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: Avenue of the Americas, Flushing Meadows Corona Park
City: Flushing
State: New York
Zip Code: 11354
Nation: United States

STATUS
Type: Exhibition
Status: Project

TECHNICAL DATA
Date(s): 1960
Site Area:
Floor Area:
Height: 70’-0” (21.3 m) low point; 160’-0” (48.8 m) high point
Floors (Above Ground):
Building Cost: $4,000,000 USD (estimated)

PROFESSIONAL TEAM
Client: Portland Cement Association
Architect: Paul Rudolph
Associate Architect:
Landscape:
Structural:
MEP:
QS/PM:

SUPPLIERS
Contractor:
Subcontractor(s):

Proposed Theme Center for the 1964/1965 New York World's Fair - the "Galaxon"

The design is for the 1964/1965 New York World’s Fair. It is to serve as the centerpiece of the fairgrounds and as a visual logo for fair publicity, similar to the Trylon and Perisphere of the 1939 World’s Fair which were once standing in the same location.
Rudolph’s design is prepared for the Portland Cement Association and features a giant 160-foot high 340-foot in diameter, saucer-shaped concrete structure with stations for star viewing and tilted at an 18-degree angle to offer an optimum view of the heavens held up by two curved walls rising from a circular lagoon. Visitors are lifted to the center of the “saucer” by escalators and elevators inside the curved supporting walls. From the central ring they would walk outward over curved ramps to a constantly moving sidewalk on the disc’s outside perimeter. A stage is projected from one of its two supporting walls and a restaurant, planetary viewing station and other educational or recreational features can be located at points along the top surface to make it an entertainment center.
The P.C.A. calls it “a dramatic and imaginative design in concrete.” in the July 1961 edition of the Architectural Record.
The Galaxon is among several designs displayed at an exhibition in New York of the use of concrete in so-called “visionary” architecture.
Moses's views on an appropriate central symbol are set forth in an August 21, 1960 memo to his assistant, Stuart Constable. The memo states in part, “It gets down to these alternatives:
- A. Pure abstraction. Absolutely nothing doing. Toss it out.
- B. Understandable abstraction symbolizing theme, with some significance or meaning for the average person.
Moses rejects Rudolph’s design and the ‘Unisphere’ - a spherical stainless steel representation of the Earth designed by Gilmore D. Clarke in association with the engineers of Peter Muller-Munk Associates and the American Bridge Company - is built in its place.