Buffalo » The Frank Lloyd Wright Newsblog

Davidson House Book Reviewed on Wright in Racine

Jan 222012

Mark Hertzberg’s site has a review of a new book, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Walter V. Davidson House: An Examination of a Buffalo Home and its Cousins from Coast to Coast (available from Graycliff directly). The author, Patrick Mahoney, is an architect and the founding member of the Graycliff Conservancy, the organization that first saved and then restored Darwin Martin’s Wright-designed Summer estate on Lake Erie.

I haven’t yet seen the book, but I’d trust Mark’s review; as an author and photographer, Mark knows the potential of a Wright book as well as anyone and as a professional journalist, he has trained eye for the strengths and weaknesses of non-fiction work.

I’ve said before, the best category of books on Wright is the site-specific book. His career is too long and varied to easily characterize from the whole; his talents and originality are best seen in the particular, not the aggregate. (and Hertzberg knows a good site-specific book when he sees one — he’s written a few himself).

The Adventures of a Concrete Block

Buffalo, Japan, Restoration/Renovation No Responses »

Jan 162012

The Weekly Wright-Up has the story of a piece of the Imperial Hotel.

Cast a Vote for Graycliff

Buffalo, Organizations, Restoration/Renovation No Responses »

Dec 132011

Graycliff, Darwin Martin’s Wright-designed house on Lake Erie, is one of four Buffalo-area properties in the running for a $10,000 award from The National Trust for Historic Preservation. Go to the voting page on Facebook to cast your support.

Lost, But Maybe Not As Lost As We Thought

Audio & Video, Buffalo, History, Lost No Responses »

Nov 222011

WGRZ in Buffalo has a story on the tantalizing possibility that important pieces of Wright’s Larkin Administration Building are waiting to be discovered under a park in Buffalo.

When the Larkin was demolished, the debris was used to fill in an old canal and a park was built — it’s assumed that potentially important pieces could be found at the site. Carved epigrams, ornamentation, even parts of a fountain and large stone reception desk may lie beneath the park grounds.

The plan seems aspirational — the news story says nothing about the feasibility of the plan. Modern archaeology is expensive, and modern digs (even the well-funded ones of classical sites) use technology to identify a small area to study. I think excavating an entire park and sifting through tons of mostly uninteresting debris would be prohibitively expensive. Love to be wrong, though

A Gift to the Darwin Martin House

Buffalo, News, NY, Restoration/Renovation No Responses »

Nov 182011

The Darwin Martin House in Buffalo has received a $250,000 gift as the foundation for a $750,000 challenge grant. The challenge grant will go towards a slate of interior restorations estimated to cost $5 million or into an endowment fund. The planned interior renovations include recreation of Wright’s layered wall treatments, and a full restoration of the Martin fireplace that featured a glass tile mosaic.

The donation was made by Louis Ciminelli, head of LPCiminelli Co, a Buffalo construction firm.

Martin House Piano

Buffalo, Restoration/Renovation, Web Sites Comments Off

Nov 062011

The Weekly Wright-Up has a post on Wright’s unexecuted design for the family piano for the Darwin Martin House.

The unaltered piano was donated back to the Martin House in 2006 and has been returned to its rightful place in the living room.

The Graycliff Conservancy Buys a House

Buffalo, News, NY, Restoration/Renovation 2 Responses »

Oct 302011

A $135,000 purchase by the Graycliff Conservancy has knitted together the original parcel owned by Darwin and Isabelle Martin on the shores of Lake Erie, Graycliff.

The Conservancy has bought the 1934 gardner’s cottage, a bungalow designed by an unknown architect almost certainly not Frank Lloyd Wright. The Conservancy hopes that information about the designer inside the house. Wright did draw up plans for a caretaker’s cottage, but it was never built.

Much of the 1934 house is still in its original condition — including a cypress and brick fireplace that uses the same materials as a fireplace in what is now named the Isabelle R. Martin House.

The house also still has its original maple floor, window frames made of cypress and exterior stucco that, though painted a different color, mimics the Wright-designed buildings on the estate.

The cottage will be used as a residence, possibly for a caretaker or visiting scholar, and there are plans to allow public access through tours or special events.

Finishing Touches

Buffalo, News, NY, Restoration/Renovation 1 Response »

Oct 202011

The National Trust for Historic Preservation is meeting in Buffalo, and the Darwin Martin House is ready for its close-up.

Buffalo Rising has a post, with photos, on the latest steps the Martin House Restoration Corp has taken toward completing the restoration.

The Weekly Wright-Up, the blog maintained by the Martin House curators, mentioned that the ferns and flower arrangements in the house replicate those seen in a 1907 series of photos of house.

Henry Hobson Richardson Gets the Buffalo Touch

Buffalo, News, NY, Restoration/Renovation, Tangential Comments Off

Sep 282011

This October Buffalo, New York will offer a preview of the plans to restore the Richardson Olmstead Complex, a signature work of architect Henry Hobson Richardson and landscape architect Frederick Law Olmstead.

After decades of disrepair, a rehabbed portion of the mammoth Medina sandstone and brick facility, now known as the Richardson Olmsted Complex, will temporarily open for the National Preservation Conference in October, providing a glimpse into its future.

The plan is to turn the tower building and two buildings flanking it, equaling close to one-third of the complex, into a boutique hotel and conference center, architecture center and possible Visit Buffalo Niagara satellite location. Construction is planned to begin by 2013, with the hotel and other entities opening in 2014.

Visitors entering the iconic patina-capped tower building, last occupied in the early 1990s, will see repaired and replaced plaster walls, now painted taupe and salmon; repaired 16-foot-tall ceilings and ornamental crown moldings; and refurbished maple floors, interior woodwork and grand staircase. The area covers two hallways, an entryway, three rooms and a curved connector — about half the first floor.

“It looks great. I never thought it would be looking that good in my lifetime,” said Frank Kowsky, a Richardson scholar and retired Buffalo State College art history professor who toured the building recently. “It’s only limited to the ground floor and the staircase, but it’s quite something.”

The 11 building complex is the first example of Richardson Romanesque, his signature style and one that shows up as hints in the work of Louis Sullivan.

Further construction is expected to begin in 2013 and completion is planned for 2014.

Buffalo’s Wright Gas Station

Buffalo, News, NY No Responses »

Sep 262011

Here’s an article on Buffalo’s transportation Museum. A long-planned expansion to the museum will include a Frank Lloyd Wright-designed gas station that was designed but never built for the city.

The authenticity of such projects is debated in architectural circles. Some critics consider them dubious at best, since Wright’s designs were site-specific and were often reworked on site.

“We love the controversy,” Sandoro said. “I think it’s a great discussion. A lot of the purists who were criticizing us and came in 2009 to the [Frank Lloyd] Wright Building Conservancy conference — we actually hosted a meeting here — turned it right around because we are putting it inside, and we’re able to explore it as a model of exactly what he was going to build at Michigan and Cherry. We’re never holding it out to anybody that he actually built it.”

Wright scholar and author Jack Quinan said he has grown less critical of the filling station because it will be an exhibit inside a museum. “It gives us a chance to experience what Wright was only able to put on paper, but which was an idea. It gives Buffalo a claim to importance. This was his idea for servicing the automobile, and it happened here, in a way,” said Quinan, an art history professor at the University at Buffalo. Still, Quinan said he remains uneasy about bringing Wright’s unrealized projects to life.

“There is a danger it could cheapen the real stuff,” he said.

Construction has yet to begin on the building that will house the gas station — that’s planned for next spring.

Older Entries

Suffusion theme by Sayontan Sinha

The Frank Lloyd Wright Newsblog