Introduction
The Robert
T. Coles House and Studio is significant under Criterion C as an
outstanding
and highly intact example of mid-twentieth century Modern residential
architecture in Buffalo.
Designed and constructed in 1961 by its owner, a prominent local
architect, the building used pre-fabricated and pre-cut components in
its construction that were drawn from Coles’s experience working for the
Techbuilt Company, an innovative mid-century pre-fabricated housing
manufacturer. As such, the Coles house is an excellent example of
many new ideas in modern residential architecture that were developed
following World War II, including mass-production, use of new materials,
and modularity.
However, Coles also customized the design to suit his own needs, which
included incorporating both his professional office and his family home
into the structure.
The building was conceived as two rectangular wings (office and home)
oriented perpendicular to each other and linked by a hyphen that
contains the main entrance. The separation and planning of public
and private spaces is unusually and thoughtfully rendered in the Coles
House and Studio, particularly in placing the office at the front of the
lot and isolating private areas of the house at the rear of the
property, thus shielding them from the noise and pollution of the busy
expressway under construction through the neighborhood during the early
1960s. These goals were reinforced by the use of nearly solid
walls with little fenestration on the front and side elevations,
combined with a rear elevation that is almost entirely glass, fronting
on a terrace and garden.
Coles and his family have been the sole owners and occupants of the
house and studio since it was built in 1961. Not only is the
building structurally intact to its construction period but it retains
many of the original furnishings, artwork and other elements, all of
which help to convey the architect’s original vision for the house.
Modern Residential Architecture
American residential
architecture changed dramatically in the post-World War II era.
The period after the war saw a severe housing shortage, changes in
demographics, and an increased demand for new and affordable
housing. “It is estimated that some 2,900,000 married veterans of
the recent war will be in need of housing facilities by the end of the
year 1946,” stated a report to the U.S. House of Representatives made in
February 1946. “To meet the housing emergency there is an urgent
need for some 3,000,000 moderately and low-priced homes and apartments
during the next two years.”
Housing construction had practically ceased during the war, and little
had been constructed in the previous decade during the Great
Depression. As a result, much of the existing housing stock dated
to the nineteenth century and featured substandard electrical, plumbing
and heating systems. Those units which were available and
affordable to the returning G.I.s were generally cramped apartment
buildings, flats, or houses that had been carved up into units during
the Depression.
This era also saw the rise of the automobile as a popular and affordable
mode of transportation for the American family. During the
post-War/Cold War era the national highway system was also developed,
both for military purposes but also in response to the growing ownership
and use of automobiles. As cars became increasingly affordable and
prevalent in the American culture, the system of older and smaller
roads, which largely dated to the early twentieth century and the early
horse-and-buggy age, became clogged and crowded by the increasing auto
traffic. While cities were already seen as unhealthy and unclean
with pollution, noise and crowding, this sentiment was only exacerbated
by the new automobile congestion.
These networks of new and improved roads stretching beyond the urban
cores encouraged the growth of the suburbs on the outskirts of congested
cities, and these undeveloped, low-density areas with green trees and
open space were thought of as ideal places to raise healthy families.
Together, the shortage of good housing stock coupled with the rise of
the suburbs sparked an era of intense interest in designing and building
affordable and modern single-family detached houses.
One response to this cultural shift was to develop new methods of
machine-made, mass-produced and pre-fabricated housing that could be
manufactured affordably, quickly and efficiently. These concepts
were not new, as pattern books and
“kit
houses” had been developed and sold across the country in the
late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century from companies such as Sears
& Roebuck and Montgomery Ward; however, these concepts and
techniques were refined and modernized during this era.
Architects, developers, and builders had long seen a connection between
mass-production, technology and standardization in creating affordable,
easy-to-build housing. In the 1940s and 50s, housing manufacturers
also had the benefit of drawing on machinery, man-power and technology
developed during the war to make military equipment.
Techbuilt and Carl Koch
The House
and Studio derives much of its inspiration and construction methods, as
is evidenced in its building materials, by architect Robert Coles's
experience working for the housing company Techbuilt. Techbuilt
was a unique housing system that was developed in the 1950s by architect
Carl Koch.
Like other housing designs of the same era, Techbuilt was developed as a
response to the demand for inexpensive, easy to construct, single-family
houses. It was a time where new innovations in machinery and
technology also encouraged new ideas about mass-production and
pre-fabrication. This era gave rise to many innovative designs for
houses, including ideas such as the Lustron House, a single-family home
that could be quickly assembled on-site of pre-made enameled steel
panels. Entirely new communities such as Levittown, a development
which became the epitome of post-war pre-fabricated housing, were also
constructed.
Techbuilt was the brainchild of architect
Carl
Koch. Born Albert Carl Koch in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in
1912, Koch studied architecture at Harvard University, receiving his
Master of Architecture degree in 1937. While at Harvard, Koch
witnessed the school’s transition from the
Beaux-Arts
style educational program to the modern ideas brought by Walter
Gropius, a German immigrant who became chair of the architecture
department at Harvard in 1938. Gropius was a highly influential
modern architect, known as the founder of the Bauhaus in Germany.
In 1940-41, Koch also traveled to Sweden, where he studied in the office
of Sven Markelius, a significant Swedish modern architect. Working
with Markelius, Koch refined the Bauhaus inspired education he had
received from Gropius, creating his own understanding of modern
architecture.
Upon his return to the United States, Koch’s first project was a
community housing project called Snake Hill (1941) in Belmont,
Massachusetts. Koch used this project as an opportunity to design an
inexpensive house for himself and his family, who moved into one of the
project’s five houses. This project was highly influential to
Koch, who decided to devote his practice to creating quality, reasonably
priced housing for the post-war American family. Koch noted the
shifting and rapidly growing American population at the time and felt
that creating prefabricated houses with interior plans that were able to
change their configuration was the ideal way to meet the changing needs
of these new families.
Koch’s first pre-fabricated housing design was a concept for the
Acorn
House (1947-48). The Acorn House was designed with room
units placed around a central core and its exterior created by folding
stressed skin panels. These panels were engineered by John
Bemis. An innovative idea, a stressed skin panel was created by
impregnating
a paper honeycomb with plastic, then gluing it rigidly to a sheathing
material. This material was thought to have strength and
insulative properties and theoretically could be produced at a low
cost. The innovative and unusual Acorn House was written about and
photographed for Life magazine and other popular publications of the
time, but the building was commercially unsuccessful, as it presented
significant issues with local building codes and met with resistance
from some local municipalities.
Also in 1948, Carl Koch was called in to assist another pre-fabricated
housing manufacturer, the
Lustron
Corporation, run by businessman and inventor Carl
Strandlund. The Lustron Corporation, founded in 1947, had been an
early pioneer in post-war pre-fabricated housing, designing houses
constructed of
enameled steel panels.
Among Lustron’s innovations were complete building kits that could
be shipped to customers and assembled on site. Koch designed several new
models to add to the Lustron company’s product selection. He also
made a thorough study of Lustron’s existing equipment, processes and
fabrication methods, which resulted in improvements to the structure and
innovations in the plans. Unfortunately, the Lustron Corporation
ceased operations in 1950, and none of Koch’s new ideas or models were
put into production.
Koch then turned to a more successful concept for pre-fabricated
housing. In 1953 Koch invented the
Techbuilt
System, which would become his most commercial and critically
successful idea. Drawing more from traditional residential
architectural vocabularies, the Techbuilt line was more harmonious with
traditional architectural forms and sympathetic to the pre-conceived
concepts of residential architecture retained by many mid-twentieth
century families. Techbuilt houses also relied on more traditional
building materials, including wood, as opposed to the more radical
plastics utilized in his Acorn House concept. Koch appears to have
learned much from his experiences with the Lustron Corporation and
incorporated many of the concepts and features of that product into
Techbuilt, including using pre-fabricated components, assembly on-site,
the notion of catalog orders, providing a limited number of basic
models, and other concepts.
However, unlike the rather plain and modest forms of the all-metal
Lustrons, Koch’s designs for Techbuilt incorporated forms such as
steeply peaked roofs, were rendered in wood and natural materials, and
featured open, spacious interiors. The simplicity and linear aesthetic
of the Techbuilt house also reveals a modern Scandinavian influence,
likely drawn from Koch’s time spent in Sweden.
Techbuilt houses were originally available in six different
models. A catalog from the late 1950s also offered a variety of
small “vacation cottages,” as well as showcased the use of Techbuilt
systems for college dormitories and office buildings.
Techbuilt houses were among the most popular of the pre-fabricated
housing available at the time; by 1963 over 3,000 kits had been sold to
customers located across the country.
Techbuilt houses were designed to be affordable, quick to construct, and
to meet the needs and tastes of the modern young American family.
Many of the models cost less than $20,000, depending on how many
“extras” were added. More extravagant models could cost up
to $70,000. The houses were reasonably spacious, averaging about
1700-square feet, but they could be expanded to almost any size. Buyers
would receive a catalog from the Techbuilt Company in which they could
view the various models, options and upgrades. Once they made
their selections and worked with the company to make any modifications,
the kit was shipped directly from the factory to the site.
Since the houses were partially pre-fabricated, parts for the building
were shipped on a single truck, making even their delivery
efficient. Techbuilt houses had pre-assembled wall panels, which
featured fiberglass insulation. The beams were pre-cut to size,
and windows and sliding glass door units were also shipped on the
truck. Local franchised builders would receive the working
drawings from Techbuilt containing any changes or upgrades made by the
owners and oversee the on-site construction. It was noted that
this system reduced the architectural fees to an average cost of $300 in
1960.
One of the goals of Techbuilt designers was to create a residential
building that contained no wasted space. Every square foot of the
house was carefully and tautly designed to maximize the functionality of
the building while minimizing materials, time, labor and costs.
One way to increase efficiency was to eliminate the traditional
basement. Instead, the foundation was incorporated into the
structure of the first story, saving both money and time.
The Techbuilt house designs, which utilized a basic post-and-beam
construction method based on regular modules, also maximized the
flexibility of the interior space. The Techbuilt system was
designed around a four-foot module, making the non-structural wall
panels interchangeable and customizable both as exterior and interior
walls, arranged based on the owner’s needs and design. Since the
post-and-beam
structural system eliminated the load carrying needs of the exterior
walls, this allowed for walls to be customized with solid, combination
solid and window, or all window units. Owners could create as many
or as few rooms as they wanted, arranged with great flexibility.
Ideally, Koch envisioned that Techbuilt houses could be quickly and
easily assembled, disassembled, and later reassembled in a variety of
configurations. Techbuilt models were typically designed with a
gabled
roof without an attic, giving the vaulted interior spaces an even
greater sense of volume and light.
Techbuilt houses were a product designed for the modern needs of
American families in the 1950s, and the house designs were marketed
utilizing the newest technology as well. In February 1954 a
two-part program titled “Excursion,” sponsored by the Ford Foundation,
aired on television and chronicled the construction of a Techbuilt house
from foundation to completion. Narrated by actor Burgess Meredith,
the program was immensely popular and watched by millions of
viewers. Immediately, the company was flooded with orders, many
from young families looking to build affordable vacation homes.
The houses were also featured in another show called “Omnibus.” In
utilizing this still new and exciting medium for advertising, Techbuilt
may have been one of the first housing types launched by television.
In 1958, Koch, along with Andy Lewis, wrote a book that helped to
promote and distribute his Techbuilt concepts.
At
Home with Tomorrow outlined Koch’s experiences with the
Techbuilt system, as well as other experiments and thoughts on
prefabricated architecture. The Techbuilt house also gained public
and critical accolades and was cited by the American Institute of
Architects (AIA) as the “Best Development House.” The New York
Times dubbed them “The People’s Choice.” In the late 1950s Koch
was noted as designing a number of city planning projects for Webb &
Knapp Development Corporation, including a new subdivision of 185
townhouses in Buffalo (unidentified at this time). At nearly the
same time, Techbuilt took on a new architect and custom design manager,
hiring Robert T. Coles in 1959.
During the 1960s and 70s, Carl Koch continued to pioneer new ideas in
housing. During this era, Koch moved into designing large-scale
public housing. Many of these projects incorporated pre-stressed
concrete components, which he called Techcrete. One of his most
successful uses of this product was at the Techcrete Academy Homes
(1962), located in Roxbury, Massachusetts.
Throughout his career, Carl Koch sought to find new, cost-effective
housing technologies and designs to accommodate the needs of the modern
American. Whether it was through his Modernist-inspired Techbuilt
houses or his Techcrete systems, Koch was a pioneer of twentieth-century
ideas in housing. In 1994 Koch was crowned the “Grandfather of
Prefab” by Progressive Architecture magazine, capping a successful
career as a pioneer in reinventing modern American residential
architecture. He died on February 3, 1998 at the age of 86.
Carl Koch’s philosophies on creating affordable, flexible and modern
housing influenced many architects and designers, including Robert T.
Coles.
Robert Traynham Coles, RA, FAIA
From his start working for Carl Koch in 1959, Robert Traynham Coles has
become one of Buffalo’s most prominent and respected architects.
Coles has contributed many notable and award-winning architectural
projects to the area and has also played an active role in the local,
regional and national architectural community through lectures,
teaching, professional activities, and in other endeavors.
Robert Traynham Coles was born in Buffalo on August 24, 1929, one of
four sons born to George Edward and Helena Vesta Traynham Coles.
George Coles worked as a postal worker, an occupation that provided a
rare financial stability to the family during the Depression era.
As a result, the Coles family was often one of few African American
families in many of the neighborhoods in which they lived. In the era
before the Civil Rights movement, Coles was one of only a handful of
African American students in his elementary school. Later Coles
attended the Technical High School (now known as Hutchinson Technical
High School), where, of the 1,800 students, enrollment of
African-American students was limited to only a dozen. In 1943 Coles was
placed in a course called building design. During the height of
World War II, when new construction was at a virtual stand-still, this
was an unpopular and undesirable class at the school. However, it
was in this class that Coles gained a new perspective on the world and
was inspired to pursue a career as an architect.
After graduation, Coles attended Hampton Institute (now Hampton
University) in Virginia between 1947 and 1949. Dissatisfied with the
architectural curriculum at the school, Coles transferred to the
University of Minnesota. Here, Coles received his Bachelor of Arts
degree in 1951 and a Bachelor of Architecture degree in 1953.
After graduation, Coles entered the architectural program at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and in 1955 he earned his Master
of Architecture degree.
Despite his absence from Buffalo for eight years while he attended
school, Coles’s graduate thesis at MIT involved the city of his birth.
In a combined research and design thesis, Coles created an urban renewal
project for the neighborhood in which he had attended high school.
Titled “Community Facilities in Redevelopment Areas, A Study and
Proposal for the Ellicott District in Buffalo, New York,” the project
was created with the Buffalo Urban League as the client. Coles’s
thesis reached a receptive audience in Western New York and was widely
publicized in Buffalo.
Following his graduation from MIT, Coles won the prestigious Rotch
Traveling Scholarship awarded by the Boston Society of Architects.
Coles, his wife, Sylvia, and the couple’s young son subsequently spent
the next year traveling throughout Europe. Upon their return,
Coles entered the Boston architectural firm of Perry, Shaw, Hepburn and
Dean as an intern architect. In 1957-58, Coles worked as an
architect for the notable Boston firm of Shepley, Bulfinch, Richardson
and Abbott. While at the latter firm, Coles worked on several
projects, including buildings at Harvard University and Dartmouth
College. Coles then worked for a year with Carl Koch and Associates and
a year with Advance Planning Associates. While working for Koch,
Coles contributed to the firm’s work on the Metropolitan Boston Arts
Center and designed a housing project in Brookline, Massachusetts. From
1959 until 1960, Coles worked as architect and custom design manager for
Techbuilt, Inc., where he designed and built over 200 buildings
throughout the eastern United States.
In 1960, Coles realized every young architect’s dream when he received
word that his thesis project was being commissioned. Coles and his
family left Boston and returned to Buffalo to design and construct his
Ellicott District Recreation Center. Today this project, located
just south of Clinton Street in Buffalo’s Willert Park neighborhood, is
known as the
John F. Kennedy
Recreation Center. During construction of the recreation
center, Coles worked as coordinating architect with the firm of DeLeuw,
Cather and Brill. Following the completion of the project in 1963,
Coles established his own architectural firm, Robert Traynham Coles,
Architect pc. Still in operation in 2011, Coles’s practice is the
oldest African American owned architectural firm in New York State and
in the Northeast.
In the early 1960s, Coles became an outspoken advocate for a downtown
presence for the new campus proposed for the University at
Buffalo. In 1962, the University at Buffalo (UB) was absorbed into
the State University of New York (SUNY) system. During the early
1960s, enrollment at UB was rapidly surpassing the capacity of its small
campus, located at Main Street and Bailey Avenue in the city’s northern
area. Projections indicated that by 1975 UB’s enrollment could
reach over 40,000 students, prompting the need for an expanded new
campus. Five sites were initially reviewed for the new campus;
however, only two sites were serious contenders: one located in downtown
Buffalo adjacent to the waterfront, and another located in the suburbs
of Amherst. In 1963, New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller commissioned a
study of the two sites. Although urban planners found the
waterfront site optimal for the new campus, in 1964 the governor and the
UB trustees recommended development of the new campus in Amherst.
Between this decision and the ground-breaking for the campus (now known
as North Campus) in late 1967, many people continued to advocate for the
downtown waterfront campus. Among them was Coles, who believed
that the downtown campus would be more convenient for the city’s
lower-income inner-city residents, who could not afford to commute to
the northern suburbs. In 1966-57, when he was only in his mid-30s,
Coles chaired a committee of civic leaders campaigning for the downtown
site. Despite losing the debate, Coles’s firm was later
commissioned to design UB’s $27 million Health, Physical Education and
Recreation complex, later renamed
Alumni
Arena, built 1979-1985 on the new North Campus in
Amherst. While a win for Amherst, the loss of North Campus to
Amherst is considered by many to have had devastating impact for
Buffalo’s downtown.
Coles’s resume reflects his focus on large-scale commercial and civic
projects rather than on residential architecture. While examples
of his residential designers are relatively few (refer to Sections VI
and VII), there are several residential projects that reflect Coles’s
style and design philosophy. The residence for Mr. and Mrs. Gerald
Berlyn, constructed in 1965 in Worcester, Massachusetts, shares some
similarities in form and materials with Coles’s home. Like the
Coles house, the
Berlyn house
features a centrally located circulation core in a split-level
configuration. Located on a dramatically sloping site, the Berlyn
house makes use of a
cantilevered
living room, which features a carport below, that is reminiscent of the
cantilever employed by Coles for his own living room.
Buildings such as the weekend house for
Dr.
Lydia
Wright and Dr. Frank Evans, constructed in Attica, NY in 1968,
are similar in materials to the Coles residence. While the two
houses share simple rectangular massing, the Wright-Evans house also
uses wood post-and-beam structure coupled with wood plank ceilings and
large expanses of glass that are similar to the Coles house.
The weekend house for
Dr. and Mrs.
Joseph Ravin (1970, Ellicottville, NY) is perhaps the most
similar to the Coles house. This design features a cantilevered
living room with a recessed porch, nearly identical in appearance to
that at the Coles residence. Coles’s residential projects all
share a similar, minimalistic, Scandinavian-inspired modernist design,
utilizing natural materials, including wood and stone. While
varying in form and configuration, Coles’s residential designs all share
a compact, simple and functional design that minimizes wasted space and
incorporates storage and utility spaces efficiently within the building
without a traditional basement or attic. Coles believes that these
similarities in form, materials and design stem from his clients’
appreciation of the design and appearance of his own house.
In 1961, Coles joined the American Institute of Architects. At the
1968 conference held in Portland, Coles heard civil rights leader and
fellow MIT alumnus Whitney Young issue his famous keynote address,
challenging the architectural profession to become more engaged and
involved in the urban crisis. Active in a variety of social causes
and using architecture on behalf of the overall improvement in the
community, Coles was instrumental in starting the Community Planning
Assistance Center of Western New York (CPAC), a community design center
to bring technical assistance to community organizations that sought to
develop their neighborhoods but lacked funding to pay for
assistance. Coles served as AIA’s deputy vice president of
minority affairs from 1974-1976 and received an honorary Doctorate of
Letters from Medaille College in 1977 in recognition of this
leadership. Because of his continued commitment to social equality
in the architectural profession, Coles was awarded the AIA’s Whitney M.
Young, Jr. Citation, the AIA’s second highest award, in 1981. Also in
1981, Coles was made a Fellow of the AIA, a prestigious recognition of
his service to the architectural community. In 1989 Coles made
what he feels was his most significant contribution to the field of
architecture when, as Langston Hughes Professor of Architecture and
Urban Design at the University of Kansas, his inaugural lecture, “Black
Architects, An Endangered Species” was published as a guest editorial in
Progressive Architecture.
In the 1980s and 90s, while continuing his architectural practice in
Buffalo, Coles served as a professor at other colleges and
universities. Between 1990 and 1995 he was an associate professor
of architecture at Carnegie Mellon University. He also served in a
variety of visiting positions at the University at Buffalo and at the
University at Kansas. Coles also served on the juries for several
notable projects, including the U.S. Post Office National Design
Competition, the City Plaza National Design Competition in Lexington,
and the State Association of Architects Design Awards in New York City.
The list of civic, political and philanthropic activities and groups to
which Robert T. Coles has joined or participated is long. He
served as council member of the Burchfield Art Center; Arts in America;
Erie County Horizons Waterfront Commission, Board of Directors; Built a
New City, Inc.; Preservation League of New York State, and many
others. Coles also served as a fellow of the AIA on numerous
committees and task forces and served as an honorary trustee of the
Western New York Public Broadcasting Station since 1987. He is a
member of Alpha Kappa Mu, the National Organization of Minority
Architects, in which group he has served a variety of leadership
roles. The many awards Robert T. Coles has received throughout his
career include an AIA Award of Merit, received in 1963 for his personal
residence. Coles was also been honored by the AIA New York State
Chapter in 2004 in recognition of his lifetime service as an architect.
Robert Traynham Coles continues to practice, focusing on large-scale
projects located primarily in Buffalo and Western New York. Coles
has devoted his life to the betterment of his community and the people
in it through a wide variety of professional, educational and service
activities and involvement. The affordable, adaptable and
efficient design and construction of his own residence and studio
reflects his concepts about affordable housing in urban
neighborhoods. Energized by a lifetime committed towards using
architecture for social activism, Coles’s ideas about what an architect
is, and should be, are best summarized by statements made in 2004:
[Architects] must in their works, build the demonstrative
alternative to the way we live today. They must be initiators as
well as implementers – leaders more than followers. They must truly
be revolutionaries who see their architecture as a broad movement to
enhance the quality of life of urban people.
History of the Robert T. Coles House and Studio
Although he had initially planned on building his home in Massachusetts,
in 1961 Coles returned to his hometown of Buffalo to design and build
the Ellicott District Recreation Center. With a young family and a
busy architectural practice to accommodate, the need for housing was
imperative. Coles quickly adapted the plans he had developed to
his new situation and new setting, reflecting his belief in a universal
design, a design theory that created a generic, flexible design
for a building that could be translated to a variety of settings and
sites.
Coles selected a parcel of land on Humboldt Parkway in the
Hamlin
Park neighborhood. Using many of the materials,
designs and concepts of the Techbuilt system, Coles was able to complete
the design in only three months and construction in an additional three
months. Coles’s house is unlike any of the surrounding houses in
the early twentieth century Hamlin Park neighborhood, which is dominated
by
American
Foursquare and
Craftsman
style buildings, typically with spacious front porches facing the
street. With its low, non-descript, rectilinear presence, shielded
from Humboldt Parkway by shrubs and fences, the Robert T. Coles House
and Studio presents a contrast to its traditionally designed
neighbors. While adjacent houses were designed to feature public
spaces fronting right onto the street, Coles’s house and studio was
designed with a rather utilitarian façade facing onto the busy
Scajaquada Expressway/Kensington Expressway interchange and private
areas located on the interior of the property.
For much of the early twentieth century, this area was comparable to
other parkway neighborhoods in Buffalo, featuring the
Olmsted-designed
Humboldt Parkway, a
lush green ribbon of grass and trees which served as a slice of parkland
running throughout the neighborhood. The majority of the houses in
Hamlin Park were built during the parkway era, when the street was a
spacious 150-foot wide park-like lawn used for socializing, recreation
and outdoor activities. In response, houses were designed with
their primary façade facing towards the grassy green park, often with
spacious porches that bridged the transition between the tranquil,
public parkway and the building, welcoming people to linger there.
Coles’s house reflects a new age in this neighborhood, where automobile
traffic replaced the horse and buggy. At the time Coles purchased
the parcel in 1961, construction of the expressway had just begun. In
the span of a few years, the serene tree-lined ribbon of Humboldt
Parkway was excavated for a sunken multi-lane roadway, which funneled
traffic in and out of the city at a new pace. The new highway
would not be completed until 1968; however, Coles anticipated that this
new expressway would bring noise and pollution to the
neighborhood. In response, Coles designed his house and studio in
a new and innovative way. As the architect described it shortly
after construction, “I deliberately understated the house from the
street because I feel that a house should be primarily for the people
who reside in it and their guests.”
The Robert T. Coles House and Studio was designed with sensitivity to
sheltering private spaces from the noise and traffic, while making the
public spaces accessible to the street. On a large scale, the two
units, public and private, are separate from each other, maximizing the
separation of the two spaces in the overall building itself. The public
unit (the office and studio) is located adjacent to the street, making
it accessible for the staff, clients, public and others to access at
grade. Private areas (the house) are located at the rear of the
property, sheltering spaces such as bedrooms and family spaces from the
noise of the street overlooking the rear court and garden. This
configuration meant that the elevation visible from the street consisted
primarily of a garage door rather than an elegant front porch. The
spacious porch is still evident at Coles’s house, but it has been
located facing the rear court to the south of the property, overlooking
a quiet, tranquil yard and a lush canopy of trees.
Similarly, each elevation of the building was designed with a special
awareness of private and public spaces within and their relationship to
the landscape and setting without. Thanks to the flexibility of
the non-structural wall panels, drawn from the Techbuilt system, walls
could range from open and transparent to solid and impermeable.
Coles’s house and studio feature primarily solid walls facing the street
to the north, shielding it from the noise of the expressway just a few
feet away. The building also generally features solid wall panels
on the east and west facades, providing a sense of privacy from the
adjacent houses.
The western wall of the studio, a space requiring good lighting for
drawing and drafting, also features large windows. Here, as a
measure of privacy for the studio, a large courtyard and sculpture
garden, which features works given to Coles by sculptor Jack Solomon, is
also located, enclosed by shrubs and plants to afford additional quiet
and tranquility.
On the southern façade of the private unit, the wall is composed nearly
entirely of large window units and floor-to-ceiling sliding glass doors,
allowing for light to flood the interior. Facing into the private
rear court, this façade is permeable to the light and natural
environment of the yard.
Although the Coles house and studio incorporate many of the ideas,
concepts and materials of the Techbuilt system into its design, the
building is a custom-designed home built to meet the needs of Coles and
his family. The Douglas fir post-and-beam structural system of
Coles’s house and studio are directly from the Techbuilt model; however,
the Coles house has a flat roof rather than the more typical gable roof
found in Techbuilt houses. Pre-fabricated wall panels and
factory-ready windows and sliding glass door units were also used,
proving to be a great time-saver. Like the Techbuilt model, the
Coles house and studio is constructed without a basement level; instead,
the foundation was incorporated into the lower level of the house.
Also similar to the two-story Techbuilt models, the master bedroom was
located on the upper level, and additional bedrooms were on the lower
level. Coles also made a number of modifications to the Techbuilt
house designs, including running the beams in an opposite direction,
eliminating the vaulted interior spaces, and carefully controlling solid
versus transparent walls to adapt to the more urban environment (many of
the Techbuilt houses were built as beach properties rather than city
residences). Also, the manner in which Coles divided
public
and private spaces into two separate units, connected by a
transitional hyphen space, is his own innovation.
The Robert T. Coles House and Studio is an award-winning project
recognized by the architectural community. In 1963, the house was
awarded the New York State Association of Architects’ “Award of Merit”
for its excellence in design. Coles was recognized for his outstanding
work in the category of excellence in design by his peers with this
award. The Robert T. Coles House and Studio is part of a long line of
architects’ homes and studios. Like the homes of other architects,
the Coles house reflected its designer’s architectural philosophies and
served as a model for his functional, efficient, flexible and affordable
design ideas. Coles’s house embodies his ideas on affordable,
socially conscious housing, as well as the architectural designs and
theories of mid-twentieth century modern architecture.
EXAMPLES OF OTHER RESIDENTIAL BUILDING
PROJECTS (provided by R.T. Coles)
1970 Weekend House for Dr. and Mrs. Joseph Ravin –
Ellicottville, NY ($50,000)
1968 Weekend House for Dr. Lydia Wright and Dr. Frank
Evans – Attica, NY ($40,000)
1965 Residence for Mr. and Mrs. Gerald Berlyn –
Worcester, MA ($100,000)
LIST OF COMPLETED NON-RESIDENTIAL BUILDING PROJECTS (provided by R.T.
Coles)
2007 Public School 128 Design – Queens, NY
2006 Public School 118 Feasibility Study – Bronx, NY
2006 Program Study, Middle College High School –
Buffalo, NY
2006 Frank E. Merriweather Jr. Branch Library –
Buffalo, NY
2005 School #36 Renovation – Buffalo, NY
2001 Johnnie P. Wiley Pavilion Offices – Buffalo, NY
2001 JFK Playground Shelter – Buffalo, NY
2000 Renovation of Apollo Theater into Public Access
Television Station – Buffalo, NY
2000 Langston Hughes Center Renovation – Buffalo, NY
1999 Ralph Wilson Stadium Lower Bowl Seating
Replacement – Orchard Park, NY
1998 Harlem Hospital Center-New Ambulatory Care Facility –
New York, NY
1998 Public School 233 Addition & Modernization –
Brooklyn, NY
1998 Reconstruction of Westside & Genesee Street
Community Center – Buffalo, NY
1997 Ph. II-Friends to the Elderly Center Renovation –
Buffalo, NY
1997 Renovation of 945 Genesee Street – Buffalo, NY
1997 Conway Field Shelter/Concession Stand – Buffalo,
NY
1996 Offices for Watts Engineers – Buffalo, NY
1994 Tauriello-Lakeview Homes – Buffalo, NY
1994 Geneva B. Scruggs Center, 1461 Main Street,
Renovation – Buffalo, NY
1994 Geneva B. Scruggs Intermediate Care Facility –
Buffalo, NY
1993 War Memorial Stadium Demolitions &
Construction of New Athletic Facility – Buffalo, NY
1992 Business Office Building and Campus Demolition,
College of Staten Island, NY
1991 Albion Community Residence – Albion, NY
1990 Gethsemane Baptist Church, Addition – Buffalo, NY
1990 State University College at Brockport Roof
Replacement Projects – Brockport, NY
1990 Human Services Office Building, County of
Ontario, NY – Canandaigua, NY
1990 Geneva B. Scruggs Health Care Renovation, Women
& Children’s Unit – Buffalo, NY
1990 Wende Correctional Facility, Renovation/New
Construction – Alden, NY
1989 Research Institute on Alcoholism Renovation –
Buffalo, NY
1988 Erie Community College City Campus, Teaching
Kitchen, Phase II – Buffalo, NY
1988 Asarese-Matters Recreation Center – Buffalo, NY
1987 Gowanda Psychiatric Center Rehab Treatment Center
– Gowanda, NY
1987 Health, Physical Education & Recreation
Complex, Phase II – Natatorium, SUNY at Buffalo, Amherst Campus –
Amherst, NY
1987 Bidwell Station Post Office – Buffalo, NY
1986 Burgard Vocational High School Addition &
Reconstruction – Buffalo, NY
1986 Buffalo Psychiatric Center Dining Room Addition –
Buffalo, NY
1986 Frank Reeves Municipal Center – Washington, DC
1985 Repair & Alteration Program, Buffalo/Western
New York Post Offices
1985 Erie Community College City Campus, Teaching
Kitchen, Phase I – Buffalo, NY
1984 Utica Station – Buffalo, NY
1984 Removal of Architectural Barrier, Varies Resident
Engineers Offices – Western New York
1984 Providence Railroad Station – Providence, RI
1983 South Park Yards & Shops – Buffalo, NY
1983 Health, Physical Education & Recreation
Complex, Phase I – Alumni Arena
State University of New York at Buffalo, Amherst
Campus – Amherst, NY
1983 157 Delaware Avenue Renovation – Buffalo, NY
1983 Lindbergh Center Station – Atlanta, GA
1983 Operations Control Center – Buffalo, NY
1983 Port of Entry Restaurant – Amherst, NY
1982 William-Emslie YMCA – Buffalo, NY
1982 Jefferson Avenue Façade Signage and
Rehabilitation Program – Buffalo, NY
1982 Façade Rehabilitation for Hertel Avenue Stores –
Buffalo, NY
1981 Niagara Community Center & Girls Club – Buffalo,
NY
1981 5 Spaces, VA Medical Center, Renovation –
Buffalo, NY
1981 VA Medical Center Supply Processing, Renovation –
Buffalo, NY
1981 Rosalia Street Telephone Garage, Renovation –
Buffalo, NY
1980 One Niagara Square, Renovation – Buffalo, NY
1979 Federal Office Building, Renovation – Buffalo NY
1978 West Seneca Branch Post Office – West Seneca, NY
1978 Sherman L. Walker Human Services Center,
Renovation – Buffalo, NY
1974 Public School 40 – Buffalo, NY
1974 Sperry Playground – Buffalo, NY
1974 Perry Day Care Center – Buffalo, NY
1973 Ellicott Neighborhood Advisory Council/UDC
Housing Project – Buffalo, NY
1973 Northeast Neighborhood Facility – Rochester, NY
1972 Urban Park Housing Development – Rochester, NY
1972 Sherman L. Walker Human Services Center –
Buffalo, NY
1971 Bacon Hall, Renovation – Buffalo, NY
1968 Local 34, Inc., Renovation – Buffalo, NY
1967 Friendship House of Lackawanna – Lackawanna, NY
1967 Joseph J. Kelly Gardens, Housing for the Elderly
– Buffalo, NY
1967 Sample Memorial Playground – Chautauqua, NY
1964 Lanigan Field House – Buffalo, NY
1963 John F. Kennedy Recreation Center (originally
named Ellicott District Recreation Center) – Buffalo, NY