Rudolph Hall (built as the Yale Art and Architecture Building, nicknamed the A & A Building, and given its present name in 2007) is one of the earliest and best-known examples of

Brutalist architecture Brutalist architecture is an architectural style that emerged during the 1950s in the United Kingdom, among the reconstruction projects of the post-war era. Brutalist buildings are characterised by Minimalism (art), minimalist constructions th ...

in the United States. Completed in 1963 in

New Haven New Haven is a city of the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound. With a population of 135,081 as determined by the 2020 U.S. census, New Haven is the third largest city in Co ...

Connecticut Connecticut ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York (state), New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. ...

, the building houses Yale University's

School of Architecture This is a list of architecture schools at colleges and universities around the world. An architecture school (also known as a school of architecture or college of architecture), is a professional school or institution specializing in architectura ...

. Until 2000, it also housed the School of Art.

Construction

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs, and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

Paul Rudolph, the complex building contains more than 30 floor levels in its seven stories. The building is made of ribbed, bush-hammered concrete. The design was influenced by

Frank Lloyd Wright Frank Lloyd Wright Sr. (June 8, 1867 – April 9, 1959) was an American architect, designer, writer, and educator. He designed List of Frank Lloyd Wright works, more than 1,000 structures over a creative period of 70 years. Wright played a key ...

's Larkin Administration Building in

Buffalo, New York Buffalo is a Administrative divisions of New York (state), city in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York and county seat of Erie County, New York, Erie County. It lies in Western New York at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of ...

, and the later buildings of

Le Corbusier Charles-Édouard Jeanneret (6 October 188727 August 1965), known as Le Corbusier ( , ; ), was a Swiss-French architectural designer, painter, urban planner and writer, who was one of the pioneers of what is now regarded as modern architecture ...

History

The building was dedicated on November 8, 1963, to wide praise by critics and

academics Academic means of or related to an academy, an institution learning. Academic or academics may also refer to: * Academic staff, or faculty, teachers or research staff * school of philosophers associated with the Platonic Academy in ancient Greece ...

. It received several prestigious awards, including the ''Award of Honor'' by the

American Institute of Architects The American Institute of Architects (AIA) is a professional organization for architects in the United States. It is headquartered in Washington, D.C. AIA offers education, government advocacy, community redevelopment, and public outreach progr ...

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

architecture

critic A critic is a person who communicates an assessment and an opinion of various forms of creative works such as Art criticism, art, Literary criticism, literature, Music journalism, music, Film criticism, cinema, Theater criticism, theater, Fas ...

Ada Louise Huxtable Ada Louise Huxtable (née Landman; March 14, 1921 – January 7, 2013) was an American architecture critic and writer on architecture. Huxtable established architecture and urban design journalism in North America and raised the public's awarene ...

called it "a spectacular ''tour de force''." But the building also had detractors from the start. In a speech at the dedication ceremony, architecture historian

Nikolaus Pevsner Sir Nikolaus Bernhard Leon Pevsner (30 January 1902 – 18 August 1983) was a German-British art historian and architectural historian best known for his monumental 46-volume series of county-by-county guides, ''The Buildings of England'' (195 ...

bemoaned what he called the structure's oppressive monumentality. Over the following decade, the critical reaction to the building became more negative. A large fire on the night of June 14, 1969, caused extensive damage. The fire was rumored to have been set by anti-establishment protesters, but this charge has remained unproven. During the repairs, many changes were made to Rudolph's original design. Mezzanine levels were inserted, spaces broken up, and double-glazing added. Later, a renovation scheme by Beyer Blinder Belle was commissioned but only partially executed, if at all. In 2000, the School of Art moved out to its own building. As the building approached its 40th year, appreciation of the structure had increased to the point that Yale began planning a renovation and addition. In 2001, initial commissions were given to

David Childs David Magie Childs (April 1, 1941 – March 26, 2025) was an American architect and chairman of the architectural firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. He was the architect of record for One World Trade Center in New York City, which became the Wes ...

Skidmore, Owings & Merrill SOM, an initialism of its original name Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP, is a Chicago-based architectural, urban planning, and engineering firm. It was founded in 1936 by Louis Skidmore and Nathaniel Owings. In 1939, they were joined by engineer ...

for the former and

Richard Meier Richard Meier (born October 12, 1934) is an American abstract artist and architect, whose geometric designs make prominent use of the color white. A winner of the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1984, Meier has designed several iconic buildings ...

for the latter. Then Yale "parted ways" with those two, and gave the commission to Gwathmey Siegel & Associates Architects, whose Charles Gwathmey was a Yale Architecture

alumnus Alumni (: alumnus () or alumna ()) are former students or graduates of a school, college, or university. The feminine plural alumnae is sometimes used for groups of women, and alums (: alum) or alumns (: alumn) as gender-neutral alternatives. Th ...

and former student of Rudolph's. Yale spent $126 million on the project between 2007 and 2008, including a $20 million gift for the purpose from alumnus

Sid Bass Sid Richardson Bass (born April 9, 1942) is an American billionaire investor and philanthropist. Early life and education Sid Richardson Bass was born on April 9, 1942. His father, Perry Richardson Bass (died 2006), built an oil fortune with u ...

. The renovation returned the building to more closely hew to Rudolph's design. At the same time, an addition was built with classroom and office space, two lecture theatres, a cafe, and a ground-floor library. In 2014, the building received the Landmark Plaque, the highest honor bestowed by the New Haven Preservation Trust.

References

External links

Gwathmey Siegel's project page

{{DEFAULTSORT:Yale Art And Architecture Building University and college buildings completed in 1963 University and college academic buildings in the United States Art and Architecture Building Paul Rudolph buildings Brutalist architecture in Connecticut Yale School of Art Yale School of Architecture

Construction

History

See also

References

External links