Buildings and Monuments
Buffalo City Hall
 Buffalo’s City Hall, the magnificent building that dominates Niagara Square with its towering but graceful presence, is undergoing a facelift. Scaffolding is up for the first phase of a $3.9 million project to repair, rehabilitate and restore exterior masonry.
Work includes repairing the terra cotta and sandstone, waterproofing, masonry anchoring, roofing and lighting replacement. The bad news is that City Hall’s observation deck on the 28th floor, with a spectacular view of the city and surrounding region, will be closed to visitors during the construction period, expected to last into fall 2007.
Considered by many to be one of the finest Art Deco public buildings in the country, City Hall was dedicated in 1932, the hundredth anniversary of Buffalo’s founding. Its architect, John Wade, said the building expressed "the masculinity, power and purposeful energy of an industrial community." He wanted an "Americanesque" ornamental building that would dominate the skyline and serve as a symbol of the city.2
The 375-foot high 32-story building, with 316,937 square feet of usable space, cost $6.8 million at its completion. Constructed of gray granite, limestone and warm sandstone, it is beautifully decorated. The exterior features Native American-influenced tile details and friezes depicting aspects of city life, and it is crowned by a brightly colored roof that is illuminated at night.
 Above the main entrance of eight columns is an eight-foot high-carved frieze by Albert T. Stewart,s nearly 100 feet long, with 21 figures representing the city’s values, culture and economic life. Stewart’s sculpted frieze over the rear entrance to the building portrays five scenes from the early development of Buffalo. The interior of the entrance portico features a ceiling with a pattern of diamond-shaped coffers that is reflected in the granite floor. To the side of each of four bronze entrance doors are carved stone sculptures representing the work life of Buffalo’s first settlers.
The main lobby is a dramatic three-story high vaulted space with thousands of acoustic tiles featuring designs from Native American signs and symbols and colorful allegorical murals by famed New York City artist William de Leftwich Dodge.
 Another impressive space is the three-story city high council chambers, constructed in the form of a semi-circular amphitheater with tiered seating that accommodates more than 300 people. The main feature of the room is a magnificent sunburst skylight window of red, yellow and blue, with rays and energy extending outward. The acoustic tile ceiling is decorated with Native American signs.
Architect John Wade said, "What we have tried to do is express in stone and steel and glass something of Buffalo, just as the Greeks expressed in stone and timber their life and philosophy." He succeeded magnificently. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1999.
The Landmark Society of the Niagara Frontier conducts free daily docent-led weekday tours of City Hall at noon, beginning in the City Hall lobby.
Sources:
1Buffalo Architectural Guidebook Corporation, Buffalo Architecture: A Guide (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1981), p. 57.
2John H. Conlin, Buffalo City Hall: Americanesque Masterpiece (Buffalo: Landmark Society of the Niagara Frontier, 1993, p. 7. Conlin’s 40-page monograph is an excellent resource for a self-guided tour of this magnificent building.
3Conlin, p. 36.
Progress on the renovation project maybe viewed at www.city-buffalo.com, under the news/calendar section of the Web site. For pictures of this magnificent building, click here . The City of Buffalo Web site has more facts and figures and pictures at their website; The Library of Congress has pictures of the construction of City Hall at their web site (type in "Buffalo City Hall" in the "Search" box).
Photos by Chuck LaChiusa
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Richardson Olmsted Complex (Buffalo Psychiatric Center)
 One of the most striking buildings on the city’s West Side, the Buffalo Psychiatric Center, 400 Forest Ave., was designed in 1870 by America’s foremost architect of the time, Henry Hobson Richardson. Ground was broken in 1871, the first patients were housed in the partially-completed complex in 1880, and the entire project was completed in 1895, nine years after Richardson’s death.
The imposing administration building, constructed of five-foot thick reddish-brown Medina sandstone, is the first major example of a style that became known as "Richardsonian Romanesque," characterized by strength, simplicity and power. The rocky texture was balanced with plainly finished blocks of the same material for doors and windows, and with simple Romanesque geometric designs. Stout half columns and round arches frame the main entrance.
Its medieval-style 185 feet tall twin towers are the building’s most striking features; drive by at night in order to appreciate their illuminated magnificence. Each has four corner turrets and dramatically steep copper roofs accented with dormered windows. The towers, which were never intended to serve any function, remained unfinished on the inside.
The administration building went through several designs. As Buffalo architectural historian Dr. Francis Kowsky notes:
In the earliest drawings, the central building is a low, chapel-like structure with a tall spire. This design reflected asylums Richardson had seen in France. In the final version, two great towers rise from the massive roof of the four-story structure, resolutely proclaiming it the heart of the institution and evoking the image of a secure haven for the distraught.¹
The building once housed hospital officers and their families on the second and third floors, and there was a large chapel on the fourth floor. The hospital consisted of ten connected pavilions stretching from either side of the administration building. The complex was the largest ever designed by Richardson, more than 2,000 feet long with 400,000 square feet of space.
 The five pavilions to the east were built first (the outer three were demolished in 1969). Richardson designed all the buildings to be made of stone but, with the architect’s permission, the outer pavilions were built from brick in order to economize.
The hospital was one of the most progressive mental institutions in the country at the time. The wards on each floor of the pavilions provided a home-like atmosphere for patients, most of whom occupied private rooms overlooking the grounds. Sitting rooms, some with fireplaces, and dining rooms were included on most floors. Long, bright corridors on the south side of each ward served as recreation areas during the day.
The layout of extended buildings followed the "Kirkbride system," named after a Philadelphia doctor who devised the plan. Protection was improved in event of fire, because each pavilion could be sealed from the one adjacent by means of iron doors in the curving connecting corridors. Patients were classified and housed according to the nature and degree of their mental illness.
More than 200 acres of farmland behind the buildings, where much of the hospital’s food was grown, extended to Scajaquada Creek. Farming was believed to have therapeutic value for patients able to work. Buffalo State College today occupies most of the original farm.
Nationally-known landscape designers Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux planned the landscaping of the hospital grounds, integrating their design into what became part of Buffalo’s Olmsted parks system. The grounds, like those of a great chateau, were both ornamental and utilitarian, with landscaped parkland around the main buildings providing space for group exercise activities.
In recognition of the significance of the entire Richardson complex, the buildings have been placed on both the National Register of Historic Places and the National Historic Landmark list.
Rehabilitation plans are moving forward to revive the Richardson Olmsted Complex as one of Buffalo’s crowning jewels. The Richardson Center Corporation is proceeding with rehabilitation of the buildings and grounds as a mixed-use, multi-purpose civic campus of public and private activities. Potential reuse options for this historic complex of H.H. Richardson designed buildings and Frederick Law Olmsted designed grounds are vast and will include an Architecture and Visitor Center. For more information, please visit the Richardson Olmsted Complex website at www.richardson-olmsted.com
Sources:
1Francis M. Kowsky, "A Towering Masterpiece: H. H. Richardson’s Buffalo State Hospital," from Buffalo Spree, March/April 2000. Also see Chuck LaChiusa, "Buffalo as an Architectural Museum: Buffalo Psychiatric Center," and Andy Olenick and Richard O. Reisem, Classic Buffalo: A Heritage of Distinguished Architecture (Buffalo: Canisius College Press, 1999), pp. 114-15.
Photos by Chuck LaChiusa
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Louis Sullivan’s Guaranty Building
 When the Guaranty Building, 26 Church Street, was finished in 1896, it was ranked not only as Buffalo’s finest advanced-design office building, but one of the finest in the country as well. Designed by one of the most important architects of the 19th century, Louis Sullivan of Chicago, the building reflects the optimism and prosperity of the United States at the time. Architectural historians consider the Guaranty Building one of the greatest architectural achievements in office buildings by Louis Sullivan.
A local oil magnate, Hascal L. Taylor, planned to build on the site what he envisioned would be the largest and best office building in the city, but he died before the plans were announced. The Guaranty Construction Co. of Chicago acquired the plans and built the building between March 1895 and March 1896. At 152 feet, the 13-story structure was the tallest in the city. It was renamed the Prudential Building soon after completion because of the refinancing provided by the Prudential Insurance Co. Both names can be seen above the entrances.
A forerunner of the style that would be known as "skyscraper," the Guaranty was one of the first steel-supported, "curtain-walled" buildings in the world, eliminating the need for thick walls in order to support height. The original structure was in a "U" shape, with an open court to the south for natural light, faced in white glazed tiles to reflect as much light as possible.
 The piers between the windows have strong vertical lines that draw the eye upward to the imposing cornice. Sullivan used intricate terra cotta ornamentation, with geometric motifs and naturalistic design of flowers, seedpods and the spreading branches of a tree at the top of the building to make the exterior attractive. Terra cotta, similar to fired clay, gives the look and feel of stone but is comparatively lightweight and inexpensive. It was one of Sullivan’s favorite building materials.
For years, the Guaranty Building was one of Buffalo’s most prestigious business addresses, but the Great Depression brought hard times. Although recognized as an architectural masterpiece as early as 1940, by the mid 1950s the building was described as "old and dirty" and occupancy was declining.
Well-intentioned efforts at modernization resulted in aesthetic and structural damage. In 1955, a fiberglass exterior was added to the lower floors, a dropped ceiling was put in the lobby, and cleaning by harsh sandblasting damaged the intricate terra cotta. A fire in 1974 damaged the upper floors and the building was sold at auction. Despite its designation in 1975 as a National Historic Landmark, by 1977 the building’s out-of-town owners were planning its demolition in order to make the site more marketable.
 Objections by preservationists stymied the demolition plans. Instead, a series of grants and loans were obtained to restore the building. By September 1982, with a $12.4 million renovation project complete, the Guaranty Building once again became a prestigious business address. The law firm of Hodgson Russ LLP, a leading force in the earlier preservation effort, purchased the building for its principal offices in 2002.
The law firm recently announced a $12 million renovation project in which everything from the basement to the 13th floor will be gutted and rebuilt according to accepted preservation guidelines. Mosaic tile on the ground floor will be removed, cleaned and reinstalled, and the building’s bronze-plated staircases, elevator grills and intricate ceiling panels will be brought back to their original look. The project will be completed in 2007.
Sources:
"Louis Sullivan’s Guaranty Building," from the Web site of the Hodgson Russ law firm, Feb. 17, 2003, "Hodgson Russ Begins Renovation of Historic Guaranty Building," April 27, 2006; Sharon Linstedt, "Guaranty Building Undergoing $12 Million Interior Renovation," Buffalo News, May 15, 2006, pp. A-1-2. Also see Chuck LaChiusa, "Buffalo as an Architectural Museum: The Guaranty Building".
Photos by Chuck LaChiusa
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The Electric Building
 One of the most distinctive buildings in downtown Buffalo is the Electric Building, now called the Niagara Mohawk Building.
It was designed by August Esenwein and James Johnson, who also produced the Temple of Music at the Pan-American Exposition.
Esenwein was a member of the Pan-American board of architects, and thus it is not surprising that this building took its inspiration from John Galen Howard’s Electric Tower, the centerpiece of the 1901 exposition.
The 294-foot high, 14-story building was opened in 1912 for the sale and distribution of Niagara Falls electricity. While it resembles the exposition building, it is not a replica. Wings were added in the 1920s.
The steel frame Beaux Arts Classical Revival building is covered in white sand lime and brick glazed terra cotta tiles that makes it glisten in the sunlight,
gleam after a rainfall and sparkle at night in the floodlights that shine on its tower. The tower is topped with a cupola and ball, making it look, many say,
like a white-frosted wedding cake.
The lights bathing the tower are changed, depending upon the time of year. A ceremonial ball drop at midnight on New Year’s Eve and fireworks draw thousands of revelers to nearby Roosevelt Square.
One unique feature of the building is the motifs of electric motors and generators used as decoration. Johnson made ornament his specialty and these, forerunners of Art Deco ornamentation, were his invention.
Sources:
Chuck LaChiusa, "Buffalo as an Architectural Museum: General Electric Tower/Niagara Mohawk Building."
Photos by Chuck LaChiusa
David M. Rote, "Buffalo’s Three Towers of Power,"
For interior pictures, click here.
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The Williams-Butler Mansion (Jacobs Executive Development Center)
 It was to be the biggest dinner party of the new century. Servants had been busy for days arranging details. The giant crystal chandelier had been lowered in the entrance hall and fitted with new candles to illuminate the arrival of the social, industrial and commercial leaders of the region. State and national political leaders would be attending. The guest of honor was to be President William McKinley, who was visiting Buffalo and the Pan-American Exposition.
The date was September 6, 1901. That afternoon, the president was mortally wounded by an assassin during a public reception, the final event on the president’s schedule at the exposition. The state dinner, of course, was cancelled.
It was appropriate, though, that the event would have taken place at the home of banker George L. Williams and his wife, Annie, because the home can be described as "palatial," fit to host a visiting head of state. The opulent Georgian Revival mansion was designed by famed New York architect Stanford White and built 1895-98.
 White also designed the adjacent James Metcalfe family house at 125 North Street. It was demolished in 1980, but the dining room and library have been reinstalled in Buffalo State College’s Rockwell Hall. White also designed a home for the older brother of George Williams, Charles, at 690 Delaware. But it is the Williams-Butler mansion that is the jewel of the neighborhood, built on what was the most prestigious corner in the city.
A Corinthian portico projects from the north street side of the mansion, trimmed with a balustrade that marks the roof. The main entrance is on the north side of the residence beneath a porte cochere, designed with privacy and weather protection in mind. The rooms on the main floor border a broad central hall paneled in quarter-sawn oak, dominated by a spectacular staircase and a three-story chandelier.
The chandelier was in danger of being discarded when the Delaware North Companies bought the house in 1979. When it was cleaned, it was found to be gold-plated, not merely gold-leafed as had been thought, worth in excess of $200,000.
The library features a huge marble fireplace, spacious enough for a six-foot tall person to walk under the mantle with its sea-creature decorated frieze. Throughout the house, with its decorated plaster ceilings and exquisite carved woods, no detail has been spared.
 In 1905, the home was sold to Buffalo Evening News publisher Edward H. Butler and his wife, Kate. He lived there until his death in 1914, and members of the Butler family stayed in the house until the 1970s. The house was sold to the William C. Baird Foundation, which subsequently gave it to the Roswell Park Hospital. In 1979, Delaware North Companies bought the house from Roswell, then demolished the Metcalfe house to use as a parking lot.
Delaware North renovated the house over an eight-year period at a cost of $6 million, then sold the building in 1990 to Varity Corp. to serve as its world headquarters. Varity removed the parking lot, installed a lush garden, and constructed the lighted fountain located in the granite courtyard.
The property was again acquired by Delaware North Companies, whose CEO, Jeremy M. Jacobs Sr., deeded the property to SUNY Buffalo for the Jacobs Executive Development Center, a setting for corporate events, business training, conferences and social functions.
Sources:
Chuck LaChiusa, "Williams-Butler House," at the "Buffalo as an Architectural Museum" Web site. The site has detailed pictures of the interior and exterior of the Butler mansion. Also see Reyner Banham et al., "Buffalo Architecture: A Guide," (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1981), pp. 141-42 (Williams-Butler House); and Andy Olenick and Richard O. Reisem, Classic Buffalo: A Heritage of Distinguished Architecture (Buffalo: Canisius College Press, 1999), pp. 60-65.
Photos by Chuck LaChiusa
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Buffalo Lighthouse
 The oldest building in Buffalo really isn’t a building. It’s the Buffalo Lighthouse-the one depicted on Buffalo’s city seal-that stands at the mouth of the Buffalo River on a stone pier that dates from 1820. Built in 1833, it is one of the oldest lighthouses on the Great Lakes.
When it was completed, a local newspaper called it the "most perfect work of its kind on this side of the ocean and perhaps the world." The walls of the tapered, unpainted octagonal limestone tower are four feet thick at the base and rise to 44 feet in height to a black cast iron lantern.
It served the city well during Buffalo’s growth period in the nineteenth century, but was eventually replaced in importance by an outer harbor breakwater light that was more visible to lake traffic. The original lighthouse was deactivated in 1914 and its lens was removed and placed in the outer harbor breakwater light. The structure served as a lookout tower to spot rumrunners during Prohibition, but it seemed to have outlived its usefulness.
By the mid-1950s, it was part of the Coast Guard base and was being used to store explosives. In 1958, the Army Corps of Engineers announced a plan to widen the river mouth and demolish the 1833 structure, but this triggered a public protest. The lighthouse was saved and restoration began in 1962. A Buffalo Lighthouse Association, formed in 1985, leases the structure from the Coast Guard. They have raised and spent approximately $300,000 on restoration and site development work.
Among their projects has been the development of a park-like entrance and a pedestrian walkway along the south bank of Buffalo River, with historical plaques telling of earlier lighthouses. It is lit at night with low-light technology to avoid confusing mariners. The lighthouse is open to the public during festivals and by appointment.
Sources:
Aaron T. Heverin and Michael N. Vogel, "Buffalo Light: Guardian of the Harbor". The Web site has a full history of the lighthouse and pictures of its historic past.
Information was also drawn from David M. Rote, "The Buffalo Lighthouse," and Janice L. Habuda, "Lighthouse Beacon Will Remain Off," Buffalo News, May 8, 2006.
Photo by Chuck LaChiusa
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Kleinhans Music Hall (1940)
Symphony Circle
(North and Porter Streets at Richmond Avenue)
 Concert goers who attend performances at Kleinhans Music Hall don’t merely hear the outstanding performances of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra. Instead, the music envelopes listeners and one is drawn into the performance, whether classical or pops, traditional or contemporary.
The Kleinhans Web site proudly proclaims that the acoustical and lighting research which preceded the hall’s design and construction made it “one of the finest in the world,” and adds that the main auditorium“was considered one of the greatest architectural and acoustical achievements of its time.” It is not an exaggeration to say that there isn’t a bad seat in the house, from the front row to the balcony. In addition, unobtrusive lighting creates an atmosphere of warmth and comfort.
The music hall is the legacy of men’s clothier Edward Kleinhans as a memorial to his wife, Mary Seaton Kleinhans, and his mother, Mary Livingston Kleinhans. Edward and Mary Kleinhans died in 1934 within months of each other. They left their estate of about $1 million to build a music hall “for the use, enjoyment and benefit of the People of the City of Buffalo.”
 The music hall was designed by the father-and-son team of Eliel and Eero Saarinen in what has been called a modern, neo-expressionist or International style. Their selection to design the music hall continued a Buffalo tradition of being able to attract the greatest architects of the time to create its buildings. The two designed some of the outstanding structures of the 20th century—Eero designed Washington’s Dulles International Airport and the St. Louis Gateway Arch—achieving recognition as being among the greatest of the experimental architectural designers.
Buffalo architects F.J. and W.A. Kidd were selected to oversee the music hall’s construction. The Saarinens created the graceful contours of the building’s exterior, and the Kidds carried out the interior designs according to the Saarinen plan.
The interior and exterior lines are smooth, curvilinear and sweeping, suggesting music in its motion and flow. The exterior is faced with Ohio Wyandotte brick interspersed with panels of veined sandstone.
The concert hall consists of two parts: the main auditorium that seats more than 2,800 people, and the Mary Seaton chamber music hall seating 900. The excellent acoustics in the auditorium are possible because the ceiling was built in a series of ridges and the plywood stage tilted slightly upward at the front in order to channel sound evenly to all corners of the auditorium.
The dedicatory concert was held October 12, 1940. Kleinhans Music Hall, a Buffalo Landmark, is on the National Register of Historic Places and in 1989 was declared a National Historic Landmark, a rare designation for a building less than 50 years old.
 Symphony Circle, where Porter, Richmond and Pennsylvania Avenue and North Street converge, was part of the systems of parks and circles designed by Frederick Law Olmsted in the 1870s. By the 1890s, land surrounding The Circle, as it was then known, had been purchased by members of Buffalo society who built lavish mansions. But, with original owners passing from the scene beginning in the early 1920s, heirs became unable to maintain the properties.
The home of Buffalo industrialist-philanthropist Trueman Avery and his wife, Delia, both instrumental in The Circle’s development, was one of those properties. Their daughter, Lavinia McCormick Mitchell, offered the Avery mansion to the city for a nominal sum as a location for the new music hall. The site selection committee was impressed with the park-like beauty of The Circle and selected it over other proposed locations. The Avery mansion was taken down and Kleinhans Music Hall stands in its place on a three-acre parcel of land.
In 1958 The Circle was renamed Symphony Circle, associating its name with Kleinhans Music Hall and the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra.
Sources:
David M. Rote, “Kleinhans Music Hall,” on the City of Buffalo Web site.
The Web site of Kleinhans Music Hall.
Chuck LaChiusa, “Buffalo as an Architectural Museum: Kleinhans Music Hall,”. Exterior and interior photographs are included in both the Kleinhans and LaChiusa Web sites.
Chris Brown, “The Light Has Returned,” a history of The Circle and its development, with pictures.
Click here for a map of some of Buffalo’s architectural treasures.
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