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PAUL RUDOLPH’S YALE ART & ARCHITECTURE BUILDING
from Tracing Ornament Through Architecture: Unexpected Instances of Ornament in Brutalism
by archi.steph
Paul Rudolph’s Yale Art & Architecture Building – now known as Rudolph Hall in honour of the original architect – is “an imposing, fortress-like building that juxtaposes masses of textured concrete with layers of steel-framed glazing.”38 (Contrary to commonly held ideas about Brutalism, the style is also characterised using steel and glazing, as demonstrated in the Hunstanton School designed by Alison and Peter Smithson, the proponents of ‘New Brutalism’ in England in the early 1950s.) The building rises seven storeys and has 37 changes in floor level, with two large skylights to facilitate natural light. 39 Both the exterior and interior concrete surfaces have undergone a process of ‘bush-hammering’ to create a ribbed or even corduroy effect.40 Pell notes that such treatment of the concrete met with criticism at the time for being “too effeminate, too dangerously close to overt expressionism and ornament for an otherwise robust, Modernist structure.”41 This ‘bush-hammering’ technique seems a departure from earlier Brutalist techniques to imbue the material of concrete with texture by maintaining the markings left by timber formwork.
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38 Jessica Mairs, "Brutalist Buildings: Yale Art and Architecture Building, Connecticut by Paul Rudolph," https://www.dezeen.com/2014/09/26/yale-art-and-architecture-buildingpaul-rudolph-brutalism/. 39 Atlas of Brutalist Architecture, ed. Virginia McLeod and Clare Churly (New York: Phaidon Press, 2018), 71. 40 Ibid. 41 Pell, The Articulate Surface: Ornament and Technology in Contemporary Architecture, 7.
Figure 15. Paul Rudolph. Yale Art & Architecture Building. 1963.
Figure 16. Alison and Peter Smithson. Hunstanton School. 1954
For a Brutalist building at the peak of Modernism, there is no doubt that Rudolph sought to incorporate a new kind of ornamentation in this building through using these techniques of bush-hammering and including 37 changes in floor level. Rudolph “mixed reflective micas, seashells, stone and even branches of coral” into the aggregate to further enhance the optic qualities of the bush-hammered concrete.42 The ribbed concrete creates an atmospheric space through “a vibration of light and shadow on the surface, engaging the viewer with walls which no longer simply delimit space, but actively contribute to the architectural experience through their conditions of excess materiality and atmospheric effects.”43 Pell’s description touches on the sentiment of the sublime in architecture as induced by the experience of being in a highly complex and textured space. The sublime quality of this building is heightened as Rudolph uses materials to harness peripheral perception, a key element of grasping atmospheres, as described by Juhani Pallasmaa. 44 This vibration of light and texture also recalls a feature of the fold, discussed above, where surfaces seem infinite due to their materiality. Here we discover not only how an alternative manifestation of ornament is present in Brutalism, but also how this ornamentation evokes notions of the fold and sublime. Sheer scale of the building brings forth qualities of the monumental
42 Timothy M. Rohan, "Rendering the Surface: Paul Rudolph's Art and Architecture Building at Yale," Grey Room, no. 1 (2000): 86. 43 Pell, The Articulate Surface: Ornament and Technology in Contemporary Architecture, 7. 44 Juhani Pallasmaa, "Space, Place and Atmosphere. Emotion and Peripherical Perception in Architectural Experience," Lebenswelt: Aesthetics and Philosophy of Experience 4 (2014): 244.
Figure 17. Paul Rudolph. Yale Art & Architecture Building. 1963.
in architecture, which was one part of the original goals of Brutalism during the Modernist era.45
Beyond the physical realisation of Rudolph Hall, another element that reveals attention to ornamentation are Rudolph’s own drawings of this and other projects. While plan drawings by Gwathmey Siegel & Associates Architects, who undertook the building’s restoration and renovation following a fire, show the rational layout of design studios, offices, auditoriums and classrooms, Rudolph’s original drawings highlight the degree of complexity that rests in the building. Furthermore, the technique of bush-hammering the concrete relates the building back to its origins in the architect’s office: a drawing meticulously crafted over many hours. Just as conventional ornament was used to accentuate and highlight the structural work of buildings, Rudolph’s ornament of ribbed concrete draws attention to the work put in physically designing and drafting the building. Rudolph’s own drawing technique uses layers of parallel ruled lines to build tone to create depth and explore lighting conditions in his designs. These methodically drawn lines recall once again the Modernist desire to highlight the work of the crafting hand, with their subtlety adding texture and ornament to what might usually be a straightforward section drawing. Layered again is the reference in the gouged concrete to the engraving method of graphic reproduction to reproduce architectural images in printed books.46
45 Atlas of Brutalist Architecture, 6. 46 Rohan, "Rendering the Surface: Paul Rudolph's Art and Architecture Building at Yale," 87.
Figure 18. Gwathmey Siegel & Associates Architects. Yale Art & Architecture Building. Plan drawing from 2008 renovation.
Figure 19. Paul Rudolph. Yale Art & Architecture Building. 1963.
