Burchfield Penney Art Center
If there's one thing that describes Buffalonians, it's pride. Whether it's in the form of tirelessly cheering on our Buffalo Bills or even boasting about the annual snowfall, we'll sing it loudly. And though we have yet to win that Superbowl (a very sensitive subject), the city has certainly won the hearts of architecture fans—capturing them anew in 2008 with the completion of the Burchfield Penney Art Center designed by Gwathmey Siegel & Associates Architecture and certified as New York state's first LEED art museum.
Don't miss a word of Dwell! Download our FREE app from iTunes, friend us on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter!
Articles
-
Buffalo, New York
Last week I traveled back East to my hometown of Buffalo, New York. Though we may not be able to consistently win a football game, we Buffalonians do know good architecture when we see it. The…
-
Buffalo Basics Founders
Buffalo, New York, regularly ranks among the top poorest cities in the United States. And with its heydays over 100 years in the past, it’s no surprise that though its people may be strong in…
-
Buffalo Basics at 153 Eaton Street
It may be hard to believe, but Buffalo, New York, was once a pinnacle of high-tech innovation, even dubbed the City of Light for being one of the first electrified towns in America. But today, with…
Events
-
Green California Summit
The 2010 Green California Summit will take place in the state capital, at the Sacramento Convention Center. State and local governments in California have long set the standard for public sector…
-
Wim Crouwel—A Graphic Odyssey
The Design Museum celebrates the prolific career of the Dutch graphic designer Wim Crouwel in his first UK retrospective. Regarded as one of the leading designers of the twentieth century, Crouwel…
-
Green IT Economic Summit 2010
The Green IT Economic Summit showcases the benefits of breakthroughs in Green hardware and software technology. We empower businesses to use resources more efficiently, delivering greater profits…
Advertising
Advertising
Advertising
Latest
-
05.22
ICFF 2012 : Design Milk Presents
"Reinvention; Writing History in Aluminum" showcases a…
-
05.22
ICFF 2012: Brass Tactics
Everywhere we looked on the show floor of ICFF, we saw our own…
-
05.20
ICFF 2012: New from Black + Blum
Two products we really loved from the ICFF show floor came…
Follow
Dwell
Reloading tweets…
Buffalo is a great city, and this is a fantastic gallery. However, this site desperately needs some warmth-for God's sake, put some art in front of the building! It comes across as quite institutional and cold from the outside....
I am so impressed with the Burchfield-it is a tremendous local treasure for Buffalo and the region. My only complaint is that I don't visit the venue often enough.
The best one can say of the Burchfield is that it is a rather banal piece of abstractionism. Sure, it could be argued that the interior has an appropriately dull design, likely intended to be a proverbial "blank canvas" on which to display art. Fine. But my main concern is with the exterior. Banal it is indeed. But other, less-kind adjectives come to mind: antisocial, disorienting, dispiriting, disrespectful, despotic. The real tragedy is the exterior design is the only bit the vast majority of people who experience this building will ever see. And, unlike the fleeting displays of art inside, the exterior is essentially permanent. We're stuck with it, a highly-visible, irreparable part of our city's fabric. I wish it could be said that the building is innovative, at least. But the architectural profession has been foisting stuff like this on the public for decades, with regular praise from the artistic avant-garde, but with nearly universal public condemnation. As merely the latest knockoff of a moribund aesthetic, we can add the Burchfield Penney to that very long list of failures.
The Burchfield Penny Gallery is beautiful! The simplicity of design on both the inside and outside is perfect. I wonder why anyone would project such hostile comments on a building that stands out and blends in with such grace? It sounds like the bitterness of rejection, perhaps an architect who wasn't picked to do the plans? Everything about BPG is welcoming and positive in approach. The galleries and displays are well done and varied. We were there last week and were delighted to see the variety of work and the thought that went into everything in the presentations and the gallery itself. We were there on a weekday afternoon, there were a lot of very happy kids working on art projects, the restaurant was filled with more happy people, the galleries all had groups, couples and individuals viewing, the Gift Shop is loaded with fantastic locally made jewelry, totes and bags, art objects and art prints and more. We had a wonderful time; each employee or volunteer we came into contact with was welcoming, smiling, gracious and kind. BPG is a Buffalo treasure; it may be different than what you are used to or what you would personally design, but the design is marvelous, it serves it purpose perfectly. It feels welcoming and joyous when you walk in the door, the lighting and ambiance of the interior is calm, peaceful and enticing. I love everything about the BPG.
Apparently you didn't read my last comment, so I will repeat and elaborate. The interior is tolerable, perhaps occasionally interesting. However, the exterior certainly doesn't "serve its purpose perfectly," unless you think that purpose is to disorient both users and passersby, and to sully the beautiful ensemble of buildings and public spaces that surround it. Architecturally, the Burchfield Penney is a "so-called" museum. It is an abstract, unrecognizable, illegible mishmash. It speaks no coherent typological language, and can only be distinguished as a civic building because of the giant, cartoonish lettering applied to the vast, otherwise blank front wall. The building is oriented anti-socially, away from the public realm. It stares blankly, disconcertingly as the street. Even the entrance is unidentifiable (the 'front door' faces the parking lot to the rear) and must be marked with extra signage to tell visitors how to get inside. The Burchfield Penney is a stark wart on what is otherwise a grand streetscape of beautiful civic buildings. This inscrutable collection of dull, abstract boxes certainly does not express public decorum, respect for historical context, hope for the future, or any other civic virtue.
Chuck has some valid points. However, he should investigate the building's history before publishing such a negative appraisal. One: the designer wanted copper for the curved exterior and settled for zinc because of cost. The copper would have greened nicely over the years like the nearby Richardson Asylum. Second: the entrance faces west because that anchors it on the corner of the Buffalo State College campus. The building was built by the NYS Dormitory Authority for BSC and is oriented primarily to welcome students from the college and secondarily the public from Elmwood Ave. Finally: as a state-owned building (BPAC, an independent 501-c-3 charitable organization owns the art) and being on a state university campus, its exterior design was subject to review and approval by the NYS Office of Historical Preservation in Albany which exorcised some of the architect's creative ideas to make it "fit in" better with Rockwell Hall and the Albright-Knox. Apparently the updated ROM in Toronto on the campus of U of T didn't have such restraints (or overcame them, if it did). Regarding the size of the lettering facing Elmwood. It was difficult for the public to know exactly where the museum was when it hidden on Rockwell's third floor for so many years. Now it knows!
RSS Feed
Add a Comment