Buffalo · The Most Snow-Friendly Art Museum in North America ❄️🏟😅

On my first trip back to Toronto from New York by car, passing through Buffalo, I encountered a snowstorm and plummeting temperatures. My coffee, left in the car overnight, froze solid. Not wanting to brave the freezing cold outside, I decided to visit this art museum instead. AKG Museum, 1285 Elmwood Ave, Buffalo 📍 Adults: 22/CollegeStudents:20 Closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays 🚪🔒 The Buffalo AKG Art Museum is composed of buildings from three distinct architectural periods: the Neoclassical original building, first constructed in 1905 for the Pan-American Exposition; the Modernist expansion by Gordon Bunshaft in 1962, which included a new auditorium and outdoor courtyard； and in 2023, the completion of an expansion project led by OMA's Shohei Shigematsu, featuring the new Jeffrey E. Gundlach Building and the restoration and enhancement of the existing structures. The stunning new building featured in my posts is the one you'll want to see! 🏛️✨ The museum is situated within Delaware Park, designed by Olmsted—it seems Olmsted left quite a few landscapes in Buffalo, but I couldn't fully appreciate them under the heavy snow. I'll have to save that for another visit. The museum's transparency and openness feel particularly romantic amidst the snowy scenery, with a sense of openness that blurs the boundaries between the building and its environment, inviting the natural landscape indoors. Buffalo, once a thriving industrial city, now seems to fade into the background of daily life, except perhaps for its chicken wings and the hockey games that Canadians drive to see (yes, the parking lots outside chicken wing restaurants are almost always filled with Ontario license plates). Architecture serves as a monument to a city's prosperity; if a city has had a few great buildings, people will always come to take a look, paying homage to its past glories. We know that history rises and falls in cycles, nothing truly new, yet it's a lesson that takes a lifetime to fully grasp. Ah, after organizing this post, I really want to visit an art museum in Hokkaido next time! ❄️🎨 #ArchitecturalDesign #ArtMuseum #Buffalo