The former IBM Building, now Adorjan Hall at St. Louis University, now stands fully shorn of its concrete block brise soleil. (See “Taking Care of HOK’s Works on Lindell,” July 12.)
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IBM Building, Fully Shorn
Preservation Research Office
4 replies on “IBM Building, Fully Shorn”
I am opposed to the stripping of the polka-dot facade, but the building looks refreshingly and surprisingly attractive nonetheless. Â I was expecting it to look completely stupid. Â How do you feel about the finished product, Michael?
Hmmm, it now looks like a 60’s era Holiday Inn. It once had a unique flavor of its own, and the screen was part of that. Certainly, it is a well-designed and handsome building to begin with, but this unnecessary and arbitrary alteration has taken away a significant aspect of its personality, not to mention the specific rarity of the screening materiel itself. It seems that everything SLU touches is bowdlerized, truncated, or simply destroyed and replaced with a mundane, place-less cube, topped by the ubiquitous and sickly green plastic “copper”. SLU is just another soul-less entity making the world a little uglier, one building, one block at a time.
If I were to walk by it, the exposed windows would make for more interest and sense of safety rather than the concrete lattice. Perhaps they could have left some of the panels in place as a compromise. Nevertheless, its good to see the building in use and not being torn down for a something like a CVS.
it doesnt look bad, but the blinds… everyone has them everywhere…