The Paul Rudolph Foundation was established in 2002 by a group of friends, colleagues and former associates with the intent to further the preservation, knowledge and understanding of the work of one of the important late modernist architects and educators Paul M. Rudolph (1918-1997).
Check out the blog maintained by the Paul Rudolph Foundation here. One of the best things I found on the blog was this flickr group dedicated to Rudolph’s work. A particularly good set of pics, of the Bass residence in Fort Worth (seen below), can be found here.
When it comes to urban analogies, though, New York City actually seems more apt. Beijing’s historic core—the area with Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, the main national government buildings, and some of the few remaining hutong neighborhoods—contains 1.3 million people in its 24 square miles, almost exactly the same as Manhattan; fully urbanized Beijing closely tracks the five boroughs of New York City in area and population; and the greater Chinese capital is about the same size as metropolitan New York.
But having just visited for the first time, I realized that what early-21st-century Beijing even more deeply resembles is New York at the turn of the 20th century. That’s the moment at which modern New York was inventing itself by showstopping leaps and bounds—swallowing adjacent cities and towns and farms, booming in population, and erecting what would become its defining landmarks.
For an interactive map of architectural monuments in Beijing click here.
And more on China’s monumental ambitions at this old post.
Edit: Another very good, lengthy article from The International Herald Tribune here.
“The National Building Museum has chosen Robert A.M. Stern, dean of Yale University’s architecture school, to receive this year’s Vincent Scully Prize. The prize recognizes ‘exemplary practice, scholarship, or criticism in architecture, historic preservation, and urban design.’”
Digital Urban is reporting on White House Redux, a collaborative architecture project that seeks to collectively redesign the White House in Washington, D.C.
From the project website: Analogously, the concept of Source Code is readily found in the everyday practice of architecture in forms of drawings, agendas, documentations, ideas, specifications, and material libraries. However, none of the above, with the seldom exception of ‘ideas’, are freely redistributable, publicized, or allow for criticism and input akin to what an open-source model offers. The architectural practice, today, is skewed towards personal benefit and gratification of individual architects. Thus, the laws protect creative property, on one hand, but are constricting and oppose collaborative creativity that could contribute more rapidly to architectural theory and practice.
Read about another collaborative architecture project taking place in Second Life here and here.
“The architect Renzo Piano said on Thursday that he supported plans by officials of The New York Times to alter the facade of the newspaper’s year-old tower, which he designed, to prevent people from scaling the veil of ceramic rods that sheathe the tower, as three men have done in the past five weeks….
“’….I’m frankly quite worried about this new fashion of going up on buildings,’ Mr. Piano said in the interview. ‘This is what I call an inappropriate use of the building.”
“Mr. Piano said of the tower: ‘It was built to be responsive to design after 9/11. The big challenge was to make a building that is not like a fortress, but that is transparent, and open to the city.’ He added, ‘This problem of climbers is honestly something we didn’t think about.’”
“The architect’s most famous work, the Art and Architecture building at Yale, was…gutted over time. After his innovative asbestos ceiling was ripped out and replaced in the 1970s, Rudolph said that the building had ceased to exist for him.”
“The building was plagued by other practical problems. Visitors tripped on its shallow steps and employees complained of the broiling heat from its incandescent bulbs. Architecture students taped paper over its picture windows to stop grids of shadow from forming on their drafting tables as the afternoon light streamed through Rudolph’s cargo net curtains.
“And while the corduroy walls of chiseled concrete may have been an aesthetic breakthrough they frequently ‘bit’ visitors if they weren’t mindful.
“‘It wasn’t a woolly, sympathetic building,’ says Helen Chillman, a longtime Yale librarian who worked there. ‘You couldn’t just snuggle down into it.’”
“The debate over whether to preserve or demolish Warren Platner’s 1973 Kent Memorial Library in Suffield is both a frightening and healthy sign of current efforts to preserve modern architectural landmarks. Frightening because a distinguished building could be lost. That there is some debate, however, is encouraging.
For far too long, cities and towns across America have routinely demolished their postwar modern buildings. Deemed unsightly or outdated, they have been bulldozed only to be replaced by new structures that basically serve the same purpose —without giving the original buildings a second chance, or a second thought.”
“…while the rulers of Dubai are interested in sustainability, any near- or even medium-term changes will be superficial at best, as more significant programs would likely jeopardize Dubai’s status as a celebration of consumption. This belief would be confirmed, time and again, as I explored luxury and leisure in Dubai.”
David Fisher, the Israeli architect who is designing a rotating skyscraper, held a press conference yesterday and launched a new web site today, promoting what he calls Dynamic Architecture.
“Along with swimming pools and gardens, the buildings will also be fitted with car elevators so that residents can park right outside their homes.
The towers are expected to generate enough electricity for themselves and other nearby buildings from solar panels and wind turbines fitted horizontally between each floor.
People who own an entire floor will be able to simply speak to control the rotation, with speeds varying from an hour to three hours for each full rotation.”
ROBIN POGREBIN of the New York Times has an article on the “decades-old debate among architects over the ethics of working in countries with repressive leaders or shaky records on human rights.”
A few Yale architects are mentioned in the article:
“Robert A. M. Stern, who is also Yale’s architecture dean, drew some criticism last year when he accepted an assignment to design a planned George W. Bush Library in Dallas.
“Mr. Stern shrugged off the sniping. ‘I’m an architect,’ he said. ‘I’m not a politician.’”
“….Architects readily point out that dictators — or powerful central governments like China’s — can be among the most efficient in getting architecture built, as the boom in China attests. ‘The more centralized the power, the less compromises need to be made in architecture,’ said the architect Peter Eisenman. ‘The directions are clearer.’”
“This week the Sarasota County School Board cleared the way for the demolition of the building [Paul Rudolph's Riverview High School] at the end of the 2008-9 school year. The board voted 3 to 2 not to proceed with a restoration proposed by preservationists that would turn the school, built in 1958, into a music conservatory….
“’Riverview High School is a fantastic prototype of what today we call green architecture,’ said the architect Charles Gwathmey, who is overseeing a renovation of the Art and Architecture Building at Yale. ‘He was so far ahead of his time, experimenting with sun screens and cross-ventilation. If it’s torn down, I feel badly for architecture.’”
“At present there are four such constructions in Japan (there are also examples in Hong Kong and Macau), each built on its own artificial island offshore and each backed by the community it serves. The first of these incredible engineering wonders to be built, and the first of its kind in the world, was Kansai International Airport in Osaka Bay… In total the project has so far cost around $20 billion but has already saved some expense by surviving both an earthquake and a typhoon in the last 15 years, in addition to being open 24 hours a day due to its location.”
“When it reopens on November 9, the original [Art and Architecture] building will be officially renamed Paul Rudolph Hall, in honor of the charismatic figure who not only designed it, but ran the entire school as his personal fiefdom between 1958 and 1964.”
Over a decade in the planning, the new Robert B. Haas Family Arts Library in the Paul Rudolph Building reflects and meets the changing needs of teaching, research, and learning in the arts at Yale. Arts Library collections and staff, currently housed in a number of buildings across campus including the swing space at 270 Crown Street, will move into the Haas Family Arts Library later this summer in time for the fall semester. The Library will house the collections of the Art + Architecture Library, the Drama Library, and the Arts of the Book Collection, as well as staff and services for the Visual Resources Collection, and will become the physical and intellectual center for the pursuit of research, teaching, learning, and practice of the arts at Yale.
The Haas Family Arts Library will feature a variety of spaces for individual study, group study spaces, a large teaching space, and secure reading and teaching spaces for Arts Library special collections. The Special Collections Reading Room, a dramatic feature of the central two-story atrium, enhances interdisciplinary studies by realizing the long-planned consolidation of the many important special collections of the Arts Library, including the Arts of the Book Collection, one of the largest special collections at Yale and one of the most important book arts collections in North America. The Special Collections Exhibit area, which will continuously showcase exhibitions of the Library’s treasures, will feature a plaque recognizing a significant gift from William H. Wright, ’82.
More information on Arts Library services during the planned move period will be made available over the coming weeks on the Library's web site: www.library.yale.edu/art/.
