With Sarasota MOD Weekend focusing on the life and career of architect Paul Rudolph (1918-1977), Timothy Rohan brings an exceptional level of knowledge to the lecture program. A professor of architectural history at the University of Massachusetts, and now on sabbatical at Wellesley College, Rohan speaks at 1:45 Sunday at the Historic Asolo Theater at The Ringling. His topic is “Rudolph After Sarasota.”
Architect Paul Rudolph was noted for his evocative designs that were anything but predictable.
Rohan’s comprehensive book, “The Architecture of Paul Rudolph,” was published in 2014, culminating 17 years of work. It examines the start of his career in Sarasota, with such houses as the Walker Guest House and the Burkhardt House, his years at Yale, where he designed the Brutalist icon Art & Architecture Building at Yale, and then, after his prestige took a hit with the advent of Postmodernism, his work in Southeast Asia, where the steadfast, expressive modernist remained respected.
Real Estate editor and architecture writer Harold Bubil spoke with Rohan about Rudolph in a recent telephone interview. (An abridged version of this interview appears on page I-11 of today's Herald-Tribune Real Estate section.)
Q. How much time did Rudolph spend in Sarasota during 1950s, when he was producing dozens of important houses and buildings here?
A. He spent a lot of time in the north, but he had a pretty good grasp of what was going on in the office. With Bert Brosmith (who ran his Sarasota office), Rudolph had a close relationship, even when he was away. They kept in very close contact. Brosmith told me that years ago, and they correspondent a lot. He got to be very good at designing by correspondence.
Sarasota was really important to him as an experimental testing ground, because there were fewer rules, less scrutiny. People were willing to experiment. But he needed more than that. To support his practice ... he had to get work beyond Sarasota. One aspect of that was teaching in schools, and he did that all across America. He was very good at it, and very successful.
Rudolph's renderings were intricately detailed. This is a rendering of the Healy Guest House, also known as the Cocoon House, which was completed in 1950 on Siesta Key and stil stands. The rendering is from "Paul Rudolph: The Florida Houses," by Joe King and Christopher Domin.
He also was thinking about Sarasota as a platform for expanding his practice and getting larger projects than Sarasota. I am looking out my window at the Jewett Art Center, which was Rudolph’s first large-scale project, from 1954 to ‘58. I can feel Florida in this building. It reminds me of the Hiss House (Umbrella House) with its screens and transparency. It is a house blown up in scale.
The embassy in Jordan has so many indoor-outdoor spaces and is so climate-conscious that the thinking for that had to have been done in Sarasota. Sarasota is always a reference point that he returns to. He was always a warm-weather architect. Even when he is designing a place like Yale, his buildings always have these outdoor spaces. It doesn’t always work out because the climate is too cold. But he really likes outdoor spaces. At the end of his career, it was marvelous that he returned to Asia, because places like Singapore had the climate he liked. He was always a Southerner.
Q. When did you start researching your book?
A. I started the book in 1997. I interviewed Rudolph before he died and worked with his archives while they were still at Beekman Place. I inventoried the archive in 1998 and finished book in 2014. It was my dissertation in 2001.
I always liked Rudolph’s architecture. I saw it when I was an undergraduate at Yale, the A&A building. It was in a ruinous state, but I was engaged by it. I am particularly affected by architecture, but particularly by that building.
The Harkavy House, a classic modern by Paul Rudolph and built in 1957 in Lido Shores, has been enlarged and renovated.The taller addition at right includes a downstairs living room and upstairs master bedroom and bath. Herald-Tribune Archive .
Q. Many architects are said to be influenced by Frank Lloyd Wright. Is this true of Rudolph?
A. I think about Rudolph and Wright all the time, and I think Rudolph thought about Wright all the time. I don’t think Wright thought much about Rudolph.
They had a lot in common, to begin with. In growing up, when Rudolph was looking for a model on how to be a modern architect, the one person who stood out for him was Frank Lloyd Wright. That was common for people aspiring to a career in architecture in the 1930s. For Rudolph, it was really relevant. Wright was from a rural background and was a minister’s son, and Rudolph was a minister’s son. They both played the piano and they both advocated an architecture that was about expression, that was about emotion, that was about feelings. This made it quite different from European functionalism or the architecture of the Bauhaus, or the International Style. Rudolph, even though he trained with Walter Gropius and got along very well with Walter Gropius, founder of the Bauhaus, his line of descent comes from Frank Lloyd Wright. He is really an American modernist.
Q. Rudolph once said the International Style’s range of emotions was “from A to B.” That certainly can’t be said of his work.
A. Rudolph’s architecture looks quite different at different phases of his career, and critics in the late 1950s early ‘60s wonder about Rudolph, in what they see as a lack of consistency. He ranges from different types of aesthetics. The Jewett Art Center is very lightweight looking and covered with transparent screens — very different from the solidity and monumentality of the Yale A&A building. There are things that really connect them. He is trying to create spaces that affect feelings and emotions, and he has a consistent way of doing this.
The Sarasota Architectural Foundation built a replica of Paul Rudolph's 1952 Walker Guest House on the grounds of The Ringling in Sarasota. The original is still in use as a residence, but the replica will stand as an educational exhibit for 11 months at the Sarasota museum. The grand opening is at 5 p.m. Friday; the grounds are open to the public, but admission to this event is $40. Staff photo / Harold Bubil; 10-20-2015.
And I think it is expressed in his quote about the Walker Guest House — “We need caves as well as goldfish bowls.” So we need these dark and enclosed spaces that are comforting, and we need open and transparent spaces that make us feel good. So, a range of emotions. This was in contrast to the “goldfish bowls"; that was the term they were using in the 1950s for the glass-box buildings like the Lever House in New York, or Mies van der Rohe’s Farnsworth House — it was just one even emotion, always light and bright.
And if you look at Wright’s buildings, he also has these spatial alternations between compress and release. When you go into a Wright building, you are often compressed in an entrance hall, and then you are released into a larger space. He alternates darkness and light, and I think Rudolph gets that from Wright, but he develops in in his own way. You can get that “caves and goldfish bowls” from the Walker Guest House and the Umbrella House to these Asian skyscrapers. Once you know what to what to look for in Rudolph’s work, it is always there.
Q. Modern architecture is known for its expression of structure — you can see the posts and beams that hold up the building. But you write that Rudolph advocated the use of “symbols of structure,” such as building elements that look as if they are supporting weight, when they really are not. Or elements that do double duty as air-conditioning ducts, for example.
A. By 1954 he wanted to move beyond (the rational expression of structure). He wanted architecture to be more symbolic: to go beyond the bare bones of architecture and reach a higher symbolic level to stir the senses and the mind in other ways. Architecture, going back for thousands of years, had always been symbolic. It was not merely functional, and it did not merely express structure. It did more than that. Rudolph has a really good point when he talks about this Japanese house at the museum of modern art that had been built in the garden in 1954: It looks like every structural element has a function, but some of the beams in that house are not really structural at all. They are put there for aesthetic reasons — they satisfy the eye and the mind and the psychology of the user when they see that. It is part of a whole generation, not just Rudolph, who are trying to elaborate on modernism. It isn’t just a utilitarian, bare-bones enterprise.
Rudolph really hoped that structure and mechanical systems and utilitarian things like downspouts and gutters and heating and ventilation systems could evolve into expression — that you would get more for your money than just function. It could become some sort of decoration that was meaningful, functional and esthetic. Rudolph was not the only one thinking about this. One place he tried to elaborate on this was his Blue Cross Blue Shield building in Boston. It is very obscure, but it was once well-known. I think it is fascinating that he tried to weave the systems — heating and cooling — into some sort of basketwork frame that would be partially exposed. It would give expression to the building, and also help link it to the surrounding existing structures in terms of dimensions. The windows were of similar size to the older buildings.
The most famous example of this is the Pompidou Center in Paris. All the multicolored pipes are pushed to the exterior of the building, and do serve as ornament and give it a playful air. It is not coincidental that it was designed by Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers, who was a Rudolph student.
There is a life to these ideas that extends beyond one building. You can always tell a Rudolph.
Q. Was that setting the stage for postmodernism?
A. He really believed in modernism. He never thinks of returning modernism or dismantling it, the way people in the 1970s and ‘80s, the postmodernists, talk about doing. He thinks modernism is something that is evolutionary, that grows and develops. That is his project. But he has a very tolerant attitude about things that hard-core modernism, especially utilitarian and functional modernism, had dismissed.
Paul Rudolph, Gene Leedy and Bert Brosmith, from left, in 1992. Leedy had just become a fellow of the American Institute of Architects. Rudolph died five years later, and Brosmith in 2015. Courtesy of Gene Leedy.
He wants to enrich modernism by being historically aware of the past. He likes history, he likes historical buildings. He likes the southern vernacular, shotgun houses and all those things. He likes Italian piazzas. He likes ornament. He likes rich materials and working with materials. He has a great awareness of working with existing buildings in proximity on the site. The Jewett Art Center has a great relationship with the collegiate gothic buildings next door. He doesn’t copy them, but is very sympathetic relationship with them. He doesn’t dismiss them and is open minded with traditional architecture, and the recent traditional architecture. He is tolerant of it, and I think he really liked the art deco.
Before postmodernism, before “Learning From Las Vegas,” people were suggesting how to transform modernism, look back at his history. Before postmodernism, there were all these people who were making suggestions about how to transform modernism. There were these indications that that was where modernism was going. I really admire (Robert) Venturi (author of “Learning From Las Vegas"); they provided a very penetrating analysis of the problems of modernism by the late 1960s. What they suggested did not necessarily have to lead to postmodernism the way it manifested itself by the late ‘70s. I don’t think they were advocating a return to copying history, or pastiche or gluing keystones to buildings. I think it was more complicated. And they were very engaged with Rudolph. They knew each other and were part of the same circle.
The larger point is everyone was working on the same ideas and going in similar directions. There are ruptures and breaks, and people have different opinions, but I think they were looking for how to expand the modernist definition, and make it more workable and more livable.
Q. Rudolph believed in humanism — making architecture more pleasing for its users. Some architects call it “soft modern” — using wood and stone to add warmth to a building.
A. Rudolph and some of his contemporaries were thinking about humanism in a complex way by the mid-1950s. They had experienced this effort to humanize modernism that had been going on since the late 1930s in the hands of people like Alvar Aalto, by using materials. The solution is very similar to what is used today: “Always use wood and stone. That will warm it up.” Rudolph and some of the people of his generation, and the people who they looked up to, like Le Corbusier, said that other ways to humanize modernism are through proportions, an awareness of the dimensions of the human body and how they relate to buildings. Thinking about historical forms, but not directly referencing, is another way of making a connection to the human past. I think the emotional emphasis creating spaces for different feelings and emotions — that is very much part of humanism.
It is part of the progressive advancement of society. The extension of human rights. They thought about it in a number of different ways, and not just the use of wood and stone, not just in a material way, but in all these other ways.
Rudolph was interested in emotions in architecture, and a whole range of emotions. The emotion that we want today is on a very even keel, on one note. Serenity and happiness. And Rudolph wants to create a whole range of emotions. He talks about this. It would encompass all the human emotions. The architecture of the past suggested sublimity and awe and wonder. And Rudolph wants to do those things, too.
Q. Was Rudolph a heroic figure in architecture?
A. I think he did see himself in that way. He had been called a maverick in the press in the 1950s. To some degree, he started to believe that. He really emerged as a kind of tragic hero in the 1970s and ‘80s, when he maintained his beliefs. He had a set of ideals about architecture and modernism at a time when other people were going in other directions towards postmodernism.
The interior of Paul Rudolph's 1953 Umbrella House. It was built as a model home for developer Phil Hiss' Lido Shores. Staff photo / Harold Bubil; 10-30-2015.
He really held fast to those ideals, and he continued to think modernism was a way to improve society, and he was not cynical or skeptical about it. That is when he became a lonely hero, someone out of step with where architecture was going. He realized that. His friend and contemporary Phillip Johnson really changed, from being the person who coined the term International Style, to becoming a postmodernist and changing for every project. Rudolph’s architecture does have different types of expression and different aesthetics, but he hold consistent to a set of ideals, right up to the end. The younger generation found that very admirable in the 1980s and ‘90s.
Q. What surprised you the most about Rudolph?
A. I met him a few times and spoke with him, and then I got to know him well over the years, just thinking about his work and looking at his drawings and what he said and wrote, and what people said about him. What most impresses me about him was his complete dedication to architecture. He got up every day and he drew and he designed. That is what he most wanted to do. He wasn’t interested in architecture as a means of getting rich. If it made him famous, that was OK, but only to get more opportunities and jobs in order to build.
He wanted to build. He built a remarkable number of buildings, well over 300. That is amazing. Other famous architects of his era, such as Louis Kahn, it might be less than 100, and it might be less than 50. Rudolph really wants to build. That is why he loved Sarasota; it gave him the opportunity to build, and build a lot. He wanted to do that up until the end of his life. That is amazing that you can be so dedicated to something, and that was life to him — drawing and building.
Many architects oversee the design process, and Rudolph was really hands-on. He was involved in most every detail. His office never grows to be very big, because he wants to have an active role in everything. Really design it.
Q. People don’t talk about it in Sarasota, using such euphemisms as, “Rudolph was all architecture, all the time” to explain his lack of female romantic relationships, but you prominently discuss his homosexuality in your book. Why?
A. Today, when we talk about the work of an artist or author or politician, people want to know more; they want to be familiar with that person and know about their lives. These are natural questions. It is strange that when you look at the scholarship of the past, we only heard about the public side of their lives. Today, we expect to hear a lot more, so that really had to be brought out and discussed in the open. I think it was time for that.
I think it did affect Rudolph’s life. Being a gay man, it had to have shaped his life growing up in the 1930s, and being in his prime in the 1950s, when it was very difficult to be a homosexual man. He was very careful about safeguarding his private life, because there was a lot to risk. He could lose his reputation, his practice, his work, his job at Yale it he were publicly exposed. Phillip Johnson, his friend, was a gay man as well, and he did not reveal his homosexuality until his was very, very old, at the urging of Barbara Walters.
We are in a great period for talking about these things, because we realize it is just one aspect of an artist’s work, and an important one that interacts with other things, but it is not the only thing. I didn’t want to talk about Rudolph as a gay architect. He was a great architect who happens to be homosexual.
Q. Has this anything to do with the masculinity of his buildings?
A. There is a kind of hyper-masculinity to Rudolph’s work in the 1960s. The large-scale concrete buildings. It is very ambitious, very masculine. You could also see it as very heroic, and that does tap into his homosexuality in a way. Some gay men are very masculine. Maybe that does tap into a bit of what Rudolph was. He was a very gracious man. He could be both brusque and very kind. He had a multifaceted personality.
Q. Rudolph once told a young Tim Seibert, “Your expression of structure is as if you tattooed a man’s muscles on his skin.” Tim never forgot that.
A. I had never heard that. Rudolph reveals himself in these little ways.
Q. Much is made of the fact that a number of Rudolph buildings and houses have been demolished, most notably in Sarasota, Riverview High School, although you note that 300 of his buildings were constructed, so you might expect some of them to be demolished after this many decades.
The life and death of Paul Rudolph's Riverview High School (1958-2009) was chronicled in this 2009 exhibition at the University of Florida titled "Modernism at Risk." Some Rudolph buildings have been torn down, but the architect saw more than 300 of his designs built. Staff photo / Harold Bubil; 9-19-2009.
A. That is changing somewhat. Sarasota is a bellwether of that. The work is gaining new respect. A lot of the work was demolished at a time when sufficient respect for postwar modernism had not built up. And now it has. The way we are advancing that is through conferences like the Sarasota conference, research like I am doing, and also, young people who admire modernism.
Another reason Rudolph’s work got demolished, especially in Sarasota, was that it sat on prime real estate, overlooking the water; it was snapped up and transformed for other purposes. I think that is why some of his civic buildings have been beleaguered and under attack, because there are politicians and developers eyeing those sites for redevelopment and transformation that will profit them.
I am hopeful these things are going to turn it around. There is a lot of interest in rehabilitating Rudolph projects. A new book, “Heroic,” by a group of architects about the concrete architecture in Boston in the 1960s, including Rudolph’s work, has solutions for rehabilitating instead of knocking it down. They think that if you are going to create a sustainable architecture, you don’t demolish everything. You work with it.
I think Rudolph may be on the right side of history. His legacy is not in terms of any particular style to be copied. His legacy is a consistency to a set of ideals and a belief in the importance of architecture that it is something worthwhile that could transport people’s lives.
