R.I.P. Charles Gwathmey

Charles Gwathmey, Modernist Architect, Dies at 71 FRED A. BERNSTEIN New York Times August 4, 2009

Charles Gwathmey, an architect who turned his love of Modernism and passion for geometrical complexity into a series of compelling houses and sometimes controversial public buildings, died on Monday in Manhattan. He was 71 and lived in Manhattan.

Gwathmey recently renovated Paul Rudoph Hall and designed the Jeffrey H. Loria Center for the Arts.

Mr. Eisenman said that Mr. Gwathmey deserved more credit than he got for making sure that his [Jeffrey H. Loria Center] didn’t overpower its neighbors. “Charles was able to sublimate his ego and produce really sophisticated solutions to plan problems, to circulation problems — but those aren’t the kinds of things that make headlines,” [Peter] Eisenman said.

-Tanya

Metropolis article on Rudolph building

Somehow we missed this Metropolis article when it first came out: From A&A to R&R Dungjai Pungauthaikan – November 11, 2008 – It’s got great shots of Rudolph’s A & A Building renovations, plus quotes from students, faculty, and alumni. There’s also a photo of Rudolph speaking with a very young Robert Stern.

-Tanya

Paul Rudolph has 2 Facebook pages

Last night the people from the Paul Rudolph Foundation let us know that there are actually two Facebook pages for Paul Rudolph….the one maintained by the Foundation (looks like a lot of fun and is regularly updated….) and the one I posted yesterday.

And here’s the webpage for the Paul Rudolph Foundation, from which I learned right away that there’s a Paul Rudolph house for sale in Florida right now (it’s going for $1,100,000.00) and that one of Rudolph’s last projects, the Modulightor, is open for touring on the first Friday of every month. An excellent website, worth checking out.

-Tanya

Join Paul Rudolph’s Facebook Page

Paul Rudolph has a Facebook page.

Doesn’t seem to be updated very often, but it’s kinda’ fun that it exists.

There’s also a Facebook page for The Brutalism Appreciation Society. Here’s the description:

As they start to disappear from our cities, a chance to voice support (no matter in how few numbers) for a much maligned style of architecture

‘With many Brutalist buildings, the feeling exists that the needs of expressing an architectural ideal comes before the needs of the human beings who have to use them’

Love Paul Rudolph? Love Brutalism? Join!

-Tanya

‘A New Home for the Arts’ on YouTube

Dean Robert A. M. Stern of the Yale School of Architecture and Charles Gwathmey, Partner, Gwathmey Siegel & Associates Architects, tell the story of the Yale Art and Architecture building: from its lauded beginnings, the period of renovation after a tragic fire, and its new beginning as Paul Rudolph Hall in combination with Jeffrey H. Loria Center for the History of Art and the Robert B. Haas Family Arts Library.

See more at the Yale University Youtube Channel.

-Chris

A Tale of Two Buildings

Two architecture-school buildings — one completed in 1963 and the other opened last year — are in some ways surprisingly similar. The older of the two is Paul Rudolph’s famous Brutalist masterpiece at Yale University; the younger is Antoine Predock’s building at the University of New Mexico. You can read about them in an article in this week’s Chronicle Review.

Separated at Birth? 2 Architecture-School Buildings Have Much in Common Chronicle of Higher Education 4/27/09

-Chris

The Beauty in Brutalism

“Rudolph’s building is pure, theatrical drama. Mr. Gwathmey’s is cool, neutral efficiency.”

The Beauty in Brutalism, Restored and Updated ADA LOUISE HUXTABLE Wall Street Journal 2.24.09

Posted by: Tanya

Paul Rudolph frat house

At Rudolph’s old house, frat puts function over form Zeynep Pamuk Yale Daily News February 16, 2009

“A 1960s Vogue magazine photo shoot of a cocktail party in Paul Rudolph’s former New Haven house depicts women wearing pearls and men in tuxedos sipping martinis next to Rudolph’s trademark cantilevered staircase — steps that appear to be floating in the air. Parties are still hosted in that space today, but the current residents of Rudolph’s house on 31 High Street, the Yale chapter of the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity, have permanently altered, among other things, the signature Rudolph staircase.”

Posted by: Tanya

Chicago Tribune’s best architecture of 2008

“Recovering dramatic interior spaces that had been chopped up by unsympathetic restorations, Gwathmey showed that even the most troubled modern landmarks can be brought back to life.”

Best architecture of 2008 Blair Kamin Chicago Tribune December 14, 2008

Posted by: Tanya

Rudolph restoration part of a hopeful trend

“Yale University’s Art & Architecture Building was designed in the late 1950s by Paul Rudolph as a primitive fortress of concrete; but like so many other masterworks of modernism, it fell victim over the years to a mess of disturbing interventions. This year’s cleanup by New York City architect Charles Gwathmey of Gwathmey Siegel & Associates is part of a hopeful trend to value not only century-old buildings but also deserving works of the modern era.”

Architecture: The year threw us great curves LISA ROCHON Globe and Mail December 28, 2008

Posted by: Tanya

Lessons in Clarity from Paul Rudolph

Building Codes: Lessons in clarity from Paul Rudolph Stephen Vincent Kobasa New Haven Advocate 12.25.08

“There is always a presence of something human in the monumental forms Rudolph assembled. The ‘manmade’ walls of the architecture building, hammered by hand into irregularity; the striations left by the molds on the slab walls of the Temple Street Garage; and Crawford Manor, the elderly housing tower on Howe Street, with the exercises of its alternating balconies heaving each apartment’s occupants into the open air like the gondolas of a lateral Ferris wheel.”

Posted by: Tanya

Rudolph Hall in New Yorker’s “Ten Best of 2008”

This past year also saw two of the finest restorations of great landmarks in memory: Paul Rudolph’s Art and Architecture Building, at Yale (now renamed Paul Rudolph Hall), by Gwathmey Siegel, and the Eldridge Street Synagogue, on the Lower East Side, by Walter Sedovic.

Rudolph’s 1963 landmark is a brilliant, infuriating, impossible, frustrating, and breathtakingly glorious masterpiece that had been mistreated for years. The restoration by Rudolph’s former student Charles Gwathmey is not merely respectful, but loving. Gwathmey brought back the combination of toughness and sumptuousness that made this building so remarkable, and—thanks in part to the highly functional if not particularly lyrical addition he put beside it—it now works far better than it ever did.

Architecture’s Ten Best of 2008 Paul Goldberger New Yorker 12/17/08

Rudolph Hall named one of the “year’s best”

New York city architect Charles Gwathmey of Gwathmey Siegel & Associates masterfully restored the former Art & Architecture Building at Yale University, a Brutalist monster that practically became unlivable after its 1963 opening. Recovering dramatic interior spaces that had been chopped up by unsympathetic restorations, Gwathmey showed that even the most troubled modern landmarks can be brought back to life. The building is now named for its original architect. Gwathmey’s adjoining history of art building, however, fell flat.

2008: The year’s best in architecture–Olympic feats, ravishing restorations and the social promise of design Chicago Tribune 12/10/08

Paul Rudolph: an almost Icarus-like figure

“Drawings and models of…Paul Rudolph designs, currently in an exhibition at the Rudolph-designed Art and Architecture Building at Yale, seek to resurrect the architect’s reputation as the master builder of town and gown during the heyday of Mayor Richard C. Lee’s ‘Model City’ mania.

“However, both in the nicely wrought exhibition and, particularly in the recollections of colleagues in a video accompanying the exhibition, Rudolph comes across as an almost Icarus-like figure in an era when architecture and urbanism themselves seemed to possess tragic flaws.”

New Exhibit Rehabilitates Paul Rudolph New Haven Independent December 5, 2008 – Allan Appel

Posted by: Tanya

One of the most original talents of his generation

Bringing Brutal Back: Can restoring Paul Rudolph’s signature building rescue the architect’s reputation as well? Witold Rybczynski Slate Dec. 3, 2008

“The restored building is definitely of its time. It’s a little self-conscious, has an extremely limited palette of materials—there is really too much concrete—and the bright-orange carpeting is a bit much. But the interlocking spaces, the inventive use of natural light, and the ever-changing levels (there are said to be 37 of them in the 10-story building) are marvelous. The splendid result reaffirms Rudolph as one the most original architectural talents of his generation.”

Posted by: Tanya