Buffalo Rising Online

Sep 30th 2007, 9:59am By Elena Cala Buscarino

Architect Frank Fantauzzi's trip out of his birthplace of Frosinone, Italy was immediately preceded by a horrific accident that left the six-year-old in the hospital for two entire months. His younger brother went to get their parents for help, but by then the driver who had hit young Frank on the country road had also scooped him up and brought him to a hospital in Sora. "I never really went home again," Fantauzzi said.

The next stop was Toronto. Fantauzzi had no use of the English language, so school was a stretch. What he did have was the benefit of Italy's accelerated math teaching, so language aside, he was quicker with numbers than his classmates. Following that first school year, he went to summer school and caught up. "My report cards got better and better," Fantauzzi said, adding, "A lot of immigrants really struggle and leave school young. I was the first person in my family to complete college, followed by my brother. My cousins never completed school."

Fantauzzi, an Associate Professor of Architecture at UB, thinks his proclivity for teaching may have come from trying to bring his younger brother along academically. During the course of conversation, it occurs to him that communicating his ideas was such a hard-won battle as a child, that he may have followed a thread from trying to express his ideas as a student, to sharing his knowledge as a teacher. It's all in the communicating for Fantauzzi, a naturally shy, but extremely enthusiastic scholar.

Another underlying theme in Fantauzzi's life became the need to create visually that which couldn't be communicated in other ways. His propensity for what he calls his elders' ability to 'make' things culminated in the marriage of art and architecture. "Art and architecture represent a different language. If one can't express these things through words, there is another way to communicate."

Three-dimensional things of beauty in epic proportions are what Fantauzzi has striven to make. He encourages his students to get the most out of their work, and says they have to be implicated in it to do this. "Their name is on it. It's a way to establish themselves. Their work is a way to have presence and be passionate about it…and huge pressure brings big opportunities," Fantauzzi said, adding, "Teaching is a full contact sport."

He and his wife Margaret just returned from Rome, where they took a group of 15 undergrad and graduate students for 6 weeks. "It's great for the students in the program to see these people in their amazing culture, surrounded by beauty. It brings incredible awakenings and retraces parallels from the classroom, especially since many of the students haven't been away from home before."

As for home, Fantauzzi said that he's been in Buffalo longer than anywhere. This is a different time in his life, when he's ready to meet new challenges. "I'm comfortable with this community that is receptive and cooperative to what I do. I love the modesty of Buffalo and the potential. I love buildings like individual souls, and I like to imagine new ways to redo them." The most evident of this philosophy is the "Turning House" on Putnam, as well as his own living quarters.

Fantauzzi is eyeing his next student project. "What," he asks, "do you think we should do next?" Though his reuse fantasy involves carving and redesigning the grain elevators, his student project this year will most likely involve an empty lot. The architect, with a performance artist's bent, will surely come up with something good.

"I don't need much in New York or Toronto. I can't imagine any other city I'd want to live in. I'm here as long as the direction is right for me," Fantauzzi said, adding,"…we do need to win the Stanley Cup."