Kleinhans

The History of Kleinhans Music Hall

Kleinhans Music Hall was built thanks to the visionary generosity of Edward and Mary Seaton Kleinhans and the stewardship of their charitable dreams by the Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo.

Mr. and Mrs. Kleinhans made their fortune from the clothing store that bore their name and bequeathed their estates to the Community Foundation, with the intention of building a music hall that would benefit the people of Buffalo.

To realize the Kleinhans’ vision, the Foundation mobilized our community to support this project, collaborating with civic leaders to maximize the impact of the Kleinhans’ gift. The Foundation sponsored an international design competition which selected architects Eliel and Eero Saarinen for the project, and convened a Citizens Committee to select the site. The Foundation also secured the additional necessary funding from the federal Works Project Administration (WPA) – all to reach the fullest expression of the Kleinhans’ vision.

Kleinhans Music Hall ranks among the Saarinens’ finest work, exemplifying their sophisticated aesthetic and artistic principles: the shape of the music hall represents both organic and functional notions, with the graceful curvilinear massing encasing a large auditorium and smaller music chamber. This fine sense of balance is representative, in Eliel’s words, of the structure’s “masculine” and “feminine” traits as exhibited by “strongly indicative line” in the former and “playful pattern of wall surface” in the latter. The result is a structure of incredible beauty and utility, with an international reputation as one of the acoustically finest concert halls in the world.

Home of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra since 1940, Kleinhans was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1989 and is slated to be a major venue for the National Historic Trust’s Conference in 2011, highlighting Buffalo’s efforts to reinvent itself through historic preservation to a national audience.