Rudolph's First House for Sale

Atkinson Residence, 1940, view from street.

In 1940, while finishing his undergraduate degree in architecture at Alabama Polytechnic Institute (now Auburn University,) Rudolph completed a small house for Professor T.P. Atkinson, chairman of the Foreign Language Department. Located on a corner lot in Auburn, AL, it is the only built work completed before Rudolph departed for the Harvard Graduate School of Design to study under Walter Gropius.  The house itself bears little indication of Rudolph's later work but incorporates several unusual features for its time: central heat, corner windows, and a standing seam copper roof. 

View of living room showing homosote frieze.

Its chief interest, though, lies in a bas-relief frieze above the fireplace in which Rudolph drew a group of fishermen grappling with nets. Christian Bjone, writing in "First House: the Grid, the Figure, the Void," connects the interwoven netting with diagrams Rudolph would often sketch depicting the movement of space with a series of radiating lines. Rudolph, according to Bjone, almost certainly took the course in mural design at the time of the house's construction.

The frieze is still intact, as are some of the original interior fittings. More information about the house can be found at Zillow.

Diagram of spatial flow, Tuskegee Chapel
image: Library of Congress

Modernism Conference to take place in Sarasota

Paul Rudolph's 1961 Milam Residence (photo: Joseph Molitor)

 

 

Docomomo, the Documentation and Conservation of the Modern Movement, will hold a symposium "Modern Matters" from April 18-21 at Sarasota's Ringling College of Art + Design. The event is held jointly by the University of Florida's historic preservation program.

About 150 of the organizations members will gather to discuss their experiences documenting and preserving modern architecture. They will also tour examples of the "Sarasota School" of modern architecture, with a focus on Paul Rudolph. Among the buildings will be Rudolph's 1958 addition to the city's High School, which has lately been under threat of severe alteration.

More information on the event can be found at docomomo-us.org.

Talk to Feature Three Rudolph Academic Buildings

Dana Arts Center, Colgate University, 1963-65
photo: Paul Rudolph Archive, Library of Congress

New York-based architect and writer Kimbro Frutiger will give a talk on April 10 featuring three Paul Rudolph buildings on American college campuses.

The Jewett Arts Center at Wellesley University, Rudolph's first large-scale building to be realized, showed that modern architecture could make a sensitive contribution to a historic neo-gothic campus. The Yale Art & Architecture Building, completed in 1963, demonstrated his ability to create powerful and complex spaces and cemented his international reputation, only to burn tragically in 1969. After years of abuse and unsympathetic renovations, it was finally restored in 2008 by Gwathmey Siegel Architects and renamed Paul Rudolph Hall. Less known than either of its two counterparts, the Dana Arts Center at Colgate University in Hamilton, NY saw Rudolph's first opportunity to build in the spirit of a Megastructure. Though relatively modest in size, it holds a commanding presence on the hilltop campus; its interiors ranging from dramatic to intimate with dazzling chiaroscuro lighting effects.

The event, co-sponsored by DOCOMOMO New York and the Paul Rudolph Foundation, will take place 7:30PM Wednesday, April 10 at Superstructures in lower Manhattan. A limited number of advance tickets are available through NYCharities.

National Trust Supports Saving Sarasota H.S.

Photo: Mary Ann Sullivan

John Hildreth, Vice President of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, wrote to the editors of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune in support of preserving Rudolph's 1958 Addition to Sarasota High School. He noted that:

"Like the original Riverview High School in Sarasota, Building No. 4 at Sarasota High represents the Sarasota School of Architecture, whose practitioners became internationally known and respected."

"This is a legacy all residents of Sarasota should embrace. It would be a tragedy if Sarasota became known for the demolition and insensitive renovation of its Modern structures, rather than as one of the birthplaces of the Modern movement."

"The School Board's concern to create an innovative learning environment in Building No. 4 is admirable, but to create it by the insensitive renovation of a Modern building seems shortsighted. The building itself should be a part of the learning experience in a space that embraces the contemporary world, both in the classes taught and the building that houses them."

Earlier schemes for renovating the Rudolph structure proposed enclosing its breezeway with glass or gutting the interior altogether. Facing public outcry, the Board's eventually ruled out some of the more drastic elements of their proposal though it remains unclear what their current plans are.

Read the full letter at the Herald-Tribune.

Exhibition featuring Rudolph on View in New York

Lessons from Modernism, on view at the Cooper Union in New York through March 23, examines works of modern architecture from 1925-70 that respond in some way to their natural environment. Organized by the Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture and the Institute for Sustainable Design, the exhibition reveals that the early modernists were highly sensitive to climatic and environmental concerns, contradicting a long-held popular image of the time that nature could be conquered by technology.


Model from the Exhibition of the Healy "Cocoon"
Guest House, Siesta Key, FL, 1950

Among the twenty-five projects are the iconic 1952 Walker Guest House and 1950 Healy "Cocoon" house from Rudolph's early career in Sarasota, FL. Adapting the process of "mothballing" from his experience at the Brooklyn Navy Yard during World War II, Healy featured a catenary roof sheathed in plastic and walls of wood louvers to modulate privacy and light levels. Walker used a system of counterweights to operate giant panels that could completely seal the house, leave it completely open, or any number of variations partially enclosing the interior. The house was recently voted most significant in the state by the Florida chapter of the American Institute of Architects.

The exhibition is on view at the Houghton Gallery at the Cooper Union Foundation Building:

January 29 - March 23, 2013 (extended!)

Gallery Hours: Tuesday - Saturday, 12-7pm
(Closed Sunday and Monday)

Burroughs-Wellcome Under Threat



photos: Joseph Molitor, 1972



Photo: Joseph Molitor


In 1969 pharmaceuticals giant Burroughs-Wellcome commissioned Paul Rudolph to design its headquarters in Research Triangle Park, NC, an area between Raleigh and Durham dominated by high-tech corporate research facilities The building was expanded by Rudolph in the 1980s and a covenant prevented unauthorized changes during his lifetime. After a series of mergers, Burroughs became GlaxoSmithKline, which sold the 700,000 square foot facility in June of last year. The new owners, United Therapeutics, describe themselves as admirers of Paul Rudolph and plan to retain what they consider ‘historically important’ parts of the complex and demolish others, presumably the 1980s expansion.



Rendering of proposed expansion, via the Herald-Sun

As Foundation Co-Director Sean Khorsandi put it:

“There are other examples of buildings that have been saved and renovated, and they're great icons,” he said. “There is renewed appreciation for this work. It's a matter of tastes are changing, but you need to get the right attention to the right people.”

Rudolph’s 1964 Endo Laboratories in Garden City, NY suffered a similar fate. It, too, has changed ownership and use, the company being bought by DuPont in 1969 which continued to operate there until 2004. The current owner performed a hasty and insensitive renovation that included painting over board-form concrete surfaces and replacing the Robert Zion roof garden with Astroturf. The bulk of it is currently leased to Lifetime Brands, which uses the main laboratory space as a showroom for its household products.


Endo Laboratories in 2012, photo: Paul Rudolph Foundation

The Fifties and Sixties saw the beginning and the end of IBM’s period of engaging talented architects to design its facilities (a list that includes Rudolph), as well as Eero Saarinen's work for Bell Laboratories and countless lesser-known works. It raises important questions about the nature of exurban architecture where, outside the city and out of sight, reuse is rarely a consideration. In an age when it is often cheaper to build new than renovate, it is worth considering a time when corporations saw the benefit of investing in their workspaces.

Read the Herald-Sun article here.


Section-perspective of the original scheme by Paul Rudolph, courtesy the Paul Rudolph Archive at Library of Congress





Frank Lloyd Wright Conservancy Supports Preserving Sarasota High School

Perspective drawing of Sarasota High School by Paul Rudolph

The Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy wrote to the editors of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune urging the School Board to preserve Paul Rudolph's Sarasota High School. The group visited Sarasota during a gathering of 80 scholars, architects, homeowners and enthusiasts at Wright's nearby Florida Southern College campus, the largest group of his buildings in one place. They were especially impressed with the Rudolph-designed High School, where they saw "a grand entry and corridor spaces that deserve to be restored and utilized in a way that honors the open, airy and light-filled environment within a muscular structure as originally created by Rudolph." They called the building "a cultural asset to be celebrated and links directly to Sarasota's highly deserved reputation as a mecca of architectural modernism."

Rudolph visited Florida Southern in the 1940's while it was under construction and it made quite an impression on him, influencing later projects like the campus of University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth and the Tuskegee University Master Plan. With support from groups like the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy, it becomes increasingly clear that the Sarasota County School Board's plans to renovate the building must respect the integrity of Rudolph's design. 

Read the full letter in the Herald Tribune.