UMass Dartmouth

285 Old Westport Rd, Dartmouth

large brutalist concrete building viewed across a grassy area split by pale straight paths; a tall thin modernist tower is at left and a lower glass-walled building is at right

The University of Massachusetts Dartmouth campus is Paul Rudolph's largest project in Massachusetts, with 10 buildings that he designed (or had direct input into) on a 710 acre site. The Southeastern Massachusetts Technical Institute (which later became UMass Dartmouth) was a commuter school, and the site was designed with a ring road and a perimter of parking lots encircling a spiral of buildings and walkways. Some of the buildings are interconnected, allowing for unexpected flow from one space to the next and making it easier for students to get around on a campus that can be quite cold and snowy in the winters. By this time Rudolph was fully invested in the use of concrete, and at UMD he combined concrete aggregate ground planes with board-formed concrete walls and areas of precast shaped concrete blocks to create a panoply of textures and patterns, unified by the color and material of concrete.

predominately tan concrete aggregate flooring, with shoes standing on it

concrete aggregate interior floor

looking up at a ceiling with multiple converging angles and masses, all in grayish board formed concrete

board-formed interior ceilings and walls

hallway with rounded split bar concrete block walls and tall vertical lights

hallway with concrete block walls and aggregate floor

corner with pale concrete blocks with repeating rounded ribbed pattern above and to the left of a section of horizontally striated board formed concrete; blocky orange numbers set onto the wall read 206 and 202

concrete block and board-formed concrete in the library building

Rudolph's vision for the campus centered around unity. He wanted all the buildings to feel like parts of a greater whole, and for them all to feel like one building, no matter what different facilities ended up in each. Consistent use of materials contributed here, but he also deployed variations on a unified set of forms across multiple buildings. Buildings with different footprints, different types of classroom or lab spaces, and completely different programs (teaching buildings vs. a library vs. a student center) are easily readable as members of the same species. Rudolph understood that the campus would grow and change as years passed, but he wanted a visual and emotive coherence that could serve as a base for future additions and alterations.

brutalist concrete building with 3 large projecting cantilevers and columns with striated concrete block, viewed from the middle distance with a blue sky and fluffy white clouds behind

Claire T. Carney Library

brutalist concrete building with 3 large projecting cantilevers and columns with striated concrete block, viewed fairly close up

College of Visual and Performing Arts Building

raised and angled view of a brutalist concrete building with a mural on the front, seen through colorful flags; a grassy area with straight paths is at right, the sky in the background is blue with fluffy white clouds

MacLean Campus Center

view of multiple cantilvered blocky brutalist concrete buildings on a grassy campus, with blue sky and white fluffy clouds

Heavy rectangular cantilvers characterize many of the campus buildings.

multilevel atrium space in a brutalist concrete building with walkways and hexagonal balconies, including one with pale greenish carpet, built in bench seating, and some freestanding tables and chairs

multilevel atrium space in a brutalist concrete building with hexagonal balconies

multilevel circulation space in a brutalist concrete building with central pillar of concrete block surrounded by levels of hexagonal walkways and balconies

atria and circulation spaces in multiple buildings make use of similar forms: concrete block pillars, board-formed concrete cantilevers, roughly hexagonal balconies

The plasticity of concrete allowed for the incorporation of built-in furnishings. This sacrificed some of the flexibility that comes with free-standing pieces of furniture, but ensured that visually important smaller elements within the buildings remained stylistically coherent with the overall campus plan. It also celebrated the technologies and techniques used to form concrete, both in precast blocks and panels and cast-in-place concrete construction, allowing Rudolph to showcase the kind of forward-looking modernist thinking that he felt was appropriate for the school and should define the campus.

multilevel space in a brutalist building with concrete walls and orange carpet; hexagonal seating areas are scattered around

built-in bench seating alternates with free-standing furniture in lobby and atrium spaces

bench with purple upholstery at right in a space with concrete block walls and dramatic sun coming in from above left

vertical lines formed by the concrete block walls contrast with the horizontal line of low built-in seating

Another key aspect of the UMD campus plan - perhaps counterintuitive in a project that is so overwhelmingly tan-gray - is color. Rudolph's original scheme incorporated bright jewel tones, which warmed and enlivened concrete surfaces throughout the building interiors. The Claire T. Carney Library renovation project in 2012-13 refreshed and restored some of Rudolph's original palette.

built-in concrete bench with bright orange upholstery and an orange and red carpet

a two-step conversation pit type area with purple upholstery and purple striped carpet

hexagonal board formed concrete ceiling painted vibrant purple, with pale concrete block walls

Of course, in a project as extensive as this one, there were many opportunities for Paul Rudolph to exercise his love of stairs. Functional stairs, decorative stairs, stairs that start out in one style and morph into another: there are stairs everywhere Rudolph could put them on the UMass Dartmouth campus. UMass Dartmouth may be one of Rudolph's celebrations of what concrete can do, but it is also a celebration of how many times one architect can make you look at and traverse a set of stairs.

person walking down a set of broad shallow concrete aggregate stairs, with walls of concrete block forming a narrow-ish hallway, towards a brightly lit window

large shallow concrete aggregate stairs

3 shallow hexagonal concrete aggregate stairs leading up to a more typical and steeper set of stairs

angled shallow concrete aggregate stairs leading to a more typically-scaled staircase

multilevel atrium with walkways around a central pillar of concrete block; the central walkway has stair forms built into its underside

Rudolph liked to make stairs visible from below where possible

looking down a staircase in a brutalist building with concrete aggregate flooring and a mix of board formed concrete and vertically striated concrete block walls

all 3 main UMD concrete textures - aggregate, horizontal board forms, and vertical split blocks - are on display in this staircase

very blocky and angular concrete building with prominent outside staircases; the surface is either board-formed concrete or made of smaller texture blocks; shallow textured concrete aggregate stairs lead up to it

Hexagonal forms define the stairs and help them relate to hexagonal forms on balconies and cantilevers on the buildings.

project spanned: 1963-1989 (discontinuous)

client: Southeastern Massachusetts Technical Institute (now University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth)

brief: design the master plan for the campus of a technical school formed by the merger of 2 southern MA textile schools

where to see more:

Paul Rudolph Institute listing for this project

UMD Carney Library Paul Rudolph site

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