Title

Historic Preservation in an Economic Void: Reviving Buffalo’s Concrete Atlantis

Document Type

Journal Article

Publication Title

Journal of Planning History

Publication Date

2016

Abstract

This article explores experimental historic preservation practices at Silo City, a cultural campus “built” around three vacant grain elevators in Buffalo, New York. Amid the not-fully-deindustrialized landscape that Reyner Banham famously called a “Concrete Atlantis,” these practices operate outside traditional adaptive reuse markets, without significant public funding, and exploit historic industrial sites in their “as is” condition. This article argues that these practices have the potential to redefine preservation as an accessible and enjoyable practice rather than a means to a historically rigorous restoration or expansive local development stimulus; and are well suited for hard-to-preserve industrial sites in declining cities.

DOI

10.1177/1538513216629791

Keywords

Economic Advancement

Disciplines

Urban Studies and Planning

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