The Buildings Couldn't Be Saved—But the Vision Can Be Honored: the Kickstarter Campaign for the New Book about Rudolph's "SHORELINE"

Learn about the Kickstarter Campaign for the book that takes a fresh look at Paul Rudolph’s partially-realized project for a dynamic, mixed-use neighborhood in Buffalo: SHORELINE

SHORELINE: RUDOLPH’S VISION OF DIGNIFIED HOUSING

Paul Rudolph was a master of architectural perspective drawing—and this is his rendering of a portion of his vison for the Shoreline Apartments development. © The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation

Located steps from Buffalo, NY’s City Hall, Shoreline Apartments was an extensive housing complex designed by Paul Rudolph and completed in 1974. Featuring shed roofs, ribbed concrete exteriors, projecting balconies, and enclosed garden courts, the project combined Rudolph’s spatial radicalism with his innovative designs for human-scaled, high-density housing and a mix of multiple functions.

Rudolph’s scheme featured an arrangement of monumental, terraced high-rises flanking a marina, a sprawling school and community center, and a series of low and mid-rise apartment buildings meant to evoke Italian mountain villages, with green spaces woven through the site.

Arthur Drexler, the powerful director of the Museum of Modern Art’s Architecture and Design Department, included Shoreline in the 1970 MoMA exhibition, Work in Progress. The work, he said, showed—

“With few exceptions, Paul Rudolph’s buildings can be recognized by their complexity, their sculptural details, their effects of scale and their texture.”

And that they manifest—

“. . . .a commitment to the idea that architecture, besides being technology, sociology and moral philosophy, must finally produce works of art if it is to be worth bothering about at all.”

A VISION PARTIALLY FULFILLED

ABOVE: Another of Paul Rudolph’s architectural renderings of Shoreline, this one showing some of the low-rise housing that was built. This drawing is anticipated to be on the cover of the new book. © The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation

LEFT: An aerial view of a portion of Shoreline. Photograph by Donald Luckenbill © The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation

In the end, only two phases of the Shoreline affordable housing development were built, and families moved in and made lives there—as can be seen in the below photos.

Views of Shoreline, occupied and and active with life. ABOVE: Photograph by Joseph W. Molitor courtesy of Columbia University, Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, Joseph W. Molitor Photograph Collection. BELOW: Photograph by G. E. Kidder Smith, courtesy of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

AND A VISION OVERSHADOWED—aND SPURNED

Some of the remains of the demolished Shoreline project. Photograph by William Vogel

After years of occupancy, they became among the most reviled buildings in Buffalo because—like many public housing designs of that era—their inventive, complex forms and admirable social aspirations were overshadowed by disrepair, crime, and vacancy. Even so, some saw positive values in Paul Rudolph’s designs, and attempts were made to save Shoreline.

Following failed attempts at landmarking the structures for preservation, the first round of demolitions began in summer 2015—and In 2017, the site’s current owner accelerated the demolition schedule. As of January 2018, the last holdout was vacated from his unit.

REMEMBERING A POSITIVE VISION

The 2019 exhibition, Shoreline: Remembering a Waterfront Vision, at El Museo

El Museo is a Buffalo-based nonprofit visual arts organization, dedicated to the exhibition of contemporary work by underserved artists, and cultural programming that engages diverse communities. In 2019 they presented an exhibition, Shoreline: Remembering a Waterfront Vision, showing drawings, photographs, documents, and artworks, spanning from the original vision of the Buffalo Waterfront Development in the 1960s to the eventual destruction of Shoreline in recent years. The exhibition materials, drawn from archival sources as well as artistic responses, traced the erosion of an architectural, urban, and social vision for Buffalo’s waterfront, one that was only ever partially realized.

Considering the Shoreline within this context, they looked at the architectural style of Brutalism, the complicated history of urban renewal, and the past attempts by government to play a leading role in developing cities and providing social housing on a mass scale. They asked: Amidst Buffalo’s so-called renaissance, when its historical assets are being reevaluated, preserved, and restored, why was there a race to forget the Shoreline?

Following the exhibition, Remembering Shoreline included a two-day public symposium that brought together architects, planners, researchers, and activists from Buffalo and beyond to take a closer look at the history of the Shoreline Apartments, and discuss Paul Rudolph, Brutalism, urban renewal, housing, and preservation.

SHORELINE— THE BOOK

As of mid-2020, almost all of Shoreline complex has been lost to the bulldozer. While we cannot bring back the buildings, it is important that we remember this history in a tangible way.

El Museo is currently working on collecting the materials and ideas from their exhibition and symposium into a book, to be published in Spring 2021: Shoreline: Remembering a Waterfront Vision. 

It will include the exhibition materials such as drawings and photographs from Paul Rudolph’s archive, as well as works by Avye Alexandres, David Torke, Kurt Treeby, and Rima Yamazaki. Also featured will be essays by and conversations with symposium participants Kelvin Dickinson, Kate Wagner, Mark Byrnes, Susanne Schindler, Henry Taylor, Charles Davis, Jessie Fisher, Aaron Bartley, and editors Barbara Campagna and Bryan Lee.

THE KICKSTARTER CAMPAIGN

El Museo is publishing this book independently, and your contribution will go towards the cost of editing and printing this full-color, perfect-bound, 8x10 volume. The book that will vividly show the importance this example of a vision for the public good—a type of Initiative which leaders had engaged in, and which were embodied in the designs of great architects like Paul Rudolph.

We hope you will help make this project happen—and there’s a Kickstarter Campaign to fund the book. You can find out about it HERE, including the benefits of contributing—like getting copies of the book, photographic color prints of Shoreline, and large-format prints of Paul Rudolph’s compelling drawings of Shoreline.

Successful (and Packed!) Opening of Shoreline Exhibit in Buffalo

SHORELINE: Remembering a Waterfront Vision

An exhibit featuring Paul Rudolph’s Shoreline Apartments - presented in partnership with the Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation - opened in Buffalo last Friday. Shoreline is a development in the heart of downtown Buffalo—and would have included housing for various income levels, extensive community facilities, and a boat marina along the city’s lakeside edge—all planned and designed by Paul Rudolph—but only a portion of the proposed project was built.

The exhibit, at El Museo—which traces the erosion of an architectural, urban, and social vision for Buffalo’s waterfront—opened to a packed group of enthusiastic attendees.

Below are pictures from the exhibit’s preparation, opening, and of the some of the images and objects which are on-view—including a collection of impressive drawings, by Paul Rudolph, which convey his vision for the project.

NOTE: Further information about the exhibit (including location and hours) is at the bottom of this post.

Three key players: [left-to-right] Cheng Yang “Bryan” Lee, the museum’s curator; Liz Waytkus, Executive Director of DOCOMOMO US, and Barbara Campagna, leading preservationist—and co-curator of the exhibit. Photo by Joanne Campagna. [Photo by Barbara Campagna]

Two of the drawings that were put on display in the exhibition:

ABOVE: One of Paul Rudolph’s perspective renderings of the project, showing a near-street-level view of a line of the brick townhouses, along with the radially planned parking adjacent to the residence.

BELOW: Rudoph’s site plan drawing, showing his overall disposition of the townhouses, parking, and green areas in one section of the development.

Paul Rudolph’s work is © The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation.

William Vogel, El Museo’s executive director, works on the exhibit’s signage. [Photo by Barbara Campagna]

The venue for the exhibit: El Museo in Buffalo—and the public is welcome! [Photo by Barbara Campagna]

A view from the back of the exhibit space, looking towards the entrance—with attendees carefully studying the displayed materials. [Photo by Barbara Campagna.]

One of the numerous—and impressively large and detailed—drawings which Paul Rudolph created for the project. At the top is laid out the portion of the housing that was built. In the center is shown the boat marina—and the buildings that were to surround it: a mixture of housing of various heights, as well as community facilities. © The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation.

Barbara Campagna reported that it was a “Jam packed museum exhibit opening…”—and the photos testify the same. [Photo by Barbara Campagna]

More of Paul Rudolph’s drawings, as displayed on the exhibit’s walls—and in the foreground is one of Kurt Treeby’s architecturally-focused artworks. [Photo by Barbara Campagna]

A full view of one of the drawings shown in the above exhibit installation photo. Rudolph was a master perspectivist, and this is his overall rendering of the project. In the middle is the boat marina, from which multi-story apartment houses radiate. In he foreground (at the bottom of the drawing) are townhouses that line the outer edge of the peninsula that surrounds the marina. Just visible, at the top-right, is the portion of the housing that was constructed. © The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation.

Bryan Lee, the exhibit’s co-curator (far left), gives an overview of the Shorline project and exhibit. [Photo by Barbara Campagna]

In addition to drawings and artworks, photos of were included—including of its littlest residents, as well as interiors—and this gave a sense of life in Shoreline. [Photo by Barbara Campagna]

Included in the exhibit were examples of Kurt Treeby’s artwork. Here he bases one on a portion of a row of Shoreline’s Rudolph-designed townhouse. The tissue-boxification is Treeby’s commentary our our society’s throwaway attitude to our architectural heritage. For more on Treeby’s work—and to see further examples of his work in this mode—see our blog post about him. [Photo by Barbara Campagna]

Kurt Treeby—the artist with one of his works. [Photo by Barbara Campagna]

Shoreline—under construction.

Shoreline—built, occupied, and the plantings already coming in. Phase One occupies the center of the photo. You can see a portion of the further construction of project (Phase Two) in the upper-left corner.

A artifact of Buffalo’s history—and of the aspiration to use architecture to make better lives. [Photo from a post by Barbara Campagna]

SHORELINE: Remembering A Waterfront Vision

EXHIBIT VISIT & cONTACT INFORMATION

DATES:

The exhibit is open from October 4 to November 16, 2019

PUBLIC SYMPOSIUM:

A public symposium on October 25–26 will convene architects, urban planners, preservationists, and researchers to discuss Paul Rudolph’s design legacy in Buffalo and New York State, the social legacy of urban renewal and modernism, and preservation efforts surrounding these sites and structures. This event will take place at the Earl W. Brydges (Central) Library in Niagara Falls and at the Frank E. Merriweather (Jefferson) Library in Buffalo.

PUBLICATION:

El Museo has announced that a publication will bring together images, essays, and other findings from the project to tell the varied histories of the Shoreline Apartments—and the book will be published later this year.

LOCATION:

EL MUSEO 91 Allen Street, Buffalo, NY   14202

HOURS:

Wednesdays–Fridays: 12–6pm
Saturdays: 1–5pm
First Fridays: 7–9pm
and by appointment (please call or email)

ADMISSION:

Admission is free—but If you like what they do, help support their work.

TRANSPORTATION:

El Museo is accessible by NFTA Metro Rail (5-minute walk from Allen/Medical Campus Station) and Metro Bus routes 8 Main, 11 Colvin, 20 Elmwood, and 25 Delaware. Limited service on routes 7, 29, 64, 66, 67, and 69. Metered parking is available on Allen Street and Delaware Avenue.
NFTA Metro
Google Maps directions

CONTACT INFORMATION:

• website: http://www.elmuseobuffalo.org

• exhibit web page: http://www.elmuseobuffalo.org/exhibitions/shoreline-remembering-a-waterfront-vision-1/

• phone: (716) 464-4692

• email: info@elmuseobuffalo.org

New Exhibit documents the Erosion of Paul Rudolph’s Modernist Vision in Buffalo, New York

Paul Rudolph’s perspective drawing of the Buffalo Waterfront Housing Project (“Shoreline Apartments”)—this view foregrounds the higher-end housing (which was not constructed) which would have surrounded the marina. The complex of lower-rise apartments, which were built (and which are under ongoing threat), are lightly rendered at the top-right of the drawing. © The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation.

Located near Buffalo’s celebrated City Hall, the Shoreline Apartments is a housing complex designed by Paul Rudolph and completed in 1974. Featuring shed roofs, ribbed concrete exteriors, projecting balconies, and enclosed garden courts, the project combined Rudolph’s spatial radicalism with experiments in human-scaled high-density housing.

Paul Rudolph’s axonometric drawing for the Buffalo Waterfront Housing Project (“Shoreline Apartments”). This drawing shows a sample of the low-to-mid-rise apartments (which were built—and which are under ongoing threat), with adjacent parking. © The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation.

The complex has already been partly demolished, and the balance is seriously threatened. This has brought attention to the development—both locally and more broadly—and this focus has begun to produce results…

A SPECIAL EXHIBIT & SYMPOSIUM

Starting next month, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation is partnering with Buffalo’s El Museo to present:

Shoreline: Remembering a Waterfront Vision

a special project that looks into the history of one of Rudolph’s residential designs: Buffalo’s Shoreline Apartments.

EXHIBITION: October 4 -to- November 16, 2019

The project will open with an exhibition of documents, drawings, photographs, and artworks, spanning from the original vision of the Buffalo Waterfront Development in the 1960’s to the eventual destruction of Shoreline in recent years.

SYMPOSIUM: October 25 & 26, 2019

A public symposium will convene architects, urban planners, preservationists, and researchers to discuss:

• Paul Rudolph’s design legacy in Buffalo and New York State

• the social legacy of urban renewal and modernism

• preservation efforts surrounding these sites and structures

Other public programs will be announced.

LOCATIONS:

The events will take place at two cities in the area—both with significant buildings by Paul Rudolph: Buffalo and Niagara Falls.

PUBLICATION

A publication is planned, to be issued later in 2019, which will bring together images, essays, and other findings from the project: it will tell the varied histories of the Shoreline Apartments.

The Shorelines Apartments in 1975, shortly after opening. The large Art Deco skyscraper, at the rear-right, is Buffalo’s City Hall. Image: Courtesy of EPA/Library of Congress

BACKGROUND

Located near Buffalo’s celebrated art-deco skyscraper City Hall, the Shoreline Apartments is a housing complex designed by architect Paul Rudolph and completed in 1974. It was originally part of the Buffalo Waterfront Development, an ambitious, mixed-income urban renewal project commissioned by the New York State Urban Development Corporation in 1969.

Aerial view (taken from the South East) of the Buffalo Waterfront Housing Project (“Shoreline Apartments”). Photo by Donald Luckenbill, © The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation.

Rudolph’s scheme featured an arrangement of:

• monumental, terraced high-rises flanking a marina

• a sprawling school and community center

• a series of low- and mid-rise apartment buildings meant to evoke Italian mountain villages

• green spaces woven through the site

Street view of the Buffalo Waterfront Housing Project (“Shoreline Apartments”), taken between 1973 and 1977. © Massachusetts Institute of Technology, photograph by G. E. Kidder Smith

“With few exceptions, Paul Rudolph’s buildings can be recognized by their complexity, their sculptural details, their effects of scale and their texture.”

So wrote Arthur Drexler, the famed director of the Museum of Modern Art’s Architecture and Design Department for the 1970 exhibition, Work in Progress—a show which included Rudolph’s designs for the Buffalo Waterfront Development and Niagara Falls (Brydges) Library.

In the end, only two phases of affordable housing (Shoreline and Pine Harbor Apartments) were built. Today they are among the most unloved buildings in Buffalo, because—like many public housing projects of that era—their inventive, complex forms and admirable social aspirations have been overshadowed by disrepair, crime, and vacancy. In 2013, the site’s owner proposed a phased demolition and replacement of Shoreline with new traditionally styled townhouses. Following failed attempts at landmarking the structures for preservation, the first round of demolitions began in summer 2015.

The ongoing threat to Shoreline Apartments represents not just the loss of an exemplary piece of Buffalo’s Modern architectural legacy, but also the demise of a certain perspective on architecture and the city—and the possibilities of positive government action. It tells a story of the aspirations of mid-century urban planning, the short-lived heroism of Modern and “brutalist” architecture, and the unrealized social visions of the past.

At a time of renewed interest in Moden buildings, this project asks critical questions in architecture and historic preservation:

• Whose buildings are important?

• Whose stories get told?

• What types of structures are considered worthy of maintenance and protection, and what others are left to deteriorate and die?

• Is there room in our cities for inconvenient reminders of a past (and “inconvenient populations”) we would rather forget?

Through the lens of the Shoreline Apartments, this project aims to inspire new conversations that might lead to a better understanding and appreciation of these misunderstood places.

EXHIBIT LOCATION

Museo Francisco Oller y Diego Rivera (“El Museo”)

91 Allen Street (between Delaware Avenue and Franklin Street)

Buffalo, NY 14202

(716) 464.4692

http://www.elmuseobuffalo.org/

info@elmuseobuffalo.org

SPONSORS AND KEY PARTICIPANTS

Shoreline: Remembering a Waterfront Vision is curated by El Museo’s curator, Bryan Lee, and prominent preservation architect Barbara Campagna, and presented in partnership with the Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation.

This project is funded by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, and the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts.

Paul Rudolph’s overall site plan of the Buffalo Waterfront Housing Project (“Shoreline Apartments”). The higher-end housing (which was not constructed), surrounded the marina, occupies the right side of he drawing. The complex of mid-to-low-rise apartments is on the left side of the drawing—and the left-most quarter of that section is what was actually built. © The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation.

Note: We thank El Museo, from whose web page Shoreline: Remembering a Waterfront Vision the above text was adapted.

Rudolph's Shoreline Apartments in Buffalo - an Artist Responds - Artistically!

“Disposable: Shoreline Apartment Complex Unit” Plastic canvas, acrylic yarn, tissue box, 8 X 16.5 X 21 inches, 2016.

An artwork by Buffalo-born & based, fiber artist Kurt Treeby. This is his depiction of Paul Rudolph’s Shoreline Apartments in Buffalo. It is part of a set of works by Treeby, the “Disposable” series, involving—in the artists recounting—“thousands of precise stitches, all sewn by hand…”

Photo: www.kurttreeby.com

SHORELINE APARTMENTS IN BUFFALO

Shoreline Apartments is a fascinating complex of residences on Niagara Street in Buffalo, NY, completed  in 1974 to the designs of Paul Rudolph. To say that it “is” is a bit problematic, because the entire set of residences is slated for demolition - and, as of this writing, about half of the complex still exists (but how long that extant portion will remain is unknown.)

“Rudolph’s original scheme, composed of monumental, terraced, prefabricated housing structures, provided an ambitious alternative to high-rise dwelling that was meant to recall the complexity and intimacy of old European settlements.” – Nick Miller, in The Architect’s Newspaper

Here’s a good, concise background on the project, as reported by Nick Miller in The Architect’s Newspaper (November 5, 2013):

[Arthur] Drexler exhibited Rudolph’s original, much more dramatic scheme for Buffalo’s Shoreline Apartments alongside pending projects by Philip Johnson and Kevin Roche in an exhibition entitled Work in Progress. The projects on display were compiled to represent a commitment “to the idea that architecture, besides being technology, sociology and moral philosophy, must finally produce works of art.”

Completed in 1972, the 142-unit low-income housing development was featured in both the September 1972 issue of Architectural Record as well as the 1970 exhibition at New York’s Museum of Modern Art. Like many of their contemporaries, the inventive, complex forms and admirable social aspirations of the development have been overshadowed by disrepair, crime, and startling vacancy rates (30 percent in 2006 according to Buffalo Rising).

The Shoreline Apartments that stand today represent a scaled down version of the original plan. Featuring shed roofs, ribbed concrete exteriors, projecting balconies and enclosed gardens, the project combined Rudolph’s spatial radicalism with experiments in human-scaled, low-rise, high-density housing developments. The project’s weaving, snake-like site plan was meant to create active communal green spaces, but, like those of most if its contemporaries, the spaces went unused, fracturing the fabric of Buffalo.

Here’s an image of a portion of the Shoreline complex, as built:

The Shorelines Apartments in 1975, shortly after opening. The large Art Deco skyscraper, at the rear-right, is Buffalo’s City Hall.

Image: Courtesy of EPA/Library of Congress

THE ARTIST:  KURT TREEBY

Mr. Treeby, a fiber artist that’s a native of Buffalo (and who is based here), does fascinating work, and—on his website—you can find his own text on his career, from which we quote:

Kurt Treeby first studied art at the College of Art and Design at Alfred University. While at Alfred he studied painting, drawing, and art history. After receiving his MFA from Syracuse University Treeby develped a conceptual-based approach to art making that continues to develop as he works with a wide range of fiber and textile processes. His work comments of the production and reception of art, as well as the role art plays in our collective memories. He focuses on iconic imagery and the connection between so-called "high" and "low" art forms. Treeby has exhibited his work on a national and international level. He teaches studio art and art appreciation at the College at Brockport, State University of New York, and Erie Community College.

KURT TREEBY’S “DISPOSABLE” SERIES

The artist has done a series of artworks, each of which is a significant building (or complex of buildings) that has been demolished—or, like Shoreline, is on the way to being demolished. Among the building’s he’s focused on are: The Larkin Building (by Frank Lloyd Wright), BEST Products Showrooms (by SITE), the Niagara Falls Wintergarden (by Cesar Pelli), and various other structures. The one he did, of a  portion of the Shoreline, captures the Paul Rudolph’s design very nicely!

Here are some excerpts from Mr. Treeby’s beautiful and sensitive artistic statement on his work—and this series in particular:

Every city includes a variety of structures including historical landmarks, industrial factories, and utilitarian homes. My work examines the architectural ecosystem of production, consumption, and destruction embedded into the social, economic, and physical landscape of cities, reimagining a future apart from their industrial or commercial past.

Focusing on iconic structures, I faithfully replicate architectural and structural details from an alchemy of historical records and collective memory. I recreate these buildings in plastic canvas and craft-store yarn, amplifying the tension between fine art and craft. The final sculptures function as the visual embodiment of the restoration process, as historical records, and as personal memories; all imperfect and incomplete.

I use the medium of plastic canvas because it is rooted in domestic crafts. Traditionally, the medium is used to construct decorative covers resembling quaint cottages or holiday-themed houses for disposable items like tissues and paper napkins. Unlike the fantastical commercial patterns, my sculptures are often larger, replicating complex buildings that have been demolished or significantly altered over time. Because I cannot always experience the original structures, I combine archival records and satellite imagery to help me understand the building’s original site.

The hours spent on each piece are a meditation and a reflection on loss. Engaging in this meticulous process is my way of paying tribute to the original architects. My imperfect buildings act a stand in for the original, and as monuments to memory itself.

We urge you to visit Kurt Treeby’s website, and explore his movingly intriguing work for yourself: http://kurttreeby.com