Just buffalo silo city june 20179/14/2023 ![]() ![]() The exterior of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery. With a slew of major restorations, adaptive reuse projects, and big-budget expansions reigniting enthusiasm, a cultural renaissance is finally taking shape. The city is starting to write its own urban-renewal story, not unlike those of its Rust Belt compatriots, Detroit and Pittsburgh. For decades, many of the brightest architectural emblems of its heyday went unused, their fate hotly debated but left undetermined. The city’s thriving steel and grain industries and its location on the Erie Canal made Buffalo a capital of commerce during the 1800s and into first half of the 20th century, but an economic downturn in the 1950s sent the former boomtown into a sustained decline. Still, we forgive outsiders for not knowing that. In fact, it’s the only American city besides Chicago that boasts buildings from the trinity of great American architects: Frank Lloyd Wright, Louis Sullivan, and Henry Hobson Richardson. Spoiler alert: The stereotypes are all true, but there’s also something unexpected happening in Buffalo.Ī few years ago, I told the executive director of the Architectural League of New York, Rosalie Genevro, that I grew up there, and without missing a beat she launched into enthusiastic praise of the city’s buildings. And then, of course, there’s the chicken wings. The sports teams suck and the diehard fan base sets the gold standard for drunken foolery. By Courtney Kenefickīuffalo natives expect cliché assumptions about where we’re from. ![]() The city’s dynamic architectural past is fueling its transformation. ![]()
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