2016 - 3 - Charles Rudolph, What Minimal Art Tells Us About Architecture

One of the interesting things that happens when you are designing a building, or anything else, is that you start to see connections that you never new existed. You find meaning in things that you thought were meaningless. While a college course tittled "Minimal Art and Architecture" may at first appear to be one of those useless college courses educational reformers complain about, Georgia Tech's Charles Rudolph reveals in this conversation with Nathan Koskvich, AIA, that minimal art can teach architects many practical, as well as esoteric, lessons.

I'm putting some personal photographs of two Mies van der Rhoe projects in the post because he's great, but also because Mies, like a good minimal artist, thought about every aspect of a material when he included it in a design. 

First the Barcelona Pavilion, officially known as the German Pavilion at the 1929 Worlds Fair. The building is full of these strange symmetries which are doubled by Mies' use of the reflective properties of stone, glass and water. Glass is translucent or dull and opaque depending on its relationship to the roof overhang. Built up on a plinth, the whole building gave me a strange feeling of floating. 

 Look how flat and opaque the glass is in this picture

A cruciform column, characteristic of Mies' European phase, before he came to America 

 Notice the book matched stone

 In this picture and the next you can see how Mies uses stone and glass to similar effect

Next, the Farnsworth House just outside of Chicago. Typical of his American work, this project is even more limited in its use of materials. Mies moved away from cruciform columns and began to explore the possibilities of American standard steel shapes. Its most evident in his use of wide flange, and "C" channel steel pieces in the buildings frame, but he also built up the smaller elements, such as the window frames, from standard steel shapes.

Links
This ones a word fest, but that's what happens when you link art and architecture

Artists
Donald Judd
Dan Flavin
Sol LeWitt
Frank Stella
Carl Andre
Robert Smithson
Richard Serra

Architects
Mies van der Rhoe
Peter Zumthor
Alvar Aalto
Aldo Rossi
Herzog and De Meuron
Tado Ando
Luis Barragan
Sigurd Lewerentz

Buildings
Houston Museum of Fine Art, Brown Pavilion
Menil Collection
Marfa, Texas
Therme Vals
Church of Light
Church on the Water
Rail Switching Station
Saynatsalo Town Hall
Malmo Eastern Cemetary

Mies van der Rhoe Theoretical Projects

While Mies van der Rhoe's practice continued to be more traditional, he managed to build a reputation for innovation through theoretical projects.

Charles Rudolph is an architect and associate professor who began teaching at Georgia Tech in 1993. He moved to Atlanta from New York City, where he worked in the offices of Peter M. Wheelwright and Pei, Cobb, Freed and Partners. Rudolph's experience at Pei, Cobb, Freed included working with partner Michael Flynn, the firm's curtain wall specialist.  Rudolph received a MS in Building Design from Columbia in 1989 (studying under Kenneth Frampton) and teaches courses in construction technology and seminars that focus on the current status of tectonics in contemporary architecture and building culture.  Currently, his research explores materiality and tectonics in the context of design studios focused on integrating alternative energy technology (bio-fuel from harvested algae / waste stream management) in the design of high-density urban housing. 

During his undergraduate years at Rice University, Rudolph studied painting and art history, and continues to explore relationships between architecture, the visual arts, and contemporary aesthetic theory.  He has taught a seminar titled "Minimal Art and Architecture" and has written on minimal art's 'phenomenological practice' –specifically its influence on the making and perceiving of place in the contemporary city and landscape.  Other research interests are in the area of design-for-communities and adaptive reuse in the transitioning neighborhoods of Atlanta. Since the Olympic year of 1996, Rudolph has conducted several studios that engage community groups and design centers in the visioning of empty schools, abandoned lots and underused parks in historic communities bordering downtown Atlanta