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35-754: Tracey Towers refers to two twin buildings designed by architect Paul Rudolph , located in the Jerome Park neighborhood of the Bronx , New York City . They are a predominant feature of the Bronx's mainly flat skyline. The buildings were created as a result of the Mitchell-Lama program , in addition, air rights of neighboring properties, including those of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's Jerome Yard , were purchased to allow for construction. Intended to be

70-604: A disease primarily associated with asbestos . It is believed that during his work at the Brooklyn Navy Yard during WWII, he and many other workers were exposed to high levels of asbestos contamination. Paul Rudolph donated his personal archive, spanning his entire career, to the Library of Congress , as well as donating all intellectual property rights to the American people. His bequest also helped to establish

105-541: A larger masterplan for the city's waterfront. The masterplan was never completed. Rudolph left Yale in 1965, and his career had declined gradually during the 1970s. While the Brutalist style fell out of favor in the US during the 1970s, Rudolph's work evolved, and he became more successful with international projects. In a departure from his monolithic concrete works, Rudolph designed reflective glass office towers such as

140-452: A luxury condominium , the buildings were completed in 1972 and opened in 1974 as subsidized housing . Combined, they have 871 units of various sizes, including one-bedroom and two-bedroom apartments. The towers became the tallest in the borough when completed, at 400 feet (120 m), although the 404 feet tall River Park Towers took the title just three years later. They were and remain the second-tallest cooperative housing development in

175-419: A significant margin. The parking lot of Tracey Towers maintains the same design as the towers proper. About a story tall, an ear-shaped route which ramps downward toward the intersection at Mosholu Parkway and Paul Avenue is necessary for vehicles. Cars loop around on a curved, slightly elevated route to enter the lot which starts on the intersection with Mosholu Parkway and Jerome Avenue. The entire route

210-900: A spatially-complex Brutalist concrete structure. He is one of the modernist architects considered an early practitioner of the Sarasota School of Architecture . Paul Marvin Rudolph was born October 23, 1918, in Elkton, Kentucky . His father, Keener L. Rudolph, was an itinerant Methodist preacher, and through their travels the son was exposed to the architecture of the American South . His mother, Eurye (Stone) Rudolph, had artistic interests. Rudolph also showed early talent at painting and music. Rudolph earned his bachelor's degree in architecture at Auburn University (then known as Alabama Polytechnic Institute) in 1940, and then moved to

245-560: Is one-way only, and it goes under the East Tower at one point. The route is mostly separate from the parking lot except for where cars exit/enter it. A blue basketball court is present on the building. The Jerome Yard is located under the parking lot, which stores the rolling stock of the New York City Subway 's 4 train. A yellow, blocky maintenance building cuts through some of the parking lot space. A stub of

280-763: Is made of ribbed, bush-hammered concrete. The design was influenced by Frank Lloyd Wright 's Larkin Administration Building in Buffalo, New York , and the later buildings of Le Corbusier . The building was dedicated on November 8, 1963, to wide praise by critics and academics . It received several prestigious awards, including the Award of Honor by the American Institute of Architects . New York Times architecture critic Ada Louise Huxtable called it "a spectacular tour de force ." But

315-466: Is mostly resembles a trapezoid and takes up the majority of the land on the block. The inside is similarly as complex; tenants and visitors alike are confused at the various openings and exits. Although they may appear identical at first, one is taller and has three more floors than its shorter counterpart. The complex sits on the Jerome Yard, which forces the heights of the buildings to differ by

350-446: Is now part of the period labeled Sarasota School of Architecture in his career. Notable for its appearance in the 1958 book Masters of Modern Architecture , the W. R. Healy Guest House – nicknamed "The Cocoon House" – was a one-story guest house built in 1950 on Siesta Key, Sarasota, Florida. The roof was concave and was constructed using a built-up spray-on process that Rudolph had seen used to cocoon disused ships during his time in

385-912: The City Center Towers in Fort Worth, Texas . Rudolph continued working on projects in Singapore, where he designed The Concourse office tower with its ribbon windows and interweaving floors, as well as projects in other Asian countries through the last years of his life. The Lippo Centre , completed in 1987, is located near Admiralty station of MTR in Hong Kong, and is a culmination of Rudolph's ideas in reflective glass. In Indonesia, Rudolph-designed buildings can be found in Jakarta (Wisma Dharmala Sakti) and Surabaya (Wisma Dharmala Sakti 2). His personal residence at 23 Beekman Place in

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420-557: The Harvard Graduate School of Design to study with Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius . After three years, he left to serve as an officer in the United States Naval Reserve at Brooklyn Navy Yard for three years during WWII, working on design and construction of merchant marine ships. He then resumed studies at Harvard, where his classmates included I.M. Pei and Philip Johnson . Rudolph

455-495: The IRT Jerome Avenue Line diverges from the main line heading west, sloping down until the tracks travel under the parking lot. Another, human-accessible entrance exists at Paul Avenue below the exit ramp mentioned below. It also handles vehicles. Like the rest of the complex, the parking lot has been tampered with by both natural and man-made sources. This includes graffiti and vines stretching through all of

490-506: The Bronx, behind Co-Op City , which is the largest of its kind in the world. Amenities, however, have been on a slow decline in quality. In particular, tenants complain about the inconsistencies of the towers' boilers, and hot water is frequently shut without prior notice. Tracey Towers consists of nine windowless concrete tubes built with grooved blocks and without any setbacks . These blocks create asterisks which are divided by white slabs relative to each floor. Unlike most buildings in

525-638: The Center for Architecture, Design, and Engineering at the Library of Congress. The Paul Rudolph Penthouse & Apartments (1977–82), at 23 Beekman Place in Manhattan, was designated a New York City Landmark in 2010. The John and Alice Fullam House is an obscure commission designed in 1957, and built in 1959. It was never published in the Rudolph portfolio at the request of the owners, John and Alice Fullam . In 2004, when they were contemplating moving,

560-1119: The Dana Arts Center (1969) at Colgate University , the Boston Government Service Center (1971), First Church in Boston (1972), and the Burroughs Wellcome headquarters (1972, demolished 2021) in North Carolina. Rudolph was the architect for the Oriental Masonic Garden project, 148 units on 12.5 acres in New Haven, Connecticut, built between 1968 and 1971. Residents were not happy with the plywood and prefab units; among other problems, they leaked. The units were demolished in 1981. The main campus of University of Massachusetts Dartmouth (originally known as Southeastern Massachusetts Technological Institute, and later as

595-992: The Jewett Arts Center (1955) at Wellesley College and the Blue Cross Building (1956) in Boston. He then took the chairmanship of the Yale Department of Architecture in 1958, shortly after designing the Yale Art & Architecture Building . Rudolph stayed at Yale for six years until he returned to private practice. He designed the Temple Street Parking Garage, also in New Haven , in 1961. When Rudolph started working independently he become an icon in European Modernism. Architectural Record named it House of

630-530: The Southeastern Massachusetts University) was a continuing focus of his work. His association started in 1963, and continued in various capacities through the 1980s. He personally designed several buildings, but his overall architectural vision guided the development of the entire campus for decades. His Shoreline apartments in Buffalo were completed in 1974 and were promoted as pioneering low income housing designed as part of

665-649: The US Navy (hence, the house's nickname). In addition, Rudolph used jalousie windows , which enabled the characteristic breezes to and from Sarasota Bay to flow through the house. His first independent work, post Twitchell, was the Walker Guest House , a sparse exoskeleton structure built in the sand dunes and scrub of Sanibel Island in 1953. It was Rudolph's most clearly articulated and rigorously geometric residential project in Florida. Rudolph considered

700-650: The Year in 1963, and it's considered a pivotal work in Rudolph's career. In 1958, Rudolph was commissioned to create a master plan for Tuskegee University in Tuskegee, Alabama . He later collaborated with graduates of Tuskegee's architecture school on the design of a new chapel building, completed in 1969. He also designed the Endo Pharmaceuticals Building in Garden City, New York (1964),

735-482: The building also had detractors from the start. In a speech at the dedication ceremony, architecture historian Nikolaus Pevsner 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

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770-523: The building's original exterior appearance, but contains a completely new interior layout. A portion of the original architecture has been incorporated into the adjacent Sarasota Art Museum. While chair of the Department of Architecture at Yale, Rudolph taught Muzharul Islam , Norman Foster , and Richard Rogers , all attending the Master's course as scholarship students. Foster in particular has noted

805-441: The city, the windows and balconies are placed in between the gaps formed by the concrete tubes. These tubes are also designed to spiral around a central keystone-like structure on a square-shaped plot. This design was chosen in order to align with Rudolph's vision for a futuristic obelisk . This architectural style which the towers employ is known as brutalism , with some postmodern elements added. The plot of land which it sits on

840-484: The county school board to demolish the structure. As Charles Gwathmey , the architect overseeing renovation of Art and Architecture Building at Yale , said: "Riverview High School is a fantastic prototype of what today we call green architecture. He was so far ahead of his time, experimenting with sun screens and cross-ventilation. If it's torn down, I feel badly for architecture." However, in June 2009, Riverview High School

875-549: The guesthouse to be one of his favorite projects, exhibiting pure architectural ideals suited to its environment. Other Sarasota landmarks by Rudolph include the Riverview High School , built in 1957 as his first large-scale project. In 2006, there was a great deal of controversy in Sarasota when many members of the community appealed for the retention of the historic building after the decision reached by

910-475: The midtown east neighborhood of Manhattan became internationally famous. Over the years, he built an idiosyncratic exterior addition, and modified the interior with multiple levels and his own flair for decoration and display of art. Rudolph's last years were shadowed by cancer, which ravaged his body. He died on August 8, 1997, at the age of seventy-eight in New York City from peritoneal mesothelioma ,

945-534: The owners became concerned over preservation of the house, reading that many Rudolph buildings were being destroyed. In 2007, the residence was sold to preservationist owners who did a major restoration addressing many of the modern code issues. In 2017 the third bay of the structure, part of the original 1957 design, was completed. In 1972’s Learning from Las Vegas , Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown use Rudolph's Crawford Manor (1962) as an exemplar of “establishment architecture now,” particularly to illustrate

980-432: The parking lot's walls. Paul Rudolph (architect) Paul Marvin Rudolph (October 23, 1918 – August 8, 1997) was an American architect and the chair of Yale University's Department of Architecture for six years, known for his use of reinforced concrete and highly complex floor plans. His best-known works include the Boston Government Service Center and the Yale Art and Architecture Building (A&A Building),

1015-442: The point that Yale began planning a renovation and addition. In 2001, initial commissions were given to David Childs of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill for the former and Richard Meier 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 and former student of Rudolph's. Yale spent $ 126 million on

1050-467: The project between 2007 and 2008, including a $ 20 million gift for the purpose from alumnus Sid Bass . 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

1085-460: 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

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1120-498: The significant influence that Rudolph had upon him. Rudolph was invited to Bangladesh by Muzharul Islam and designed Bangladesh Agricultural University . He worked on the Milam Residence , which was designed and constructed between 1959 and 1961. In the late 1950s, Paul Rudolph's Florida houses began to attract attention outside of the architectural community and he started receiving commissions for larger works such as

1155-402: The tendency of high modernism to allow the program of a building to distort its form. They thus label Crawford Manor a duck, "heroic and original," while their Guild House (1963) is a decorated shed, "ugly and ordinary." Rudolph Hall Designed by the building's namesake, architect Paul Rudolph , the complex building contains more than 30 floor levels in its seven stories. The building

1190-410: Was awarded his master's degree in 1947. Paul Rudolph was gay, though not openly, due to the political and societal climate of the time. He lived in his Beekman Street apartment with his partner, Ernst Wagner. Following his studies at Harvard, Rudolph moved to Sarasota, Florida , and partnered with Ralph Twitchell for four years, until he started his own practice in 1952. Rudolph's Sarasota time

1225-486: Was demolished. Another school building design in Sarasota was Rudolph's 1960 addition to Sarasota High School , a concrete structure that utilized large overhanging sunshades and "internal" yet outside corridors with natural ventilation. This building, along with a gymnasium structure built at the same time, has recently undergone a renovation by the Sarasota County School Board that reinstated

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