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April 27, 2009, 01:31 PM ET
Separated at Birth? 2 Architecture-School Buildings Have Much in Common
Two architecture-school buildings — one completed in 1963 and the other opened last year — are in some ways surprisingly similar. The older of the two is Paul Rudolph’s famous Brutalist masterpiece at Yale University; the younger is Antoine Predock’s building at the University of New Mexico. You can read about them in an article in this week’s Chronicle Review.
The Yale building, originally called the Art & Architecture Building, has been renovated, expanded, and renamed — it’s now the Rudolph Building. (Chronicle photographs by Lawrence Biemiller)
The U. of New Mexico’s new architecture-school building looks less like a 1963 take on Collegiate Gothic and more like a Modernist interpretation of a Southwestern cliff.
The Yale building’s most impressive space is the double-height studio, where architecture students’ work is overseen by a statue of Minerva.
The equivalent space in Mr. Predock’s building is larger and brighter, but it too is double-height — and it too is the building’s centerpiece.
The Yale building’s renovation was overseen by the architect Charles Gwathmey, who also designed this addition.
Among other clever accommodations, Mr. Gwathmey tucked a new library into the complex. These are its skylights …
… and this is a cut-out in its wall that reveals concrete beneath.
Like Rudolph’s building, Mr. Predock’s is a puzzle of interlocking spaces and shapes. This is the view up from the lower level.
The Predock building overlooks Central Avenue, which was once Route 66. The building serves as a landmark, identifying one of the university’s main entrances.
Among Mr. Predock’s whimsical touches is this white wall, on which images or movies can be projected at night.
Although the exterior is dominated by boulderlike masse, glass abounds. Looking down from the main staircase, you can see (at right) the outdoor seating opposite the projection wall. Across Central Avenue is the Frontier Restaurant.
A first-floor corridor in the Predock building is both a bridge over open space below and an open rift in the floor of the studio space above.
Panels on the Central Avenue side of the bridge rotate to create a wall on which students can display their work for critique sessions.
On the building’s lower level is a red men’s room. It’s different, to say the least.
Rudolph’s building has similar touches of whimsy, including a stairway in which no two landings are alike, and several of them have seating with orange upholstery.
The Rudolph Building at night, illuminated from within.
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