After You Left, They Took It Apart: Demolished Paul Rudolph Homes

Chi Omega–Hargis Gallery February 6–April 17, 2010 Contemporary photographer Chris Mottalini has produced a series of haunting images that record several abandoned houses designed by architect Paul Rudolph, structures he discovered in various states of neglect. Exploring these former paradigms of modern design, decaying and slated for destruction, Mottalini found poignancy and no small measure of irony in the startling contrast of high Modernism laid to ruin. Photographed in some cases immediately prior to the homes’ demolition, these images are the last “portraits” of Rudolph’s striking creations. A native of Buffalo, NY now living in Brooklyn, Mottalini has been published in numerous magazines including American Photography, Casa Vogue, Details, New York Magazine, Pin-Up, Rolling Stone, Wire, and others. His work has appeared in recent exhibitions at the Santa Monica Center of Art in Barcelona, Spain; the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, IL; and venues in Brooklyn, NY; Arles, France; and Götheborg, Sweden. Paul Rudolph (American, 1918–1997), one of the twentieth-century’s most iconoclastic architects, is known for his starkly geometric, concrete-building design, termed “Brutalism,” as exemplified in his Yale University Art and Architecture Building. His residential work shares the same modernist aesthetic while reflecting regional and vernacular influences. Rudolph earned his Bachelor’s degree in architecture at Auburn University (then known as Alabama Polytechnic Institute) and Master’s degree at Harvard before assuming the post of Dean of the Yale School of Architecture. http://jcsm.auburn.edu/exhibitions/upcoming/2010_02_chris_mottalini.php