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Thursday, February 12, 2009

This is a nice review of the restored Art & Architecture Building at Yale University, written by Michael J. Crosbie. You should be able to read it all, but to enjoy most of the images you'll need to be an Architecture Week subscriber:
The Yale Art and Architecture building in New Haven, Connecticut, designed by legendary architect Paul Rudolph and completed in 1963, is now close to how its architect intended it to be, after a 45-year journey through celebration, fire, indifference, and abuse.

One of the most iconic architecture school buildings in the world, the object of a love-hate relationship with those who have known it, has found new repose amid a complex mixture of adoration, restoration, and exhilaration.

The restoration of Rudolph's masterwork, and the addition of an adjoining building for the art history department, are the work of New York architect Charles Gwathmey, a former student of Rudolph's who actually worked on the original building. The $126 million effort was guided by Yale's architecture dean, Robert A.M. Stern, who as a Yale student in the 1960s gave tours of Rudolph's concrete castle of architecture.

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Wednesday, June 4, 2008

The Art & Architecture Addition - at Yale: What Would You Have Done?

In The Chronicle of Higher Education's Buildings & Grounds Blog, Lawrence Biemiller writes that he is certain that the addition to Paul Rudolph’s Art & Architecture Building is "going to start fights." Speaking of the addition's architect, Charles Gwathmey, Biemiller writes, "If your building’s a success, it succeeds by not overpowering Rudolph’s—so he still gets the lion’s share of the credit. But if your building is deemed a failure, you get blamed for messing up Rudolph’s masterpiece. At best, your assignment is thankless. . . . Once the cranes are out of the way and the fences come down early this summer, you can decide for yourself whether you think he chose the right course. The drawings don’t really do it justice, by the way—you’ll want to see it in person. In any case, Mr. Gwathmey deserves a lot credit for taking on so daunting an assignment. Rudolph should be proud.

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Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Big-Time Renovation and Heritage Preservation Project at Yale Nears Completion

It is the Art & Architecture Building renovations that are thr subject of Lawrence Biemiller's post in The Chronicle of Higher Education's Buildings & Grounds Blog:
[I]t has been “a project with a thousand surprises” — partly because Rudolph’s contract with the university had permitted him to make an unlimited number of changes, many of them undocumented, while the building was under construction. Most famously, perhaps, the eight-story building ended up with 37 levels, counting a multi-level terrace, stair landings for which Rudolph designed bench seats, and a penthouse with spectacular views of the Yale campus. The complexity of the renovation, along with Mr. Stern and Mr. Gwathmey’s insistence on living up to Rudolph’s high standards, accounts for its $126-million price tag.

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