Family of Man, Exhibition Installation at Museum of Modern Art, by Paul Rudolph
Citation
Rudolph, Paul. “Family of Man, Exhibition Installation at Museum of Modern Art, by Paul Rudolph.” Interiors 114 (April 1955): 114–17.
Tier justification
Tier 1: primary publication by the exhibition’s installation architect documenting his own design for The Family of Man at MoMA, published in the trade journal Interiors in April 1955 — contemporaneous with the exhibition’s run (January 26 – May 8, 1955). This is an architect’s first-person account of the spatial design, published in real time. The UMass Dartmouth Paul Rudolph Library digitised the text and holds it in their Paul Rudolph & His Architecture archive. Bibliographic-detail caveat: the page range “pp. 114–17” within an issue numbered “no. 114” is a coincidence that warrants confirmation by direct fetch of prudolph.lib.umassd.edu/node/3223; both the issue number and the page range come from search-engine snippets in this round, not from a direct fetch of the digitised text. Treat the page-range as pointer-only until that fetch is completed.
Relevance
The primary textual source for Paul Rudolph’s installation design — the architectural system of ‘temporary walls’ that ‘channeled visitors through the images’ and allowed photographs ‘ranging from 8 by 10 inches to 10 by 12 feet’ to function as an immersive environment. Rudolph’s design is discussed in all major scholarly accounts of the exhibition (Sandeen 1995, Turner 2012, Turner 2013) as central to the exhibition’s affective impact. This contemporaneous article is the architect’s own description of his intentions and the design decisions he made.
Key excerpts / pages
- Design approach (search result, 2026-04-30, sourced from Paul Rudolph Institute page): ‘Rudolph designed the exhibit to be an architectural as well as pictorial experience, with photos ranging from 8 by 10 inches to 10 by 12 feet arranged to emphasize their connection but also add drama as the viewer walked through the space.’
- Installation system (search result, 2026-04-30): ‘A series of temporary walls designed by architect Paul Rudolph channeled visitors through the images, allowing them to move at their own pace, to pause where they liked, and to pool at pictures of particular interest.’
- Pages: 114–17 (confirmed from search results, 2026-04-30 — Paul Rudolph Institute and UMass Dartmouth bibliography entries).
Notes
- Full text NOT consulted in this round. The UMass Dartmouth Paul Rudolph Library entry (https://prudolph.lib.umassd.edu/node/3223) and the Paul Rudolph Institute project page (https://www.paulrudolph.institute/195404-family-of-man-exhibit) were both returned in search results (2026-04-30) but neither was directly fetched.
- Verified: false — full text not accessed. Bibliographic details (title, journal, issue number, date, pages 114–17) are confirmed from multiple search results (2026-04-30) and are consistent across sources.
- This article is likely held in the UMass Dartmouth Paul Rudolph Archive and may be digitised; the prudolph.lib.umassd.edu node should be fetched in a future pass to confirm full text access.
- The Paul Rudolph Institute project page for this commission (https://www.paulrudolph.institute/195404-family-of-man-exhibit) contains additional archival materials (photographs, slides) — these should be documented separately as Tier-1 installation records.
- The deluxe edition of the 1955 catalog (
src-moma-1955-catalog) contains installation photographs by Ezra Stoller that document Rudolph’s design visually; this article is the textual companion to those photographs.