Paul Rudolph (architect)
- For other people named Paul Rudolph, see Paul Rudolph (disambiguation).
Paul Marvin Rudolph (October 23, 1918 in Elkton, Kentucky – August 8, 1997 in New York City, New York) was an American architect and the Dean of the Yale School of Architecture for six years, known for his cubist building designs and highly complex floor plans. His most famous work is the Yale Art & Architecture Building (A&A Building), a spatially complex Brutalist concrete structure.
Life
He earned his bachelor's degree in architecture at Auburn University (then known as Alabama Polytechnic Institute) in 1940 and then moved on to the Harvard Graduate School of Design to study with Walter Gropius. After three years, he left to serve in the Navy for another three, returning to Harvard to receive his master's in 1947. He moved to Sarasota, Florida and partnered up with Ralph Twitchell for four years until he started his own practice in 1951.
His Florida houses attracted attention in the architectural community, and he started receiving commissions for larger works such as the Jewett Art Center at Wellesley College. He took over the helm of the Yale School of Architecture in 1958, shortly after designing the Yale Art & Architecture Building (often considered his masterpiece), and stayed on for six years until he returned to private practice.
He later designed the main campus of University of Massachusetts Dartmouth (then know as the Southeastern Massachusetts University).
While the Brutalist style fell out of favor in the U.S. in the 1970s, he continued working on projects in Singapore and other Asian countries through the last years of his life. Sadly Mr. Randolph was found dead from an apparent accidental over dose while doing work for a University in Singapore.
His work Lippo Centre completed in 1987 is the landmark in the area near Admiralty Station of MTR in Hong Kong.
External links
- Collection at the Art Institute of Chicago
- Paul Rudolph at greatbuildings.com
- Paul Rudolph at arbitat.com
Categories
1918 births | 1997 deaths | American architects | Auburn University alumni