To the Editor:
I cannot believe what I am reading (about the proposed demolition of the house at 16 Minute Man Hill). How can residents of a town, reportedly quite literate, be aesthetically ignorant of what they are about to lose.
Current, world renowned, prestigiously awarded architects including Sir Norman Foster, Sir Richard Rogers, Robert Stern, Stanley Tigerman, Charles Gwathmey and other notables studied under Paul Rudolph and went on to extraordinary recognition. James Polshek, David Childs (SOM) and achieving others who studied at Yale prior and subsequent to Rudolph’s deanship there are well aware of his contribution to the art. He was Dean at Yale’s School of Architecture from 1957 to 1965 and moved his office from New Haven to New York City thereafter.
And those of us who studied under him or worked in his office or were privileged to do both could not help but be aware of the opportunity his association presented.
Herbert Muschamp wrote in the N.Y. Times in August, 1997, “Mr. Rudolph wielded enormous influence over the direction of American architecture at mid-century.” Also, “In 1993, in a lecture at the Cooper-Hewitt Museum in New York, he drew a standing-room only crowd composed mostly of the young and held the audience spellbound, as if he were a visitor from a long vanished golden age.”
His architecture, in most our minds, is indeed eventfull and needs no additional accolades. The question is: will Westport provide the financial and administrative wherewithal to place the building on the Historic Register, have it saved by a local trust, or permit greed and ignorance run amuck in its course.
John Damico
Office of John Damico Architects, L.L.C.
175 Pine St.
Waterbury, CT 06710
