E.B. Green

Edward B. Green (1855-1950)

Buffalo's Most Prolific Architect
Other architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright, Louis Sullivan and H.H. Richardson are better known and more acclaimed, but none can match the prolific imprint Edward B. Green left on the city of Buffalo.

During Green’s 72-year career he designed more than 370 major structures from Maine to Indiana, more than two-thirds of them in Buffalo, with about 160 of those in Buffalo surviving. His style seems to have been to design whatever his clients wanted. Thus, it is not surprising that he was often first among local architects to receive commissions for the design of the city’s significant civic, commercial, educational, religious and residential buildings.

Born in Utica, he was graduated from Cornell University with a degree in architecture. With an MIT graduate, William S. Wicks, he opened a partnership in Auburn, then moved their office to Buffalo in 1881.

The Early Years
One of his earliest creations was the First Presbyterian Church (1891). The Richardson Romanesque building of Medina sandstone with its tall single tower creates a dramatic focal point on the Symphony Circle end of Richmond Avenue, complementing the twin towers of H. H. Richardson's Buffalo State Hospital at the other.

By 1892, the firm began designing nearly every other house on Delaware Avenue, then Buffalo’s most exclusive street, in a district now known as Millionaires’ Row. Green designed ten grand homes in a variety of styles, mostly Renaissance revival. They included the Charles W. Goodyear House at 888 Delaware, the George B. Matthews House at 830 Delaware, the Forman-Cabana House at 824 Delaware, and the Carolyn Tripp Clement House / Red Cross Building
at 786 Delaware.

Green and Wicks designed the city’s only historic covered shopping arcade, the Market Arcade Building (1892), with entrances on Main and Washington Streets, generally regarded as the forerunner of the contemporary suburban mall. Green designed the M.H. Birge and Sons Co. building  for the renowned wallpaper firm in 1895 and, in 1896, a townhouse for its president Henry Birge, at 477 Delaware Ave. In 1900, he designed the casino and boathouse for Delaware Park Lake, as well as the cast bronze lamps throughout the park. Downtown, Green’s gold-domed Buffalo Savings Bank (1901) attested to the city’s growing economic strength.¹

Pan-American Board of Architects, Green designed three buildings for the 1901 Exposition. His principal client over the years was Buffalo industrialist John J. Albright. After Green had completed several commissions during the 1890s,  Albright donated $350,000 in 1900 for the construction of a new art gallery and hired Green’s firm to begin design of what became the Albright-Knox Art Gallery.

Although the building was not be completed in time for the Exposition, the gallery’s location on a knoll at the western end of Delaware Park Lake inspired Green to produce one of his most scholarly designs and create the most academically-correct Greek temple his firm was capable of producing. He persuaded Albright that the design would not be complete without caryatids supporting the north and south porch roofs. Sculpted by Augustus Saint-Gaudens, they were installed in 1933. The building is on the National Register of Historic Places. Green was made a member of the gallery’s board of directors, a capacity in which he would serve for 46 years.

E.B. Green and Sons.
After Wicks’s retirement in 1917, E.B.’s son, Edward Jr. joined his father’s office and the firm of Edward B. Green and Sons was founded. The firm’s commercial buildings include the Genesee Building (1923), now renovated and incorporated into the downtown Hyatt Regency Hotel, and the Marine National Bank Building on Main Street. Green’s use of granite, stone brick and limestone gave structures an air of permanence, yet he tempered the feeling of massiveness with careful detailing. He designed the Buffalo Athletic Club in a Colonial Revival style, but many of the rooms have a Moorish quality, with graceful arches in the entry hall, lounge and grill room.

Mayfair Lane
Green designed the townhouse development on North Street known as Mayfair Lane (1928), with houses set in an idealized English medieval atmosphere. It was planned to accommodate a streamlined lifestyle within walking distance of the downtown business section without sacrificing modern conveniences such as underground garages.

University at Buffalo
Green and Sons had won the commission to create a master plan for the University of Buffalo on Main Street and to design several key buildings. Edward Jr. was the architect in charge of designing Crosby Hall, Norton Hall and Lockwood Memorial Library when he died of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1933. From 1933-36, Green Sr. worked on the project until R. Maxwell James joined the firm, which became Green and James.

For approximately ten years, the firm worked on plans for the buildings, choosing English Renaissance style to enclose the campus and to create a sense of place and identity.

They used Lockwood Library as the focal point,  with other buildings placed geometrically according to function, establishing a hierarchy of functions through geometrical relationships. Their intent was to create major open space surrounded by academic buildings. Auxiliary areas would accommodate student housing, athletic facilities and service buildings. In addition to the Lockwood Library, the Green firm designed 16 buildings on the U.B. campus.

Later Work and Legacy
Green’s work after 1933 included the Tonawanda City Hall, a plain structure in pale stone dress with an art deco trim, possibly his only modern design. Green and James designed Memorial Auditorium in downtown Buffalo, a building typical of that era’s Works Progress Administration publicly-funded architecture. By 1940, E. B. Green was working as a consultant for Green and James, with most commissions on industrial or public projects.

Green’s career contributions were best summarized by Buffalo historian Austin Fox who wrote, “Edward B. Green and his partners left an indelible imprint on Buffalo. It is hard to visualize the city without Green’s buildings. They help form the profile of the city and give it some of its personality and its refinement.”²
Green retired in 1945 and died in 1950 at age 95. He is buried in Forest Lawn.

NOTES AND SOURCES:
¹To appreciate the range and variety of the work of Green and Associates, see the list of surviving E.B. Green buildings is here.
²Austin M. Fox, “The Greening of Buffalo: How Architect E.B. Green Shaped the Profile of the City.” Chuck LaChiusa, “Buffalo as an Architectural Museum: Edward Brodhead Green.”

Photos of Green, First Presbyterian Church and Crosby Hall by Chuck LaChiusa.Also see Reyner Banham et al., Buffalo Architecture: A Guide, (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1981), pp. 313-14, and Andy  Olenick and Richard O. Reisem, Classic Buffalo: A Heritage of Distinguished Architecture (Buffalo: Canisius College Press, 2000), pp. 136-143.