WAGSTAFFE, Matt
Haunting of the Penthouse

In 2018, seeking an answer to this question, Familiars Strangers invited a team of paranormal investigators to examine a prototypically haunted space: a locked attic room—or, to be specific, the locked penthouse atop the Paul Rudolph-designed Yale School of Architecture (Rudolph Hall). The Haunting of the Penthouse narrates this night and its frightful discoveries, the most notable of which may be that the figure-ground reversal of paranormal investigators—who listen not to signal but to noise—has much to teach architectural analysts. In this light, Rudolph Hall can be defined as much by its intended program as it can by the ways in which it serves as a framework for counter-programmatic acts: revolutionary student demands, arson, amatory misuses of space, and all the other noise for which Rudolph Hall inadvertently serves as channel. [publisher's note]

Published by Familiars Books, 2022
Architecture / Essays