Tait Johnson and Scott Murray Publish Essays
Lecturer Tait Johnson’s essay, “The Decorative Modernism of Aluminum Cladding: Architecture and Industry,” examines mid-century works such as Minoru Yamasaki’s Reynolds Metals Regional Sales Office in Detroit (1959) with its shimmering screen of gold-anodized aluminum. This essay shows that modernist architects working with aluminum, rather than rejecting decoration, promoted it as the appropriate response to the landscape of postwar consumerism in the United States.
Associate Professor Scott Murray’s essay, “The Concrete Facades of Paul Rudolph’s Christian Science Building, 1965-1986,” examines the reasons why a Paul Rudolph-designed building in Champaign, Illinois, was demolished after only 20 years. Archival research indicates that fateful decisions made during the design phase about facade construction likely contributed to the eventual untimely loss of this unique building.