Deans of architecture schools and department chairs set agendas. Strategically, strong heads can aim an educational community, including faculty, students, and alumni, in an intended direction. Transition points—the beginning of a term, or an addition to the physical plant—offer opportunities to take a broad look at where a school is headed and where it came from.

Though long dead, former Yale architecture head Paul Rudolph (chair of the architecture department from 1958 to 1965) held center stage throughout the weekend of November 7 to 9, when the restored and expanded Art and Architecture Building, designed by Rudolph in 1963, was rededicated. (Now named Paul Rudolph Hall, it adjoins the new Haas Family Arts Library and Jeffrey Loria Center for the History of Art, designed by Gwathmey Siegel & Associates.) During the weekend’s packed events, an exhibition investigating Rudolph’s legacy opened in the gallery of the restored hall, and panel discussions took place in the concrete-ribbed auditorium. There, former students such as Lord Richard Rogers, Lord Norman Foster, and Stanley Tigerman, FAIA , vividly recalled working through the night under the tutelage of the master.