Albright-Knox - Table of Contents

Albright-Knox Art Gallery
West Elevation (Elmwood Avenue) of the 1905 Building
1285 Elmwood Avenue, Buffalo, New York

TEXT Beneath Illustrations

Erected: 1900-1905 at a cost of over $1 million.
5,000 tons of marble were used in the building. When completed, the gallery had 102 columns, more than any building in America except the Capitol.
Architect: Green and Wicks (E.B. Green's masterpiece)
Style: Neoclassical ( Temple Front)



















Marble Ionic column at right












Anthemion






"Pizarro"






Lion head gargoyles / scuppers  ...  Leaf-and-dart molding






Lion head gargoyle  ...  Anthemion



Wrought iron

On the exterior of the building, there are seventy-four freestanding columns forming the porticoes, hemicycle and loggia. The floors of the latter were originally laid with glass prisms to admit natural light into the lower level.

The Gallery was among the last art museums to be based on the Ionic temple form; for that reason it can be seen to a certain extent as the culmination of the temple design then in use for museums in the United States.

Originally the front of the building was overlooking Hoyt (Delaware Park) Lake.

Eighteen marble columns stretch across the western facade of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery. They have a slightly convex profile suggesting the compression created by supporting massive weight and also to counter the appearance that straight lines seem to sag. Green also spaced the columns not quite an equal distance apart and leaned them ever so slightly toward the center as additional optical compensations. The Greeks did this, too, and Green was always respectful of such design subtleties.

Sources:

Photos and their arrangement © 2002 Chuck LaChiusa
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