Buffalo, New York might be the greatest architecture city you've never heard of. In the fourth and final episode of our Unpacked by Afar series, we explore how this Rust Belt city became one of the richest showcases of American architecture anywhere in the country.

Host Aislyn Greene tours Buffalo with Ed Howard, a docent and guide with Explore Buffalo. Ed shares that Buffalo was one of the wealthiest cities in America and drew the biggest names in architecture to build here. Stand on a single downtown corner and you can see work by the architects behind the Flatiron Building, the Twin Towers, and the first true skyscraper.

Buffalo is also one of only two American cities with major works by the "holy trinity" of American architecture, Louis Sullivan, H.H. Richardson, and Frank Lloyd Wright, whose Martin House is here. Then come the surprises: the industrial grain elevators that inspired modernist masters, and the Frederick Law Olmsted park system that led the man who designed Central Park to call Buffalo the best-planned city in the country.

It's a story of boom, near-ruin, and hard-won revival, a city that nearly lost its treasures and fought to save them. This is cultural travel at its most rewarding, a piece of American travel culture hiding in plain sight. If great architecture is a reason you travel, Buffalo belongs near the top of your list of American travel destinations.

Meet this week's guest

• Ed Howard, docent and tour guide at Explore Buffalo

Chapters

00:00 — A Secret Architecture City

03:32 — Five Masters, One Corner

06:40 — The Holy Trinity

11:05 — Saving the Landmarks

17:00 — Grain and Grass

Where to go to explore Buffalo's architecture

• Explore Buffalo — Walking, bus, and boat tours led by local guides; the single best way to take in the city's architecture.
• Frank Lloyd Wright's Martin House — Wright's Prairie-style masterpiece, fully restored, and one of his finest residential works.
• The Guaranty Building — Louis Sullivan's 1896 skyscraper, once nearly demolished, now restored to its original glory.
• Richardson Olmsted Campus — H.H. Richardson's monumental former hospital; part is now a hotel, and Explore Buffalo runs hard-hat tours of the unrestored wings.
• Buffalo Central Terminal — The grand 1929 Art Deco train station, mid-restoration.
• Silo City and Duende — The towering grain elevators that awed modernist architects, with a bar tucked right among them.
• Delaware Park and the Olmsted parkways — The green system that earned Buffalo its "best-planned city" title.
• Go deeper at buffaloah.com, a database of hundreds of Buffalo buildings, and plan your trip with our Buffalo travel guide.

This is the fourth and final episode of our Buffalo series. New here? Go back for Buffalo's food scene, its neighborhoods, and its Black history. And follow Unpacked, a travel podcast from Afar, for more unique travel experiences around the world.

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