BUFFALO - Landscape architect Lynda H. Schneekloth says she is convinced Buffalo's grain elevators can be part of Buffalo's resurgent future.
The hulking storage facilities for grain performed a critical role in the Niagara Frontier's economic growth of the 19th and 20th centuries.
Today, though, most of the 14 remaining structures sit unused on or near the Buffalo River, more of a testament to Buffalo's industrial decline than its days as an economic powerhouse.
But “Reconsidering Concrete Atlantis: Buffalo Grain Elevators,” which Schneekloth, a University at Buffalo professor, edited, makes a case for marketing these colossal artifacts as a heritage tourism attraction.
“They are like cathedrals when you get inside of them. They're beautiful spaces, in the same way that cathedrals have alcoves with light streaming down,” Schneekloth said.
“Whenever I'm able to get people inside of one, they're just stunned to silence.”
Schneekloth's interest in the mostly concrete fortresses extends to having managed the 3-year-old Grain Elevator Project begun in 2001 by UB's School of Architecture and Planning, where she teaches, and the Landmark Society of the Niagara Frontier.
The book's title pays homage to “A Concrete Atlantis: U.S. Industrial and European Modern Architecture,” published in 1986 by Reyner Banham, a former UB professor.
It recounts the grain elevators' pivotal role in Buffalo's industrial development after Buffalonian Joseph Dart invented the urban transshipment grain elevator in 1842.
The book also includes write-ups on each of the surviving elevators, which make up the largest collection in one place in the world; their influence as works of industrial art, especially in Europe; and imaginative reuses for elevators.
Schneekloth and other preservationists promote the idea of a grain elevator heritage trail, which would allow people to take a walking tour that uses artifacts to tell the story of Buffalo's economic, technological and cultural past.
She said that with the city's Erie Canal Harbor becoming a reality, the time is right to exploit the grain elevators' tourism potential.
She added that trends in architecture also have made the silos in vogue.
“In architecture now, everything is no longer square or angles, but blobby,” Schneekloth said.
“So here we are the original blobs.”
On The Net
Buffalo & Erie County Historic Society books: www.bechs.org/store/books.htm
Today, though, most of the 14 remaining structures sit unused on or near the Buffalo River, more of a testament to Buffalo's industrial decline than its days as an economic powerhouse.
But “Reconsidering Concrete Atlantis: Buffalo Grain Elevators,” which Schneekloth, a University at Buffalo professor, edited, makes a case for marketing these colossal artifacts as a heritage tourism attraction.
“They are like cathedrals when you get inside of them. They're beautiful spaces, in the same way that cathedrals have alcoves with light streaming down,” Schneekloth said.
“Whenever I'm able to get people inside of one, they're just stunned to silence.”
Schneekloth's interest in the mostly concrete fortresses extends to having managed the 3-year-old Grain Elevator Project begun in 2001 by UB's School of Architecture and Planning, where she teaches, and the Landmark Society of the Niagara Frontier.
The book's title pays homage to “A Concrete Atlantis: U.S. Industrial and European Modern Architecture,” published in 1986 by Reyner Banham, a former UB professor.
It recounts the grain elevators' pivotal role in Buffalo's industrial development after Buffalonian Joseph Dart invented the urban transshipment grain elevator in 1842.
The book also includes write-ups on each of the surviving elevators, which make up the largest collection in one place in the world; their influence as works of industrial art, especially in Europe; and imaginative reuses for elevators.
Schneekloth and other preservationists promote the idea of a grain elevator heritage trail, which would allow people to take a walking tour that uses artifacts to tell the story of Buffalo's economic, technological and cultural past.
She said that with the city's Erie Canal Harbor becoming a reality, the time is right to exploit the grain elevators' tourism potential.
She added that trends in architecture also have made the silos in vogue.
“In architecture now, everything is no longer square or angles, but blobby,” Schneekloth said.
“So here we are the original blobs.”
On The Net
Buffalo & Erie County Historic Society books: www.bechs.org/store/books.htm
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