Welcome to the Archives of the Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation. The purpose of this online database is to function as a tool for scholars, students, architects, preservationists, journalists and other interested parties. The archive consists of photographs, slides, articles and publications from Rudolph’s lifetime; physical drawings and models; personal photos and memorabilia; and contemporary photographs and articles.

Unless otherwise noted, all images and drawings are copyright © The Estate of Paul Rudolph and The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation. Please speak with a representative of the Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation to get permission to use any drawings or photos. Drawings, sketches and other materials produced by Rudolph’s architectural office at the Library of Congress are maintained there for preservation, but the intellectual property rights belong to the Paul Rudolph Estate and Ernst Wagner, founder of the Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation.

LOCATION
Address: 1 Booker T Washington Boulevard
City: Tuskegee
State: Alabama
Zip Code: 36088
Nation: United States

STATUS
Type: Religious
Status: Built

TECHNICAL DATA
Date(s): 1960-1969
Site Area:
Floor Area:
Height:
Floors (Above Ground):
Building Cost:

PROFESSIONAL TEAM
Client: Tuskegee Institute
Architect: Paul Rudolph
Associate Architect: John A. Welch & Louis Fry, Moreland Griffith Smith
Landscape:
Structural: Donald J. Neubauer
MEP: A. Dee Counts
QS/PM:
Acoustical: Bolt, Beranek & Newman

SUPPLIERS
Contractor: George B. H. Macomber Company; F. N. Thompson, Inc.
Subcontractor(s):

Interdenominational Chapel for Tuskegee Institute

The building replaced architect Robert R. Taylor's original chapel which was built in 1896-98. It had stood on the same site and been the first building in the county to have electric lights. It was struck by lightning and destroyed by fire in 1957.
Rudolph worked with former Tuskegee Institute professors John A. Welch and Louis Fry on the chapel’s design.
The present-day chapel contains reproductions of the original chapel's stained glass "Singing Windows" that portrayed African American spirituals.
The building was completed in 1969 with 1,200,000 bricks made and laid by Tuskegee students.

“This chapel is psychologically a fortress for Tuskegee Institute. Most of the light is brought into the interior from overhead to increase the feeling of security and stability. The non-parallel walls and hyperbolic paraboloid roof assist the acoustical quality of the chapel. The simple space expands itself to form side chapels and entrances in an overlapping spiraling manner.”

— Paul Rudolph in Moholy-Nagy, Sibyl, and Gerhard Schwab. The Architecture of Paul Rudolph. New York: Praeger, 1970. P. 86

“A chapel is very different from a beach house. Here the brick forms continuous walls to give the feeling of sanctuary. The ceiling is a continuous set of surving beams.

In the interior the long brick walls, the curving beams of the ceiling and the light that floods in from above to wash the irregular brick surface all help create a tension between space contained and the release of space.”

— Paul Rudolph in Steelcase Design Parternship. Paul Rudolph: Dreams + Details. 1989.

“When working on the Tuskegee Chapel, I suggested a continuous slot of glass around the perimeter just below the roof, so the natural light enters the sanctuary diagonally. The roof is hyperbolic paraboloid in form for acoustic reasons, and the space rises diagonally and escapes through glass. The directions of the movement of space are in opposite but balanced directions, which is largely responsible for the dynamic quality of the space. In addition, there is a varying velocity of the movement of space. The floor is almost level, but the ceiling height above the floor constantly changes, so that the space moves rapidly where the ceiling is high but more slowly where the ceiling is low. All of this must be imagined, so that there is a balance between opposite movements of space and light.”

— Paul Rudolph interview with Peter Blake in Roberto de Alba. Paul Rudolph: The Late Work. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2003.