Daniel Brook at The Nation:
To enter the Rudolph retrospective at the Met is to be seduced. Enveloped in the museum’s 20th-century art galleries, the clean lines and daring spirit of Rudolph’s drawings place him comfortably in the company of the modern masters nearby. His geometric precision and imaginative forms echo Russian Constructivists like El Lissitzky. Exhibition photographs of Rudolph’s built works alluringly capture the interplay between light and shadow that animate the interiors and exteriors of his massive concrete structures. One featured building is a levitating layer cake improbably balanced on fluted columns; in another mock-up, a concrete snake of triangular apartment buildings slithers its way across Manhattan.
But Brutalism’s move from form to function is a journey from utopia to dystopia—a trajectory the curators pointedly ignore. Those photogenic fluted columns are from a parking garage that Rudolph jammed into the once-walkable heart of New Haven. A 1963 Vogue magazine feature, included in the galleries, shows Rudolph, dressed in a snappy suit, standing next to his gas guzzler on the parking garage’s roof.
more here.
Enjoying the content on 3QD? Help keep us going by donating now.