Join us on Saturday, August 22nd from 11:00AM to 1:00PM for a rare opportunity to visit the Dorothea Rudnick house, located at 225 Mill Rock Road in Hamden. This small but exciting Modernist house, built in 1958 for Dorothea Rudnick (1907-1990), a pioneering embryologist who, in the 1930s, developed techniques for transplanting parts of one embryo into another. As a professor at Albertus Magnus College from 1940 until 1977, Dr. Rudnick advanced scientific understanding while mentoring students. She also edited scientific journals and served as Secretary of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Dorothea Rudnick’s architect was King-lui Wu (1918-2002), a native of Guangzhou, China, who joined Yale’s architecture faculty in 1948 and at the same time opened an architectural office in New Haven. Balancing teaching and professional practice, Wu designed a series of houses as well as offices, churches, and the clubhouse for Yale’s Manuscript society. He described his approach to design as combining the Bauhaus’s ideas of Western rationalism with Chinese romanticism—in what he called the “battle between the head and the heart.”
Set into a hillside, the Rudnick house is modest in size but thoughtfully designed, with an open plan and careful attention to providing natural light. The nearly-solid façade, lit only by a row of high, diamond-shaped windows, contrasts with a transparent end wall.
This event is a casual open house with remarks about the house’s history given at 11:15 and 12:15 by Preservation Connecticut’s Chris Wigren. We hope to see you there!
PARKING INFORMATION: Street parking is available along Mill Rock Road and surrounding roads.
This event is generously sponsored by Wojtek W. Boroski, Edgehill Team at Pearce Real Estate.