The Guaranty Building, also called the Prudential Building, in downtown Buffalo was designed by Louis Sullivan and Dankmar Adler and completed in 1896. The developer Hascal T. Taylor planned it as the Taylor Building, and after he died the Guaranty Construction Company took on the project alone.
The design is Chicago School, with a steel frame covered in terra-cotta blocks and rich floral ornament. It has 13 floors and is 167 feet (51 m) high. A U-shaped plan above the lower levels brings in light and air, and the building has four zones: basement, public lower levels, office floors and attic.
A 1974 fire left it dilapidated and threatened with demolition. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1975 and an ASCE civil engineering landmark in 1980. CannonDesign restored it in the early 1980s, and the law firm Hodgson Russ has been its headquarters since 2008.
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