Prudential (Guaranty) Building
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

The Guaranty Building, formerly called the Prudential Building, is an
early skyscraper The earliest stage of skyscraper design encompasses buildings built between 1884 and 1945, predominantly in the American cities of New York City, New York and Chicago. Cities in the United States were traditionally made up of low-rise buildings, ...
in
Buffalo, New York Buffalo is the second-largest city in the U.S. state of New York (behind only New York City) and the seat of Erie County. It is at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of the Niagara River, and is across the Canadian border from South ...
. It was designed by
Louis Sullivan Louis Henry Sullivan (September 3, 1856 – April 14, 1924) was an American architect, and has been called a "father of skyscrapers" and "father of modernism". He was an influential architect of the Chicago School, a mentor to Frank Lloy ...
and
Dankmar Adler Dankmar Adler (July 3, 1844 – April 16, 1900) was a German-born American architect and civil engineer. He is best known for his fifteen-year partnership with Louis Sullivan, during which they designed influential skyscrapers that boldly addr ...
and completed in 1896. The building has been declared a
National Historic Landmark A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Only some 2,500 (~3%) of over 90,000 places listed ...
and is located within the
Joseph Ellicott Historic District Joseph Ellicott Historic District is a local historic district in Buffalo, New York. It is in the vicinity of Niagara Square, which was designed by Joseph Ellicott as the centerpiece of the city's street plan in 1805. History The district was ...
.


Building context

The building was the brainchild of a Buffalonian businessman and entrepreneur Hascal T. Taylor. He planned to construct a speculative office building called "The Taylor Building" in the developing downtown district. The site Taylor chose was strategically located adjacent to the then County and City Municipal building and near a number of institutional structures. The intention was to attract high quality tenants such as lawyers through proximity, desirable amenities, and the captivating design of an ''avant garde'' architect like Sullivan. The Guaranty Construction Company was contracted to build it. The untimely demise of Mr. Taylor as the project was reaching its apogee resulted in the Guaranty's decision to take on the project alone. The Guaranty Building was not alone among major private building projects in Buffalo at the time. Two blocks away, the
Ellicott Square Building The Ellicott Square Building is a historic office complex, completed in 1896, located in Buffalo, New York. It is found within the Joseph Ellicott Historic District. History The Ellicott Square Building was designed by Charles Atwood of D. H. ...
was being built to be the largest retail building in the world. This structure, extant today, exhibits an alternate exploration in the possibilities of new commercial urban architecture by
Charles B. Atwood Charles Bowler Atwood (1849–1895) was an architect who designed several buildings and a large number of secondary structures for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. He also designed a number of notable buildings in the city of Ch ...
and
Daniel Burnham Daniel Hudson Burnham (September 4, 1846 – June 1, 1912) was an American architect and urban designer. A proponent of the '' Beaux-Arts'' movement, he may have been, "the most successful power broker the American architectural profession has ...
. As Buffalo's downtown rose above
Lake Erie Lake Erie ( "eerie") is the fourth largest lake by surface area of the five Great Lakes in North America and the eleventh-largest globally. It is the southernmost, shallowest, and smallest by volume of the Great Lakes and therefore also has t ...
, further engineering feats were achieved including securing the future of the city and the built environment. Although earlier attempts had harnessed the power of nearby
Niagara Falls Niagara Falls () is a group of three waterfalls at the southern end of Niagara Gorge, spanning the border between the province of Ontario in Canada and the state of New York in the United States. The largest of the three is Horseshoe Falls, ...
, it was just after the Guaranty building was constructed in 1896 that the power was sent to Buffalo, illuminating the city with
hydroelectricity Hydroelectricity, or hydroelectric power, is Electricity generation, electricity generated from hydropower (water power). Hydropower supplies one sixth of the world's electricity, almost 4500 TWh in 2020, which is more than all other Renewabl ...
. Buffalo's rise to prominence in the built environment was matched in the political. As the Guaranty building was being drafted,
Grover Cleveland Stephen Grover Cleveland (March 18, 1837June 24, 1908) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 22nd and 24th president of the United States from 1885 to 1889 and from 1893 to 1897. Cleveland is the only president in American ...
was re-elected 22nd president of the United States. A former Erie County Sheriff, Cleveland had risen meteorically to mayor of Buffalo, governor of New York and then the presidency within five years. His platform of reform against entrenched political machines, bossism, and patronage was desperately needed, especially in major urban centres such as New York and Chicago. Cleveland's fiscal policies had resulted in his loss of the presidency in 1888, but the results of
Benjamin Harrison Benjamin Harrison (August 20, 1833March 13, 1901) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 23rd president of the United States from 1889 to 1893. He was a member of the Harrison family of Virginia–a grandson of the ninth pr ...
's interim term brought him back to the office in 1892. Curiously the panic of 1893 which ultimately destroyed the firm of
Adler & Sullivan Adler & Sullivan was an architectural firm founded by Dankmar Adler and Louis Sullivan in Chicago. Among its projects was the multi-purpose Auditorium Building in Chicago and the Wainwright Building skyscraper in St Louis. In 1883 Louis Sullivan was ...
had destroyed Cleveland's first presidential term, but also resulted in Cleveland's return to office and the final commission of Adler & Sullivan in Buffalo.


Design

Like many Chicago School buildings, the Guaranty building is a U-shaped plan above the lower levels so that each office could have light and fresh air. The internal portion of the "U" faces south. "In order to increase the amount of light to the interior, the stairwell and the light slit facing the inner courtyard were lined with white glazed terra-cotta that was more costly than normal tiles." The elevators and staircases were enclosed not by walls, but metal cages permitting light into the hallways. Sullivan's design for the building was based on his belief that "
form follows function Form follows function is a principle of design associated with late 19th and early 20th century architecture and industrial design in general, which states that the shape of a building or object should primarily relate to its intended function ...
". He and Adler divided the building into four zones: 0) The basement, the mechanical and utility area; 1) The lower levels, public areas for street-facing shops, public entrances and lobbies; 2) The office floors with identical office cells clustered around elevator shafts; and, 4) The attic, consisting of elevator equipment, utilities and water tanks. The supporting steel structure of the building was embellished with
terra cotta Terracotta, terra cotta, or terra-cotta (; ; ), in its material sense as an earthenware substrate, is a clay-based unglazed or glazed ceramic where the fired body is porous. In applied art, craft, construction, and architecture, terracotta ...
blocks. Different styles of block delineated the three visible zones of the building. Writing in his ''Kindergarten Chats'', Sullivan said that a tall building "must be every inch a proud and soaring thing, rising in sheer exultation that from bottom to top it is a unit without a single dissenting line."


Ornamentation

Although Sullivan told his fellow architects that "we should refrain entirely from the use of ornament for a period of years," he paradoxically gave the Guaranty building a rich program of floral terracotta ornament.
Tom Beeby Thomas H. Beeby (born 1941) is an American architect who was a member of the "Chicago Seven" architects and has been Chairman Emeritus of Hammond, Beeby, Rupert, Ainge Architects (HBRA) for over thirty-nine years. He is a representative of New U ...
described Sullivan as the "high-priest of controlled natural ornament." Sullivan's ornament, unmistakably original, is the subject of much scholarship.
Vincent Scully Vincent Joseph Scully Jr. (August 21, 1920 – November 30, 2017) was an American art historian who was a Sterling Professor of the History of Art in Architecture at Yale University, and the author of several books on the subject. Architect Phil ...
analyzed the ornament of the Guaranty Building and found "a physical drama of compression, tension, and vertical continuity is made physically manifest to the observer." Likewise, William J.R. Curtis wrote that the Guaranty expressed "the idea of a tall building as a living organism, whose weight, pressure, tension and resistance might be experienced through empathy in a direct, almost physical way." Paul Edward Sprague found that the Guaranty Building indicated Sullivan's evolution as an artist: "From 1885 through 1889 Sullivan's ornament lost much of its former angularity and became more sophisticated and luxuriant." He also argued Sullivan's ornament was influenced by that of
Frank Furness Frank Heyling Furness (November 12, 1839 - June 27, 1912) was an American architect of the Victorian era. He designed more than 600 buildings, most in the Philadelphia area, and is remembered for his diverse, muscular, often unordinarily scaled b ...
. The Guaranty Building and Sullivan's preceding
Wainwright Building The Wainwright Building (also known as the Wainwright State Office Building) is a 10-story, terra cotta office building at 709 Chestnut Street in downtown St. Louis, Missouri. The Wainwright Building is considered to be one of the first aesthetic ...
share many traits: Simplicity of form, plan similarity, and richness of detail. Yet the Guaranty is said to be a radical departure from the Wainwright because the expression "of the underlying steel-frame construction behind the red terra-cotta tiles is more apparent here than in the Wainwright." Similarly, David Van Zanten found the Wainwright Building's ornament performed a "traditional, even if exceptionally conspicuous, role in its design" compared to the Guaranty.


Reception

The Guaranty Building received strong critical reception upon opening. The critic Barr Ferree in 1895 opined: "though possibly the most richly decorated commercial building in America, the skill of the artist has produced a design of structural sobriety with great richness of effect.' This unity of structure and aesthetics 'has been attained' he diagnosed, 'by the long unbroken vertical lines of the superstructure.' Montgomery Schuyler knew of 'no
steel-framed building Steel frame is a building technique with a "skeleton frame" of vertical steel columns and horizontal I-beams, constructed in a rectangular grid to support the floors, roof and walls of a building which are all attached to the frame. The developm ...
in which the metallic construction is more palpably felt through the envelope of baked clay.'"


Decline and restoration

As was true of many older office buildings, the Guaranty Building was "modernised" during the mid-20th century.
Fluorescent lighting A fluorescent lamp, or fluorescent tube, is a low-pressure mercury-vapor gas-discharge lamp that uses fluorescence to produce visible light. An electric current in the gas excites mercury vapor, which produces short-wave ultraviolet ligh ...
,
wood paneling Panelling (or paneling in the U.S.) is a millwork wall covering constructed from rigid or semi-rigid components. These are traditionally interlocking wood, but could be plastic or other materials. Panelling was developed in antiquity to make roo ...
and a
dropped ceiling A dropped ceiling is a secondary ceiling, hung below the main (structural) ceiling. It may also be referred to as a drop ceiling, T-bar ceiling, false ceiling, suspended ceiling, grid ceiling, drop in ceiling, drop out ceiling, or ceiling til ...
were installed in the historic lobby. The exterior storefronts were sheathed in
Fiber glass Fiberglass (American English) or fibreglass (Commonwealth English) is a common type of fiber-reinforced plastic using glass fiber. The fibers may be randomly arranged, flattened into a sheet called a chopped strand mat, or woven into glass cloth ...
. A fire occurred in 1974, and by that time the building was dilapidated and threatened with
demolition Demolition (also known as razing, cartage, and wrecking) is the science and engineering in safely and efficiently tearing down of buildings and other artificial structures. Demolition contrasts with deconstruction, which involves taking a ...
. Herculean efforts were made to save the building, and the support of Senator
Daniel Patrick Moynihan Daniel Patrick Moynihan (March 16, 1927 – March 26, 2003) was an American politician, diplomat and sociologist. A member of the Democratic Party, he represented New York in the United States Senate from 1977 until 2001 and served as an ...
was secured for its restoration. This restoration occurred in the early 1980s. It was undertaken by architects
CannonDesign CannonDesign is a global architecture, engineering and consulting practice that provides services for a range of project types, including hospitals and medical centers, corporate headquarters and commercial office buildings, higher education and ...
. Funding came in part from the federal preservation tax credit program. In 2002, the building was purchased by law firm Hodgson Russ. In 2008, after a further rehabilitation, it became the firm's headquarters. The building underwent a further series of restorations in the mid-to-late 2000s. The restoration, which totalled $15.6 million, was designed by Gensler Architects of Washington, D.C; M/E Engineering of Buffalo; and Flynn Battaglia Architects of Buffalo.


Landmark status

The building was declared a
National Historic Landmark A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Only some 2,500 (~3%) of over 90,000 places listed ...
in 1975.


See also

*
List of tallest buildings in Buffalo This list of the tallest buildings in Buffalo ranks skyscrapers in Buffalo, New York by height. The tallest building in Buffalo is currently the Seneca One Tower, which stands 529 feet (161 m) tall. As of 2017, Buffalo has 17 structures taller ...


References


External links


"Guaranty Building & Interpretive Center"
from the Buffalo Niagara Convention & Visitors Bureau website

at "Buffalo As An Architectural Museum" website * {{Authority control Historic American Buildings Survey in New York (state) Commercial buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in New York (state) Louis Sullivan buildings Chicago school architecture in New York (state) National Historic Landmarks in New York (state) Architecture of Buffalo, New York Skyscraper office buildings in Buffalo, New York Tourist attractions in Buffalo, New York Office buildings completed in 1896 Prudential Financial buildings National Register of Historic Places in Buffalo, New York 1896 establishments in New York (state)