This exhibition will provide a critical introduction to a body of work that is relatively unknown to many architects today. Most discussions of Paul Rudolph’s (1918-97) work revolve around the Art and Architecture Building at Yale University set within the tumultuous context of the 1960s, but the major public and academic projects are actually the second important chapter in Rudolph’s career. The early residential work in Florida, produced over a twenty year period, provided the necessary testing ground for Rudolph’s developing design methodology. These houses were widely published at the time of their conception and played a significant role in the culture of mid-twentieth century American design. Until the recently, there has been little information available on this subject, leaving a conspicuous void in the history of modern architecture. The Paul Rudolph: Florida Houses book and exhibition are an attempt to rectify the omission.

The information covered in the exhibition begins in the mid 1940s when Paul Rudolph, in partnership with Ralph Twitchell, began articulating a distinctive regional ethic modeled on a resolution between the natural landscape, local architectural precedent, and the exploitation of innovative construction materials. As Rudolph transitioned into independent practice in the early 1950s, these ideas were developed into a complex set of interrelationships that provided the groundwork for much his later work in the Northeast and abroad. With the design of over sixty projects, a distinct body of work emerged that came to represent the possibility of a modest, locally inspired, American modernism. With over fifty years distance, it is clear that these projects stand together as a coherent body of work, all sharing Rudolph’s intense and rigorous discipline. They are compositions that bring modern architectural form into a subtropical world of natural abundance.

This exhibition compliments the publication of Paul Rudolph: The Florida Houses (Princeton Architectural Press: 2002) by Christopher Domin and Joseph King— the first comprehensive presentation of Rudolph’s innovate postwar domestic architecture. Topics explored include: the interrelationship between the production of these houses and the surrounding landscape, urbanism, regionalism, ethnographic analysis, along with links to concurrent architectural discourse. Primary visual information includes high quality reproductions of presentation and analysis drawings from the Paul Rudolph Archive at the Library of Congress, along with the period photography of Ezra Stoller.

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