What’s New

NEW BURCHFIELD PENNEY ART CENTER SET TO OPEN

After almost ten years of planning, fundraising and construction, the New Burchfield Penney Art Center will open to the public on November 22, 2008.  Designed by Gwathmey, Siegel & Associates Architects, the 84,000 square foot building will be certified at the “silver” level by the U.S. Green Building Council.  The museum is dedicated to the art and vision of Charles E. Burchfield and distinguished artists of Buffalo Niagara and Western New York State.  It houses more than 7,500 works by artists who have lived or worked in Western New York and contains the largest public collection of works by one of America’s greatest watercolorists, Charles E. Burchfield. 

ERIE CANAL HARBOR IS RESTORED

Erie Canal Harbor, America’s Gateway to the West, has been revived and restored and is now open to the public for the first time in generations.  The 184-year-old Commercial Slip has been excavated and re-watered, a replica “bowstring” pedestrian bridge that spans the slip has been built, a re-creation of the wooden Central Wharf put in place and foundations of Erie Canal-era buildings unearthed.  The $53 million heritage tourism site promises to become a must-see destination for American history buffs.

BUFFALO NAMED TOP ARTS DESTINATION

The April 2008 issue of AmericanStyle magazine has proclaimed Buffalo the “No. 1 Arts Destination for Mid-Sized Cities” in the publication’s annual “Top 25 Arts Destinations” poll. For more than a decade, arts travelers have trusted the magazine’s poll to guide them to emerging arts scenes and cultural meccas. The magazine cited the construction of the new Burchfield-Penney Art Center, the quality of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery collection and the development of Artspace Buffalo as a home for artists and artisans as reasons why Buffalo is a top-tier arts destination. More…

MARTIN HOUSE VISITORS CENTER

The Martin House Restoration Corporation (MHRC), which operates Frank Lloyd Wright’s landmark Darwin D. Martin House Complex, has announced a $2.5 million gift for its new, Toshiko Mori-designed visitor center pavilion. Wright’s largest Prairie Style complex (32,000 square feet) is currently undergoing a $40 million renovation to restore it to the original 1907 condition. The gift from the East Hill Foundation enables the MHRC to begin construction on the visitor center in late February with completion anticipated in late 2008. The 6,000-square-foot building will serve as the entryway for visitors and will house exhibits featuring architectural drawings and archival photographs of the Martin House.  More…

NATIONAL PRESERVATION CONFERENCE

The National Trust for Historic Preservation has announced that Buffalo will serve as the host city for the National Preservation Conference in 2011. The National Preservation Conference is the largest gathering of its kind in the United States, annually attracting more than 2,000 attendees to participate in a weeklong series of field sessions, education workshops, and tours that showcase outstanding local examples of architecture, historic preservation and community revitalization. Richard Moe, the president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, noted that Buffalo was chosen for a variety of reasons, including the city’s rich architectural heritage. More…

ONE OF AMERICA'S TOP TEN NEIGHBORHOODS

Recently voted one of the country’s top ten neighborhoods by the American Planning Association, Buffalo’s Elmwood Village shares this heady designation with the likes of Brooklyn’s Park Slope, San Francisco’s North Beach and the Pike Place Market in Seattle. The APA selected the Elmwood Village because of its “vitality, broad spectrum of cultural and social assets, and its commitment to maintaining high community standards while solving real problems.” More…

FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT'S ROWING BOATHOUSE

Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fontana Boathouse made its long-awaited debut on Saturday, Sept. 29, 2007, at Buffalo’s West Side Rowing Club on the city’s Black Rock Channel. “After 100 years as a set of drawings gathering dust on a shelf, it is about time this famous Wrightian boathouse will finally come out of the ground and into the light,” said John C. Courtin, a founding director of FLW’s Rowing Boathouse Corporation. More …

LOUIS GRACHOS ON THE ALBRIGHT-KNOX ART GALLERY

Albright-Knox Art Gallery Executive Director Louis Grachos is the Buffalo Niagara CVB’s guest on the second episode of “American Masters, American Treasures,” the Buffalo podcast. Hear what he has to say about the second edition of the Beyond/In Western New York biennial exhibition, the arrival in Buffalo in November of the Panza Collection and what the future might hold for one of America’s great art museums. More …

FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT'S GARDENER'S COTTAGE TOURS

The Gardener’s Cottage is now included on the In-Depth and Focus Tours at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Darwin Martin House Complex. This delightful 1909 Wright designed building has rarely been seen by the public before now. Wright designed a cottage for the Martin family’s gardener as part of the overall estate plan in 1905, but it was not built until 1909. Lovingly restored and renovated in 1991, it is a lovely example of Wright’s design approach for an affordable home for a working class family. Now open for public viewing. More…

BUFFALO'S ARCHITECTURAL TREASURES VIDEO

“Buffalo's Architectural Treasures”, produced by WNED-TV and the Buffalo Niagara Convention & Visitors Bureau, provides a ten-minute introduction to the city writer R.W. Apple, in “Apple’s America”, called "a textbook for a course in modern American buildings.” Hosted by noted Buffalo lecturer, author and activist, Tim Tielman, the video is viewable in Flash format and as a podcast. More …

NEIL LEVINE ON FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT'S BUFFALO

Harvard University professor and noted Wright scholar and author Neil Levine chats with the Buffalo Niagara CVB about Buffalo's Frank Lloyd Wright architecture in the inaugural episode of “American Masters, American Treasures,” the Buffalo podcast. After touring Graycliff for the first time in ten years, Professor Levine called the 8-acre estate “surprisingly beautiful” and commented that “it’s actually going to have to be re-thought as part of Wright’s complete works.” More …