This is the first major exhibition to examine the career of the influential twentieth-century architect, Paul Rudolph, who came to prominence during the 1950s and 1960s, garnering critical acclaim for his early house commissions in Florida and large-scale institutional projects in concrete. The exhibition showcases the full breadth of Rudolph’s important contributions to the architecture field, including not only the widely published civic projects from his Brutalist period during his tenure as chairman of architecture at Yale, but also the lesser-known visionary designs for domestic interiors during his 1970s retreat from the mainstream architectural world, and his professional rehabilitation during the 1980s and 1990s, working in East Asia. The exhibition’s thematic sections explore key areas of research interest for Rudolph, such as modular construction; alternative materials; public housing; megastructures; and experimental interiors—and feature a diverse range of object types, from drawings and models to furniture and material samples.

Abraham Thomas is the Daniel Brodsky Curator of Modern Architecture, Design, and Decorative Arts in the Department of Modern and Contemporary Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Previous positions include curator-in-charge of the Renwick Gallery and senior curator at the Arts and Industries Building within the Smithsonian Institution. Previously, he was the Victoria and Albert Museum’s curator of designs and lead curator for architecture, and subsequently the director of Sir John Soane’s Museum. Select Met exhibitions include The Roof Garden Commission: Lauren Halsey and Community: The Architecture of Civic Space and Private Domains. Previous exhibition projects include Futures and Disrupting Craft, both at the Smithsonian; and Heatherwick Studio: Designing the Extraordinary, at the V&A. He also cocurated Superstructures: The New Architecture 1960–1990 for the Sainsbury Centre. He serves on the jury of the Loewe Foundation Craft Prize and the board of trustees at the Penland School of Craft in North Carolina.

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