“I have been influenced by the fact that people perceive the first six stories (or 120 feet) of a high-rise building in a very different way from the rest of it. I came to that 120 feet because it has been shown (and I tested this myself) that most people can’t recognize other people from more than 120 feet. So what happens higher than this matters only as seen from a great distance. Therefore, you can argue that above 120 feet, the high-rise tower can be scale less, but below this level, the building must achieve a human scale.”

Interview with Mildred F. Schmertz, 1985

“Well, I can't say that I'm interested in a particular palette. For me, color is one of the most complex things in the world because it's always so different in different lights, different quantities at different times of the day, and when juxtaposed against other colors the actuality and the appearance are two different things. Maybe I've been very tentative about color because I tend to think that monochromatic schemes are the best. It has also has to do with the fact that people change things. Maybe if you're tentative about the coloring then that's an invitation for them to change, I don't know. One of the aspects of color that fascinates me is the reflected light from the color. I have worked with concrete, at least earlier, a great deal and I would often make a very warm-toned carpeting. The reflected light changed the concrete and bathed it in a warm light. I find much architecture very offensive in terms of its color, as a matter of fact.”

Interview with Robert Bruegmann, 1986

"Many of these drawings, especially the perspective sections, would encapsulate in a single image the range of Rudolph’s concerns as an architect. There was his quest to define and model space with light and planar surfaces – his interest in climate and the relationship between structure and services – his explorations into modularity and the potential of prefabrication – a later interest in high-density urban megastructures.

These concerns have been shared by many architects in the past and that will continue, but Rudolph developed a very personal language out of such issues as well as the diversity of building materials that he also explored during his career. I remember that Rudolph made constant reference to the work of other architects to illustrate an issue of form or a point of theory. But his own work was never obviously derivative, however strong his points of reference or historical awareness."
Gray, Susan. Architects on Architects. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001

"If one were to make a prognostication, again, one would say that the aesthetics of pre-cast reinforced concrete will lead us to an architecture which depends on the play of light and shadow, as opposed to the architecture which depends basically, for its aesthetic values, on reflections which come from a curtain wall. This does not mean to say that the curtain wall is no longer meaningful as a dress for the steel cage. It does have meaning. But it’s just that it’s not the only way to do it. One of the things that we all long for is much more plasticity or depth in the treatment of the exterior of our buildings. This, I feel, will come to a large degree through the manipulation of reinforced pre-cast concrete."
Interview with John Peter, 1959

“I was a visiting critic at Princeton and for reasons that I don't remember, maybe I never knew, he was at Princeton and was brought into the drafting room where I was. We were introduced and he said, "And what are you doing here?" I said, "Well, I'm trying to teach a bit." He said, "Only prostitutes teach." I think that was the extent of that conversation. Another time he was at Philip Johnson's house, uninvited, unexpected, one Sunday morning. I happened to be a guest there. He and Philip put on a great show for us. He had never seen the Glass House and he told Philip he had gone all the way. He was very adamant about things he liked and didn't like. The Nadelman sculptures, which are papier maché, he didn't like. He took his cane and gave them a whack. Since it was only papier maché everybody present was concerned what was going to happen. He didn't like the exposed bulbs in the bathroom. Then out of the woods had appeared half a dozen people who were with him. Both he and Philip put on a great show because they now had enough of an audience to make it worthwhile, you understand. We went to the guesthouse and everybody was invited to take off their shoes, except the great man, because of the white rug. Mr. Wright was allowed to sit on the bed, which nobody else was allowed to do because of the bedspread. I think Wright had never had a rheostat in his hand before—Philip gave it to him, for the artificial light. The sun was shining very brightly—it was noon on a bright, as I remember it, spring day—and the curtains were all pulled closed and Wright was like a child with the rheostat—I genuinely don't think he'd ever had a rheostat in his hand—making light levels go up and down. Then he lectured everybody about I don't know what. At one point he told Philip that he thought people with street clothes should never be allowed in that room, he obviously liked the room. I think he liked the whole thing, although he couldn't quite say that. Wright said that nobody should wear street clothes in such a room. Either there should be special robes that you were given to wear in the room or everybody should be in the nude; there was nothing in between. Out of nowhere appeared an Indian red car. He told us that that was his color, as if nobody knew that. His parting words and I guess the last time I ever saw him, were that he was going to the opening of the Coliseum here in New York and that he would, of course, attract more attention than the building did. I'm sure that was true. I hope it was true anyway. That was it. I didn't know him well.”
Interview with Robert Bruegmann, 1986