Do you think Mark Sommer even waited for the conference to happen to declare it a success? Or did he write the article weeks ago and just held off on plugging in quotes?
I tease, but only a little. By all accounts, pre-ordained or not, last week’s National Preservation Conference here in Buffalo was a great event that met its key objective: impress lovers of architecture who are in a position to influence other lovers of architecture. This makes me genuinely happy. I have heard about this conference nearly continuously since I moved back a couple years ago, and I hope it was everything its organizers wanted it to be.
But our community’s collective multi-year focus on the economic potential and saving grace of one conference still unsettles me. I find myself in the odd position of agreeing with Colin Dabkowski, the outspoken arts columnist at the Buffalo News. Dabkowski and I rarely see eye to eye – ten days ago he did all but declare the future of the local arts scene contingent upon this November’s County Executive race. (If our culturals are truly in existential jeopardy from a $500K cut and change in funding priority, then they can’t be near as robust as we’re led to believe. And while we’re at it, why only bash the county when the city is running a surplus too and has zero arts funding mechanism? But I digress.)
And yet, despite these past differences, Dabkowski hits the nail on the head in his latest column in this Sunday’s paper. Venting a bit of frustration that the current arts scene “floated under the radar” among conference attendees, he notes that without “Buffalo’s active culture” (emphasis his), then “our storied edifices would serve merely as pretty headstones.” Or to put it another way, we should invest “not only in what makes our city look good, but in what makes it breathe.”
Image courtesy bestsoylatte.blogspot.com
Dabkowski is an advocate for the arts, so he is standing up for the theaters, small galleries, and indie performers. But any active current culture could substitute – sports, business, entrepreneurial, outdoor, foodie – and his point would remain. I have argued for a while that what happens inside the buildings is at least as important as the buildings themselves, and it’s this matter of emphasis, brick vs blood, that has lain as a subtext of many Buffalo debates the last ten years.
Ironically, some architecture buffs agree – the pulled out, bolded quote from Sommer’s piece was from conference attendee Denis Superczynski, city planner from Frederick, Maryland: “I’ve lived in a lot of cities in the United States, and Buffalo is a special place. And it’s because of the people.” A throw away compliment is nice, but this wasn’t the National Trust for Special People coming to visit, and the Buffalo boosters aren’t selling cultural tourists on the opportunity to see a bunch of nice folks. The point is the pretty edifices, and Dabkowski is right to note that we should focus on what being is created here now, not just what is left for us as a legacy to enjoy.
Dabkowski has an uphill battle, however, as do all not firmly (solely?) on the architecture bandwagon. In Sommer’s article, conference attendees noted that cab drivers and wait staff at local restaurants gave impromptu tours and history lessons. When did we become such an architecture-phile city that such a thing is possible? In stereotypical New York and LA, every waiter and waitress is an out of work actor looking for their next big break. Is Buffalo now a city of cornice buffs, where our equivalents are docents in waiting?
City’s have distinctive flavors and cultures, even our over-homogenized America, and I find watching Buffalo transform itself an endlessly fascinating exercise. It’s messy, it’s argumentative, and the process is without rules, standards or easily identifiable goal posts; perhaps a reason this conference, as a distinct measurable event, drew so much interest. How do you remake a city? Who gets to decide what a city becomes? Pittsburgh is regularly lauded for transforming from a steel town into the first Eds & Meds Rust Belt success. Who got to decide Pittsburgh was throwing in with its hospitals and universities, and not another industry? Who sets the agenda?
Image courtesy kitchenproject.com
Buffalo certainly used to be a hard working manufacturing mecca, and we still do make a lot of stuff. But white collar jobs have out numbered blue collar ones around here for quite a while, and that self-image is hard to shake. As we wallow in past identities, former glories, and a wishy washy future, how did architecture stick all the way down to our cab drivers? There have been other efforts, other successes, that could have captured our imaginations. Dabkowski wants Buffalo to be known as a Rust Belt-chic funky arts town. We have our own constantly under-appreciated Eds & Meds effort, one that has generated far more economic development than architectural tourism, but is largely overlooked in plain sight. Newell Nussbaumer has tried to get the College Town label to stick on Buffalo, but some student housing ventures failed to take off, his estudentnetwork.com site morphed into Navigetter, and no matter how correct the statistics (70K+ total students), unfortunately the vibe never resonated.
A place as large as New York City can afford to claim a number of identities: cultural capital, Wall Street, immigrant melting pot of opportunity. A provincial city like Buffalo doesn’t have the resources to invest in a number of images. There is a finite supply of capital, our best and brightest only have so many hours in a day, and our collective imaginations have a short attenti0n span. If Architectural Queen is what we’re going with, there won’t be lot of room for other nuances. If tourists are going to come see our crumbling castles (read: grain elevators), then it’s good our cab drivers have been studying up.
Ultimately, given a certain level of economic freedom to be mobile, each individual needs to decide what kind of city they want to live in. Buffalo is becoming an architectural destination. Renovations and restorations are going to (have been, continue to) divert political and economic oxygen from other projects and initiatives. No matter the personal reality you create – your family, your house, your job, mite hockey games on the weekends and a show at Shea’s when “Wicked” comes to town – the public discourse in the Third Room is increasingly about architecture. If an entrepreneurial spirit and access to venture capital is most important to you, I am sorry to say Buffalo is not trying to transform into Silicon Valley. I wish we had a broader outdoor culture, we are making real important gains, and I try to do my small part to encourage it, but Buffalo’s isn’t becoming Boulder or Santa Fe any time soon. If you love progressive politics and electoral reform, may I introduce you to Seattle. The bike rack bound for Portland is on your left.
Buffalo is morphing before our eyes, and while the messy sausage making in the middle is not complete, it is becoming clear to me that our community is on board with the final destination.
Tags: Buffalo, Life, National Trust for Historic Preservation
