1954.04 Family of Man Exhibit (Paul Rudolph Institute project record)
Citation
Paul Rudolph Institute for Modern Architecture. “1954.04 Family of Man Exhibit.” Project record. Paul Rudolph Institute for Modern Architecture. URL: https://www.paulrudolph.institute/195404-family-of-man-exhibit (accessed 2026-04-30 via search results; page not directly fetched this round).
Tier justification
Tier 1: archival project record maintained by the Paul Rudolph Institute for Modern Architecture, the institutional custodian of Paul Rudolph’s architectural archive. The Institute’s records for the Family of Man commission include primary documentation (photographs, slides, drawings) for Rudolph’s MoMA installation design. This is an institutional archive record, not a secondary publication.
Relevance
The Paul Rudolph Institute’s project record for the Family of Man commission (project code 195404, indicating April 1954 start date) aggregates the primary archival documentation for Rudolph’s installation design: photographs of the exhibition in situ, architectural slides, and the bibliographic record for the contemporaneous Interiors article (src-rudolph-interiors-1955). The MoMA announcement date confirmed here (January 31, 1954) and the exhibition attendance figure (‘more than 250,000 people’ in 103 days, ‘exceeding the museum’s previous attendance record set in 1940’) are primary-record figures from the Rudolph Institute’s documentation.
Key excerpts / pages
- Project announcement (search result, 2026-04-30): ‘On January 31, 1954, the Museum of Modern Art announced a major exhibition planned for the 25th anniversary celebration — an international photography show organized by Edward Steichen on the theme of “The Family of Man.”’
- Exhibition dates and MoMA attendance (search result, 2026-04-30): ‘open at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City from January 26 – May 8, 1955, and during its 103-day run it was seen by more than 250,000 people, exceeding the museum’s previous attendance record set in 1940.’
- Scale of photographs (search result, 2026-04-30): ‘photos ranging from 8 by 10 inches to 10 by 12 feet.’
- Tour summary on institute record (search result, 2026-04-30) — UNVERIFIED AGGREGATE; conflicts with the ‘91 venues’ figure from other sources and is not a USIA primary count, see Notes: ‘two foreign editions made for the United States Information Agency to circulate — one in Europe and one in Asia. Eventually, five copies of the exhibit were circulated, seen in 88 venues in 37 countries, touring the world for eight years and attracting more than 9 million visitors.’
Notes
- Project page NOT directly fetched this round — URL returned in search results (2026-04-30) but Chrome navigation was denied. All content from search-engine excerpts.
- Verified: false — page not directly opened.
- The tour summary (‘five copies … 88 venues … 37 countries … 9 million visitors … eight years’) appears on the Rudolph Institute’s project page; this is the first time ‘88 venues’ appears in this session’s search results (earlier sources gave ‘91 venues’). The discrepancy (88 vs 91) should be noted and flagged alongside the existing discrepancies in
research/world-tour.md. This figure is NOT primary — it is the Rudolph Institute’s secondary summary, not a USIA archival count. - The MoMA attendance figure of ‘more than 250,000’ in 103 days is consistent with the figure in
src-moma-1955-press-release-bookandsrc-moma-archives-highlights-1955; no new primary attestation is added here beyond what those existing entries already record. - A future pass should fetch this page directly to document the archival photographs, slides, and drawings held by the Rudolph Institute, and to extract any primary-record details about the installation design that are not in the Interiors article (
src-rudolph-interiors-1955).