I write to express my appreciation for the reviews by Thomas de Monchaux and Mark Krotov of the recent Paul Rudolph exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I found heartening their accounts which looked far beyond the exhibition to think about the creativity and wonder of Rudolph’s architecture and its relationship to a constellation of subjects from urban renewal to queerness. Bravo! Both captured the nearly synesthetic response often provoked by Rudolph’s architecture and the challenges of trying to capture such complexity in an exhibition. On the one hand, no one is more exhibitable than Rudolph because of his compelling drawings. On the other, because an accepted narrative overwhelms them, explaining such drawings as more than illustrations to a morality tale about Rudolph’s rise and fall is a difficult matter. As Krotov pointed out especially, more than Rudolph’s drawings are needed to understand Rudolph’s architecture. For the record, I will add some notes here about other exhibitions of Rudolph’s architecture and how to put “the moon beam in a jar.”
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