© Tony Monk
A remarkable architect not only designs on one scale, but can shift between residential and large-scale buildings while maintaining a distinct style or set of techniques to link them all together.
The houses of Paul Rudolph have withstood the tests of time, both in the physical sense and in their ability to be greatly appreciated and admired even as architectural styles evolve. His residences are marked by his explorative uses of structure and inventive building techniques.
Fort Worth, Texas holds one of the few houses built by Rudolph outside of Florida. The Bass Residence of the early 1970s is evidence of his attempts to fuse a new and old architecture style “whose richness came not from applied ornament but from spatial complexities developed from structure and the three dimensional elaboration of the program.”
The Bass Residence marks the most ambitious housing project of Rudolph, and the intensity of overlapping horizontal volumes and pronounced cantilevers show his rigor in designing a cohesive unit whose ideas can be read and comprehended by any architect or unstudied person alike.
More on the Bass Residence after the break.
