SMTI / UMass Dartmouth “From my viewpoint the idea of the campus is that the spines are there and that they might be fleshed out in many different ways, but that the principle of it being one building, i.e. connected, and that the spaces in between are thereby formed on a relatively large scale. You see, I am back to the Piazza San Marco which doesn't have a tree in sight, and all buildings are literally connected with all other buildings, and there are many different uses, and there is focus, a tremendous sense of space, and scale. It remains the greatest outdoor living room in Europe, I believe. Its vitality is there, it has little to do with style, it has little to do with materials, it has to do with the psychology of architectural space.
I do not think it is generally recognized how different conceptually the SMTI campus is. That the whole of America, almost the whole of America, is based on the freestanding building in a plane of space, and that the space in between is simply there. It has no use, no real meaning. And that is a tragedy because the European example is the exact opposite. It took many buildings, built over great length of time, and by placement formed a greater whole, a social whole if you will. And we haven't got the hang of it. But I would insist that the basic thinking at SMTI it is the exact opposite. I don't mean stylistically, which it may or may not be but -- well, it is different of course, but that is not the real point. The real point is that the buildings are connected to form a greater whole, and that whole is a social entity, and that entity is not yet fully developed.
Rudolph, Paul Marvin, 1918-1997. "Sub Rosa: Interview with Paul Rudolph". Ed. Lasse B. Antonsen, January 12, 1996.
