Paul Rudolph, Karma Chameleon

Yet who was Paul Rudolph? The architect, who eschewed style and titles, was deemed “unpredictable” (David Jacobs, in 1967) in his time and has since been characterized as “enigmatic” (Timothy Rohan, BA ’91, in 2008). He evaded journalistic and academic efforts to categorize his work, and even this pair of recent examinations offered visitors two qualified yet divergent views of Rudolph as an individual.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Materialized Space: The Architecture of Paul Rudolph ran from September 30, 2024,to March 16, 2025, in the Helen and Milton A. Kimmelman Gallery, aka “Room 913”of Kevin Roche’s soon-to-be-replaced Lila Acheson Wallace Wing. The Yale School of Architecture’s The Tuskegee Chapel: Paul Rudolph X Fry & Welch (January 9–July 5, 2025) opened later at the Yale Architecture Gallery of Rudolph Hall, a room the architect envisioned for jury critiques—only this time it was his work that was up for evaluation.

Intended for a general audience, the Met’s exhibition tapped the vein Rudolph may have preferred, for it was the one he often presented professionally—the drawings of a sui generis genius. Immaculate depictions of the perfect final versions of his designs boldly dominated the dedicated gallery: over sixty projects ranging across six main categories (Modern Houses, Urban Renewal, Civic Campus, Megastructures, Experimental Interiors, and Projects in Asia), often exhibited in their penultimate drafting-board iteration— the pen-and-ink rendering, that deep section, the explanatory diagram, that facade detail. In the Library of Congress archive, many of these exquisite sketches are housed in a stack of flat files referred to internally as the “treasure chest,” which contains the most sought-after pieces in the collection.

As a practitioner, one understands the deceit. Once the final image is sold to a client, the work begins. The bulk of the archive comprises more than 2,000 tubes of rolled drawings, filled with sketches and sets of plans, elevations, and details necessary to realize the visions promised by the published renderings. Some notable pieces on show, such as the unbuilt New Haven Government Services Center, from the collection of Barbara Pine, express the thought process in marginalia and calculations. Too often there is the familiar, oft-reproduced design, but here it is the original. These images of idealized spaces continue to inspire awe again and again—even more so upon the intimate inspection afforded by the exhibit. Notable renderings disguise layers carefully sliced and pasted over; an early aerial perspective of the Healy “Cocoon” Guest House (Siesta Key, 1952) even sports a vacant swath from a long-missing layer of Zip atone adhesive hatch. These instances humanize the work (even Rudolph made mistakes!) and remind the savvy viewer of the hours of toil spent producing the work.

Whereas in modern practice one can have multiple drawings, programs, and files open simultaneously and switch between them easily, the act of clearing off one’s drafting board, aligning a straightedge, and securing a drawing sheet took deliberate effort and commitment. It required forethought as to choice of frame, placement, scale, and sheet size—not to mention the type of paper—even before the task began. Commitment to a medium—ink the least forgiving—and a sense of focus measured in the hours and days that the sheet was worked over contrast starkly with today’s drawing set existing on a server, drawn digitally at full scale and assembled via a combination of new and (possibly) firm standard details in paper space for export.

The stars of the Met show were the drawings: few other architects honed their reputation, even aligned it, to their drawing output as Rudolph did, so this was entirely fitting. Aside from the drawings and some models, there were personal effects such as drawing implements and Transformers figures that Rudolph painted to calm his nerves, which added a sense of humanity. There were also several cases displaying period ephemera to remind the viewer of Rudolph’s celebrity in his day, from the New York Times and Life magazines to trade glossies. Perhaps intentionally, there were few pictures of the final built projects, which allowed for continued immersion as if one were walking through a design studio. Seeing so many of these greatest hits side by side in the same gallery and eavesdropping on the audience—old-timers knowingly recalling and current students marveling at the work— was part of each rewarding visit.

The show was largely a collection of loans from the Library of Congress and other institutions. The key moment where the Met leaned on its collection was the inclusion of two Andy Warhol casein-on-canvas paintings. Striking in contrast to Rudolph’s works due to their messiness and apparent haste in the making, Dr. Scholl’s Corns (1961) and Before and After (1961) were done for the windows of Bonwit Teller and belonged to fashion designer Halston. Although there is no reference to these pieces hanging at Rudolph’s Hirsch Residence (1966), at 101 East 63rd Street, which Halston purchased in 1974, a connection is drawn to Rudolph’s interest in Pop Art and Supergraphics—but the exploration goes no further. It is one of many threads introduced in this long-overdue overview that simultaneously delights and teases the visitor. One sees the vast potential and wishes the show included more.

Such is the difficulty in an encyclopedic museum such as the Met. As the museum of record for visual culture, it must serve a broad audience, and hosting an architecture exhibition like this might already seem too niche—perhaps explaining the alleged five decades since the last such show. Yet a dedicated show with a massive 621-squarefoot banner on the Richard Morris Hunt– designed Fifth Avenue facade is significant, and it brought Rudolph back to the headlines and public consciousness.

York Street may get less traffic than Fifth Avenue, but its 128-square-foot banner and associated exhibition rightly hold their own. A deep dive into one of the four projects Rudolph was most proud of, this show presents the depth of the process for a commission. From facsimile concept sketches and communiqués (the gallery is not conditioned to museum-grade standards), it “brings the receipts,” sharing physical evidence to paint Paul Rudolph as a collaborator, all from within his own familiar walls. He worked not only with the Tuskegee Institute, his client institution, but in communion with the campus at large (for which he would develop a 1958 master plan) and with the local architects of record, Fry & Welch.

Unlike the assured certainty of the Met’s presentation, the Yale exhibition reveals the questioning an architect goes through, most pronounced in the two opposing drafting tables. Rudolph’s board holds the original concepts, and Fry & Welch’s board has the working drawings that document the significant change from the poured-in-place concrete envisioned by Rudolph to the constructed version in brick. Originally intended to cut costs, this material change also complemented the surroundings and honored the School’s history, which included the operation of a brickworks, both to train students for gainful employment and to generate income for the historically Black college.

The show celebrates design and local architects as well as the spirit of collaboration, which extends well beyond the boards to the community this building brought together. It includes a video interview with one of Fry & Welch’s employees, Major L. Holland, and the 40-plus-foot-long mural painted by building superintendent Edward Lyons Pryce. Photographer Chester Higgins has a series of photographs from 1969 and 2024 on display alongside iconic images by Ezra Stoller. As I studied them, the photographer’s daughter, Erica Stoller, explained: “The building probably wasn’t finished yet in these.” “How so?” Because “Dad liked to include people, and there are very few people in the pictures. … Architectural Record must have been holding pages for the project, and they had to shoot it.” These are just a few examples of the project’s orbit beyond the finished renderings.

The spine of the show is a series of models. Two are in wood: sectional models of the original 1906 Robert Taylor Chapel (believed to have been a victim of arson) and the 1967 Rudolph/Fry & Welch structure, both built via a curatorial collaboration with MIT. These are punctuated by three brick models—two are full-scale representations of Fry & Welch details, worked in brick to realize the spirit of Rudolph’s liquid stone, and a third designed by a Tuskegee/MIT alum, Myles B. Sampson, who created the sculpture Brick Parable, suggesting new possibilities for material expression in brick.

Through various media, records, and accounts, the show gives credit to an overlooked Birmingham-based firm, along with a new perspective on a flexible architect who was willing to adjust a design for the sake of the project. Was this an exception? It is hard to ignore that even before his partnership with Ralph Twitchell, Rudolph’s first professional job was in the office of Birmingham architect E. B. Van Keuren. Could this be a case of “Southern hospitality” leading him to yield to a local firm on something as significant as the primary material?

Was he truly that flexible? Or was Rudolph the unquestioned genius? He was certainly a chameleon. Both Rudolphs are present in both shows, and both viewpoints are justified through the materials presented. To take artistic license with Boy George’s familiar Culture Club lyrics:

Rudolph’s a man WITH conviction
Rudolph’s a man who DOES know
How to sell a contradiction

By adhering to his design principles and focusing steadfastly on his architecture, Rudolph left answers to these questions for others to interpret, so his legacy yields to karmic retribution for the ambiguity he fostered in his time. Both shows do their part to decipher Rudolph, share his talents, and expand the scholarship. Perfection is paramount for the Met, and the process, strife, and technicalities are largely absent, although hinted at, in the array of blunted colored pencils, all returned to their primary homes. Most are back at the Library of Congress and available only for research. At the A&A lessons for budding architects and the public are plentiful and will continue to be as the exhibition travels to Tuskegee, then to MIT, and possibly beyond, allowing new audiences to enjoy more of the real Rudolph, whomever that is.

—Sean Khorsandi (MArch ‘06) is executive director of a preservation and land-use nonprofit serving the Upper West Side of Manhattan, LANDMARK WEST! He teaches urbanism courses at New York University and is on the board of the Paul Rudolph Foundation.

Editor’s Note: The Tuskegee Chapel: Paul Rudolph X Fry & Welch will be on view in Washington, D.C., in 2026.