Buffalo Rising Online

Mar 26th 2008, 9:10am By buffalorising

Buffalo Boomtown By Joseph Verrastro

Buffalo grew up as a city during a golden age of American architecture in the late 1800's and early 1900's. The Ellicott Square building was once the largest building in the world. The Guaranty Building, the first skyscraper. Frederick Law Olmsted designed a park system on par with the greatest parks in the world. Electric streetlights began here, as did the grain elevator. It could be argued that the development of the grain elevator and the daylight factory (naturally lit) were catalysts for what we now consider modern architecture.

Masterpieces of residential, public and industrial buildings are scattered throughout the city; the money and resources as well as the people of vision to make it happen were all here, and we are the beneficiaries of their accomplishment. The cityscape that evolved here played a significant role in the artistic development of a young boy who grew up in the south end of the city many years later.

Wallace Cunningham was born in Pennsylvania, and his family moved to Buffalo when he was a toddler. The working class neighborhood at Elk Street and Bailey Avenue where he was raised was at a crossroads of sorts, without its own identity. It was not considered South Buffalo, which lay to the south, or Kaisertown to the east, or Babcock to the north.

Cunningham remembers the huge structures--grain elevators, oil refineries and massive iron bridges--from his childhood. He attended Public School Number 26 elementary school, Southside Jr. High, and Hutchinson Central Technical High, but eventually graduated from South Park High. At South Park the cascade of stairs that led up to the carved marble statue of Minerva left an imprint on his memory. His years in high school introduced him to the architectural gems of the city. The bus rides and field trips took him to the Guaranty Building, The Albright Knox, Kleinhans Music Hall, the Buffalo Historical Society, Ellicott Square, and the Frank Lloyd Wright residences. He remembers that the bus rides were similar to a trip through architectural history, complete with Caryatids from Greece. The contrast of the wealth and opulence with the reality of his working class surroundings ignited a passion for architecture.

After graduating from high school he moved to Chicago where he studied at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts. His studies there were focused on a variety of visual arts, sculpture, photography, and printmaking to name a few. At the suggestion of Marya Lilien, who taught history at the academy and also headed the Department of Interior Architecture at the School of The Art Institute of Chicago, he went to Taliesin, the Frank Lloyd Wright School. Although the time at Taliesin was brief, he absorbed a great deal of Wright’s ideas regarding organic architecture. The theories of organic architecture and the teachings at Taliesin coupled with the interdisciplinary studies at the Chicago Academy laid the foundation for his blurring of artistic concepts and his vision of what architecture should and could be.

Music and musical concepts such as those found in jazz improvisation have also had an impact on his notions of art. Kleinhans Music Hall is a favorite building of his; the sweeping curves and gentle rises, the reflecting pool, the grand staircases and inspiring performances held therein all become a part of his vision. Growing up, he had the opportunity to sing at Kleinhans as a part of the City Chorus. It was a marvel for him to experience the acoustics from the stage.

What other Buffalo icons have impressed him? “The openness of the Martin House,” he said, “and how the floor plan was connected spaces, not just boxes hooked together, and that the ribbons of windows were panoramic, not just holes in the walls.”

While at Taliesin he was invited to look at a property in San Diego for ideas he might have for a home design. He drew a design in the dirt; it became his first house. “Wing House” set the tone for his career; bold sweeping curves carved into the hillside, a combination of structure and sculpture. He spent hours in the house while it was under construction to make sure that the skylights were situated to provide occupants a view of the moon’s path.

This interest in the people who would be living in the house is also integral to his designs. Using cast concrete and glass he carves out spaces that accentuate the landscape in which they are situated. He builds the structure into the space rather than clear the space for the structure. Spans of glass bathe the interior in light but also double as a frame, allowing the land or seascape to serve as ever changing art for the walls. The lines between inside and outside also become blurred; the open plans and inclusion of pools, interior gardens, meditative spaces, his situating of vistas, and the landscape itself are all included in the floor plan.

Our architectural heritage has been influential to both schools of architecture and to individuals with grand visions of what architecture can be. The recent interest of marketing the region as both an arts and architectural destination has gained some momentum and once again we are experiencing a mini boom of sorts. On any given day during the summer months, groups of people armed with cameras and pockets full of tourist dollars can be seen at sites across the city. For one former Buffalo resident the beauty of the treasures here have taken him across the country and the world to carry on America's rich tradition of art.

Pictured above: The Cunningham brothers; Wallace on the right.