A Concrete Atlantis

A Concrete Atlantis

Author: Reyner Banham

Publisher: Mit Press

Published: 1989

Total Pages: 266

ISBN-13: 9780262521246

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"Let us listen to the counsels of American engineers. But let us beware of American architects!" declared Le Corbusier, who like other European architects of his time believed that he saw in the work of American industrial builders a model of the way architecture should develop. It was a vision of an ideal world, a "concrete Atlantis" made up of daylight factories and grain elevators.In a book that suggests how good Modern was before it went wrong, Reyner Banham details the European discovery of this concrete Atlantis and examines a number of striking architectural instances where aspects of the International Style are anticipated by US industrial buildings.


American Chartres

American Chartres

Author: Bruce Jackson

Publisher: Excelsior Editions

Published: 2016

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781438462578

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Documents the city's surviving grain elevators and their profound influence on twentieth-century architecture.


Sandfuture

Sandfuture

Author: Justin Beal

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2021-09-14

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 0262367181

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An account of the life and work of the architect Minoru Yamasaki that leads the author to consider how (and for whom) architectural history is written. Sandfuture is a book about the life of the architect Minoru Yamasaki (1912–1986), who remains on the margins of history despite the enormous influence of his work on American architecture and society. That Yamasaki’s most famous projects—the Pruitt-Igoe apartments in St. Louis and the original World Trade Center in New York—were both destroyed on national television, thirty years apart, makes his relative obscurity all the more remarkable. Sandfuture is also a book about an artist interrogating art and architecture’s role in culture as New York changes drastically after a decade bracketed by terrorism and natural disaster. From the central thread of Yamasaki’s life, Sandfuture spirals outward to include reflections on a wide range of subjects, from the figure of the architect in literature and film and transformations in the contemporary art market to the perils of sick buildings and the broader social and political implications of how, and for whom, cities are built. The result is at once sophisticated in its understanding of material culture and novelistic in its telling of a good story.


Buffalo Architecture

Buffalo Architecture

Author: Reyner Banham

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 1981-10-19

Total Pages: 356

ISBN-13: 9780262520638

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Buffalo's rich architectural and planning heritage has attracted the attention of several prominent historians, whose work here is accompanied by over 250 illustrations and photographs. For its size, the city of Buffalo, New York, possesses a remarkable number and variety of architectural masterpieces from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: Adler and Sullivan's Prudential building, H. H. Richardson's massive Buffalo State Hospital, Richard Upjohn's Sr. Paul's Episcopal Cathedral, five prairie houses by Frank Lloyd Wright, and building by Daniel Burnham, Albert Kahn, and the firms of McKim, Mead, and White, and Lockwood, Green and Company, among others. These structures by prominent "outsiders" served to spur the efforts of local architects, builders, and craftsmen, and all of them built within the context of the city-wide park and parkway system designed by Frederick Law Olmsted. In addition, the city and its environs exhibit representative works by more recent architects, among them Eero and Eliel Saarinen, Walther Gropius, Marcel Breuer, Paul Rudloph, Minoru Yamasaki, and the firm of Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill. Buffalo's rich architectural and planning heritage has attracted the attention of several prominent historians, capable of the challenge of evaluating its significance. Reyner Banham is one of the world's leading authorities on the theory and practice of architecture, and he has written extensively on design in the industrial age (and Buffalo's innovative manufacturing plants and grain elevators are important exemplars of such design). Charles Beveridge, whose essay covers the park and parkway system, is editor of the Olmsted papers at The American University. And Henry Russell Hitchcock is the dean of American architectural historians, and the organizer of a 1940 exhibition on Buffalo's built environment. Their essays are followed by seven sections that delineate the city's neighborhoods, each provided with a map, neighborhood history, and a full complement of photographs with descriptive building captions. An eighth section, "Lost Buffalo," describes demolished buildings, chief among them Wright's great Larkin administration building, while the remaining sections venture out of town, exploring Erie and Niagara Counties, other parts of Western New York, and southern Ontario.


Reconsidering Concrete Atlantis

Reconsidering Concrete Atlantis

Author: Landmark Society of the Niagara Frontier

Publisher:

Published: 2007-01-01

Total Pages: 124

ISBN-13: 9781931612128

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The Buffalo Grain Elevater Project begun in 2001 with grants from the National Endowment for the Arts ant the New york State Counhcil on the Arts/Preservation League, wad built on the work of many people and organizations. Its goal were to take the next step in the perservation of the elevators through their nomination to the National Register of Historic Places and renew a conversation about the future of these artifacts ant their role in the changing economic and cultural structure of the region. This book is a record of the community effort on behalf of the Buffalo grain elevators through a project by the Landmark Society of the Niagara Frontier and the Urban Design Project of the University of Buffalo/SUNY. It describes the efforts of academics, perservationists, community people and funding agencies; it builds on the efforts of those who have been working for many years; and it gives hope to all who will continue in this project.


Grain Dust Dreams

Grain Dust Dreams

Author: David W. Tarbet

Publisher: SUNY Press

Published: 2015-06-26

Total Pages: 124

ISBN-13: 1438458169

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Explores the history and present-day reality of grain elevators on the Great Lakes. Grain Dust Dreams tells the story of terminal grain elevators—concrete colossi that stand in the middle of a deep river of grain that they lift, sort, and send on. From their invention in Buffalo, New York, through their present-day operation in Thunder Bay, Ontario, David W. Tarbet examines the difficulties and dangers of working in a grain elevator—showing how they operate and describing the effects that the grain trade has on the lives of individuals and cities. As Tarbet shows, the impact of these impressive concrete structures even extends beyond their working lives. Buildings that were created for a commercial purpose had a surprising and unintended cultural consequence. European modernist architects were taken by the size and elegance of American concrete elevators and used them as models for a revolution in architecture. When the St. Lawrence Seaway made it possible for large ships to bypass Buffalo, many Buffalo elevators were abandoned. Tarbet describes how these empty elevators are now being transformed into centers for artistic and athletic performance, and into a hub for technical innovation. Buffalo has found a way to incorporate its unused elevators into the life of the city long after the grain dust from them has ceased to fly. “Grain Dust Dreams is a miniaturist masterpiece. David Tarbet was raised in a Canadian grain shipping hub, and takes us on a fond and fascinating tour of the history, the culture, and the technology of North American grain elevators. Beautifully written and rigorously researched, Grain Dust Dreams is an unusually charming addition to industrial history.” — Charles R. Morris, author of The Dawn of Innovation: The First American Industrial Revolution “Drawing on personal experience, David Tarbet writes with authority. This is an important subject presented in a manner that’s accessible to all.” — Thorold Tronrud, Director, Thunder Bay Historical Museum “Grain Dust Dreams is an intimate and personal account of the impact of the grain industry on two North American communities. The reader will be transported into the inner workings of a grain elevator, and uncover the significance the elevators had on the communities in which they reside. Readers will also enjoy the personal accounts from workers in these engineering marvels along with the hazards encountered by their operators. Tarbet also explores the perplexing question many communities face: how to repurpose these majestic structures so that they last for posterity.” — Tim Bohen, author of Against the Grain: The History of Buffalo’s First Ward


Buffalo's Grain Elevators

Buffalo's Grain Elevators

Author: Henry H Baxter

Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform

Published: 2018-09-21

Total Pages: 26

ISBN-13: 9781540876027

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This newly revised and updated edition is a compact history of the grain industry and grain elevators in Buffalo, from the invention of the elevator in 1842, by Joseph Dart, to today. The Buffalo History Museum originally published this booklet in 1980 as Volume 26 in the Adventures in Western New York History series. It is suitable for local history curriculum use and includes charts, illustrations and photographs.