Buildings need to be graceful, whatever the term means at the time, and at minimum they need to function as comfortable, enfolding shelters. At the Yale School of Art and Architecture building and Rudolph's 13-story office building in Boston, among others, I submit he tried but failed on both counts. And these structures have had ample time to win us over on their aesthetic merits. Well, ahem.

The failure of Rudolph's commercial and educational buildings as architecture is not his choice of materials – concrete is, of course, wonderful stuff, if you know what are doing, as in the masterful Temple Street parking garage. The failure is Rudolph's attempt to argue his ideology in concrete form, forgive the pun. Today an elegant small-footprint building whatever the material with systems that actually work and minimize energy use – that seems a good place to start. These are not new ideas. Frank Lloyd Wright used concrete and other nontraditional building materials deftly and with considerable beauty, in reaction to what he called “the box.” Bruce Goff also comes to mind. A long list could easily be made. And few notable contemporary architects – Hadid, Gehry, Diller & Scofidio, Libeskind, Foster, Mayne, Piano, Tschumi, to name several – seem to own little to Rudolf except as a door they could close with relief.

Rudolph's public structures will be monuments to an ideologue's sway with those who can pay for what turns out to be an architectural dead end. Meanwhlle his private buildings, while they survive, will be continuing delights. Though I am crazy about that garage.