On the first Friday of every month, the Modulightor Building (1989) on East 58th Street comes alive. An all-ages crowd streams through the interlocking galleries and duplexes of the sleek, elusive six-story structure, the last of Paul Rudolph’s to be built in New York. Notable for its wayward staircases with cantilevered treads and prodigious thresholds, the architecture pulls people in and out of view. Children marvel, historians quietly observe; former associates of the architect trade stories; downtown designer types take notes. Rudolph, I imagine, would have been tickled by the scene.
This past winter, the specter of a different architectural eminence has presided over these mixers, put on by the Paul Rudolph Institute, which (along with the Modulightor lighting company) is located on the premises. Circle, Square, Triangle: Houses I Have Never Lived In showcases the inventive vacation homes built by the recently departed architect Myron Goldfinger in Hamptons beach towns and upstate hamlets. First, the obvious: These artful constructions, being real estate, enabl…