One of the riveting effects of working at the Library of Congress is the everyday realization that knowledge is a transformative intellectual tool that is useful to all, really. Learning about history of peoples and things it is not a solitude exercise. Certainly, the notion that history is something detached or removed from everyday life, and that the study of certain subject matters belong in a time capsule because of the assumption that history is not entertaining, useful or simply a general topic of conversation is an absolute mistake.
I have given in to this assumption many times before. But working at the Library of Congress has changed that. This is how history’s tentacles work.
I decided to attend a public lecture given by one of the fellows in residence at the Center where I work. Timothy Rohan has dedicated his career to studying, curating and interpreting Paul Rudolph’s works, a 20th century American architect. Rohan discussed how the fellowship at the Center, has given him wide access to Rudolph’s entire works, now housed at the Library of Congress, under the Paul Rudolph Collection at the Prints and Photographs Division. He also discussed the exhibition he curated at Yale University, running until January 23, 2009 at the newly rededicated Paul Rudolph’s Art and Architecture Building.
I really enjoyed Rohan’s insightful interpretations of Rudolph’s influence on post World War II architecture, especially in urban planning. Rudolph was famous for reinterpreting urban landscapes and redeveloping existing structures in order to make buildings relevant to contemporary aesthetic needs. Rohan explained how Rudoph’s committed patronage helped test his ideas of structural expression, monumentality, urbanism and prefabrication in many campuses and cities across America.
At the end of the lecture, Rohan personally thanked and pointed at C. Ford Peatross, the curator of Paul Rudolph’s Collection at the Library of Congress. When I got home, I instinctively pulled out the book on Rudolph my husband, an architect, owns titled Paul Rudolph: The Florida Houses. Curious to find out who had written it, I learned that the preface had been written by Peatross, who collaborated extensively with the authors. The book was published in 2003. In the book’s dedication, the authors rightfully thanked many colleagues, including Rohan, the young architectural historian, who is becoming a forceful authority on Paul Rudolph’s works. The perk is that I get to ask Rohan and Peatross to sign the book, but most importantly the book has greater meaning and equitable value now that historians like Rohan are reinterpreting Rudolph’s works in history. This is how history makes its full circle, even if it is a tiny one. By the way, the book’s cost in Amazon is around $800 for a used copy. I tell you, got to love history.
