The ICA on the South End of Boston’s Harbor was completed last year and I read about in a NY Times review. Done by a fashionable duo of Diller + Scofidio. It reflects the also new Boston Convention Center seen below…

(No…its’ not an alien spacecraft)


It has some real nice public space with a boardwalk vibe to it with beautiful views all around…with talk of a new Weather Museum on Buffalo’s waterfront, this building presents a possible example. Everyone involved wants it to be architectually stunning and they should since this Boston ICA is just another of a million examples of various cities in the Western world adding contemporary, state of the art museums to show that they are a cultivated place.

When I was in Toronto last week I got to see Daniel Libeskind’s
“Crystal” that is an extension of the Royal Ontario Museum of Art. Libeskind gets a rap for having really poor interiors for art galleries unless the art specifically compliments his design and his exteriors are pretty wild obviously.

Although a lot of people will hate it, I think the exterior of it will become a Toronto landmark…when people see it in photos or on TV they’ll automatically say “That’s Toronto.”

Not one person who walked by it didn’t stop to turn their head, talk about it, photograph it, or just admire it…and in that way its already great.

Burchfield-Penney’s extension is a pretty lame exterior facing elmwood but isn’t that bad overall. Most of Gwathmey-Siegel’s art building stuff is like that (UB’s Center for the Arts). At the same time, their interiors are great and thats the most important part of a museum. We’ll see if it becomes a successful architectual addition over time. I can’t imagine Wright or Saarinen’s work being highly touted in Buffalo right upon completion.

With the Albright Knox getting over $20 million with their art sales, maybe they’ll have to build an extension…and maybe that’ll mean being able to get a signature museum extension since that is all the rage now a days from Kansas City to Bilbao.

Didn’t have computer access for a couple days but I have to have some sort of post on the new Gates Circle Condos…

They look hawtttt.

Oh and I think I figured out that “Lawsuit” is around step two or three in the official procedures for significant development in Buffalo. Rules are rules ya know?

The Buffalo News’ coverage
Here’s BRO’s coverage and EPIC comment section

*Photos courtesy WCP from skyscraper forums

Its pretty much official now. The new Federal Courthouse will be under construction by Labor Day this year!
Its quite exciting to see these modern buildings popping up amongst a sea of structures no more recent than 1970. Although each one I can think of (airport, public safety campus, hauptman-woodward, bio-informatics school) is all public $$ I’m just happy to see this city architectually evolve with everyone else…which is something that couldn’t be said in the 90’s.

Here’s to not living in a time capsule!

The somewhat controversial pedestrian bridge to connect the acclaimed Hauptman-Woodward building with the equally stunning Bio Informatics building is underway. We’ll see how it affects the look of these two buildings when its done but so far it doesn’t look too bad.

Coming back to Buffalo in 2005, one thing I was pretty excited about was the new infusion of Frank Lloyd Wright buildings, decades after his death. The expansive renovation of the Martin House, the construction of the Blue Sky Mausoleum and West Side Rowing House, and plans for a FLW gas station sounded good to me…but not to Frank Lloyd Wright expert and UB Art History professor, Jack Quinan.
The author of the only book out there dedicated completely to the Larkin Administration Building as well as the Martin House, completely disagrees with the notion of new FLW builds, putting a thumbs down and sticking his tongue out when I asked him about it.
Noting that the mausoleum was designed for the Martin family and there are no Martins in it, that the Rowing House was designed for the U. of Wisconson, and the Gas Station won’t even have any gas, he sees it as going against the principles of what FLW would want in his buildings.
And for those of us nostalgic and hopeful of a rebuild of the Larkin Building, Quinan is not one to feel the same. During his lecture earlier this week he said

Whenever I talk about the Larkin Building, people come up to me and say, ‘Oh wouldn’t it be great if they rebuilt the Larkin Building?’….and I say ‘NO! It wouldn’t!’ Its gone, leave it that way.

The loss of the Larkin Building is one of the greatest tragedies in American Architectural history, and I see an authentic rebuild of it to be a way of making up for it.
And to me- Blue Sky, the Row House, and the Gas Station are great for Buffalo. Even if you’re a FLW purist you’re going to be curious and want to come to Buffalo to see how it looks. Leave these blueprints laying around any city in the country and they would do the same thing that Buffalo has…might as well let Buffalo add to its portfolio of buildings from America’s greatest architect.

Ever wondered what Buffalo’s tallest building looks like on the inside? Of course you have. I’ve never had the opportunity to go inside and take a gander and after watching the video, I’m moderately impressed.
Although SOM did more than their fare share of uninspiring modernist skyscrapers for its infinite amount of corportate clients, their Buffalo building really lacks more than most on their portfolio during the corporate modernist phase, mostly because One HSBC sticks out on the skyline more than anything else they’ve done in Chicago or NYC or wherever.
The interior though is right on par with any NYC skycraper of the era, very high quality, very 70’s upscale. When you watch the video you see just how many gaping holes there are in downtown out the window. Oy veh.
One last note, Marine Midland Bank decided to have large sculputures in front of their NYC and Buffalo offices. Clearly, NYC got the better sculpture.

Slowly (very slowly)but surely, Issa’s “City Tower” is getting closer to becoming a reality. The planning board is looking at it and of course, someone on the board actually objected to it…saying it was too big. Nice.
If Issa can pull off 40 then goshdarnit, let him pull off 40. I’m a bit impatient though and would like to see beams in the ground by 2010. So I wouldn’t mind seeing it go down to 35 or 36…but this building is more important than just its function. It’s a statement about our city…by being the tallest it says that it’s the dawn of a new era for the city and that the past will not continue to tie us down. Buffalo is notorious for settling for less though, still…anything over 30 stories in Buffalo is huge.

Correction: Anything over 5 stories is huge in Buffalo.

Looks like Waterfront Village is finally ready to grow as planned before I even knew how to count.



*Thanks to WCP for all the pics

Another one of those infamous BR comment battles is taking place as we speak. Some say the design sucks (I agree), some say that those people should shut their mouth because any development is good development, and a bunch of other remixes of those opinions are thrown in there as well.

It doesn’t matter who you are or what you think but it’s obvious that Ellicott Development planned this place in the 80’s and wanted to market itself to people who would perfer to live in Clarence or OP, isolated from society and noise except Clarence and OP don’t have a waterfront.

So it’s good that we get some land to market ourselves to a wealthy clientele that otherwise wouldn’t live near downtown. That’s great. Problem is that as Waterfront Village continues to come through with its vision we will look back one day and say “Wow, our waterfront outside of ‘Canal Side’ is a pain to get to from downtown, has nothing, and is exclusive to its residents.” Right now that isn’t much of a problem because it’s great to see some new development on the waterfront, but if our waterfront/downtown/city ever become a thriving place we will regret the way this place was planned.

And that’s just the planning. The architecture? Not so great. Ellicott Devel. isn’t really known for having awesome looking structures, but they always fit their clients well. It looks like a generic condo tower. Could be a seaside condo in Florida, or just another condo to add to the new cluster of them on Rockville Pike in suburban Maryland. Vernacular architecture is clearly not on the agenda here.

Some say “Well if you don’t like it…don’t live there.” I won’t live there, but everytime I’m downtown, or see pictures of downtown anywhere, this 13 story structure to go along with the Admiral’s Walk tower will be predominant because it’s right on the waterfront…a photographic gateway of sorts to the rest of the city…everytime you watch Channel 4 news-thats the picture you see.

We have some beautiful tall buildings in the CBD, why not on the waterfront too?

There it is! Looks like a transparent HSBC Tower from that angle to be honest with you.
But anyways, its 40 stories, becoming the tallest in Buffalo, with a mix of office, hotel, and condos. Issa apparently will start construction when 40% of the office space is filled.
There are two things that could happen as a result of this building
1. The building draws new tennants from outside of downtown…reaching NYC and Toronto companies…therefore adding new jobs to the area.
2. It completley kills the market for office space in Buffalo, leaving those pesky surface lots to remain for a generation to come

I like the building up close, its materials and initial floors remind me of the new World Bank building in Washington DC.

But in a way it looks like a cross between the Bank of America building that is being built in NYC, and the Erastus Corning Tower in Albany

Reflects the courhouse perfectly though.

This building represents the future of Buffalo…if it gets built, and succeeds, then the psyche of Buffalo can really start to change for the better

If it doesn’t get built then it’s a statement that nothing has changed in Buffalo and we’re doomed to our fate like we always have been.

Issa…don’t fuck up. This is huge. Like…4 super bowl losses-no goal-adelphia communications tower-crawdaddy tower-new peace bridge-UB downtown campus huge.

*Photos from BuffaloRising…always go to them for new development news before me.