“In his project of 1959 for an addition to John Russell Pope’s Collegiate Gothic Payne-Whitney Gymnasium, Rudolph adorned the boxlike structure with protruding sculptural piers. They may have been intended to channel water down the textured, concrete facade. This attempt to emulate Gothic structures in concrete is comparable to Saarinen’s efforts at nearby Morse and Stiles Residential Colleges (1958-1962). The addition also responded to New haven’s redevelopment plans and Rudolph’s attempts to take the automobile into account; the sculpted facade would have been a memorable landmark intended to have been seen by drivers on a proposed, but never-built, ring road encircling the city’s core.”
Rohan, Timothy, M, Dean Sakamoto, and Robert A. M. Stern. Model City: Buildings and Projects by Paul Rudolph for Yale and New Haven. New Haven: Yale University School of Architecture, 2008.
