Too Much Form, Too Little Function?

It was hailed as an architectural masterpiece when it opened in 1963, yet today Architect Paul Rudolph's prize-winning School of Art and Architecture Building at Yale University stands half empty and virtually unrestored, although nine months have passed since it was gutted by fire. The cause of the fire has never been determined, but the reason for the long delay in rebuilding is clear: students and teachers feel that the building simply did not work.

As director of the school, Rudolph presumably knew better than anyone else what sort of building was needed. And many praised its boldly massed forms, rough concrete surfaces and unconventionally playful use of space. Yet from the start Rudolph's design drew criticism. British Architectural Critic Nikolas Pevsner doubted that such an idiosyncratic and personal building could meet the changing needs of new directors and new educational goals. Yale students went even farther. "The building was a nice visual experience," says one, "but from the start it was functionally inadequate." Student painters and sculptors, who tend to think big these days, found the studios too small to accommodate their works. Owing to the fact that money ran out before air conditioning could be installed, unshaded south-facing rooms were unbearably hot, and the basement graphics workshops occasionally filled up with chemical fumes. The vast, multilevel architectural drafting loft, designed without partitions to encourage communication between students in different classes, made private consultations with teachers difficult.

Architect Rudolph, who left Yale five years ago to concentrate on private practice, refuses to answer his critics in detail. "There are answers," he says, "but you can't please everyone or foresee everything. I'll stand on my building as I built it." To plan the necessary reconstruction (the top half of the building is currently unusable), Yale hired a former Rudolph student, Edwin W. deCossy, who admires the master's work yet concedes the difficulty of adapting it. "The building is a personal statement by Rudolph," he says, "and it overawes a student who is looking for a place to make his own personal statement." An informal student-faculty study group has also been meeting for the past six months to work out better deployment of its interior spaces, and Dean Howard S. Weaver of the School of Art predicts that the building will be ready for full use again by September.

To date, however, no plans for reconstruction have been approved, and students are working in temporary quarters scattered throughout New Haven. Some of them enjoy the diaspora. Says one: "There's something romantic about setting up a studio in an abandoned store front--at least at first." But teachers and students alike miss the central meeting place and facilities that only a functioning school building can provide --and Rudolph's much-lauded building continues to baffle its users.

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