Paul Rudolph’s Orange County Government Center, the embattled, hive-like structure in Goshen, New York, moved closer to being partially demolished. On March 5, County legislators failed to take action to invalidate a contract with Clark Patterson Lee, an upstate New York architecture and engineering firm, that calls for tearing down a large part of the building, renovating the remainder, and adding an 86,000-square-foot wing that bears little relationship to —and will obscure much of—Rudolph’s design. “That means they can go ahead and begin demolition at any time,” said attorney Michael Sussman, a partner in the Goshen firm Sussman &Watkins.
Meanwhile, Clark Patterson Lee CEO Philip Clark, an engineer, revealed that even the parts of Rudolph’s building he plans to retain will get completely new facades. Clark told the legislature that saving Rudolph’s famous corduroy concrete, rather than replacing it, would be too costly. Robert Miklos, founder of the Boston firm designLAB, which renovated a Rudolph library in southern Massachusetts (and was working with Clark Patterson Lee until last August), said it might be possible to cast new concrete blocks, but that he saw no good reason for discarding Rudolph’s walls.
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