SCVNGR Adaptive Reuse Trek

Tour Locations

• Art Space (formerly Buffalo Vehicle Company) (1910)

  Formerly the Buffalo Electric Vehicle Company, ArtSpace is an early example of daylight factory design.  The reinforced concrete and steel structure allow for ample fenestration, admitting profuse amounts of natural light to enter the interior of the building.  The exposed structural language of daylight factories, like this one, attracted the eyes of European modernist architects, like Walter Gropius, Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier, seeking sincerity in design, and promoting a functional aesthetic over one based in historical styles.  

• Buffalo Grain Elevators

  Perhaps some of the city’s most well-known structures, the Grain Elevators were frequently used by early European modernists as examples of functional approaches to formal and material experimentation.  In 1913, Walter Gropius published a series of images of Buffalo’s grain elevators and daylight factories in the Jahrbuch.  These images sparked international interest in these buildings, being reproduced by Le Corbusier in his manifesto, Vers Une Architecture, and recaptured by the German architect Erich Mendelsohn, who visited Buffalo specifically to photograph and draw the grain elevators at first hand.  These works by Mendelsohn were then published in his book on American industrial architecture, Amerika:  Bilderbuch eines Architekten.  The history of these structures, and their importance to the field of architecture, is well documented in Reyner Banham’s A Concrete Atlantis.  His descriptions and analysis are also exquisitely complemented by photographs captured by Patricia Bazelon.

• H. H. Richardson Center (also known as the Buffalo State Hospital) (1890-1896)

  H. H. Richardson

  Like Louis Sullivan and Danial Burnham, H. H. Richardson was one of the most renowned architects of his day, and his contributions to American 19th century architecture cannot be over-estimated.  Of the extant examples of this architect’s profuse oeuvre, the Buffalo State Hospital is one of the largest, and represents his only hospital design.  

• New York Central Terminal (1929)

  Fellheimer and Wagnre

  The New York Central Terminal is one of the most important Art Deco monuments in Buffalo.  Its size and presence are easily comparable to that of Buffalo’s City Hall.  The interior is designed in a dramatic interpretation of ancient Roman baths, with large, continuous barrel vaults, punctured by broad arches of fenestration, which admit an almost cinematic raking light into the depths of the interior.  At is peek, the Central Terminal competed in form, beauty and size, with such recognizable monuments as New York’s Grand Central Terminal and the Old Pennsylvania Station, serving as a regional transportation hub, providing access between the large cities of the Northeast and those of the Midwest.  

• Packard Automobile Building (1926)

  Albert Kahn

  Like ArtSpace, and the Pierce-Arrow Building on Elmwood, the Packard building once housed automobile manufacturing, with street level showrooms for displaying new models.  Today, the Packard building houses 40 mixed-income living units, and has become an example of the possibilities of adaptive reuse strategies for any number of Buffalo’s historical industrial buildings.

• Pierce Arrow Motor Car Company (1906-1907)

  Lockwood, Green & Company (with Albert Kahn)

  Another example of automobile manufacturing design, the Pierce-Arrow building is unique for the way in which it centralized all of the various functions of automobile manufacture, administration, presentation and sales under one roof.  Unlike other major manufacturers of its day, the Pierce-Arrow company (which got its start manufacturing bicycles) specialized in unique, hand-crafted, high-end automotive design and fabrication, which put it at a competitive disadvantage compared with other car companies who could produce cars faster and sell them at lower prices

• TriMain Center (1915)

  Albert Kahn

  Designed by one of the most well-known architects of daylight factories, TriCo Plant #2 is one of the largest examples of this kind of architecture extant in Buffalo today.  Its terracotta and brick façade, complemented by robust fenestration, presents a handsome exterior along Main Street.  Like other daylight factories, with ample floor space and a relatively open floor plan, TriCo Plant #2 is an ideal candidate for adaptive reuse, and currently houses a number of small companies, as well as a ground-story restaurant, and artist studios and exhibition space on the third floor.