Center for Architecture Teen Workshops Expand with Architectural Photography

Center for Architecture Teen Workshops Expand with Architectural Photography

Center For Architecture
Tim Hayduk - November 29, 2023

The Center for Architecture’s Education Department kicked off its fall Teen Workshop series with a new offering, Architectural Photography. The Teen Workshop series introduces high school students to a broad range of skills and practices within the realm of architecture. Past offerings include workshops on sustainability, architectural drawing, model making, neighborhood planning, and new architecture in SoHo, among others.

For the new workshop, the Center for Architecture teamed up with veteran architectural photographer Richard Schulman, who has photographed Pritzker Prize-winning architects and their work from around the globe. The workshop began with a morning spent at the Center for Architecture, where students responded to a selection of architectural photographs from publicly accessible collections ranging from The New York Public Library and The Museum of the City of New York to the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) collection from the library of Congress. Schulman also shared several of his photographs. Students were introduced to the tilt-shift photography technique, a mainstay of traditional film-based architectural photography. With powerful digital editing tools in the palms of their hands, using their mobile phones, students experimented with various editing tools and were asked to take a “raw” photograph, then duplicate and manipulate it to see how digital technology could enhance their image.

For the afternoon, students headed to the Modulightor Building on the Upper West Side, where Kelvin Dickinson, President of the Paul Rudolph Institute for Modern Architecture, provided insightful background into the life and work of Paul Rudolph. Dickinson described many of the design strategies Rudolph incorporated into this unique mixed-use building. Students had countless lenses with which to photograph the building’s interior, which is filled with nooks and crannies, collected objects, plants which blur the line between indoors and outdoors, and dramatic stairways. After taking photos, students shared their favorite raw and manipulated images. Schulman, Dickinson, and Lead Design Educator Tim Hayduk provided feedback as students discussed the process of shooting and editing their images.

The Center for Architecture received positive feedback from students, who said, “I really liked how we got to really explore all of the different parts of the building and see from many perspectives.” Others called the visit to Modulightor “fun and inspirational.”

Our winter/spring offerings will include a reprisal of the SoHo and Architectural Photography workshops, and two new programs focusing on the Center for Architecture’s Generation Proxima: Emerging Environmental Practices in Portuguese Architecture exhibition and Historic Preservation.

Paul Rudolph’s Modernist Modulightor Building May Become NYC Landmark

The Landmarks Preservation Commission on Tuesday voted to calendar an iconic building in Midtown East designed by renowned modernist architect Paul Rudolph. Located at 246 East 58th Street, the Modulightor Building was built between 1989 and 1993 to house the lighting company of the same name Rudolph founded with German physicist Ernst Wagner. Rudolph designed the duplex apartment on floors three and four, which is the only Rudolph-designed space regularly open to the public.

After purchasing the building in 1989, Rudolph and Wagner came up with a plan to rebuild the structure as a sales showroom for Modulightor and as a residential space. Located on a 20 by 100-foot lot, the building replaced an 1860s row house that had been remodeled into a commercial structure by the early 1960s.

Rudolph acted as his own contractor during the first phase of construction, and in 1990 he and Wagner moved their offices into the unfinished building. In May 1993, the city’s Department of Buildings issued a certificate of occupancy for the structure’s cellar, first floor, and mezzanine.

Following Rudolph’s death in 1997, Mark Squeo, who worked with the architect during the 1990s, led the second phase of the project, which followed Rudolph’s design by adding a fifth and sixth story. The final phase of construction was completed in 2018.

Because the duplex does not meet the LPC’s age criteria for interior landmarks (30 years since the original certificate of occupancy), the apartment interiors are yet not eligible for landmark status.

The Modulightor Building is best known for its striking front and rear elevations, which are composed of intersecting and overlapping horizontal and vertical rectangles of varying projection and size, according to the LPC. The painted steel I-beams and glass panels form jigsaw-like screens that reference the De Stijl movement, Russian Constructivism, the style of architect Mies van der Rohe, and Rudolph’s famous Milam Residence of 1959 from 1961.

The structure includes ground-floor retail space and the duplex apartment, currently owned and owned and occupied by the Paul Rudolph Institute for Modern Architecture. Founded in 2015, the Institute hosts monthly tours, making it the only publicly accessible Rudolph building. More information on the tours can be found here.

Other architectural features include a multi-level roof terrace and four cantilevered steel balconies that overlook a rear patio.

“I toured the apartment interior with the owners. A, they are immensely proud of this space and B, it is completely untouched. It is a perfect integration of inside and outside, and a perfect expression of Rudolph’s ethos,” Michael Goldblum, LPC Commissioner said. “It’s really just a very amazing place.”

Born in Kentucky, Rudolph studied at Auburn University and the Harvard Graduate School of Design where he developed his signature modern sculptural aesthetic using industrial materials like concrete and steel, according to the LPC. In the mid-1960s at the height of his career, while he was serving as chair of the Yale School of Architecture, Rudolph moved his practice to Manhattan.

During this period, Rudolph designed many prominent buildings, including the Jewett Art Center, the Tuskegee University Chapel, and the Yale School of Art & Architecture, which is now known as Rudolph Hall.

Two Rudolph buildings are already New York City landmarks. The first is the Paul Rudolph Penthouse & Apartment, located at 23 Beekman Place, where Rudolph lived for a large portion of his life. The other is the Halston House, located at 101 East 63rd Street on the Upper East Side.

The LPC on Tuesday also voted to calendar the Barkin, Levin & Company Office Pavilion in Long Island City, Queens, a single-story industrial building that was constructed from 1957 to 1958 and designed by architect Ulrich Franzen in the modern style.

Located on the corner of 13th Street and 33rd Avenue, the building is considered an architectural gem in western Queens. The pavilion stands out for its unusual structure system, which consists of nine concrete pillars that support umbrella-like ceiling vaults projecting beyond glass walls shading the brick paths and interiors, according to the LPC.

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