Buffalo’s New AKG Museum Makeover: Pluses and Minuses

I have a soft spot for Buffalo, and not because of its football-crazy, beer-loving people, nice as they are, or its brassy industrial vibe, like Brooklyn but with igloos. I like Buffalo for its stately Arts and Crafts neighborhoods, its splendid park system designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, and its pilgrimage-worthy art museum. People here joke that “everything’s just 15 minutes away,” but this is more fact than fiction. The city’s very easy to navigate, micro and macro. At its mighty industrial peak, Buffalo, a rail and shipping hub, was accessible to tens of millions, among them honeymooners.

Buffalo’s art museum, once called the Albright-Knox Art Gallery but now the Buffalo AKG Art Museum, opened a year ago after a four-year construction project. Costing about $200 million for a brand-new building and the overhaul of its two old buildings, the project is the priciest campaign for a New York cultural organization west of the Hudson. My last visit was a few weeks before the museum closed in 2019.

About the Author

Brian T. Allen

Brian T. Allen is National Review’s art critic.

I have a soft spot for Buffalo, and not because of its football-crazy, beer-loving people, nice as they are, or its brassy industrial vibe, like Brooklyn but with igloos. I like Buffalo for its stately Arts and Crafts neighborhoods, its splendid park system designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, and its pilgrimage-worthy art museum. People here joke that “everything’s just 15 minutes away,” but this is more fact than fiction. The city’s very easy to navigate, micro and macro. At its mighty industrial peak, Buffalo, a rail and shipping hub, was accessible to tens of millions, among them honeymooners.

Buffalo’s art museum, once called the Albright-Knox Art Gallery but now the Buffalo AKG Art Museum, opened a year ago after a four-year construction project. Costing about $200 million for a brand-new building and the overhaul of its two old buildings, the project is the priciest campaign for a New York cultural organization west of the Hudson. My last visit was a few weeks before the museum closed in 2019.