Visiting Scholar Timothy M. Rohan presents his research.

This study explains Paul Rudolph’s monumental buildings of the 50s and 60s in light of post-World War II discussions about urbanism. It examines three consecutive projects, which are the US Embassy in Amman, Jordan (unbuilt, 1954-56), the Jewett Fine Arts Center at Wellesley College (1955-58), and the Blue Cross/Blue Shield Building in Boston (1956-1960). This presentation take as its point of departure a talk Rudolph gave in 1954 before the American Institute of Architects about the design of buildings in cities. Many of the themes from this talk are manifested in these subsequent projects. In them, Rudolph questions the status quo in architecture, especially the International Style. Taken together, they constitute a critique of the glass curtain wall that helps explain the opacity of Rudolph’s better-known structures, such as the Art & Architecture Building at Yale of 1964.

Timothy M. Rohan is an Assistant Professor of art history at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He is a graduate of Yale University and received a Ph.D. from the Department of Art and Architectural History at Harvard University for a dissertation on the architecture of Paul Rudolph.

Timothy M. Rohan was a Visiting Scholar at the CCA in 2004.