Prudential Building
Posted by: 
Rayman
N 42° 52.991 W 078° 52.592
17T E 673410 N 4750029
Designed by Louis Sullivan, this was the tallest building in Buffalo when construction was completed.
Waymark Code: WMBZ6
Location: New York, United States
Date Posted: 05/04/2006
Views: 31
The building was intended to be named after Hascal L. Taylor, the Buffalonian who commissioned Dankmar Adler and Louis Sullivan to build what he wanted to be "the largest and best office building in the city." Unfortunately, he died in November of 1894 just before construction plans were to be publicly announced.
The Guaranty Construction Company of Chicago, which was to construct the building for Taylor, bought the property and completed the project. Construction began in 1895, and the Guaranty Building was occupied on March 1, 1896. It was renamed the Prudential Building about two years after it was completed at the time of refinancing though the Prudential Insurance Company.
The Guaranty was one of the first steel-supported, curtain-walled buildings in the world, and its thirteen stories made it, at the time it was built, the tallest building in Buffalo.
Sullivan's lively reddish brown terra cotta ornament adorns the piers, spandrels, tympani, columns, and arches of the Guaranty Building, giving the structure an exuberance and personality that remind one that Sullivan's father was an Irish dancing master. The designs seem to be derived from American nature forms and perhaps from the Celtic Book of Kells.
The main motif is a kind of oval pod or seed shape, which Sullivan used to suggest man's potential for spiritual and creative growth. The pod is sometimes superimposed on a rectangle and connected to it with stem-like filaments. It recurs profusely in the interior of the building, in the stairway balustrades, the elevator cages, the letter drops, and the Tiffany-like art glass ceiling. The swirling lines and the opalescent glass also reveal Sullivan's interest in Art Nouveau.
The Great Depression brought hard times for the Guaranty Building. Although recognized as an architectural masterpiece as early as 1940, the building suffered through the next several decades. By the mid 1950s, the building was being described as “old and dirty.” In 1955, an ill-judged “modernization” project added a fiberglass exterior to the lower floors and a dropped ceiling in the lobby. Later cleaning efforts damaged the intricate terra cotta with harsh sandblasting.
The decline accelerated with a fire in 1974 that damaged the interior. Occupancy dropped, and the building was sold at auction. Despite a growing appreciation for the building, and its designation in 1975 as a National Historic Landmark, by 1977 the building's out-of-town owners were planning to demolish it to make the site more marketable.
Strenuous objections from preservationists, in Buffalo and around the country, thwarted the demolition plans. Civic leaders, most notably Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, secured a series of grants and loans to restore the building. By September 1982, the $12.4 million project was complete, and the officially re-named Guaranty Building again took its rightful place among Buffalo’s premier office buildings.
The building’s future was again imperiled in 1998 when its owner went into bankruptcy. The law firm of Hodgson Russ LLP, which had been a leading force in the earlier effort to preserve the building, purchased it in 2002 at a foreclosure sale for use as its principal offices, thus ensuring that the Guaranty Building will continue as one of America’s most important architectural landmarks.
Street address:
28 Church St
Buffalo, NY United States
County / Borough / Parish: Erie
Year listed: 1973
Historic (Areas of) Significance: Architecture/Engineering, Event
Periods of significance: 1875-1899
Historic function: Commerce/Trade: Professional
Current function: Commerce/Trade: Professional
Privately owned?: yes
Primary Web Site: [Web Link]
Season start / Season finish: Not listed
Hours of operation: Not listed
Secondary Website 1: Not listed
Secondary Website 2: Not listed
National Historic Landmark Link: Not listed
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Visit Instructions:
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