This weekend was the rededication of the Yale Art & Architecture Building, designed by Paul Rudolph, with the addition of a Gwathmey Siegel & Associates addition. Besides tours of the renovated A+A Building and the new Loria Center addition, there was a symposium and dedication ceremony complete with two brass fanfares and two a cappella glee club fanfares. I secretly hoped they would break a bottle on the side of the building, but this was not to be. Please check out construction photos and my Yale Art & Architecture Building Rededication Flickr Set (selected images below).

The New York Times had this to say about the Art & Architecture Building:

It’s hard to think of a building that has suffered through more indignities than the Yale School of Art and Architecture. On the day of its dedication in 1963, the architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner condemned the oppressive monumentality of its concrete forms. Two years later the school’s dean brutally cut up many of the interiors, which he claimed were dysfunctional. A few years after that a fire gutted what was left. By then the reputation of the building’s architect, Paul Rudolph, was in ruins.

The morning panel was entitled, The Rudolph Years: Yale and the Architectural Academy and featured Stanley Tigerman ’63 M.Arch, Allan Greenberg ’65 M.Arch and Alexander Tzonis, ’63 M.Arch moderated by Paul Goldberger. All three discussed how Paul Rudolph’s instruction didn’t create little Rudolphs, and did not respond well to sycophants who tried to curry favor by emulating Rudolph’s work. Yet, to teach and study under Rudolph, architecture existed in the realm of the third person, I and want would never enter into your vocabulary; even Bob Venturi talked about architecture in third-person, which Rudolph demanded of his professors.

Allan Greenberg discussed how in the 1960’s architects and architecture was scrutinized and the profession diminished, partly due to self-inflicted wounds. Greenberg posited that architecture, to this day, is constipated in integrating past with current history with historical work, hidden away in a box, if it does not conform with conventional history. The Art & Architecture Building was like a fishbone stuck in your throat, the Yale Art & Architecture Building was a difficult and demanding building to work and study in. Stanley Tigerman recounted that he worked from 2am to 5am during week days and all weekends for Paul Rudolph completing the working drawings for the Art & Architecture Building. Yet Rudolph gave no quarter during studio instruction, remarking: [Paul Rudolph] was a terrorist, the juries always got out of hand, but Rudolph never let the work substitute for the self-worth of the person giving the presentation. Alexander Tzonis gave a third-person soliloquy regarding Memory versus History, trying to conform the opposing beings together. Besides Frank Lloyd Wright and Nervi’s influence, Tzonis noted that Rudolph’s work was in opposition to Gropius and TAC in two major ways: the Production of Grammar and the search for Authenticity. Afraid of his own emotions, Rudolph created dramatic space and imbued with a sense of mood. Tzonis believes Rudolph was a tragic figure in search of rigor of grammar and authenticity; for Tzonis, the restoration holds the same memory versus history problem: the restoration was too clean and restored, with the “lovely grime” washed away.

The most unexplored area of discussion was the circumstances around Rudolph’s leaving Yale and Charles Moore’s ascending to the Dean of Architecture; this is undoubtedly still a fresh wound for many who were involved, but is a rich area to explore. In the last 50 years, there are few historical points which illustrate the changeover from one realm of thought to another; Modernism giving way to a series of anti-Modernist movements in such a fractious way.
The afternoon panel, The Rudolph Years: Yale and the World featured Norman Foster ’62 M.Arch, Richard Rogers ’62 M.Arch, and Carl Abbott ’62 M.Arch and was again moderated by Paul Goldberger. This panel did not specifically reveal any additional knowledge about Paul Rudolph, but reinforced that he indelibly affected anyone he interacted with. Great aesthetic instruction and marine boot camp was Rudolph’s studio was described. Carl Abbott recounted the many road trip that the three of them took during their years at Yale. Norman Foster made an interesting aside that the Greyhound bus was as metaphor for America, with special love for the corrugated panels. Foster noted that Rudolph had two identities: as Educator and Architect, identities separate and distinct. Perhaps apocryphal, Richard Rogers chose Yale because he thought it was on the ocean when he looked at a map.

I had the fortune to visit the A+A four times throughout the years, and the paprika carpet and the concrete sing like they never have before. And the removal of newer partitions opening up the space restores the complex beauty of the building to the original state. While the original building’s restoration is very well done, but I agree with Alexander Tzonis: the restoration almost obliterated the past. Just like UC Berkeley’s architecture building full of layered graffiti contains the history of untold number of students, the accumulated history of the A+A has been wiped away; even the seashells have disappeared. Conversely, the Gwathmey addition is a competent work, but falls short of the master. Which is understandable, since I would be terrified of adding onto the A+A Building. While the addition adds important services such as an expanded library, instructional space, modern lecture halls and makes the existing building accessible the building almost shrinks next to the A+A Building. Where the addition touches the original, the detail is either an expansion strip or an airport-like skybridge docking arm.
Nicolai Ouroussoff remarked:

The result should stun those who have continued to deny Rudolph’s talent. Now seen in its full glory, his building turns out to be a masterpiece of late Modernism, one that will force many to reappraise an entire period of Modernist history and put Rudolph back on the pedestal where he belongs.
Only Gwathmey Siegel’s addition prevents this from being a total triumph. The firm’s principal designer, Charles Gwathmey, went to great pains to ensure that the addition didn’t disturb Rudolph’s masterwork. Yet the challenge Mr. Gwathmey faced was not only to be a good neighbor, it was also to rise to the high standards set by his predecessor. By that measure his design is a major letdown.
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Everything here, in short, feels sadly conventional. And unlike Rudolph’s masterpiece this is something that no amount of restoration work can repair.

Ouroussoff’s analysis, not to disagree with Dean Stern (who made a crack about the Times review at the rededication), is spot on. Which doesn’t mean that the addition is a failure, but merely a disappointment of lost opportunity.