Re: What Building in your city was Demolished, and should not have been?

[choyak1]

Well now a festering wound is opened again. In my original hometown of Wausau, WI. This was what was destroyed:

Marathon county courthouse


Image credited to Wisconsin Historical Society http://www.wisconsinhistory.org


Some ugly 1 story dime stores went in it's place.

NOW it is a public square in the middle of downtown

The present court house is an ugly squat concrete BUNKER!!!!

umm

Courtesy of the Samuels Group

[Halovet]

Originally Posted by choyak1

Well now a festering wound is opened again. In my original hometown of Wausau, WI. This was what was destroyed:

Marathon county courthouse


Image credited to Wisconsin Historical Society http://www.wisconsinhistory.org


Some ugly 1 story dime stores went in it's place.

NOW it is a public square in the middle of downtown

The present court house is an ugly squat concrete BUNKER!!!!

umm

Courtesy of the Samuels Group

Now that's just criminal!

[cubercle]

pabst building in milwaukee:

[ardecila]

Originally Posted by steel

I never noticed this similarity before

BUFFALO



NYC



The Buffalo building is from 1901

Both buildings are modelled on the Giralda tower in Seville, Spain. Many Beaux-Arts buildings from the turn-of-the-century period were based on it, including Chicago's Tribune Tower.

[grollo]

The Australian Building, Melbourne

Built : 1889
Height
(to roof) : 47m
(to pinnacle) : 53m
number of floors : 12

Third tallest skyscraper in the world when completed and possibly the first 12 storey office building in the world?

The building on the left in this pic:

Demolished and replaced with a 4 storey office building in 1981

[LeeWilson]

I don't think this is quite in the same league as the other buildings in this thread, but I find the decision to demolish this building somewhat confusing. I hear the building's architect was not happy about it either.

Hotel Sofitel Tokyo, the tallest building ever demolished in Tokyo.
Built in 1994 and it is now in the process of being demolished, only 13 years after its construction.
Some people don't like it because of its strange shape, but I for one will miss it.

[Halovet]

Originally Posted by LeeWilson

I don't think this is quite in the same league as the other buildings in this thread, but I find the decision to demolish this building somewhat confusing. I hear the building's architect was not happy about it either.

Hotel Sofitel Tokyo, the tallest building ever demolished in Tokyo.
Built in 1994 and it is now in the process of being demolished, only 13 years after its construction.
Some people don't like it because of its strange shape, but I for one will miss it.

What reason was given to demolish it? What a unique building.

[LeeWilson]

The hotel closed, though I don't know why exactly. it was apparently difficult to convert the building to apartments. I read somewhere that they didn't even consult the architect and kind of swiftly decided to demolish it.

[Aulus Metelus]

http://www.senado.gov.br/comunica/hi...roe_est1_1.jpg

My first post, don't be severe . The first was the old merchants association, the second and third were Hotel Avenida and Palace. The last one, the Monroe Palace (former senate house, the name was given as a tribute to USA President James Monroe).


Photos taken from this thread, except the first.

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=462981

[Aulus Metelus]

Sorry, the Monroe Palace is that one:

[Stephenapolis]

Those ones in Rio look awesome. What a watse they have been demolished.

[muppet]

OK this may hurt the eyes, a drop in the ocean of what Londons's lost over time to idiot greed:

350 ft high













Methinks the best building of all, the spectacular Indian Pavilion...




and now -spot the difference- occupied by a BBC office and benches noone would want to sit at:



More:





Ye Olde London Bars (gates).



Ye Olde London Bridge From Southwark & Ye Citty Of London.






the 'new one', removed to Havasu Lake City, Arizona in the 1960s



and in turn replaced with this concrete flyover, I kid ye not, youre now looking at the world famous London Bridge:





Euston Arch and Station, demolished in the 1960s, an absolute neccessity to make longer platforms. The blocks were ground up and thrown as lining into a canal.





...and replaced by this. Oh btw, they never did lengthen the platforms either .



building in the centre, no 1 Poultry, demolished in the 1980s



and replaced by this ship like building (I quite like it)




The Junior Carlton Hotel,built in 1864,demolished in 1963




The Imperial Institute,built in 1893,demolished in 1957





and its seamless replacement




St. Thomas Hospital,built in 1871,damaged in WWII and later demolished:





its main block today, can you believe this faces Big Ben across the river?




Columbia Market,built in 1869,demolished between 1958 and 1966






Imperial Hotel, built in 1911 and demolished in 1966. This is my favourite of all of them, its so Germanic looking like a castle:




Carlton Hotel,built in 1899 and demolished in 1958.



and its replacement. Ouch:




Royal Horticultural Society Gardens 1871




International Exhibition Building 1862, demolished two years after it was built. The domes were the largest ever built.




Bethlem Hospital, Mooregate




Firestone Building, demolished recently by a vandal developer before it could be listed.




Pantheon Oxford Street 1772. Was built on the site of current day Marks & Spencers (Tottenham Court Road end of Oxford Street).




Robinsons Flour Mills Deptford



The iconic Coal Exchange, demolished in the 60s:






Nonsuch Palace 1538, so called so that nonsuch palace would ever be built like it, check out the onion domes. Demolsihed 1690s





more domes in Richmond Palace 1299-1495, demolished 1765:






Since the greedy developer crimes of the 1960s and 1970s, age now guarantees automatic listing of buildings- there are now 30,000 protected buildings in London, but some are still at stake believe it or not.

Crown Estates (remember that name) are currently trying to knock the historic Regents Hotel down:



the original plan was complete knockdown:



the revised plans still include the demolition of the middle of the building:

and insertion of neo brutalist crap

also at grave risk is the historic Regent St next door that they own and can legally demolish (its 'only' 80 years old and misses the 100 year old deadline):





also slated for demolition by Crown Estates is the three cornered Metropole Hotel :


but there is a campaign to save it. The plans are off for now but look likely to start up again.

[muppet]

^those buildings were just demolitions, you can imagine how much was lost through the wars and the great fires, whole cityscapes :












I look at these scenes irreplaceable and want to cry. Thats loss for ya This kind of thing needs to stop across the world.

[Aulus Metelus]

It's truly amazing the amount of loss in London, but they can blame the WW2 for at least a bit. In Rio everything is due to blindness of mayors, ignorance of the people and proprietors greed.

And politics have played a part, too. In 1930, there were a revolution, the first time in brazillian history that middle classes and industrymen reached the power and had political influence. The art noveau and eclecticism were styles identified with the old order, mostly great landowners who considered Old France their intellectual Meca.

The style the new elite has chosen was first the art-decó and soon after the modernism, which portrayed the future. A fever of demolishing the symbols of the decadent regime and building soon began. Arquitects supported by the new governament, like Lucio Costa and Niemeyer saw eclectic buildings as a outdated pastiche (some really were). In fact, brazillian architects still act as if modernism is the national style.

On the Rio Branco Avenue (see photos below), a planned street where almost all buildings were completed in 1906 in ecletic style, only a handful had survided by 1950.

[Comrade]

For Salt Lake City it was the Newhouse Hotel, which was demolished in the 1980s for a parking lot...which is still there today.



The spot today:

[muppet]

my God, Rio looked like Empire era Paris.

[Comrade]

Some more for Salt Lake City:

Auerbach Company:





Demolished in the 30s for the Centre Theatre:



Which then was demolished in the late 80s for the Broadway Centre:



That still stands today. Personally, while I like the design of the Broadway Centre, I think the Auerbach Company was a gem and think it should have never been demolished.

The Bransford Apartment House:







I'm not exactly sure what the hell happened here, but sometime in the 80s they were demolished for this, the Eagle Gate Apartments:



And while I don't dislike the Eagle Gate Apartments, the original Bransford Apartment House was much nicer. I don't know why they demolished the more historical Bransford for a complex that doesn't look much different in size or style.

Zion's Saving Bank:



I'm not exactly sure when this building was demolished, but probably in the 60s when they constructed the Gateway Tower East:

(the copper-colored tower on the left):



Today the Zions Bank Tower:





Federal Reserve Bank:



Demolished in the 80s for the Eagle Gate Plaza:



The Deseret News Building:







It was reclad in either the 60s or 70s.

Here you can see it (the white and black building in the middle) with the old Gateway East Tower, which replaced the Zions Saving Bank Building.



That was demolished in the late 90s for the Gateway Tower East (now known as the Beneficial Life Tower):

[b-s]

Originally Posted by DecoJim

For Detroit there are many candidates such as the late great Hudsons department store but one of the most recent and senseless was the destruction of the Statler Hotel.

This hotel when it opened in 1915 was one of the most advanced in the world at the time with bathrooms for each of its 800 guest rooms (later expanded to 1000 rooms) and was the first hotel to have air conditioning (installed in 1937).


The hotel, which closed in 1975, was demolished in 2005 in an attempt to prevent Superbowl visitors in 2006 from seeing an abandond building (is if there are not others!). Now as the downtown revitalizes, the hotel could have been adapted to a new use such as condos.

It makes me sad to think about Detroit's lost treasures. IMHO, no other city in the country has lost more gems than Detroit.

---

Others: What's the deal with posting photos of every little building? The topic is singular, not plural, for the love of god. Spare us the bandwidth for the cities with buildings of real class.

[graupner]

Montreal:

Architects Building


Windsor Hotel



Main Post office


Drummond House


Strathcona’s House


Royal Insurance Building


Queens Hotel



Alliance Fire Insurance Building


Sinagogue


Saint-James Club


Albert Building


Liverpool,London Globe Building


Crane Building


Laval University


YWCA

[Kilgore Trout]

graupner, one of those buildings is still standing! the crane building is on the place du frère andré (at the top of beaver hall hill and behind phillips square). also, the windsor hotel wasn't demolished, it was destroyed by fire.