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: 21 Hycliff Road
City: Greenwich
State: Connecticut
Zip Code: 06831
Nation: United States

STATUS
Type: Residence
Status: Built

TECHNICAL DATA
Date(s): 1976
Site Area:
Floor Area:
Height:
Floors (Above Ground):
Building Cost:

PROFESSIONAL TEAM
Client: Robert and Joan Bernhard
Architect: Paul Rudolph
Rudolph Staff: Peter Mullen, Project Architect
Associate Architect:
Landscape:
Structural:
MEP:
QS/PM:

SUPPLIERS
Contractor:
Subcontractor(s):

Bernhard Residence Addition

The project scope is to design an addition to an existing home.
Rudolph’s design turns the existing living room into a new dining room and creates an addition for a new living room, sitting room and screened porch.
The plan consists of a complex one room addition of various levels, composed of exposed wood beams and columns capable of supporting itself without the need of bearing walls. The addition connects to the second floor of the existing structure.
The interior is composed of rugged textures meant to harmonize with the outdoors.
A massive steel fireplace, oxidized to an autumn rust color, is framed by stones that are rescued from the dismantled garage.
The screened porch at the end of the plan is cantilevered 25 feet above a ravine below, floating like a treehouse among the forest.
A custom light fixture, designed by Rudolph and fabricated by his lighting firm Modulightor, made up of a thousand one-watt bulbs is centered over the dining table.
Walls of the space are used to display Stellas, Kellys and other fine art.
The interiors of this addition to an existing house consist of five functional areas: Living, Dining, Breakfast, Sitting, and a Study that is transformable (via a pivoting wall) into a more private space (probably for a guest). But rather than lay out a set of static, self-contained rooms—as would be typical of suburban homes of that era—Paul Rudolph created a fluid situation. Here, spaces are tangent, or overlapping, or slide into each other. Or they share a volume—but are differentiated by changes in level, or by a strong figurative element (like the bold masonry fireplace which punctuates the Breakfast-Dining areas).
This work shares in the formal solutions Rudolph had been exploring (and would continue to experiment with) in his own residences: the use of levels to shape the perception of the borders of a space—and guide its use; the creation of various kinds of “screens” to modulate a set of spaces; the invention of lighting that’s tailored to each individual project; the play of cozy vs. open spaces (archetypal motifs that Rudolph referred to as “the cave and the fishbowl”); the extension of linear “structural” elements, past the plane of the building envelope, in order to embrace and sculpt exterior space; and the feeling of creating an “aerie”—an airborne perch from which to survey the world.
In a space of fluidity, such as this sequence of rooms, it is also important to create places where residents can feel focused or anchored—and this is especially important in Dining Rooms. Traditionally, a prominent chandelier or a table-top “centerpiece” are the devices which designers used to signal the location of a social meeting-point—but Rudolph never stopped looking for alternative solutions, and (in his colored-pencil perspective rendering) one can see that he patterns the table’s surface itself as a means to induce that focus.
Even for a modest-sized addition like this, Rudolph brought put full compositional powers to work on the assignment—and created a linked set of spatial experiences that are functional, subtle, textured, and never without visual interest. In the words of Tim Hayduk, “He was not a lazy architect!”