ArtsBeat

It's great to see Buffalo getting the sort of play it did in Sunday's New York Times. The paper hasn't sent an art or architecture critic here for such an extensive story -- or even to chronicle major and deserving Albright-Knox shows -- in at least the last decade. That's owing as much to the city's long fall from fashion as to the more recent and precipitous decline of the nation's print media outlets. So this story, coming as it does in times of economic duress, is a testament to the work of Buffalo's various preservation groups and the Convention and Visitors Bureau, which helped to draw Nicolai Ouroussoff here to reconsider the worthiness of the city's historical architecture and --  most importantly -- the very real hope it holds for the city's resurgence as a bona fide cultural destination.

Take a closer look at some of what Ouroussoff writes after the jump.

--Colin Dabkowski

(Photo by Tony Cenicola/The New York Times)

Ouroussoff on Buffalo as a Museum:

Today Buffalo is a collection of fragile museum pieces with a covey of local stewards struggling to preserve them as a means to help save the city.

It would not be the first place to see its history as a means of attracting tourist dollars. (Boston and New Orleans are among the obvious precedents.) What makes this historic revival so heartwarming, however, is that it is driven by genuine civic pride in the face of daunting odds.

When a group of private citizens took control of the Martin House in 1992, for example, their ambitions were relatively modest: to restore the main house, one of three structures that had not yet been demolished. As time wore on, the group began to see the entire complex as a singular vision that could not be understood unless it was fully brought back to life.

What Ouroussoff hints at, but doesn't have the space to explore at length, is the idea that the various preservation and new building efforts around the city -- much like the separate segments of the Martin House restoration -- will be successful insofar as they are part of a singular vision themselves. One of those visions is the much-talked about Buffalo Museum District, something that was an abstract concept ten or so years ago, but which seems to pick up speed with each passing day.

This zone, as colleague Jeff Simon has pointed out, is sort of the antithesis of the development-driven Buffalo Theatre District, a struggling half-block stretch of Main Street that has (so far) failed to realize its potential as a tourist draw. A big part of bringing that plan together is the opening of the new Burchfield Penney Art Center, which adds a much-needed modern dimension into the overall Museum District idea, one which is driven primarily by cultural aspirations.

Of course everyone is hoping that the cultural development in question will eventually yield additional tourist dollars, but the impetus behind the district is to use cultural history to fuel cultural future in a way that's not just confined to one profit-making venture. In cities like Boston or Toronto, where tourists go for other reasons, you wouldn't have to worry about merging non-related architectural projects citywide. But here, where the economic engine continues to sputter, it could be a means back to viability.

Bravo to Ouroussoff for pointing that out and warning, as he does, against "shiny new convention centers and generic boutiques."

The piece also prompts us to think about how the city might try to integrate the other architectural marvels he writes about, most intriguingly its dilapidated but ever-imposing grain elevators, into a larger vision of the city's potential as a site for architectural tourism. For me, jogging or riding my bike past the jaw-dropping temples of utilitarian Modernism along Buffalo's waterfront is an experience that never seems to get old. And one suspects that would be true for visitors as well. (The Albright-Knox's Louis Grachos has talked about a desire to do something with the DL&W building, not far from the core of old industrial Buffalo.)

And lest we take away from the Times piece the idea that Buffalo should be content to live wholly the past, Ouroussof points out some (though probably in fairness not nearly enough) of the new projects that will hopefully make Buffalo into something other than a stuffy old city-wide exhibition of glories long past:

Meanwhile the city has begun to take a few cautious steps into the present. Toshiko Mori, a New York architect and the former chairwoman of the architecture department at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, is putting the finishing touches on a gorgeous new visitors’ center at the Martin House. Gwathmey Siegel & Associates of New York has designed a sleek new zinc- and cast-stone-clad home for the Burchfield-Penney Art Center near the historic district of Elmwood Village, which opens next Saturday.

Here's hoping this refreshing bit of media attention injects a fresh sense of purpose into an endeavor that, from the looks of it, was already well on its way.

--Colin Dabkowski