The duplex apartment in Paul Rudolph’s Modulightor Building may be landmarked
Exterior photo courtesy of the Paul Rudolph Institute for Modern Architecture; interior photo courtesy of the Landmarks Preservation Commission
A year ago, the Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the Modulightor Building, a Midtown East building designed by renowned architect Paul Rudolph, as a New York City landmark. Now, the agency will consider landmarking the interior of the building as well. On Tuesday, the agency voted to calendar a duplex apartment on the third and fourth floors of 246 East 58th Street designed by Rudolph. According to the commission, the apartment is a “complex, multi-layered late modern residential interior unlike any in New York City.”
After purchasing the property in 1989, Rudolph and German physicist Ernst Wagner rebuilt the original 1860s row home to house the Modulightor lighting company.
As 6sqft previously reported, Rudolph was the contractor during the first phase of construction, and in 1990 he and Wagner moved their offices into the unfinished building. In May 1993, the city’s Department of Buildings issued a certificate of occupancy for the structure’s cellar, first floor, and mezzanine.
The city issued a temporary certificate of occupancy for the two apartments in June 1994, and they were first leased to tenants in 1996.
The duplex had been ineligible for LPC interior landmark status until this year; to receive interior landmark status, the agency requires at least 30 years from the original certificate of occupancy.
After Rudolph died in 1997, Mark Squeo, who worked with the architect during the 1990s, led the second phase of the project, adding a fifth and sixth story. Wagner later moved into the building, removing a wall and combining the north and south spaces into a single duplex apartment.
The light-filled duplex features an open-plan layout with an all-white double-height space and few walls. Significant architectural features include tile floors and stairs, exposed metalwork, fireplaces, lighting fixtures, and built-in furniture.
“Inside and out, the triumph of the design is that Rudolph pulled off the kaleidoscopic complexity with wallboard and off-the-rack metal studs and joists. For Rudolph, the richness of the materials didn’t matter. He aimed at the same spatial qualities regardless of materials: it was space itself, Rudolphian space, that counted,” architect Joseph Giovanni wrote in a 2004 New York Times article.
The building also became the headquarters for the newly established Paul Rudolph Foundation, now known as the Paul Rudolph Institute for Modern Architecture, which currently owns and occupies the building. Founded in 2015, the Institute has hosted tours since 2002, making it the only publicly accessible Rudolph building. More information on the tours can be found here.
In December 2023, the Modulightor Building was designated by the LPC as an individual landmark for its special character and its historical and aesthetic significance in NYC.
The building’s designation was the first in the LPC’s history to officially acknowledge an architect’s gay identity.
Born in 1918 in Kentucky, Rudolph studied at Auburn University and the Harvard Graduate School of Design, where he developed his signature modern sculptural aesthetic using industrial materials like concrete and steel, according to the LPC. In the mid-1960s at the peak of his career as chair of the Yale School of Architecture, Rudolph moved his practice to Manhattan.
During this time, Rudolph designed notable buildings such as the Jewett Art Center, the Tuskegee University Chapel, and the Yale School of Art & Architecture, now known as Rudolph Hall.
Two other Rudolph-designed buildings are also NYC landmarks: The Paul Rudolph Townhouse at 23 Beekman Place, where Rudolph lived for a large portion of his life, and the Halston House at 101 East 63rd Street on the Upper East Side.
A public hearing on the duplex apartment will be scheduled in the coming weeks.
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