Lessons in Placekeeping from Buffalo and Beyond

Photographs by David Schalliol of the interior of Assembly House 150 showing the space in progress, 2014, 2016, 2019, and 2022.

In this webinar, sociologist and photographer David Schalliol and Assembly House 150 Founder Dennis Maher talked about their respective work and how that work has intersected. Following their presentations, David and Dennis were joined in conversation by Jennifer Minner, Director of Graduate Studies, Associate Professor, Director of Just Places Lab at Cornell University.

Based in Minneapolis, MN, David Schalliol's work has taken him all over the world — including various places around NYS. He has explored the "telescope houses" of Buffalo's East Side and has documented affordable housing in NYC.

In Buffalo, Dennis Maher founded Assembly House 150 in 2014. Based out of a circa-1850s church, the organization aims to transform lives and the built environment through art, design, and construction.

In The City Creative: The Rise of Urban Placemaking in Contemporary America, co-written by David and published in 2021, Assembly House 150 is featured as an example of hyperlocal placemaking — "small-scale interventions aimed at encouraging greater equity and community engagement in growth and renewal." The material in the book is based on multiple visits David had with Dennis and Assembly House 150. David first interviewed Dennis in 2011; first visited with him in 2013; and he began documenting Assembly House 150 in 2014.

Future of Preservation webinars are made possible thanks to the Peggy N. & Roger G. Gerry Charitable Trust.

David Schalliol is an associate professor of sociology at St. Olaf College who is interested in the relationship between community, social structure, and place. He exhibits widely, including in the Chicago Architecture Biennial, the Centre Régional de la Photographie Hauts-de-France, and the Museum of Contemporary Photography. His work has been supported by institutions including the Graham Foundation and the European Union and featured in publications including MAS Context, The New York Times, and the Journal of Urban History. David is the author of Isolated Building Studies (UTAKATADO) and co-author, with Michael Carriere, of The City Creative: The Rise of Urban Placemaking in Contemporary America (The University of Chicago Press). He additionally contributes to such films as Almost There (Kartemquin Films) and Highrise: Out My Window (National Film Board of Canada). His directorial debut, The Area, premiered at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival and has screened on America Reframed and PBS.org.

Dennis Maher is an artist, designer, and educator based in Buffalo, NY. He is the founder and director of Assembly House 150 and a professor in the Department of Architecture, University at Buffalo SUNY. For over 20 years, Maher has been realizing projects at the intersection of art, design, architecture, and community engagement. He works with buildings, pieces of buildings, and people who construct buildings in order to create spaces for the collective imagination. Maher founded Assembly House 150 in 2014 as an outgrowth of his Fargo House project on Buffalo’s west side which has transformed two ordinary dwellings into an experimental living space and continuously evolving art installation. With Assembly House 150, he is transforming a formerly abandoned 1850s-era church into an immersive architectural dreamworld—built with tradespeople, designers, apprentices, students, and others. Themes of Maher’s work include the natures of house and home, the animism of objects, the revelation of the surreal within the familiar, and the latent memories of Western and post-industrial cultures. Maher holds a Bachelor of Architecture from Cornell University. His work has been exhibited at venues including the Buffalo AKG Art Museum (Buffalo, NY), the Mattress Factory Art Museum (Pittsburgh, PA), the Bi-City Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism (Shenzhen, CN), Cornell University (Ithaca, NY), Real Art Ways (Hartford, CT), and Black and White Gallery and Project Space (NYC).

Jennifer Minner, Ph.D., is Director of Graduate Studies and Associate Professor in the Department of City and Regional Planning. She directs the Just Places Lab, a platform for research and creative action centered on community memory, imagination, and the just care of places. Her research and teaching focus on equitable land use planning and climate action through the reuse and adaptation of buildings and landscapes. Minner serves on the Expert Advisory Committee to the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation.  She is one of the founders of the Circularity, Reuse, and Zero Waste Development (CR0WD) network and is the faculty mentor to the Cornell Undergrad Research to Action-Youth student organization. Minner's research investigates urban change, city planning, and preservation in a variety of contexts and media: from research on building a circular economy in New York state; to the spatial footprints and social legacies of World Expos; to the use of future land use scenarios and spatial analytics; to the reflections of the city in art.