In memory of 3 houses gone down

21 prints from the photographic series After You Left, They Took It Apart (Demolished Paul Rudolph Homes) by Brooklyn-based Chris Mottalini will be exhibited at the Julie Collins Smith Museum at Auburn University (Rudolph's alma mater) in Alabama from February 6-April 17. These photographs are the final portraits/preservations of three now-demolished homes by Modernist Paul Rudolph: the Micheels house in Westport, CT, the Cerrito House in Watch Hill, RI, and the Twitchell House in Siesta Key, FL.

Chances are good that not many of our readers will get to see the show in person, so here's the link to Mottalini's website where you can view many more from his After You Left, They Took It Apart (Demolished Paul Rudolph Homes) series as well as other work in his portfolio (I liked the Leif Eriksson Day series, too).

When I wrote to Chris and asked where his interest in Rudolph's work came from he wrote back, ". . .  Prior to photographing the Micheels house in Westport I knew next to nothing about Paul Rudolph. A friend of a friend worked at the Rudolph Foundation and she contacted me because they needed the place to be photographed in case they couldn’t save it. Basically, I walked into that beautiful, doomed house and was hooked. After that I told the Foundation to get me access to as many Rudolph homes as possible and this project is the result. All it took was a couple of hours with one Paul Rudolph house and I was converted." – GF