Buffalo Architecture Guide

At the start of the twentieth century Buffalo was one of the richest cities in America, and it spent its wealth on architecture. The result is a collection of buildings and landscapes that rivals much larger cities, from a Wright masterpiece and an early Sullivan skyscraper to a Richardson landmark and an Olmsted park system. This guide organizes the highlights so you can plan an architecture-focused visit, whether you have a day or a weekend.Frank Lloyd Wright. The Darwin D. Martin House is the headline. Built from 1903 to 1905 for a Larkin Company executive, it is a Prairie-style complex with a main house, pergola, conservatory and carriage house, and hundreds of art-glass windows. The Barton House, built for Martin's sister, sits on the same estate. Graycliff, the Martin family's summer home on Lake Erie, shows a different, lighter side of Wright, and it is best visited in the warmer months. Other Wright works around the region include the Fontana Boathouse on the Black Rock Canal and the Blue Sky Mausoleum at Forest Lawn Cemetery, both completed after his death. The Larkin Administration Building, once a landmark of modern office design, was demolished in the 1950s, which is a reminder of how much the city nearly lost.Louis Sullivan and downtown. The Guaranty Building, designed by Louis Sullivan and Dankmar Adler in the 1890s, is a masterpiece of early skyscraper design, covered in rich terra-cotta ornament. Nearby, the Ellicott Square Building, one of the largest office buildings of its day, has a grand interior court. Lafayette Square and its surroundings include the Central Library and the Brisbane Building, and the Hotel at the Lafayette, designed by Louise Bethune, is a rare surviving work by one of the first professional women architects in the United States. City Hall, an Art Deco tower completed in 1931, has a free observation deck and a spectacular lobby.H.H. Richardson and Olmsted. The Richardson Olmsted Campus, formerly the Buffalo State Asylum, is a monumental Romanesque stone complex designed by Henry Hobson Richardson with grounds by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux. Part of it has been reborn as a hotel and architecture center, offering tours. Olmsted and Vaux also created Buffalo's park system, the first of its kind in the country, with Delaware Park, Front Park, South Park and the parkways that link them. Walking or cycling these landscapes shows how nineteenth-century planners imagined a humane, green city.Industrial heritage. Buffalo's grain elevators, the concrete giants of the waterfront, inspired European modernists and now host events and art. Larkinville's brick factories have found new life as offices and restaurants, showing adaptive reuse at its best. A guided bike tour of the Outer Harbor is an excellent way to see the silos, and a food tour of Larkinville adds taste to the story.How to do it. Reserve the Martin House first. Combine it with a walking tour of downtown, either with a guide or on your own using a map from the tourism office. Add the City Hall observation deck on a weekday. If you are staying overnight, consider a historic hotel such as The Richardson or the Hotel at the Lafayette, which let you sleep inside the architecture. Plan outdoor tours for the warmer months, and check museum and tour schedules before you travel.Why it matters. Buffalo's buildings tell a story of boom, decline and revival. The same wealth that commissioned masterpieces also left the city with many empty landmarks when industries moved away, and the fight to save them, led by preservationists, residents and developers, is part of what makes the city feel so engaged today. Seeing the buildings is a way of understanding that story.A sample architecture day. Start at the Martin House for a morning tour, drive to downtown for lunch near Lafayette Square, then walk past the Guaranty Building, Ellicott Square and the Central Library. Take the elevator at City Hall to the observation deck on a weekday, and finish with a stroll through the Richardson campus grounds or a bike ride through Delaware Park at sunset. If you prefer a guided approach, a downtown food tour mixes architecture and tastings, and a bike tour covers more ground. Bring comfortable shoes, a camera and curiosity, and look up often, because many of the best details are above the storefronts.