LP-2684
Modulightor Building Apartment Duplex – 246 East 58th Street
ITEM PROPOSED FOR PUBLIC HEARING
The proposed designation of the Modulightor Building Apartment Duplex, a late modern work by Paul Rudolph built between 1989 and 1994, consisting of the entire third and fourth floors, including the entrance hall, north and south living rooms, kitchen, balconies, bedrooms and bathrooms, as well as the historic fixtures and components of these interlocking double-height spaces, which may include but are not limited to the floor surfaces, wall surfaces, ceiling surfaces, lighting fixtures, and attached furnishings.
As the citywide advocate for New York’s architectural, historical, and cultural neighborhoods, The Historic Districts Council supports the designation of the Modulightor Building Apartment Duplex as an Interior Landmark.
The Duplex was designed by the prominent American Modernist Paul Rudolph and stands out as the only publicly accessible Rudolph interior in New York City. Rudolph believed that “Architecture is a personal effort, and the fewer people coming between you and your work the better.” The Modulightor Duplex shows the dynamism Rudolph could achieve when designing for himself.
In a 2018 tribute to Rudolph’s career, Rudolph’s partner Ernst Wagner, who purchased the property with Rudolph in 1989 and lived in the Duplex until his death in 2024, called the Modulightor “a dynamic composition: a work of architectural-artistic intensity, and a practical building.”
For the interior, Wagner continued, “Rudolph became his own contractor, meeting with the craftspeople each morning and carefully—like a sculptor—arranging mock-ups with foam-core boards: shifting, adjusting, and balancing the forms and voids until he was satisfied. Sometimes, he’d come back the next day and say “Oh, I made a mistake—take it all down.” So they’d rework the elements—the kind of thing you can do when you’re your own client!”
Wagner related that Rudolph “thought in terms of spatial movement, creating intricate, multi-tiered spirals of space. As you transition from one level to another, the width and the height of the space keeps changing, adjusting and expanding through a series of movements of vertical & horizontal planes, creating a kinetic assemblage and multiple viewpoints. Yet the spaces feel dynamic and serene at the same time.”
Further, Wagner noted that “Rudolph was interested in modular systems—a “kit of parts” that could create multiple (and more economical) solutions” which he pursued in the furniture he created for Modulightor’s Duplex.
Finally, the Modulightor Duplex reflects Rudolph’s ideas about light. Wagner noted that Rudolph understood “the effect of light and lighting as ‘a fourth dimension’. He cared about the way light worked in his buildings, thoroughly analyzing the effects as part of his design process, and even inventing his own fixtures. He thought ‘Reflected light coming from the wall is the most humane of all light.’—and, when achieved, it was ‘…as if the walls are caressing you with their light.’”
The Modulightor Duplex is the only place in New York City where the public can experience Rudolph’s ideas about space, modular systems and light. We are lucky Rudolph was able to articulate his ideas to such sublime effect here, and that Ernst Wagner and the Paul Rudolph Institute for Modern Architecture have stewarded this space with such exceptional care.
We look forward to this designation, and note that Modulightor is one of many outstanding Modernist structures and interiors in New York City worthy of designation, such as the Breuer building, which LPC recently recognized. We thank LPC for its recent work Modernism, and urge the commission to continue its evaluation and designation of Modern architecture.