Friday, March 3, 2017

Paul Rudolph’s Shoreline Apartments in Buffalo, NY Face an Imminent Threat, Do.co.mo.mo



International Committee for the Documentation and Conservation of Buildings, Sites, and Neighborhoods of the Modern Movement


·         Shoreline Apartments 1974


·         9.5 acres, downtown Buffalo


·         Called for demolition


·         Sculptural modernism


·         Reduced in scale


·         Original scheme: monumental, terraced, prefabricated housing structures


·         Alternative e to high-rise dwelling


·         Meant to recall the complexity and intimacy of old European settlements


·         Today: scaled down, shed roofs, ribbed or corduroy concrete exteriors, projecting balconies and enclosed garden courts, spatial radicalism with experiments in human-scaled, low-rise, high-density housing developments


·         First scheme was in a 1970 Museum of Modern Art exhibition entitled Work in Progress


·         Complexity, sculptural details, effects of scale, texture


·         Architecture, besides being technology, sociology and moral philosophy must finally produce works of art


·         Norstar Development, owned since 2005


·         Crime, disrepair, startling vacancy rates


·         Norstar presented plans to City of Buffalo to demolish 5 of the currently vacant Rudolph buildings, with 8 suburban style affordable residential townhouses with 48 units


·         2,400,000 from state, $8,800,000 total cost


·         Private balconies and garden courts are desirable features


·         The Willert Part Courts a ten two and three stock brick multiple dwelling complex is owned by the Buffalo Municipal Housing Authority who has announced plans to demolish the entire complex


·         The design was based on the functional, flat-roofed blocks similar to German public housing projects and is ornamented with a series of cast relief sculptures on the theme of labor and family life


·         Both of these were in MOMA’s Work in Progress and guidebook, Guide to Modern Architecture of the Northeast States


No comments:

Post a Comment