The NY Times this morning ran a gushing tribute to Paul Rudolph today, one of the great modern architects. The article mentions how he was the Dean of the Yale School of Architecture and how he designed the "heroic" and "magisterial Art and Architecture Building at Yale, which has nine floors and some 30 different levels". I already said gushing, right? What does the article fail to mention? Well, how about the fact that the students hated the building so much that they actually tried to burn it down? That strikes me as a fairly pointed piece of criticism. How about how Rudolph placed the sculpture studios at the top of the 30th level with no elevator access to get sculpture materials, like, say, marble, to the studio. Or finally, how about how the building was covered with this rusticated concrete on which Rudolph left the imprints of the wooden molds which held the concrete while it dried, thus leaving the building with this sort of sinister and unfinished looking air. Actually, I kind of like that treatment, but many don't, and in the hands of an untalented hack it is pretty awful. I suppose that these issues would reduce the impact of the article some.
Posted by Random Penseur at July 8, 2004 07:45 AM