wasn't the important thing to me. I think that the individual room is more important than reading the individual house, so to speak. You can argue that, but I've thought about that a great deal. In Georgian architecture you can read the individual house. In a medieval hill town in Italy you read the individual room. In Mykonos you read the individual room; you don't read, by and large, the individual house. I don't think you can say one is better than the other; it's a different way of looking at it. I can read it because I know it. This is a simplex and this is a duplex. You certainly can't tell where these penthouses, which are very elaborate, start and stop.

R.B.: Is this structure continuous from top to bottom, as it appears to be?

P.R.: It's almost continuous. In this direction the structure is different than what it is here. Here you can see that there's a juncture and then a small column goes all the way through. But in the opposite direction that is not true. They're parted in order to allow the cars to get in and also because spaces are much larger. The structure here is really very small.

R.B.: Is the structure regular on the top part?

P.R.: No, it's not. It's fairly regular but not completely regular. That's always a fascinating thing for me. The Mies show at the Museum of Modern Art shows clearly that the division for the paving of the Barcelona Pavilion is anything but regular; it's very irregular. I always appreciate that. Also, the Villa Savoye, which you think uses a regular column, is anything but regular; they're very irregular.

R.B.: This notion of the multi-level space in a dwelling is something which you've obviously been dealing with since the very earliest houses, and this is, you said, one of your prejudices or obsessions. Do you have any idea why you

21 feel that? Why, in contrast to most people who still prefer to live on one level, are you always driving to try to design multi-level units?

P.R.: It seems to me to be innate in human behavior or human instinct. It's the difference between Wright's handling of space, which is based on the needs of the human being psychologically, as opposed to Mies who didn't use space psychologically at all, and indeed the international stylists. Later on, Le Corbusier started to handle the space psychologically to satisfy psychological needs. Wright, instinctively from the very beginning—and it seems to me that's the most unique thing about his architecture is his spatial aspects—is absolutely wedded to the needs of the human being from an emotional point of view. That's the other reason why finally his work is much greater than any of the others. He understood that so well. Mies didn't have a clue. The whole idea of the continuum of space, which I guess is shown best in the Barcelona Pavilion or the Farnsworth House in Illinois, is a marvelous thing. I don't mean to say it isn't, it's just that it touches the tip of an iceberg. That's the reason why Wright is so much a greater architect than Mies.

R.B.: There was this interest in space for Corbusier, but it seems that he always had very few prototypes in mind and that the artist's studio with the balcony overhanging the two-story living space seemed to be one of the types that reappeared throughout his career. That also seems to be something that influences you very strongly.

P.R.: For the whole of the international stylist you can say, it was always the two- story high to the one-story high thing. That has a little bit to do with the multi-storied notion and the frame as a regular element. It's not so easy to get around that. Wright managed, of course, but Wright didn't build that many multi-story buildings either. The easy way to do it is the two-to-one ratio, but that seldom works very well, in fact. It's a kind of equality that is unfortunate. Incidentally, Corbu's other spatial notion, in my view anyway, was the spatial element within the larger spatial element. The core, for instance. His use of that was maybe not always so fortunate. Although, at some point it became no longer a core but rather it became a whole volume of space as in his government building in Chandigarh—the General Assembly Building—where the space wraps around that. There are all sorts of bumps

22 and grinds, appurtenances, that come out into the major space, but then the central space, of course, is the assembly. Also, Corbu's other spatial thing has to do with the Stein House outside Paris and also his truly great house in India. Therein the space is continuous, bending, turning, sweeping—moving horizontally as well as vertically—through the whole. Essentially, while the space flows it is always defined by at least two vertical planes. He was a great one to define space by implying a division of space by defining it horizontally as well as vertically, but it was transparent. I'm not describing this very well—let me start over. More important for Corbu's sense of space later on than the two-to-one ratio was the continuum of space for the whole building. This is most clearly shown, I believe, in his house for India wherein a block of space was defined and then he cut into it and out of it and through it and pierced it and so forth so that it became continuous. It was very different from Mies' notion of space, which was, of course, always a regular series of columns in a series of horizontal planes. We call them floors and roofs. That was a subdivided—but never vertically—horizontal flowing of space.

R.B.: Are you describing Corbusier's ideal design as a single block where the free elements are always juxtaposed implicitly to the regularity of the thing? There's a geometric purity within his putting in counter-distinctions to the irregular or curving elements.

P.R.: It isn't so in the Villa Savoye; you think it's so, but it isn't, partially because of the ramp. As a matter of fact, that's an important point too. I think he would have developed his notion of the vehicle of flowing space more had he lived longer. That was very profound, for me anyway. It was much more developed than Mies.

R.B.: With Frank Lloyd Wright it comes out as something entirely different. You never have the sense that it's a single unified space that's subdivided. If anything, it is spaces that are either pushed or pulled or added or subtracted.

P.R.: Yes, of course. He didn't give a tinker's damn about the structure. I'm sure he gave lip service to it, but he would bend it any old way. It also has to do with Wright's idea of siting. I think he was a master at it, which Corbu was never very good at. Wright's siting and wedding things in a relationship, literally, to

23 the ground was masterful. The block of space was an anathema to him. He was probably against the Parthenon, for God's sake.

R.B.: Since we've gotten to Wright, can you say something about Wright's tall buildings?

P.R.: The only tall building of Wright's that I've ever seen is the Johnson Wax building and they wouldn't let me inside it. I went on a tour. It was really annoying because I wanted to see the inside of that building. I've never seen the Bartlesville building. Giovannini has just written in the New York Times that my drawings show that obviously Beach Road I comes from the Bartlesville Tower, which I've never thought about. Maybe it does, I don't know.

R.B.: That's what I was going to ask actually. That pinwheeling in plan out of a central core seems to be exactly the same thing you're doing, although it may have been done inadvertently?

P.R.: Obviously I'd studied and looked at many, many things. That's part of what I mean when I say I never really think of specific buildings. Obviously they come from them and relate. I make no bones about it. I've never had an original idea in my life. I try to understand.

R.B.: What happens when somebody proposes something like that, that it comes from the Bartlesville building or something that seems perfectly reasonable to you? Vincent Scully says something that you say, "Oh, you know that makes a lot of sense." Does that get incorporated into your way of thinking about how you did it?

P.R.: It doesn't interest me in the least. Well, I shouldn't say it doesn't interest me, it does interest me. The fact that Giovannini thinks that the design of Beach Road I comes from Bartlesville never occurred to me. I'm sure it does, so be it, fine, wonderful. I must take a better look at the Bartlesville, maybe even go see it. Maybe I will, as a matter of fact, I've always wanted to see it. It's not offensive at all. My real point is not that. My point is that there's got be something for everybody, or as many people as possible. I see things in a

24 certain way. We only think with about ten percent of our brain. The subconscious is very important. How do you know what's going on? You don't really. I'm delighted that people see other things about buildings. I don't care whether people like or dislike things, I care about whether they find anything in it that means something; it can be negative or positive. Maybe it's more pleasant if it is a little positive, but if it isn't, that's all right too. I think that all of us put our own thing into it. Incidentally that's one reason why Norman Foster's building is finally an impossible building in Hong Kong in spite of the fact that I love it. There's nothing for you really because it is so insistent about one way of looking at something. This damn module going on and on is so tense, you have to leave it. I'm trying to figure out why the module was taken to the degree that he did—vertically, horizontally, and so forth, it is just impossible in spite of the fact that the Japanese managed to make whole towns utilizing modules. They had landscaping, they had roofs, diagonal roofs, and any number of other things; it wasn't just the module.

R.B.: One other thing about this, on this project and on the last one—let me try asking a question again about relation of structure to space. I'm a little unclear, so could you describe a little bit better how you think of these things? Do you think of trays of space that interact with structure? Do you think of the two things in collision or the two things complementary?

P.R.: It has to do with whether or not it's a single-floor building or a three- or even five-story high building, or whether it's a multi-story building.

R.B.: I'm talking about the multi-story.

P.R.: For multi-storied buildings the columns, by and large, go straight through.

R.B.: For practical reasons?

P.R.: Amongst others. Also as organizational devices. Here the structure changes, as I've indicated, from the rather large spaces at the ground to very intimate small spaces. Other than that it doesn't change. It changes a little bit at the top but not very much. I think of the horizontal elements as having the possibility of putting them at varying heights. That's not so easy because of

25 the fire laws. You tend to want to leave out a floor, which I think is wrong really from a proportional viewpoint. If my fingers are the columns, whether or not the floor is here, there or here, you can juxtapose that a great deal. That's the way I think of it. With the vertical divisions, it makes no difference to me whether or not there are three feet between the column and the defining wall or it’s right up next to it, I still want to see the column. One of the problems with most apartment buildings and many vertical buildings is that you have no sense of what's holding them up. I object strenuously to that. I want to have some idea of what's holding it up.

R.B.: I think I noticed in the entrance to the tower at Singapore that there's a column that comes eccentrically right in front of the main doors as you go in. That must be about five feet in front of it.

P.R.: Yes.

R.B.: Did you choose that, or did that just happen?

P.R.: I can't even remember it so I don't know. I'm the first one to admit that all too often something happens that you don't really want to happen. Or, to put it differently, no one has yet solved the whole notion of a part of a structure that is an element of a greater whole and that may be clear in a multi-storied building, shall we say, in the structural frame. When you see only a very small part of it it's not clear at all. That's a twentieth-century phenomenon. That's a biggie, how you manage it. You find that over and over and over again in, shall we say, the work of Corbusier. You find it in Mies, but you're less aware of it since he didn't care anything about the interior space anyway except how you got into it. In Wright you never find it because he bent the structure. Unfortunately Wright did not build many multi-story buildings. I regard that as really unfortunate.

R.B.: Is it fair to say that you think you initially start out with the idea of a regular structure and that's a major organizing principle? Then when it gets down to development and plan you have to push apart the columns?

P.R.: From the very beginning.

26 R.B.: You think of that at the very beginning?

P.R.: Oh yes. A multi-storied building has to have a different scale at the bottom than it does elsewhere. Because the size of the site is not that big, I wanted to drive under it so that I didn't have a lot of things coming out from the building. That meant certain dimensions are needed for the automobile that are not needed for the apartment. It meant a different structure from the very beginning. I also, from the very beginning, would start with a core. In this particular case it was in the middle because it's obviously where the core needs to be. It also makes sense structurally to have four apartments per floor with the core in the middle of the circulation. You were asking how I really go about working and I can tell you exactly. I can think through very elaborated schemes about a project. That's what I do because I'm very busy. Because I'm constantly thinking about the thing I will think, "Oh, it could be this way or it could be that way." Before making any sketches I will really think about it a great, great deal and, finally, I will resolve that into essentially three or maybe four—it depends on the project—schemes. I will then, always to scale, start sketching and try to bring it down to one scheme as quickly as possible. I have the ability now to think through and see, "Oh well, this won't work very well." It works on certain points, but it won't work for others.

R.B.: When you first make those sketches, what kind of sketches are they?

P.R.: Anything that I can get my hands on.

R.B.: Will they tend to be a sketch in section?

P.R.: The section for me is as important as the plan, maybe more important because it tells you more about the space. I draw on the backs of napkins, any and everywhere. I will make lots of sketches, don't misunderstand me. I hate to think how many sketches were made of this building.

R.B.: You don't have one particular thing that you invariably start with? You don't sit down and draw twelve columns?

27 P.R.: No, I would never think of doing that. I know what twelve columns are. I don't have to draw that.

R.B.: Okay. What about this experience of this great forest of columns on the Grange Road project in Singapore? What do you think it will be like? Do you know from some other experiences you've had what this experience would be like?

P.R.: I fortunately have seen, literally, with the exception of China, the major architecture of the world. Everything has been tried. I know perfectly well what a forest of columns looks like. Incidentally, this is not so much a forest of columns. In plan there are three major rows of double columns. They form a kind of wall, if you will, because they're so closely spaced. I wanted to say that the bottom of this building had very specific purposes. One of them is how you get out and come in. The center is essentially about circulation. The one over here, which you don't see very well, is essentially a porch. I wanted it to have a real sense of definition of space. It's a little bit like the Alhambra—the Court of Lions—with many, many columns. It's a different scale, but it's the same notion. The columns don't have to be far apart. They can form a kind of transparent wall also.

R.B.: Have you seen one of your own realized yet?

P.R.: This is realized.

R.B.: The whole building is done?

P.R.: It's almost finished, up to the top.

R.B.: Oh, I see. So you have had the sensation?

P.R.: Oh yes.

R.B.: Does it measure up to what you were expecting?

P.R.: Nothing ever measures up to what I expect, nothing.

28 R.B.: You never exceed your expectations?

P.R.: Sometimes I'm a little pleased but usually not terribly pleased.

R.B.: Can you describe anything more about the sort of psychological effects of this building? You've walked through there as well as driven through there?

P.R.: I haven't driven through there because when I was last there you couldn't drive through. I've walked through there many times now. I should show you some photographs of this building. I have only slides and maybe a couple photographs. It does essentially what I wanted to do because a series of columns used as a translucent screen, which is essentially the intention there, works quite well.

R.B.: What about the aspect of scale? These columns appear to be as thick in diameter as a person is tall.

P.R.: No, that's isn't quite true.

R.B.: From the drawing it would seem that way.

P.R.: Yes? Is the drawing that inaccurate? I don't like this drawing incidentally, that's the reason why I'm making a note of it. It's a very bad drawing. The columns are a little over a meter wide.

[Tape 2: Side 1]

P.R.: With regard to the scale of the columns, one of reasons why they're paired is to allow circulation to come through the columns, so to speak. Do you see the big set of steps right there? In order to make that wide enough the columns are oval at the ground and when they are about ten feet above they become circles. The way that was done is that this is a plane that is sliced so that they go from the oval to the round thing. That gives a detail that you don't see because it's not drawn in scale to these columns, which changes it completely. I have some photographs, I think, of that slice.

29 R.B.: Why did you do that?

P.R.: Why did I do it? Because the columns are so close together that you could not easily walk between them but I wanted to change the scale. If it had been just one big pole I wouldn't have liked it. After all, it is a domestic building. You see, it has to do with the scale of the building and it also has to do with the scale of the car, and, of course, as always, the people. You devise problems so you can do what you want to do.

R.B.: Can you get pretty good concrete work there?

P.R.: It's not exposed concrete, it's all tiled.

R.B.: That's right, it's tiled.

P.R.: It's a little bit like a Persian villa or a garden house at the base. There are also water canals. There is water on the other side that comes through the columns and out and into a fountain.

R.B.: Is the cladding a problem? What size are these? Two inches a square?

P.R.: It varies. In this case they're two-inch squares.

R.B.: Is that good enough to give you a clear definition, or do those things really create problems when you try to be precise?

P.R.: I don't want to say they don't create certain problems. In a building of that size they are lost for the most part.

R.B.: What does the texture look like?

P.R.: I have to back up. This building is not sheathed with tile; the Beach Road I is sheathed with tile. I wanted to sheath with tile. This building has one of these masonry paints that is continuous for economic reasons. I'm still not very happy with that, but that's what it is.

30 R.B.: What is the color?

P.R.: It's white and gray. All the structure itself is painted white, including the columns and the horizontal parts, and all the infill walls are painted a light gray.

R.B.: That's something that's not talked about very much with your buildings. They're almost always reproduced in black and white. I guess there's always a lot made of color with your Tuskeegee Chapel. Do you have any particular palette you're interested in because of Southeast Asia?

P.R.: Well, I can't say that I'm interested in a particular palette. For me, color is one of the most complex things in the world because it's always so different in different lights, different quantities at different times of the day, and when juxtaposed against other colors the actuality and the appearance are two different things. Maybe I've very tentative about color because I tend to think that monochromatic schemes are the best. It has also has to do with the fact that people change things. Maybe if you're tentative about the coloring then that's an invitation for them to change, I don't know. One of the aspects of color that fascinates me is the reflected light from the color. I have worked with concrete, at least earlier, a great deal and I would often make a very warm-toned carpeting. The reflected light changed the concrete and bathed it in a warm light. I find much architecture very offensive in terms of its color, as a matter of fact.

R.B.: Is there much color in any of these projects?

P.R.: There's no color in this; it's white and gray, period. There's a very real reason for that. There are a hundred different apartments here and each one of them will be God only knows what.

R.B.: Can you envision people putting up curtains behind the glass there?

P.R.: My business is to make it strong enough so that no matter what nonsense goes on there is still something.

31 R.B.: So it won't shock you when you go in and people have put up curtains?

P.R.: I'm beyond shocking.

R.B.: Ideally, what would they do?

P.R.: They wouldn't put up any curtains. Well, I shouldn't say that—I genuinely think the window treatment for privacy can be done in many different ways in such a building. The fact of the matter is that because of the cantilevers involved you don't see into the building so much. You see the underneath side of the building. The underneath side of these elements is tremendously important.

R.B.: What's the relation of this to your own house?

P.R.: The apartments up here are very similar in feeling; these are larger than my apartment but the handling of the space is very similar.

R.B.: Your work at your apartment certainly pre-dates this by some time. This Singapore project I imagine is like 1980 or something.

P.R.: Yes, and I started on my apartment before that, yes. You must understand that at least in terms of my domestic work much of that is spatially not unlike my apartment. The floor is a tray and the ceiling heights go from six-foot six to thirty feet.

R.B.: That is only to say that your apartment and this are part of the continuum.

P.R.: I should say about Grange Road that this is a building that I have been thinking about for thirty years. It cannot be built in the United States because of the labor involved.

R.B.: What specifically?

32 P.R.: The forming of the concrete is, let's face it, very elaborate. There's a great deal going on in this building, for better or for worse. There are many different apartment types and structurally and mechanically it becomes tremendously involved. I was just saying that this was not at all off the top of my head. It's a marvelous example of a building that I'd really been thinking about in principle for a long, long time.

R.B.: We're talking about a matter of economy there, then that it could be done.

P.R.: Yes, it could be.

R.B.: Do you think this could actually be built in a site in the United States? Would there be anything particularly inappropriate for this to be built?

P.R.: No. I think of it specifically for a warm climate because of the shading devices and the outside spaces. Do you know what this is? I couldn't tell the owners this. This is a study of the use of modules. Do you know the project that I have done? I've done two major projects and unfortunately they're unbuilt. One was for the Ford Foundation, for the Lower Manhattan Expressway, and the other is the Lithographer's Union Graphic Arts Center. I took modules and hung them from masts and then cantilevered girders. Of all my proposals, that's the building that I want to build the most. You can't do that in Singapore so this is a sketch for that, you see. Of course if I told the owners that this is a sketch for what I think will ultimately be built with trailers, they would think I was out of my mind.

R.B.: That's very interesting that you bring that up because the notion of the 1960s about megastructure—that is, certain parts that are fixed and other parts are added on to it—clearly had a lot of influence on what you were doing. How much do you think you were specifically influenced by the British Archigram and the megastructure people generally and how much has followed you?

P.R.: Oh gosh, I couldn't say that. The notion of the "plug-in" you see doesn't really interest me very much, frankly. It's a matter of economics. It is so expensive to get the thing done in the first place. It's difficult for me to think that anybody's going to remove elements and change them a great deal. I think you

33 change interior arrangements greatly. Also even with the modules or the trailers, I think only about twenty-eight percent of them actually get moved from a site because making the foundations and hooking them up with water is too great an expense. Once they are there then they are there. The portability is a misnomer to a degree.

R.B.: So many of buildings that came out of that, including a lot of Japanese buildings like Tange's Yamanashi News Center. Clearly, you're never going to take away a part of that or even add to that, but visually it implies that. Would you say that that's true of your highrise work?

P.R.: I don't really think of it that way. That isn't to say that it couldn't be because I think it's implied. In my project for the Lower Manhattan Expressway that was clearly a part of the thinking because it was so large that programmatically things would change. In a building like this, which is relatively small, I don't quite see it.

R.B.: These do seem to be fixed objects in that you have certain tops to things and certain sides. It is not so it suggests that you add something.

P.R.: In this particular case. The Graphic Arts Center is very different. I realize I'm out of sync, you see, with practically everything, but that's okay; I regard everybody else as being out of sync, not me. I can't help that. No, no, no, no, no, you see, my thought is that the trailer industry is here to stay and that you can't get around that. It's unfortunate that the module has not been adapted to multi-story buildings. You know I've said this is twentieth-century brick and I really believe that. It has heating, plumbing, ventilating, dehumidification, air conditioning, all these things that you need. There's a kind of logic to this. Also you can say that ninety percent of all building in the United States is essentially cubical in nature. It has divisions; it's not free flowing in spite of what a lot of people would like to think it could be or would be. There are very good reasons why Mies built one house in this country. A marvelous house it was, but it's not everybody who can live in such a thing. The cube, the enclosure, is the essence of the thing. You see you have schoolrooms, hospital rooms, motel and hotel rooms, housing of all sorts, etc., etc. When you put it all together it's a vast thing. I feel it's tragic that our

34 abilities to mechanize things have not been taken much, much further. The problem with mechanization is that it hasn't been taken far enough in my view. There are many reasons for this. I've spent a good deal of time and I've studied these problems—one-story high, four-stories high, six-stories high, forty-stories high, and what happens to those things. Let's put it all together, which I've never really done, because it's been fragmented. I stopped about ten or fifteen years ago because I was getting nowhere and it was just a big waste of time. I don't stop thinking that that's the way it ultimately will be. The trailer industry has not gone out of business. It counts for something like sixty or seventy percent of all the housing starts in the United States last year. It hasn't come to town yet, you see. It hasn’t been made palatable.

R.B.: Let's just talk a minute about the Dharmala Office Building in Jakarta. There's a site plan here. In some ways this has some of the same elements as Singapore, but arranged a little differently. The garage here is above ground. Are the building laws quite different in Jakarta?

P.R.: They are freer; they are not so stringent. They're similar in that you have to build an isolated building. As a matter of fact this is the main drag of Jakarta and this is a subsidiary one. It's a very important corner that ultimately may have an overpass go over it. There is no overpass now. On this main drag—which is several miles long, it's a little bit like Wilshire Boulevard—each guy does his thing.

R.B.: That was the case also in Singapore I gathered?

P.R.: In that sense they're similar.

R.B.: You have the same kind of roadway.

P.R.: Yes, you see, you could not put this entrance any closer to this because you just had to get away from it. It was important to enter from here because this is the main drag. You understand that there's a wall all the way around this thing for security reasons.

35 R.B.: I think I heard you say once that this was in some ways the most successful of all the Southeast Asian projects.

P.R.: I probably said it because I think it is.

R.B.: In what ways do you think this is particularly successful?

P.R.: I think it belongs to Jakarta. One would have to know a little bit about Indonesia to understand that I think. I didn't travel a great deal in Indonesia, which is made up of 2,000 islands, but I did travel some. The thing that strikes you is how well the vernacular of architecture accommodates itself to the climate. In the simplest terms it has to do with roof, and the natural movement of air through buildings is really wonderful. I'm a great believer that the vernacular of architecture quite often solves problems much better than architects do. Incidentally, the trailer you see is the true vernacular of architecture in the United States whether we like it or not. One reason why I'm so fascinated by it is that I've been to many trailer courts and seen what people do architecturally to what they have. I find it absolutely fascinating.

R.B.: How do you do that? Do you get in the car and go?

P.R.: Yes. After all, there are many around so it's the easiest thing in the world to do.

R.B.: Do you know anyone that lives in one?

P.R.: No. (Laughter)

R.B.: I would think this is sort of a class thing. It would be unlikely that close friends of yours would live in them.

P.R.: No, I don't know anyone. I do know some people on college campuses. I'll have to admit that I don't know anyone in New York City who lives in a trailer. They're outlawed in New York City. There's a reason why. You can't build them within the city limits. That's one of my points as a matter of fact. They have to be adapted, which is an easy enough thing to do. I wanted to

36 make a building that was uniquely Indonesian. That had to do with roofs and so this, even though it's a vertical building, and even though it's air conditioned, uses a series of roofs. It's one reason why, from a formal viewpoint anyway, there's an A, B, C floor plan. It also has to do with terraces, even though it's an office building. The planting there is so fantastic. The office with planting seemed important. The whole notion was that no glass would ever get any direct sun. The road, the street, the building zone is made up a series of American-styled, glass-walled office buildings designed with some sun protection. I'm sure that's what the owners thought they were going to get from me. I don't know what they thought they were going to get from me. I wanted to take a cue from the vernacular of architecture of Indonesia and really have a building that was truly protected from the sun. That's essentially why I think it belongs there. It would be ridiculous to build it in New York City. Having said that though, the reason one could justify building such a building is that I had a study made of the air conditioning running costs for this building. It showed that within five or six years the cost of building the overhangs, which, let's face it, are very costly, would be absorbed. The owners bought that. I might add they asked me to make a simplified version of this building. I made this drawing for them and told them that I thought this is what they should build. I'm happy to say this is what they are building. This has not the A, B, C floor plan; this has the A, B, C, which for me is very important. The base is very much the same.

R.B.: That's the simplified one there.

P.R.: You have the simplified one. That's not the way it's being built, this is the way.

R.B.: The overhang generated the need for the balcony?

P.R.: Yes.

R.B.: In other words, you had the balcony, but you couldn't glaze it because otherwise you'd be exposing it to the sunlight.

37 P.R.: You could have devised a way to have a big window, but that wasn't the intention.

R.B.: Right.

P.R.: It also has to do with the scale of the building. I regard this as essentially a shaft. This is not. That's a series of stacked floors, conceptually.

R.B.: Conceptually you thought of it as a stack with the floor rotated?

P.R.: The rotation is based certainly on the structure. The structure in this building is actually quite pure, it's not absolutely pure here, but here it is.

B.B: What was the reason for pushing the elevator core over to a corner?

P.R.: Wright was right about so many things. He said, "Never put the solid element in the middle," and of course he's right. It can only be a merry-go-round. These floors are not very large and to have the possibility of making a centralized space—incidentally, I hate the way this is drawn, I don't know who drew it—the notion of this is that it becomes a generating thing for what's going on around it.

R.B.: Some of these things it seems like an American developer would have objected to, for example, the loss of the corner.

P.R.: That's an interesting point. Thirty years ago I worked on the Blue Cross-Blue Shield Building in Boston, Massachusetts. They've long since outgrown it, and it's been through two or three developers. The newest developer called me two months ago, three months ago, and said, "Look, would you come and help us expand this building?" I'm correcting all my own mistakes in that building. I love doing it because I've always hated the building; it had the wrong proportions because it was neither vertical nor horizontal. It had an offset core and that's the reason why I mention it. People can't build offset cores in this country. From a dynamic and structural viewpoint it's complicated.

38 R.B.: How did this commission come about? Did these people in Jakarta know any of the other projects you were working on?

P.R.: I must ask them. They called me and asked me to come. Incidentally, since talking to you I have another building to do in Indonesia based on this one. They were just here. How did I get that? They called me and asked me to come and I did.

R.B.: They called you here?

P.R.: Yes. I'm sure they knew of the things in Singapore. My experience is that usually there's a third party, an intermediary. I never know how I get clients. I certainly don't get clients at cocktail parties or on the golf course since I never go to the golf course, but I do get them.

R.B.: You don't do client development then in any systematic way?

P.R.: I don't know how to. No, I wouldn't know how to.

R.B.: You must come in contact with other developers when you're in Southeast Asia?

P.R.: Surely I do.

R.B.: Are there social functions, for example, that you go to so they know who you are?

P.R.: A little bit, not a lot.

R.B.: For this particular commission did they come to you and say that they wanted an office?

P.R.: It's important to note that this is a corporate office building. They will occupy now about one-third of it and rent out the rest. They anticipate, because they're really hard workers those people, that within the decade they will probably occupy most of it.

39 R.B.: What is the corporation here called?

P.R.: Dharmala. They export tea and coffee and they import motorcycle parts and sell them, amongst other things. They do many, many different things. Everybody in that part of the world has at least one motorcycle, if not three. When you're on the street you think that anyway. They build all sorts of things; low-rise housing I guess is the most important thing. They do many different things.

R.B.: They are developers as well so this building is important advertising for them.

P.R.: It's a symbol. It's a very special building of course. It's not a speculative office building.

R.B.: When you got this commission did you tell them that you first wanted to go out and see the site and visit sites in Indonesia? Or did you start planning from here?

P.R.: No, I always see the site. Of course I went there. I did an interesting thing, at their suggestion, as a matter of fact. I told them that I wanted to get as clear an idea of vernacular architecture in that part of the world as possible. They took me to some villages nearby, but they also took me to a tourist park that had built about twelve structures from the Indonesian islands. They are very distinctive architectural types. New Guinea is very different, of course, from Sumatra, and very different from Bali, and so on. They're all a little bit corny and you could tell what was supposed to be there and what wasn't. It wasn't perfect. I knew these things from photographs because I'd also done a little research. I had known certainly some of them but not all of them. To see them, even in their degenerated forms in a tourist village, was a fascinating thing. You can always see certain things in reality. That was very instructive for me. You could see the intent, let me put it that way. Quite often the detail wasn't as it should be. Sometimes they would fireproof things when they shouldn't. It's a little bit like Williamsburg; things get changed. It was very instructive to do that. After all, I could have taken six months and gone to two thousand islands or something but I didn't have the time.

40 R.B.: They suggested that you do this?

P.R.: I suggested going to villages because I didn't know about the tourist village.

R.B.: Had they requested something that was regional?

P.R.: No, they expected a glass-walled office building, I guess. I shouldn't say that because I don't know what they expected. There was a news conference in Jakarta in which people sounded off about this building. It was an exhibition of the building in the local art museum. The newspapers came and they said, "Well, it doesn't look like an office building, it looks like an oil derrick, and it doesn't look like Jakarta." I said, "Well look, it doesn't look like Jakarta's other office buildings you mean. You should take another look at Jakarta of one hundred years ago."

R.B.: There must be people who would say, "Well, it's one thing to build this out of local materials at one-story high with roofs like this where it does pull the air through, but in a highrise building that's air conditioned isn't that impractical?"

P.R.: But you see that isn't so. I can show it very factually; I could and I did show it. The minute you the put glass in shade then you are well underway toward reducing the cost of the air conditioning. Of course, the air doesn't move up and through, which it does in many of their traditional buildings. No, it could not do that.

R.B.: Once you have the overhang, the actual shape of those things and the splaying back aren't necessary from a functional point of view.

P.R.: No, no, you could have made a horizontal lift.

R.B.: Right. Then what would you say to someone who said, "Well, why shouldn't it just be a glass building?" Would you say, "You have to start with something"?

41 P.R.: I would say, "There are plenty of architects who know how to make glass buildings, you can go to one of them. It's okay with me."

R.B.: At your apartment you were talking about how you work over there. Could you just say a word about how you work in Southeast Asia with the travel and the other arrangements?

P.R.: I'm going on Wednesday, I might add. I have four active clients now there. All of the work is being done with local architects and all the engineering is being done in Southeast Asia. There are very competent architects and engineers in that part of the world. The bylaws play such an important part and I familiarize myself with the essence of them by asking, as I suggested, local people to make excerpts for me. The economic situation varies; I'm constantly amazed by this. Maybe the most difficult thing to understand is what is easy for them to do and what isn't easy for them to do. That varies from country to country. For instance, the greatest problem on this building in Jakarta was the pouring of the diagonal sunshades. The only way they finally could come to grips with this was to make mockups. I think literally four or five different systems were tried before they decided that they could do it this way the best. I adapted in detail to that. Things that are easy or economical in the U.S. are not necessarily easy there. You know perfectly well that large sheets of glass for instance are very expensive for them. Anything that has to do with labor is inexpensive for them, just the reverse of here. That varies from country to country. In Hong Kong, for instance, their relationship to Japan is much closer and therefore it's possible to do things in Hong Kong that are so not easy to do in Jakarta. I haven't described it very well, I think. That's the most difficult thing to adapt yourself to, but of course it's important because it has to do with the economics of the thing. In terms of responsiveness or local reaction, this building in Jakarta is being received extremely well because people instinctively understand that it does have to do with their climate, etc. I don't mean just architects and engineers. The equivalent of their Time magazine, for instance, ran a marvelous thing on it, a very complimentary thing that was marvelous from my viewpoint. Architects and others talk until it comes out of their ears about a national identity from an architectural viewpoint. They see in this building a step in that direction. I don't see it that way. I see it as purely a response to a climate and the feeling of an

42 accommodating environment. I've talked only about Jakarta and the office building. I didn't talk about the base, which is the most important thing. There is a courtyard, you know, at the base, which in turn is shaded. It is small at the bottom and gets larger at the top. There is an exhibition space at the bottom that is the exact opposite. It's not a large building. There's a certain "humanness" about this building. There is also a certain unity. The space of the building is very elaborated and that's why I like it, you see. One thing is related to the other. It comes about because in section there is this simple thing of the overhang and this space is exposed on the inside of the office building, so it gets away from the box-like form of the thing.

R.B.: What does the exhibition space do? Is that for the company itself?

P.R.: It's for Dharmala. I'm going there, as I suggested, and I'm going to try to talk them into letting me do their exhibition of motorcycle parts. I have all sorts of notions about how to do that. I'm not sure they're going to buy that but I'm going to try. I love the idea of doing an exhibition with motorcycles and parts thereof.

R.B.: We should say something about the Bond Centre Office Building in Hong Kong. I don't seem to have anything on that.

P.R.: Hong Kong is an entirely different project. It is interesting in that it's being built on somebody else's foundations, and, therefore, the planning of Hong Kong is determined by foundations already poured in place. The owners changed because of the relationship with Red China and everybody got scared. They are totally commercial office buildings, unlike Jakarta, and therefore the ground rules are very different. Also there are a multiplicity of owners, unlike Dharmala, which is a corporate headquarters. It is like home to them, and, therefore, they take great interest in it. It's not that they don't take an interest in the Hong Kong projects. It's just that the ground rules are very, very different, about what you can and cannot do. The Hong Kong project is two towers and I wanted to connect them with interlacing bridges. I don't know whether you've ever seen any of those sketches or not. They wouldn't let me do that. The reason for that was the prime developer/owner said that he made a substantial part of his fortune in textiles in Indonesia as a

43 matter of fact. He said all of his factories had interconnecting bridges that take material and people from one part to the other. He didn't want these office buildings to look like that. I was really disappointed. I couldn't get around that argument though I did try.

R.B.: These are under construction?

P.R.: These are just started. A contract has just been set in the past month.

R.B.: Had you seen the Norman Foster project before you started on the Hong Kong one?

P.R.: Yes. I'd been in Hong Kong before it started construction.

R.B.: The Bank of Hong Kong apparently made a major impression on you?

P.R.: Oh yes. Of course I've known about it for a long time. It made enough of an impression on me that I wanted to write about it. I think it touches on a lot of pluses and minuses.

R.B.: It didn't influence yours?

P.R.: Not really, no. How should I put that put that…? It simply was not in the cards. The Norman Foster building is hung first of all, as you know, although you don't sense that it's hung. That is one of its great disappointments, mainly because everything comes down to the ground. How can you have a hung building if everything comes down to the ground, for God's sake? It is open at the bottom, in the middle. On either side there are cores and all these little goddamn cores come down to the ground. The thing happens to be on a sloping piece of land and Norman Foster never figured out how to relate his modules, which are so demanding, to come down to the diagonal. There's enough to really think about in that building. That's the reason why I appreciate it. But, to answer your question, no. There is no influence whatsoever, even though I admire the Foster building a great deal. The essential reason is that the ground rules would not allow that.

44 R.B.: The cost and the technical complexity of that are just incredible.

P.R.: It's a different animal entirely.

R.B.: Are the floors on your Hong Kong rotated? Are these two towers the same height?

P.R.: The building is different, a little bit, than this drawing, considerably different, as a matter of fact. The towers being built essentially are the same as you see here.

R.B.: Are these atria?

P.R.: No.

R.B.: Oh, they're not.

P.R.: There's a central lobby.

R.B.: Are these all usable office spaces with some balconies?

P.R.: That's right. Essentially there's nothing. The building is divided into parts to reduce the scale and some floors are revealed—the height of the floors—to give them some idea of the size. The base is much better than it is shown in the drawings. The placement of the buildings, the form of the building in plan, the columns, well, I've changed one of them. The earlier architects had two identical buildings, with one about ten percent larger than the other one, and therefore the foundations were larger by a little. I couldn't image how that would work. It just looked like one building got fat or something. You have a slim building with a fat building next to it. I did manage to, by spending a great deal of money, offset these columns.

R.B.: Are these buildings sheathed in glass?

P.R.: It's a glass-sheathed building.

45 R.B.: Is this blue reflecting glass?

P.R.: That's one of the reasons why I'm going to Hong Kong to determine what it will be. It's next to most awful gold glass building in the world.

R.B.: Are these spandrel panels opaque and reflective?

P.R.: Yes, in very much the typical way.

R.B.: The Southeast Asian work is in some ways a coherent whole.

P.R.: Do you think so?

R.B.: There are certain attitudes that seem to be common. There's a base element in all of them. There's rotation in a number of them and they seem to be sort of interlocking in that two or three things are common to two or three buildings and not in others. Certainly there are things which seem to be common in all of them. You don't have any American highrise work by comparison to know whether this really is a regional thing.

[Tape 2: Side 2]

R.B.: This is the last side of the tape, so if you don't mind let's just spend a little bit of time talking about some connections with Chicago. Could we just talk a little bit about the Christian Science Center? I don't know if you've heard this, but I have some bad news from my colleagues at Urbana. I called them up and asked them about it. They think that the university is very uninterested in buying more real estate and apparently it doesn't look like there's anybody anywhere in sight to save it from an owner who wants to put up a highrise. Can you say something about how you got involved with that? The Christian Science organization is sort of an odd client to be involved with. How in the world did they, out of the Middle West, come to you?

P.R.: As always it has to do with people. The directress of the Christian Science organization came to see me one day. Exactly why she did I don't remember.

46 R.B.: But she walked in the door?

P.R.: She walked in the door. That's all I remember.

R.B.: Do you recall what she said she wanted?

P.R.: It's all been so long ago. She was very factual. There had to be an assembly room and there had to be a Christian Science reading room that would be expandable so that it could accommodate on certain days a great, great many people. It was obviously to be related to the university. After all, this has been a number of years ago; I simply don't remember.

R.B.: The Christian Science organization, I imagine, would not be a wealthy client. It would be mostly student constituency. This must have been an enormous act of faith to go to New York to get an architect.

P.R.: She was a lady of considerable stamina. I subsequently did a cottage for her outside of Providence, Rhode Island. She had great strengths and she was a great client as a matter of fact. It may be that programmatically it was not thought out because it hasn't been that long for it not to have any use, and apparently it still doesn't have any use. There is another Christian Science organization in town. Apparently they are the ones who have the leadership now. This one is simply not used. Don't ask me why that is, I don't know.

R.B.: That's interesting, I probably should call them and ask them about that. That seems very curious, it must be some political thing. They had a site already picked out?

P.R.: Yes, I had nothing to do with the site.

R.B.: You went there to the site and took a look around. Do you remember anything at all about the generating idea? That one, as I recall, has a top-lit but otherwise very secluded assembly room right off the reading room.

47 P.R.: Yes. It's a pinwheel. Although the protrusions from the main body are very discrete, it's nevertheless a pinwheel. It's also, to a degree anyway, a pinwheel in section. I don't know whether you have ever seen that building or not.

R.B.: I did a long time ago.

P.R.: I feel it's one of the more successful of my buildings. I just saw it because I was at the University of Illinois a couple of years ago. Having said what I did before about color, I think that the color in that building actually works quite well. It's a very vivid color. There's nothing subtle about it except with regard to its placement perhaps. The juxtaposition of the concrete and the color—it's painted wood and concrete—I think that works much, much better than stained wood or naturally-finished wood.

R.B.: Why is the color so vivid in that building?

P.R.: My father, who was a Southern Methodist minister, had his effect on me with regard to religious matters. I thought, as a reaction, that religion should have some joyfulness in it. You can say that that's my effort to make it not the dismal thing in town.

R.B.: Did you get any sense of the Christian Scientists when you were doing this? Does this building have anything to do with Christian Science?

P.R.: I got a sense of what it was like to be a Christian Scientist from her. She was really quite a remarkable woman; I admire her a great, great deal. She was the kind of person who would not take, "No," for an answer. When she knew what it was she wanted to do, by God, she was going to do it, and she did. I knew nothing about the relationship with the other Christian Science group in town and whether they even existed at that time. That I don't know. I just know that as a client she was marvelous because she understood why I thought something should be done. She really wanted it done. It's not everyone who takes that attitude. She was very effective, she really was. Does it have anything to do with Christian Science? Not that I can think of.

48 R.B.: Do you think if it had been any other religious group the program would have led to something similar?

P.R.: Yes, because many religious groups need to have the intimacy of not very many people being there, making that seem okay, and then on special days having a lot of people.

R.B.: What about specific site influences there?

P.R.: That was a big influence because there is a field house, I think it is, across the street that is enormous in its size and sheer dimensions. It's really a huge thing. Next door to it there are domestic buildings. Then you had the scale of a relatively wide street and then a smaller one. The building scale was to a large degree the determining thing to that end. It has a very large scale on the main street side but it's much more delicate on the small street side. I think all that's very clear.

R.B.: Does the building have the corrugated concrete?

P.R.: Yes.

R.B.: Is it fair to say that that had nothing to do with Urbana but it was something that you were just interested in at the time?

P.R.: Yes.

R.B.: Incidentally, what did happen to that? There is none of that in any of these projects at all is there?

P.R.: Well you see, it's too expensive, what you call the corrugated concrete. I later developed it for concrete block. That's inexpensive and was used a great deal. I'll never forget that I had suggested on the Urbana building that it be done with the block. The builders thought it would be more expensive. I had just worked, I think, on the Colgate University building. That was not finished so I didn't have the proof in the pudding. I just know that retrospectively it was less expensive. You see concrete doesn't really weather

49 very well. The corrugated concrete weathers really quite well. The board forming of the concrete doesn't weather very well. My garage in New Haven, I really am unhappy about how it weathers. First of all, it would be impossible to do such a thing in Southeast Asia because of the fungus. Fungus is a very real thing. You see I'm interested in all materials; I'm not interested in just concrete. I'm becoming even more interested in glass than I used to be. Glass for me was always a void. Ideally speaking you wouldn't have any glass, you'd have an air curtain. You use glass because of practicalities. Now, I guess even I am convinced that glass in its various forms has great possibilities. I'm more interested in that than I have been. Having said that, the economics of glass curtain walls, partially because it's now a huge industry, are not easy to get around. What I want to do with glass is economically—I don't want to say impossible—but it would be very expensive. I wanted to make it much, much more faceted than it's ever been and have it all butted with no frame. That's not easy.

R.B.: Why would you want to do that?

P.R.: To bring out its crystalline qualities. I want it to be a cut stone.

R.B.: But quite unlike Philip Johnson's PPG Building [Pittsburgh Plate Glass by Johnson-Burgee], I imagine.

P.R.: No, no, no it has nothing to do with it.

R.B.: How much time did you spend out at that Christian Science Building site?

P.R.: There was a local architect. I went several times. At that time I liked the building, and I still like it, which I can't say about all my buildings. I will be unhappy if it's demolished, but I'm not in control of that. I feel the space and the light on the inside of the building and the color is okay.

R.B.: Now that we're talking about the Midwest, can you give me just some idea about your relationship with other architects? We've talked some about Frank Lloyd Wright, but let's leave that for a minute. What people were prominent

50 during the time that your career was progressing? Which of those have you known or know well?

P.R.: I don't think I can say I knew any of the Chicago architects well. I knew Mies, but certainly not well. I guess I saw him four or five times in my entire life.

R.B.: Here or there?

P.R.: Never there, always here. I knew Wright, but certainly not well. I saw him two or three times.

R.B.: How did you first meet him?

P.R.: I was a visiting critic at Princeton and for reasons that I don't remember, maybe I never knew, he was at Princeton and was brought into the drafting room where I was. We were introduced and he said, "And what are you doing here?" I said, "Well, I'm trying to teach a bit." He said, "Only prostitutes teach." I think that was the extent of that conversation. Another time he was at Philip Johnson's house, uninvited, unexpected, one Sunday morning. I happened to be a guest there. He and Philip put on a great show for us. He had never seen the Glass House and he told Philip he had gone all the way. He was very adamant about things he liked and didn't like. The Nadelman sculptures, which are papier maché, he didn't like. He took his cane and gave them a whack. Since it was only papier maché everybody present was concerned what was going to happen. He didn't like the exposed bulbs in the bathroom. Then out of the woods had appeared half a dozen people who were with him. Both he and Philip put on a great show because they now had enough of an audience to make it worthwhile, you understand. We went to the guesthouse and everybody was invited to take off their shoes, except the great man, because of the white rug. Mr. Wright was allowed to sit on the bed, which nobody else was allowed to do because of the bedspread. I think Wright had never had a rheostat in his hand before—Philip gave it to him, for the artificial light. The sun was shining very brightly—it was noon on a bright, as I remember it, spring day—and the curtains were all pulled closed and Wright was like a child with the rheostat—I genuinely don't think he'd ever had a rheostat in his hand—making light levels go up and down. Then he

51 lectured everybody about I don't know what. At one point he told Philip that he thought people with street clothes should never be allowed in that room, he obviously liked the room. I think he liked the whole thing, although he couldn't quite say that. Wright said that nobody should wear street clothes in such a room. Either there should be special robes that you were given to wear in the room or everybody should be in the nude; there was nothing in between. Out of nowhere appeared an Indian red car. He told us that that was his color, as if nobody knew that. His parting words, and I guess the last time I ever saw him, were that he was going to the opening of the Coliseum here in New York and that he would, of course, attract more attention than the building did. I'm sure that was true. I hope it was true anyway. That was it. I didn't know him well.

R.B.: I'm interested for example in what your impressions were about any sort of relationship that you might have had with Walter Netsch at SOM.

P.R.: I know Walter Netsch. I saw him and his wife in Cairo once and we had dinner together. I don't know Walter very well. I have seen him when I've been in Chicago. Usually when I've been in Chicago it's to speak or for a very specific occasion. Other than seeing him and his wife in Cairo, which was just inadvertent, I don't remember ever having a conversation with him. That isn't to say I haven't.

R.B.: I'm interested because I think that he feels that he was of a generation of modernists that was faced with the enormous question, "What did you do then after the great pioneers?" I think I've heard him say several times that the only people he even will mention having any interest at all to him are Eero Saarinen and you. He thinks of Saarinen and you as people who were facing the same problems and some of the same notions. Do you see any logic in that?

P.R.: I think things grow, one thing from another, and develop and retard and take side trips and whatnot. I never saw our time as being one of, "Well, what do you do after these boys?" I saw it as something to build on, or to grow from, and still do, as a matter of fact. I never saw that as a particular challenge. I

52 thought it was marvelous that these guys had been around and figured out a lot of things to give you a base to proceed.

R.B.: Let me ask a more specific question. For example, one of the problems was the problem of monumentality. Everyone was talking about it constantly after World War II. Something like your Jewett Art Center at Wellesley College seems to have, in many ways, the same kinds of problems facing it as the chapel at the Air Force Academy. That is, you need something more than just a box and it's got to relate to other things. In fact, there is some kind of attempt to be Gothic in both of them. Were you consciously aware of being fellow travelers?

P.R.: You have to understand that I'm not too much interested in what other people are doing. I'm very selective about who I'm interested in. I would go around the world to see a Corbu building or a Wright building. I wouldn't go across the street to see some things. It's really true. I know it sounds terrible, but it's absolutely true. Because I'm interested in feeling and understanding, I learn from traditional architecture; I don't learn from modern architecture by and large. That the reason why I feel really lucky that I've traveled as much as I have. I don't like looking at most twentieth-century buildings. I love looking at Wright and Corbu, but I don't even like looking very much at Mies. I will make a special trip, if necessary, to see the Barcelona Pavilion, but I wouldn't go very far to look at another Mies office building.

R.B.: What about someone like Bruce Graham or Myron Goldsmith? Are these people that you knew at all?

P.R.: No, I don't know Bruce Graham; I may have met him, but I don't know him. Myron Goldsmith—I always get mixed up about Myron Goldsmith. Is he a Chicagoan? I should know this, but I don't. I, of course, know Stanley Tigerman. Who else do I know in Chicago? I'm not good about names. I meet a lot of people. Who else?

R.B.: Stanley, to just go back for a minute, is just full of stories about you that are probably ninety percent false. I'm sorry I can't remember enough of them to ask you about them. He does say—he says this again and again, and I don't

53 know what is so intriguing about it—that when he applied to architecture school it was only your personal intervention that got him in and that you wrote some letter that said, "I know I'll live to regret this, but enclosed are application materials."

P.R.: I remember rather distinctly that when I first went to Yale everybody seemed to think I should chair the Admissions Committee, so I did for a year. It was partially a matter of time but partially too difficult. Other people could do that better than I could, and I wanted nothing to do with it. Also there were pressures brought to bear on me. Sometimes people were unfair—I mean alumni and others—so it would be much easier if I could simply say I didn't have anything to do with that and be truthful about it. Stanley came for an interview or whatever it was and I didn't see him at that time because I had nothing to do with it. I did get on the train coming in to New York and there was Stanley. I didn't know who Stanley was but he knew me. We rode from New Haven to New York on the New Haven railroad. That was an hour and a half. I remember it quite well, he was very charming. Also, I always felt that a place like Yale should be, in a sense, the place of last resort. Yale would take all sorts of people: if it seemed so outrageous or so out of it then there was a place for it at Yale. Stanley never let me forget that hour and a half. I was asked about him and said, "Well, why don't we take a chance," or something like that.

R.B.: Presumably you have lived to regret it?

P.R.: No, no, I haven't lived to regret it. I think Stanley is a wonderful person. I hate what he does, but I think he's a wonderful person. Apparently he's very good as a dean or chairman of the department at UIC, whatever he is.

R.B.: I think when he came there were a lot of people who said, "Well, after Tom Beeby particularly, this is going to be a lot of insubstantial glitter." In fact, in six months he has moved faster than everybody before him in trying to reduce the number of undergraduates, increase the amount of writing they have to do, and increase the whole first year before they can even take a history of architecture course because they've got to take this series of writing courses.

54 It's truly prodigious. I don't know what of that you influenced, but he seems to have found his métier.

P.R.: He is a surprising fellow. I have read parts of his book. I was really surprised by the way he goes about things. He does it so easily. I mean you can agree or disagree, it doesn't really matter. He doesn't make you angry. So many people really are such asses.

R.B.: I think we're finished unless you can think of anything else that you'd like to talk about.

P.R.: No, I think that's all.

55 SELECTED REFERENCES

There are several monographs on the work of Paul Rudolph. Curiously the two earliest were Japanese publications; one was a special edition of Kokusai-Kentiku appearing in April 1965, and the other was a book by Fumihiko Maki and Tsukasa Yamashita published by Bijutsu Shuppan-sha in Tokyo in 1969. The second of these was brought out in the West by Thames & Hudson under the title Paul Rudolph in 1971 with an introduction by Rupert Spade. The Architecture of Paul Rudolph, published by Praeger, appeared in 1970 with commentary by Rudolph, captions by Gerhard Schwab and an incisive, often acerbic, introduction by Sibyl Moholy-Nagy. Two picture books contain later work. Many of the architect's drawings are reproduced in Paul Rudolph Architectural Drawings, published by Architectural Book Publishing Company in 1981 but based on another book published in Japan in 1972 by A.D.A. Edita Tokyo. This book contains an excellent list of works and a well-organized bibliography. 100 Works of Paul Rudolph, a special issue of the Japanese magazine Architecture and Urbanism appeared in July 1977 as No. 80, Extra Issue. This last publication carried a list of works through 1974 and a bibliography through 1972 in addition to a large selection of drawings and photographs. In contrast to the hundreds of publications before 1974, relatively few pieces have been published since. A useful but not always accurate bibliography by Lucia Doumato, The Works of Paul Rudolph, appeared in the Vance Architecture Series in 1979. One important recent item is "A conversation with Paul Rudolph," by Jeanne M. Davern that appeared in the March 1982 issue of Architectural Record. Also valuable is a film produced by Eisenhardt Productions, Inc., "Spaces: The Architecture of Paul Rudolph," 1984. Equally useful is Robert Bruegmann's catalogue that accompanies the Architecture in Context series at The Art Institute of Chicago. The booklet is based on the information gathered during this interview and focuses on Paul Rudolph's four projects in Southeast Asia. It was published in 1987 by the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts and The Art Institute of Chicago.

56 ADDITIONAL REFERENCES

These are additional sources on a few of Rudolph's major projects:

"Another major project for Boston's government service center." Architecture and Urbanism 80 (July 1977): 62-64. "Bond Centre." Architecture and Urbanism 233 (February 1990): 8-17. "Boston bucks a trend: Blue Cross office building." Architectural Forum 113 (December 1960): 64-69. "Christian Science organization building." Architecture and Urbanism 80 (July 1977): 130, 240-241. "Dharmala Office Building." Architecture and Urbanism 233 (February 1990): 18-25. Franzen, Ulrich, and Paul Rudolph. Evolving Cities: Urban Design Proposals, with text by Peter Wolf. New York: American Federation of Arts, 1974. "Mary Cooper Jewett Arts Center at Wellesley." Architectural Record 121 (February 1957): 166-169. "New U.S. Embassy in Amman." Architecture and Urbanism 80 (July 1977): 140-141. "Office headquarters building." Architecture and Urbanism 80 (July 1977): 142-143. "Paul Rudolph's Graphic Arts Center." Architectural Record 143 (April 1968): 137-146. "Paul Rudolph, N.Y. Apartments, New York, N.Y., 1977-78." Global Architecture Houses 6 (1979): 88-89. Rudolph, Paul. "On art and architecture." Arts and Architecture 76 (August 1959): 18-19, 32-34 . "Regionalism in architecture". Perspecta 4 (1957): 12-19. Schmertz, Mildred F. "Resolutely Modernist." Architectural Record 177 (January 1989): 74-85. Scully, Vincent. American Architecture and Urbanism. New York: Praeger, 1969. "Study of the Lower Manhattan Expressway in the project 'new forms of the evolving city.'" Architecture and Urbanism 80 (July 1977): 136, 306-311.

57 APPENDIX I BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Paul Marvin Rudolph was born in 1918 at Elkton, Kentucky, the son of a Methodist minister. After attending a succession of schools across the southern states, Rudolph studied at the Alabama Polytechnic Institute in Auburn, Alabama between 1935 and 1940, then entered the Harvard Graduate School of Design in 1941 to work under Walter Gropius. After a stint in the Navy between 1943 and 1946 he returned to Harvard to finish his Masters in Architecture. Moving to Sarasota, Florida, in 1947, he practiced in partnership with Ralph Twitchell for four years before starting his own practice in 1951. At the same time Rudolph started to teach as guest critic or lecturer at a number of prominent institutions including Yale, Cornell, Tulane, Harvard, Princeton and the universities of California and Pennsylvania. The early commissions consisted mostly of houses and guesthouses for sites in Florida and Alabama. The first substantial commission for a public building, the United States Embassy in Amman, Jordan came in 1954. Although this was not built, another prominent commission, for the Jewett Arts Center at Wellesley College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, was built in 1955.

In 1958 Rudolph took over as Chairman of the School of Architecture at Yale University. During his brilliant, controversial chairmanship he also produced a long series of important commissions including the A&A Building (1958-64) and Married Student Housing (1959-63) at Yale, New Haven Parking Garage in New Haven (1959-63), Tuskeegee Institute Chapel at Tuskeegee, Alabama (1960-69), Sarasota High School, Sarasota, Florida (1958-59), Creative Arts Center at Colgate University (1963-66), the Southeastern Massachusetts Technological Institute, North Dartmouth, Massachusetts (1963-72), the Orange County Office and Courthouse Building at Goshen, New York (1963-71) and the Boston Government Services Center (1962-71). Resigning the chairmanship in 1965, Rudolph set up his own practice in New York. Important commissions from these years include the Tracey Towers Apartments in the Bronx (1967- 72), unbuilt schemes for a Graphic Arts Center (1967) and a Lower Manhattan Expressway Project (1967-72), both in New York, the Earl W. Brydges Library at Niagara Falls, New York (1969-72), Burroughs Wellcome and Co. headquarters at Research Triangle Park, North Carolina (1969-72), the Daiei Building, Nagoya, Japan (1971) and the William R. Cannon Chapel at Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia (1982).

58 APPENDIX II

PAUL M. RUDOLPH, F.A.I.A.

Birth Date: 23 October 1918, Elkton, Kentucky

Education: Bachelor of Architecture, 1940 Alabama Polytechnic Institute

Fellow under Walter Gropius, 1940-1943 Harvard Graduate School of Design

Master of Science in Architecture, 1947 Harvard University

Work Experience: Twitchell & Rudolph, 1947-1951 Partner

Private practice, 1952-1958 Sarasota, Florida

School of Architecture, Yale University, 1958-1965 Chairman

Private practice, 1965-1993 New York, New York

Selected Projects: United States Embassy, Amman, Jordan, 1954

Mary Cooper Jewett Arts Center, Wellesley College, Massachusetts, 1955

Blue Cross-Blue Shield Headquarters, Boston, 1957

Interdenominational Chapel, Tuskeegee Institute, Alabama, 1960

Christian Science Organization Building, University of Illinois, 1962

Government Service Center, Boston, 1963

Creative Arts Center, Colgate University, Hamilton, New York, 1963

Graphic Arts Center and Apartments, New York, 1967

Lower Manhattan Expressway Study, New York, 1967

Paul Rudolph Apartments, New York, 1973

59 Residential-Office-Shopping Complex (Beach Road I), Singapore, 1979

Grange Road Condominiums, Singapore, 1980

Bond Centre Office Building, Hong Kong, 1984

Dharmala Corporation Office Building, Jakarta, Indonesia, 1984

60 INDEX OF NAMES AND BUILDINGS

Archigram, 33 Le Corbusier, 22-23, 26, 53 Lithographer's Union Graphic Arts Bank of Hong Kong and Shanghai, Center (project), 33-34 Hong Kong, 44 Lower Manhattan Expressway Barcelona Pavilion, Barcelona, Spain, (project), 33-34 21, 22, 53 Beach Road I, Singapore, 1-4, 8-9, 14, Mies van der Rohe, Ludwig, 3, 4, 13, 17, 24, 30 21, 22, 23, 26, 34, 51, 53 Beach Road II (project), 1, 5 Beeby, Thomas, 54 Nadelman, Elie, 51 Belinsky, 2 Netsch, Walter, 52 Blue Cross-Blue Shield Building, Boston, 38 Peachtree Center, Atlanta, Georgia, 19 Bond Centre Office Building, Hong Pei, I. M., 5 Kong, 1, 43-46 Pittsburgh Plate Glass Building, Brown Hotel, Denver, 19 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 50 Portman, John, 1, 19 Centre Beaubourg, Pompidou, Paris, Price Tower, Bartlesville, Oklahoma, 24 France, 13 Chapel, United States Air Force Robertson, Jaquelin, 6 Academy, Colorado Springs, 53 Rogers, Richard, 13 Christian Science Center, University of Rudolph, Paul, Apartments, New York, Illinois, Urbana, Illinois, 46-50 32 Creative Arts Center, Colgate University, Hamilton, New York, 49 Saarinen, Eero, 52 Scully, Vincent, 24 Dharmala Corporation Office Building, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, 5 Jakarta, Indonesia, 35-43 Taliesin West, Scottsdale, Arizona, 13 Farnsworth House, Plano, Illinois, 22 Tange, Kenzo, 5, 34 Foster, Norman, 13, 25, 44 Tigerman, Stanley, 53-54

General Assembly Building, United States Embassy, Amman, Chandigarh, India, 22-23 Jordan (project), 2 Giovannini, Joseph, 24 Glass House, New Canaan, Villa Savoye, Poissy, France, 21, 23 Connecticut, 51-52 Villa Stein-de Monzie, Garches, France, Goldsmith, Myron, 53 23 Graham, Bruce, 53 Grange Road Condominiums, Wright, Frank Lloyd, 13, 19, 22-24, 26, Singapore, 1, 8-9, 17, 19, 28-32 38, 50-52, 53

Interdenominational Chapel, Tuskeegee Yamanashi Press and Broadcasting Institute, Alabama, 31 Center, Shizuoka, Japan, 34

Jewett Arts Center Wellesley College, Zetlin, Lev, 2 Wellesley, Massachusetts, 53 Johnson, Philip, 6, 51-52 Johnson Wax Building, Racine, Wisconsin, 24

61