Huyler Building - Table of Contents
Reinforced concrete and the The Huyler Candy Building in Buffalo
374 Delaware Avenue, Buffalo NY
By Jennifer Walkowski
An excerpt from the
Huyler’s Candy Company Building Nomination for Listing on the State & National Registers of Historic Places.
Prepared by Clinton Brown Company Architecture/Rebuild
The Huyler Building was designed utilizing a reinforced concrete structural system, clad on its primary and most notable elevations with an artificial cast stone skin.
Reinforced concrete building technology originally used in industrial structures at the dawn of the twentieth century became a pioneering modern system which provided many benefits over its solid masonry counterparts when it became popular for commercial structures by the 1920s.This structural system greatly improved a building’s resistance to fire, which made it an early favorite for use in industrial and manufacturing buildings.
Along with other technologies created at the time, such as elevators and electrical systems, the concrete structural frame system also allowed for the development of increasingly taller buildings.
Reinforced concrete skeletons, with their regularly spaced cage-like systems of columns, allowed an interior which could be left as a large open space or partitioned into spaces with non- permanent, non-structural walls. Similarly, on the exterior of the building, this system allowed for non- structural infill between the columns, which could be filled with large windows, decorative spandrels or other elements.
While concrete had been used for building since antiquity, and Roman engineers reinforced their concrete buildings with various materials including old pottery sherds, bricks, horsehair and wood, it was not until the 1800s that modern reinforced concrete began to take shape. One of the first patents for a reinforced concrete was issued in 1867 to French gardener Joseph Monier, who devised a method for encasing a metal frame in concrete to make gardening tubs and planters. By the end of the nineteenth century, architects and engineers in France and Eastern Europe were experimenting with translating this concept to architecture and engineering.
The properties of concrete and its application to architectural and engineering projects were first realized in the United States with the large-scale construction of the Erie Canal in the early 1800s. During construction of the canal, it was discovered that the excavated stone could be used to make an excellent quality hydraulic cement. Good hydraulic cement, a waterproof adhesive, was common in Europe but very expensive in the United States until this discovery. This locally made hydraulic cement, a product coming largely from the Lockport, NY and Niagara Escarpment areas, was used in the canal and locks’ construction and later became a valuable commodity shipped across the region.2
However, it was nearly a century before concrete would be widely used for buildings in this county. The first building to be constructed of reinforced concrete in the United States was the William E. Ward House, located in Port Chester, NY (NR 1976; Wikipedia). Built by Ward, a mechanical engineer, between 1873 and 1876, the house was entirely constructed of reinforced concrete, including its mansard roof and Gothic Revival tower. While the building left the concrete exposed, celebrating its unique construction material, the styling of the house was in the conventional Second Empire and Gothic Revival domestic vocabularies of the era, even including molded concrete quoins to give the illusion of traditional masonry construction and design. While Ward’s impressive innovations in reinforced concrete were published in several sources, the material remained largely an underutilized novelty during this era.3
English-born architect Ernest Leslie Ransome (1852-1917) was an early innovator in the US to explore the potential of reinforced concrete as a building material, experimenting with a twisted reinforcing rod in the 1880s. His work established reinforced concrete as a widespread, practical and cost-effective technology. Working initially in the San Francisco area, he constructed several buildings and bridges during this time before relocating to the East Coast. In 1897-1898, Ransome is credited with introducing American builders to reinforced concrete as a skeletal structural system, rather than as a solid, wall-like material, with his pioneering Pacific Coast Borax Refinery in Bayonne, New Jersey. While this building features exterior walls envisioned as self-supporting masonry, the interior contained beam-and-girder floor construction. When a devastating fire ripped through the factory building in 1902, destroying only its contents and any wood elements, the Pacific Coast Borax Building demonstrated the fire-resistance of a reinforced concrete building. In 1902, Ransome patented a true skeletal reinforced concrete construction method while devising an addition to the Pacific Coast Borax Refinery, extending the floor slab beyond the face of the building which could then incorporate large windows and brick walls. This system, believed to have been introduced by Ransome, created the first true reinforced concrete-constructed, grid-like exterior wall.4
By 1905, reinforced concrete as an architectural and engineering material was well established, thanks in part to Ransome’s pioneering work. During this early era, the use of reinforced concrete was largely limited to industrial and manufacturing buildings due to its proven resistance to fire, its durable and cleanable surfaces, ample light provided by large windows made possible by its non-structural exterior walls and also its resistance to vibration. Detroit architect and engineer Albert Kahn was also well known for utilizing the structural system for his many factory designs of this era, including the Packard Plant (1903, NRE) the first use of reinforced concrete for a factory in Detroit, and also Buffalo’s George H. Pierce Company automobile factory (1906-1907, NR 1974).5
While reinforced concrete was widely utilized for factory and industrial buildings, it was not long before reinforced concrete began to be used in other architectural applications. Ransome (with Carlton T. Strong) designed the Berkeley Apartments (also known as the Graystone Hotel) in Buffalo in 1884-1887 (NR 1987), an early example of a large, multistory reinforced concrete building given an Italian Renaissance style appearance.
In 1903, the 15-story Ingalls Building in Cincinnati, Ohio (NR 1975), constructed by the firm of Elzner and Anderson utilizing Ransome’s patented twisted steel reinforcement bars, was noted as being the first reinforced concrete frame skyscraper. This building demonstrated the successful use of reinforced concrete for tall buildings.
While the reinforced concrete structural systems were revealed and left largely unornamented in industrial applications, when used in residential or commercial applications the structural system was frequently cloaked in a more elegant skin of decorative brick or masonry. Both the Berkeley Apartments and the Ingalls Building highlight this aesthetic with their ornamented facades, clad with marble, terra cotta, glazed brick, cast concrete (in the case of the Berkeley Apartments) and other materials, rendered in the most popular architectural styles of the era. These examples reveal a desire to camouflage the concert frame with a non-structural and purely decorative skin. It seems apparent that architects and designers at the time wished to distinguish residential and commercial applications of reinforced concrete from associations with factories and industrial uses. Also apparent is a lingering sense that the appearance of solid masonry construction was more aesthetically appropriate, especially for more domestic applications. This trend continued for several decades, as evidenced by the 1926 Huyler Building, which was also designed with a purely decorative and non-structural skin over its reinforced concrete frame.
Cast stone
Ironically, the Huyler Building presents its elegant stone-like appearance thanks in part to another popular and innovative technology of the era - artificial or cast stone. The building’s east and north elevations are clad in a man-made stone material known variously as artificial stone, cast stone, concrete stone or by many other names. It was also used to make elements such as moldings, consoles and detailed panels6
This material was a cost- effective way of mimicking the look and appearance of natural, quarried stone at a fraction of the cost and was widely employed in the last half of the nineteenth century; it gained even wider acceptance in the twentieth century.7
The material was made of a mixture of water, sand, coarse aggregate, and cementing agents such as natural cements, portland cements, oxychloride cements, and sodium silicate based cements used as binding agents. Depending on the various elements used, the coloration and appearance of the cast stone could vary greatly, mimicking many different types and colors of natural stone. For example, by using a light cement matrix and adding crushed marble, the resulting cast stone could resemble limestone, which may be the mixture utilized for the Huyler Building. Additionally, cast blocks could be carved or tooled to enhance their resemblance to natural stone even further.8
At the Huyler Building, cast stone was used to give the illusion of natural stone at a fraction of the cost, enhancing the building’s sense of grandeur, sophistication and elegance on Buffalo’s premier shopping street.
1 Horton’s drawings label many of the decorative elements such as moldings, panels and consoles as being of carved limestone; however they appear to perfectly match the color and texture of the artificial stone skin of the building. These elements appear to have been rendered in cast or artificial stone.
2 Jennifer Walkowski, Reconnaissance Level Historic Resources Survey - City of Lockport, Niagara County, New York. (Buffalo, April 2011) 4-16.
3 L.E. Gobrecht, William E. Ward House National Register of Historic Places Nomination, 1976. NY State Historic Preservation Office. Web. <http://www.oprhp.state.ny.us/hpimaging/hp_view.asp?GroupView=10697>
4 Betsy H. Bradley, The Works: the Industrial Architecture of the United States (New York: Oxford UK, 1999) 156-157.
5 Bradley 157-159.
6 While Horton’s drawings specify that details were to be carved of limestone, it is difficult to discern if this was carried out in the final building. These elements are so expertly rendered and of a fine-quality appearance, matching the coloration and texture of the surface stone; they appear to have been completed in cast stone. This method was widely used for such repetitive, detailed carvings at the time.
7 Interesting to note is that Frederick Ransome, father of reinforced concrete pioneer Ernest L. Ransome, was an early pioneer in man- made stone, receiving a patent for an artificial sandstone in England in 1844. See: The Mechanic's Magazine, ed. R.A. Brooman, Vol. LXVI London: Robertson, Brooman and Co., January 3rd - June 27th, 1857: 126.
