Richardson Olmsted Complex

The Richardson Olmsted Campus in Buffalo, New York, United States, was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1986. The site was designed by the American architect Henry Hobson Richardson in concert with the famed landscape team of Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux in the late 1800s, incorporating a system of treatment for people with mental illness developed by Dr. Thomas Story Kirkbride known as the Kirkbride Plan. Over the years, as mental health treatment changed and resources were diverted, the buildings and grounds began a slow deterioration. By 1974, the last patients were removed from the historic wards. On June 24, 1986, the former Buffalo State Asylum for the Insane was added to the National Historic Landmark registry. In 2006, the Richardson Center Corporation was formed to restore the buildings. Today, the Richardson Olmsted Campus is being converted, beginning with the now open Hotel Richardson within the Towers Building and two flanking buildings (about one-third of the Campus). Future plans for the site include the construction of a new museum in Buffalo's cultural corridor, known as the Lipsey Architecture Center Buffalo. The museum will focus on the city's rich architectural history and collection of now-preserved buildings.