Rudolph Art & Architecture building tarted up

A follow up to a post last year that no one will remember. Paul Rudolph’s Art and Architecture building at Yale University has been reawoken with a major reno by Gwathmey Siegel . Unfortunately Gwathmey has tried to be respectful but has ended up building a pretty bland lean-to that looks so light that it could fly off Rudolph’s grand hulk (maybe it will one day). This review at Bloomberg is not full of praise of Rudolph’s design, and manages to use the word “ghastly” twice within three paragraphs – to describe the reinstated light fittings and orange carpet. Susan Sontag didn’t like it either, calling it, “style at the expense of content.” What great brutalist style it is though.

And the carpet isn’t orange, it’s saffron, according to the Paul Rudolph Foundation blog : “When an original patch was salvaged once a partition was removed during the renovation, the carpet was cleaned and a match re-woven in 1960’s goodness.”

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Posted by Peter on 29.08.08 in buildings and heritage