In Buffalo, a hospital by some of the best-known designers of the 19th century, left for dead in the 20th, is being revived as a boutique hotel. The landmarked Buffalo State Asylum for the Insane, by Henry Hobson Richardson along with Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, is adding an 88-room hotel and conference center, as well as fresh landscaping, as the Rust Belt city bets that its architectural heritage can attract tourists.
The redesign, led by Deborah Berke Partners and finalized last month, will also relocate the hospital’s main entrance to a new atrium, whose glass walls will provide a modern contrast with the building’s dark sandstone exterior. “We wanted to do something clearly of this time, not some fake-it-old version,” Berke says. “It will also be transparent, to highlight Richardson’s work.”
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