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
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:
- "Buffalo Architecture: A Guide"
- "The Gallery Architects: Edward B. Green and Gordon Bunshaft," by John Douglas Sanford