[Mori] is confident the architectural integrity of the project has been preserved.

“The way we were able to scale it back is really intelligent. From the exterior you don’t see anything, because what we eliminated [concerned] the basement. We really didn’t compromise,” Mori said.

Mary Roberts, the Martin House Restoration Corp.’s executive director, said the board made adjustments to stay within budget without changing the character of the project.

“The basic design of the building has not been compromised, and the board would not have supported something like that if it had been proposed. We’ve always insisted on maintaining the integrity of the original design, and that is what we are going to build,” Roberts said.

Mori, 56, a native of Kobe, Japan, who won an international competition to design the visitors center, said that conceiving something that would stand next to a Wright masterpiece caused her “lots of sleepless nights and nightmares.”

“You’re so tied in to a legacy,” she said. “You can freeze. You can have architect’s block, like writer’s block. The psychological issues were larger than the design issues.”

Laughing, she said she imagined Wright was “ready to kill me.”

Mori decided early that she couldn’t imitate Wright directly. She decided instead to explore “the strategy of contrast.”

She used extensive areas of glass to render the pavilion light, insubstantial, open and public, in contrast to the dark, enclosing, weighty and opaque brick forms of the Martin House.

But she also filled her design with subtle references to Wright’s architecture, including the inverted hipped roof that rides atop the glass pavilion.

“The last thing I wanted to do next to (Wright’s) work was historicize it,” she said. “If I just did a glass pavilion, which looked very contemporary, that would be a complete opposite contrast. That would historicize his work as part of a past. I did not do that.”

Toshiko Mori’s website has a number of photos of the model of the visitor’s center and drawings showing how the building will fit into the Martin complex.

Rates for rooms start at $1,000 a night.

“When you hear $1,000 a night for a room it might seem like a lot, but in the end it’s not about the price, it’s about the experience,” said Bill Carroll, a professor at Cornell University’s School of Hotel Administration. “It’s such a unique destination. It really is about the cachet.” Carroll spent his honeymoon at The Plaza 41 years ago.

Nelda Johns of Dallas, who stopped by Saturday, recalled staying at the hotel as a child with her parents. Her husband Ken Johns said the place had gotten “a little dingy” before it closed. But looking around at the gleaming mosaic floors, sparkling chandeliers and gold-trimmed ceilings, he said, “They’ve done a nice job.”

A highlight of the restoration is a stained-glass ceiling, called a laylight, in the Palm Court dining room near the lobby. The laylight was replaced in the 1940s by a plaster ceiling, so “it hasn’t been seen in most people’s lifetimes,” said Sarah Carroll, director of preservation for the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission, which worked with the hotel owners to ensure that landmarked features were properly restored.

Glass shards and old photos were all researchers had to go on to recreate the laylight. Carroll called the result — a backlit yellow-and-green geometric design trimmed with roses — “a perfect crown for that room.”

The Palm Court serves breakfast, lunch, dinner and afternoon tea. A new Champagne Bar in the lobby offers cocktails, champagne by the glass ($25-$60) or by the bottle, with a top price of $3,350 for a magnum.

Hotel general manager Shane Krige said the renovated guest rooms “bridge the world between the old and the new” with flat-screen TVs, electronic key cards, iPod docks and digital touchscreens that let guests change lighting and temperature or call for assistance. Touches of old-fashioned opulence include 24-karat gold-plated faucets, mosaic bathroom floors and white-gloved butlers, one per floor, on call 24 hours. Guests of all ages can request an “Eloise” bubble bath, with milk and cookies.

The Plaza Hotel also includes residential units; all but one have sold.

The Walter V. Davidson House in Buffalo, New York is now availiable for overnight rentals — an ideal base for exploring Buffalo’s architectural wonders.

Now you can experience the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright as he intended - as a home. Come see the genius of Frank Lloyd Wright at your leisure. Whether sharing a meal, reading a book, spending time with your family, or simply relaxing you will come to appreciate the relationship the great architect created between a family and a home. When you come to stay at the Walter V. Davidson House you are reserving the entire house for your use. This fully equipped three bedroom home with two full baths accommodates up to five people. The home is yours alone to enjoy.

The Davidson House is a Prairie Style home designed by Wright in 1908 for an executive of the Larkin Company; it is within walking distance of the Darwin Martin House, and a short drive from the William R. Heath House. It is located close to the Buffalo Zoo and Frederick Law Olmstead’s Delaware Park.

Nevertheless, the decision to destroy prominent features of the historic landscape was difficult, said Mary F. Roberts, Martin House chief executive officer.

“It was very difficult, very emotional,” she said.

The go-ahead was given only after the project architect, Hamilton Houston and Lownie; the construction manager; the restoration group’s staff and board; and the state Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation concurred.

“Completion of this restoration work — impossible without their removal — is more central to the critical path of the Martin House project,” Roberts said. “This is a sad, but necessary, decision.”

The restoration of the property’s 1907 landscape is one of the last phases of the project — Wright scholars are meeting in Buffalo later this year to discuss this subject — and the trees will likely be replaced at that time.

Though he was the leading proponent of “organic” architecture, in which buildings reflect and embrace their natural environment, Wright generally regarded trees as subject to the vagaries of time, the elements and architecture itself, which suggests he would support “the removal and probable later replanting of these trees,” Roberts said.

Low temperatures in the buffalo-area are apparently the cause of broken pipes at the Darwin Martin House that caused several rooms to flood. The problem was first discovered in the gift shop, but the water spread to several rooms. Firefighters had t locate and shut off multiple valves to stop the flooding. the extent of damage at this time is unknown.

(via PrairieMod)

From Wilson and Eleanor Greatbatch (Wilson was an early innovator of the implanted pacemaker), the gift has spurred construction of the long-planned Visitor’s Center — now named the Eleanor and Wilson Greatbatch Pavilion — on the western edge of the Martin property.

Based on Wright’s strong belief in “organic principles,” the transparent, glass-walled pavilion was designed to visually connect the landscape with its interior.

Proportions and geometries that Wright used in the Martin House, such as the dramatically cantilevered roof, are reflected in Mori’s design. Building systems will include geothermal heating and air conditioning and other environmentally sensitive equipment.

Roberts said it will cost about $5 million to build the center, which will house exhibits containing Wright’s drawings for the Martin House, as well as archival photographs of the house and the Martin family.

One exhibit will be a timeline showing how the “age of invention” paralleled Martin’s and Wright’s lifetimes, and paying homage to Wilson Greatbatch, inventor of the implantable heart pacemaker, and Eleanor Greatbatch.

“Our goal is to restate the importance of Wright’s place in setting the tone for today’s architecture,” said Mori, who is chairwoman of Harvard University’s architecture department and practices in New York City.

Ground will be broken in late February and the building should open to the public in early 2009.

Mori’s website has a few photos of the architectural model and images of the site plan showing the location of the building. (Some think placing a 21st Century building in the constricted Martin site is troubling. I’ve seen the models in person, and the challenges of the site seem to have been handled with great sensitivity and skill. While it can be argued that any encroachment into Wright’s plan for the site is detrimental, I doubt that there is a better way to handle the numbers of visitors to the site — and without large numbers of visitors, there is no restoration)

Update: Buffalo Rising has a post on the news, and they include a photo of the model of the Martin complex with the visitor’s center.

Architects Patrick Mahoney of Buffalo and Anthony Puttnam, a former apprentice and the architect of Monona Terrace, are working on the project.

I’ve seen, but don’t yet own the book (the whole jobless and penniless thing). It looks impressive and seems solid and informative — a work that pairs good written content with good photographs, the type of book we need more of.