Today we present the draft amendment to the landmark building located in Plaza of Spain, Madrid, formerly property of Public Administration, and a basement devoted to carbon storage.
Today, though abandoned, is a listed building, so that the proposal that we will show, have been complied with false ceilings and moldings.
This new project consists of a ground floor, for commercial use, and 3 upper levels over the jacket for an exclusives apartment of between 100 and 200m2, along the lines of A-zero.
The building has a total of 5,702 m2.
The firm has developed a standard floor plan for apartments, 6 for each level, with a wide distribution very functional to suit all needs. Read the rest of this entry »
“The present is the ever moving shadow that divides yesterday and tomorrow. In that lies hope.” – Frank Lloyd Wright, 1958.
The Larkin Power House is an endlessly fascinating structure, and forms the background for this “urban scene of the week,” this blog’s periodical commentary on particular vantage points in the Hydraulics. The view is found at the nexus of yesterday and tomorrow, communicating history and possibility.
The scene, taken a few dozen feet from the New York Central tracks south of Swan Street, is archetypal of Buffalo’s Read the rest of this entry »
The smokestack…
‘Tis a poor drizzly morning, dark and sad.
The cloud has fallen, and filled with fold on fold
The chimneyed city; and the smoke is caught,
And spreads diluted in the cloud, and sinks,
A black precipitate, on miry streets.
And faces gray glide through the darkened fog.
- George MacDonald, “A Manchester Poem”
The Larkin Power House smokestack is one of the obelisks of industrial Buffalo. It is one among these quickly-disappearing landmarks that define the city’s character and place in time, in many ways more than the buildings to which they are connected. The smokestack, as symbol of the Machine Age, is fading from memory – and skylines. In December 2006, the Buffalo region lost one of its mighty stacks at Tonawanda’s Spaulding Fibre plant, which at 250 feet could be seen for miles around and was probably the single most important connector to the history of the suburban municipality. The smokestack of the Larkin Power House survives, defying its obsolescence. Read the rest of this entry »
10,000 cases of booze on the wall, 10,000 cases of booze, take one down, pass it around, 9,999 cases of booze on the wall…
The Larkin Terminal Warehouse was a center of attention on December 5, 1933, the day the Prohibition Amendment was repealed and this, the city’s only bonded warehouse, was expected to release 10,000 cases of imported whiskey and gin to Buffalo hotels and restaurants to mark the first night of legal liquor. Repeal Day, now celebrated in bars across the United States and undoubtedly in Hydraulics taverns like Sharkey’s and the Swan Lounge tonight, was anticipated to be a day of celebration, and commerce, in Larkinland in 1933, as well. Read the rest of this entry »
The Seneca Street bridge leading into the Larkin District over the former New York Central Rail Corridor offers some interesting scenes.
Looking to the east, one first witnesses the impressive profile (above) of the Larkin Power House and its smokestack – one of the steeples of industrial Buffalo. The peak of the smokestack marks the highest point in the Hydraulics and at one time reached much higher, that is, before the stack was damaged in a lightning strike some decades ago. To the south of the Power House is the Larkin L/M Warehouse, where the Larkin Company stored much of its raw materials (think hundreds of tons of animal fat for soap production, as only one example) and which has the highest floor load capacity (230 lbs./sq.ft.) of all the Larkin District structures, a higher load capacity than even the more advanced Larkin Terminal Warehouse constructed eight years later in 1912. Read the rest of this entry »
