Frank Lloyd Wright’s Larkin Administration Building

Frank Lloyd Wright’s Larkin Administration Building. . , Frank Lloyd Wright’s Larkin Administration Building, The Larkin Company Administration Building designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1904 once occupied the parking area adjacent to this marker. The building was converted into Larkin Retail Store in 1939 after which the Larkin Company sold the building to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania contractor L.B. Smith. Smith abandoned the building which was taken by the City of Buffalo for tax foreclosure in 1945. After various proposals failed to materialize the City allowed the Western Trading Company to demolish the building in 1950. The Western Trading Company abandoned plans to construct a building on the site and a parking facility was built over the debris field of the demolished building. , The glass, concrete and brick fence pier directly in front of this marker is a phantom of the brick and stone pier that occupied this location when the Administration building was constructed. The glass pier rests upon the original foundation and portions of the original piers stone base. A careful examination of the interior of the phantom reveals a white brick square inlaid into red brick. These salvaged white bricks are original Chestnut Ridge White Brick Company bricks which lines the interior of the atrium pictured on this panel. , The sunken garden in which this panel rests is the original garden that extended along the entire front of the administration building. The concrete sidewalk that is adjacent to the sunken garden and at the same height is the sidewalk that paralleled the front of the administration building and acted as the exit from its corner staircases. Colored concrete sidewalk sections have been placed on the public sidewalk adjacent to Seneca Street to indicate the relative locations of the buildings atrium and main entrance. , Site plan of the Larkin Administration Building. , Atrium of the Larkin Administration Building. , During the late nineteenth and early twentieth century the Larkin Company was one of Buffalo's largest industrial complexes with just under three million square feet of floor space which annually welcomed over fifty thousand visitors on factory tours. At the conclusion of each tour visitors were presented with a complimentary postcard depicting the facility in an aerial view and invited to mail it home. Thousands of such postal cards were mailed by Larkin visitors to cities and towns in every state of the union.