Seymour H. Knox Jr. converged with the late John J. Albright 50 years ago today, hurtling the art museum bearing both of their names into a new era.

Buffalo native Gordon Bunshaft's glass-and-marble modernist addition to E.B. Green's 1905 Greek Revival structure was dedicated Jan. 19, 1962, which also led to the name changing from the Albright Art Gallery to the Albright-Knox Art Gallery.

Knox, the museum's longtime president, benefactor and visionary art buyer, along with gallery director Gordon M. Smith and the Knox Foundation, paid $1.4 million of the $1.7 million cost of the addition. The expansion heralded a huge step forward for a Buffalo museum recognized as holding one of the great collections of modern and contemporary art in the world.

"That '62 extension put the Albright-Knox on the map of being a truly contemporary institution," said Douglas Dreishpoon, the gallery's chief curator and editor of "The Long Curve: 150 Years of Visionary Collecting at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery."

Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller came to the museum that day in 1962, praising the expansion and Knox's contributions to the arts in New York State in a program in the new 350-seat auditorium.

In attendance were nationally and internationally renowned critics, collectors, architects, scholars and museum officials. The occasion also marked the 100th anniversary to the day that the Buffalo Fine Arts Academy, the museum's governing body, was founded.

"It is a perfect building for a museum," internationally renowned Tokyo architect Kenzo Tange said at the time, adding that it was "the most beautiful building in the world for an art museum."

The return to his hometown marked a triumph for Bunshaft.

Born in Buffalo in 1909 to Russian-Jewish immigrants, Bunshaft grew up on Cedar Street on the East Side, attended School 45 and graduated from Lafayette High School before going on to study architecture at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Bunshaft spent 42 years with New York City-based Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, most of that time as chief design partner.

He became a leading designer of skyscrapers in post-World War II New York, subscribing to the International Style popular at that time. It was characterized by rectilinear forms and the use of glass and steel.

Bunshaft designed the 24-story Lever House on New York City's Park Avenue in 1953, one of the first glass-curtained skyscrapers.

Following the Albright-Knox addition, Bunshaft went on to design the Hirschhorn Museum in Washington, the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum in Austin, Texas, and the Haj Terminal in Saudi Arabia. In 1988, he was co-winner of the Pritzker Prize, the top honor in the field of architecture.

The museum expansion in Buffalo was a notable departure in scale for the architect.

Bunshaft set to build a contemporary wing for a building of classic design, aiming for an expansion that showed restraint and deferred to the older building. His answer was a black glass box and Vermont marble that made the addition appear smaller than it was.

Among the improvements it made possible were an expanded gallery space, an auditorium with large windows and movable partitions, and an outdoor sculpture garden between the buildings.

"What Bunshaft was doing was creating a paradigm for space that would hold contemporary art. He did what any forward-thinking architect would have done at that time," Dreishpoon said.

"They are modernist spaces, they are full of light, they are intimate, and they are very art-friendly. Bunshaft understood that, and what it was to create museum spaces and spaces germane to experiencing art, and installing art, in a way that was respectful of the art."

The auditorium opened up programming possibilities in a unique environment, Dreishpoon said.

"It's a floating space and is an absolutely remarkable space, surrounded by windows open to nature so that when you're there, you feel like you're connected to the outside," Dreishpoon said. "It's a very unique experience."

Renovation of the older gallery building also was undertaken at that time, with the exterior and inside marble sculpture court sandblasted for the first time since opening in 1905.

Bunshaft earned the American Institute of Architects' top yearly award for the Albright-Knox addition.

"Seymour Knox treated me like I was Michelangelo, and I worked harder on that building than I have ever worked before in my life," Bunshaft told The Buffalo Evening News at the time of the opening.

For Knox, the choice of Bunshaft and a modernist complement to Green's classic building came with risk.

"The appointment of Gordon Bunshaft as the designer of the Albright-Knox Art gallery was inspired, yet also surprising and brave," said Brian Carter, a professor in the University at Buffalo's department of architecture and planning.

Dreishpoon said Knox was well aware the stakes for getting it right were high.

"Seymour had the courage to put money toward an extension and to hire Bunshaft," Dreishpoon said. "He was always forward-thinking, so this was just an extension of that. He was also putting his name on the building, so he had to believe in it."

msommer@buffnews.comnull