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Capen to be site of bronze book
By PATRICIA DONOVAN
Contributing Editor
The 2,000-pound "operable" bronze book about Buffalo designed and made by UB faculty, staff and students soon will be installed on the ground floor of Capen Hall, North Campus, where it will be exhibited through the end of the year.
The massive book, whose pages intricately chart the history and physical development of the City of Buffalo, was produced between 1999-2002 under the direction of Frank Fantauzzi, associate professor of architecture, School of Architecture and Planning, through a university-funded, interdisciplinary, collaborative venture, "The Public Casting of Cities."
Project participants included architects, former architecture students and technical staff in the Casting Institute in the Department of Art.
Fantauzzi's work focuses on site-specific urban interventions that aim to disclose parallels between social and tectonic structures. This project was no exception. It involved the creation of more than 50 low-relief models of the most significant buildings in Buffalo's history, the city's original radial street plan and an historic timeline in bronze that records major events in the founding and development of the city.
These were compiled into a large, 12-leaf, book-like structure made of milled-bronze stock and bronze counterweights. The casting was done in the Casting Institute in the Center for the Arts.
"The goal of the project," says Fantauzzi "was to offer a reconsideration of public art for a lay audience—to explore new forms of public art and in particular, discover how public art contributes to the construction of civic identity."
From the onset of the project, he says, the team brought methods and dealt with issues from several fields, including historical narratives in literary, visual and oral form; vernacular and public architectural design; urban planning; drawing; sculpture; and other forms of visual art.
"It is an homage to the 20th century—a final celebration of the book at a time when new technologies threaten to eliminate traditional books as we know them," Fantauzzi says.
The display in Capen is sponsored by the School of Architecture and Planning, the Office of the Provost and the UB Libraries.
"The display will include a map of Buffalo with photos and locations of the buildings pictured in the book, and maps will be available at no charge. The map itself is great and is sure to be a big hit with students," says John Edens, the libraries' assistant director for technical services and interim archivist.
In addition to Fantauzzi, the project was directed by Anthony Dong, adjunct professor of architecture, and local architect and UB architecture alumnus David Zielinski, M.Arch. '00, B.P.S., '95.
Significant assistance was provided by Shahin Vassigh, associate professor of architecture; former architecture student David Willard; and Burke Paterson and Julie Silver, both former technology directors of the Casting Institute.
The bronze book has been exhibited in several venues, most recently in the gallery of the Buffalo-Niagara International Airport, and has been very popular with the public.