Rowing Boathouse

Frank Lloyd Wright's Rowing Boathouse is located at 1 Rotary Row, Buffalo, New York, along the city's Black Rock Channel.

History

In 1910, at the age of 43, Frank Lloyd Wright traveled to Europe to present what would become his most beloved collection of structure illustrations: the Wasmuth Portfolio. One of these famous drawings was something Wright called "Boathouse for the University of Wisconsin Boat Club," designed in 1905. Twenty years later, the architect included this same boathouse in an international exhibition of eight of his greatest works. The boathouse idea was obviously a favorite of Wright's, featuring a classic technique akin to other Buffalo, New York treasures like the Darwin D. Martin House and the late, lamented Larkin Building-- large vertical piers supporting horizontal planes.

Construction

Formed in 2000, Frank Lloyd Wright's Rowing Boathouse Corporation acquired the rights to this classic Wright design and raised the $5.4 million needed to realize its construction.

The structure was completed in September 2007, and is set to be operated as both an architectural tourist site and as a working boathouse by the West Side Rowing Club, once one of the largest rowing clubs in the United States.

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