Yale Art and Architecture Building

Rudolph Hall (built as the Yale Art and Architecture Building, nicknamed the A & A Building, and given its present name in 2007) is one of the earliest and best-known examples of Brutalist architecture in the United States. Completed in 1963 in New Haven, Connecticut, the building houses Yale University's School of Architecture. Until 2000, it also housed the School of Art. Construction Designed by the building's namesake, architect Paul Rudolph, the complex building contains more than 30 floor levels in its seven stories. The building is made of ribbed, bush-hammered concrete. The design was influenced by Frank Lloyd Wright's Larkin Administration Building in Buffalo, New York, and the later buildings of Le Corbusier. History The building was dedicated on November 8, 1963, to wide praise by critics and academics. It received several prestigious awards, including the Award of Honor by the American Institute of Architects. New York Times architecture critic Ada Louise Huxtable called it "a spectacular tour de force." But the building also had detractors from the start. In a speech at the dedication ceremony, architecture historian Nikolaus Pevsner bemoaned what he called the structure's oppressive monumentality. Over the following decade, the critical reaction to the building became more negative.