Larkin Building, Buffalo, New York 1902-1906 (demolished 1950)
Architect: Frank Lloyd Wright
Style: Early Modern
Frank Lloyd Wright had gained broad recognition for his residential projects at this point. In 1902, the Larkin mail order company asked Wright to design a building around their requirements. The site was surrounded by railroads, factories in the background, and a gasworks nearby. The building then needed an "inward looking, hermetically sealed solution". Frank used his theme of trays slung from vertical piers arranged around a high, top-lit atrium space similar to his work in the Prairie house. The stairs and ventilating equipment were placed in tall corner towers.(Curtis) "The articulation of the side elevations was a direct expression of the structural framework of the building"(larkindg.com)These gave a massive and monumental character to the brick masonry exterior and provided vertical emphases" in order to unify the smaller parts and make the entire project "coherent".
Curtis (modern architecture since 1900) explains that the building's strong axial character and its airy, nave-like interior space caused the building to be dubbed "a cathedral of work" as it was also inscribed with moralistic mottoes suggesting the religious value of labor. "Grammatically it was a descendant of Sullivan's Wainwright building", but "turned outside in...the massing suggested an abstracted version of an Egyptian pylon gateway, while the overall lines perhaps revealed the influence of Olbrich's Viennese Secession Building". European critics praised the building while several American critics deemed it "too naked". Russel Sturgis said the following of the building: " Few persons who have seen the great monuments of the past...(and) who have loved them...will fail to pronounce this monument an extremely ugly building. It is, in fact, a monster of awkwardness."
The building was also the first air conditioned building in America and in 1950 was demolished and replaced by a parking lot.
Learn More:
Curtis, William J.R. Modern Architecture Since 1900. Phaidon. p126
http://www.larkindg.com/wrightConnection.html
http://www.greatbuildings.com/buildings/Larkin_Building.html
http://www.pbs.org/flw/buildings/larkin/larkin.html
http://www.terrastories.com/bearings/frank-lloyd-wright-and-his-forgotten-larkin-building
http://www.monroefordham.org/Projects/Larkin/history.htm
