Few cities in the United States boast as rich an assortment of architectural gems as Buffalo. Early American architectural styles can be traced backward from Frank Lloyd Wright to Louis Sullivan to H.H. Richardson. An idyllic park system designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux sprawls across the city. It’s even home to the sixth-oldest public art museum in the country, incorporated in 1862: the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, known today as the Buffalo AKG Art Museum. The first major exhibition of photography in the U.S. was held there, and pioneering collectors like Buffalo native A. Conger Goodyear made sure that the museum acquired impressive works by Cézanne, Picasso, and Gauguin. (Goodyear later cofounded and served as the first president of New York’s Museum of Modern Art.)

Space to display the museum’s collection did not always keep pace with acquisitions. Over its 161-year history, the institution has grown slowly but significantly. After a seven-year effort that included complex negotiations with municipal and state preservation groups, the Buffalo AKG has just completed its latest expansion: a new jewel-box addition designed by OMA partner Shohei Shigematsu, which is the firm’s first public art museum in the U.S.