Category: Demolition

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Chicago Demolition Mid-Century Modern

Chicago Still Destroying Gropius’ Work

by Michael R. Allen

St. Louis has a long way to go to catch up to Chicago. While our Archdiocese senselessly demolished a motel by Charles Colbert this year, Chicago city government has been working to demolish the Michael Reese Hospital campus planned and co-designed by Walter Gropius. This week, the city’s wreckers demolished the power plant shown above, which was completed in 1953 and designed by Gropius’ The Architects Collaborative. Only five buildings associated with Gropius remain out of the eight that stood earlier this year, and the landscape is ruined.

The Michael Reese campus was Gropius’ only work in Chicago. In Chicago during the twentieth century, American eyes gazed upon some of the finest modern architecture in the history of the world, from Louis Sullivan to Frank Lloyd Wright to Mies van der Rohe to Walter Gropius. As we know, the Windy City’s regard for the work of Sullivan has been spotty at best. Gropius’ work at least enjoys good company in its flagrant disregard.

While the city of Chicago is now bound by its contract with the demolition company, one wonders why the city even rushed to get into such an arrangement not knowing the outcome of its Olympics bid. Why did Alderwoman Toni Preckwinkle deign to play architectural historian and dispute the well-documented role of Gropius? Why did Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, the supposed “Green Mayor,” rush to throw away irreplaceable, internationally significant modern architecture and already-built building stock? Don’t ask. Irrational acts of destruction lack any rational explanation.

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Demolition Downtown

Aerial View of Downtown, 1926

by Michael R. Allen

Following up on Monday’s article about the Railton Residence, here is an aerial photograph of the area of downtown around the Railton site from 1926. This photograph is from the collection of the City Plan Commission. At right, one sees the tower of Union Station. At center is the full-block-sized 18th Street Garage, designed by Klipstein & Rathmann and completed in 1924. The cleared site for the Robert E. Lee Hotel (now the Railton) is just diagonally down to the left of the large parking garage. (A larger cleared site is on the block east, or up from this perspective.)

Beside Union Station, the 18th Street Garage and a few wholesale buildings, most of the buildings in this image are two to three stories and more typical of St. Louis’ neighborhood vernacular forms than our modern downtown architecture. This area was an eastern extension of Mill Creek Valley, with a largely African-American and exclusively poor and working-class population. City leaders took aim at this “slum” as early as the 1890s. Starting in 1928, using money from the $87 million raised in a 1923 multi-part bond issue, the city would clear the block across the street from Union Station for a large plaza (now Aloe Plaza). The new post office and Municipal (later Kiel) Auditorium east of Union Station would claim more of the western downtown area’s small buildings. By 1961, the city would have obliterated over 75% of the building stock seen in this view.

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Demolition Downtown Louis Sullivan

How Many Louis Sullivan Buildings Can You See from the Ballpark Village Site?

by Michael R. Allen

There were those who made the audacious claim that demolition of the San Luis Apartments for a parking lot would “open” up views of the Cathedral on Lindell Boulevard. Were there people who said that demolition of the old Busch Stadium would give the public better views of the tops of the works of Louis Sullivan? If so, they were right.

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Demolition LRA North St. Louis The Ville

Time Passing on Cote Brilliante

by Michael R. Allen

3901 (right) and 3909 Cote Brilliante Avenue in July 2008. This is at the northwest corner of Cote Brilliante’s intersection with Vandeventer Avenue.


The same scene in November 2009.



3909 Cote Brilliante, owned by the city’s Land Reutilization Authority, was wrecked in August 2008. 3901 Cote Brilliante remains owned by Kathleen and Leslie Ann Cannon.

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Chicago Demolition Historic Preservation Mid-Century Modern

In Chicago, Walter Gropius’ Work is Fair Game

by Michael R. Allen

The power plant at Michael Reese Hospital dates to 1953.

Readers know the story: Modern buildings targeted for demolition by powerful interests. Preservationists work to publicize the beauty and reuse potential of modern buildings. Apologists for power claim that modern buildings’ architectural significance is unclear. Back, forth. A few concessions on “major” buildings. Every major preservation voice and even the major newspaper calls for preservation. Then demolition of the “unimportant” buildings begins.

This story is not happening in St. Louis, but in Chicago. The modern buildings are those that comprise the postwar campus of Michael Reese Hospital on the city’s south side. The planner who designed the campus and collaborated on designing eight of the campus buildings is Walter Gropius. (The close proximity of a Gropius-planned campus to a Mies van Der Rohe-planned campus, that of the Illinois Institute of Technology, is unique in North America.) Strange that there would be any confusion over the work of an internationally-renowned modern designer, but in Chicago under the administration of Mayor Richard Daley, such obvious contribution to the worldwide evolution of architecture is no brake on the acts of power. Demolition started yesterday.

Apparently, common sense is also being wrecked, because the original reason for the City of Chicago’s acquisition of the Michael Reese campus was to prepare a residential village for the 2016 Olympic Games. After that bid failed — and many residents of the south side breathed a sigh of relief — the city ramped up the push for demolition with no real development plan. There is vague talk of “mixed use” development, but nothing that compels demolition now other than the absurd conviction that sticking to a senseless plan is righteous. Only two concessions for “major” buildings have been made — one early and one, for Gropius’ Singe Pavilion, last week. Context eludes the ham fists at Chicago City Hall, however.

Landmarks Illinois even offered a preservation compromise that would have targeted some buildings for preservation and allowed others to be wrecked. Daley’s administration had no interest. Never mind that there is a pending National Register of Historic Places nomination for the campus prepared by Grahm Balkany and the Gropius in Chicago Coalition, which will be considered by Illinois state government on December 10. Since no state and federal funds are being used to directly pay the wreckers, there will be no government review of demolition any way.

Showing a better form of conviction than the city of Chicago, the Gropius in Chicago Coalition trudges onward. Although the landscape by Sasaky DeMay and Associates is ruined, and one of the eight Gropius buildings is now lost, there is still something to be spared.

In a move unsurprising to preservationists, the City of Chicago early on decided to spare the main hospital building from 1907 by Schmidt, Garden & Martin from demolition. Widely hailed as a landmark in Chicago’s beloved Prairie School style, the main building would have engendered a preservation war.

However, some perfectly sound pre-Gropius buildings are also threatened, including the one pictured here:

While organized primarily to protect Gropius’ legacy, the Coalition has fought to preserve these buildings too. In fact, I expect Grahm to work until every last part of the complex is torn down. To date, his work has resulted in the sounding of every major Chicago voice on architecture, from the Tribune editorial board to the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s Midwest Office, in support of preservation. Just this week a letter with impressive signatories went out.

It’s not too late to make a difference. Contact information for Mayor Daley and key city officials is posted here. Raise your voice for internationally significant modern architecture.

Categories
Demolition St. Louis County

Clayton Tear Down

by Michael R. Allen

A CraigsList ad offers for sale parts of a “large house in [C]layton to be demolished.” It’s a remove-yourself sale at 57 Broadview in Clayon’s Clavarach Park neighborhood, recently listed in the National Register of Historic Places as a historic district. Clayton lacks a historic preservation ordinance. According to Esley Hamilton, Historian at the St. Louis County Department of Parks and Recreation, the house dates to 1958 and was designed by Ralph Fournier.

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Central West End Demolition

Ettrick Apartments Under Demolition

by Michael R. Allen

Demolition of the Ettrick Apartments at Forest Park and Euclid avenues is now underway. The Preservation Board approved demolition in July (see “Medical Center Creeping Into the Central West End”, July 26). Workers removed the limestone name plaque shown at left earlier this week.

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Central West End Demolition DeVille Motor Hotel Historic Preservation Mid-Century Modern Salvage

All of the San Luis is Not Lost

by Michael R. Allen

This week, the St. Louis Building Arts Foundation accepted the donation of two of the light posts from the San Luis Apartments (originally the DeVille Motor Hotel) at 4483 Lindell Boulevard. Here’s a case where cooperation transcends conflict: Friends of the San Luis board member Jeff Vines saw the posts removed and contacted Tom Richter at the St. Louis Archdiocese. Richter promptly agreed to the donation and made arrangements with Building Arts Foundation President Larry Giles for pick-up.

The light posts are headed to the Foundation’s Conservatory in Sauget, Illinois, where they will live on alongside parts of the Century Building, the Ambassador Theater and countless other lost St. Louis buildings. As a board member of both the Building Arts Foundation and the Friends of the San Luis, I thank the Archdiocese for their assistance in preserving a small part of the modern motel!

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Central West End Demolition Mid-Century Modern Preservation Board

Rabe Hall and Preserving Minor Mid-Century Modernism

by Michael R. Allen


On Monday, the Preservation Board by voice vote unanimously approved demolition of the St. Louis College of Pharmacy’s Rabe Hall at 4520 Forest Park Avenue in the Central West End. The Cultural Resources Office (CRO) recommended approval of the demolition permit, which was reviewed because the 17th Ward is covered by the city’s preservation review program. The demolition will clear space for — don’t hold your breath — surface parking. However, the College is the land to the Washington University School of Medicine and development of the site is likely. Much new construction has taken place on this block in recent years.

The western elevation of Rabe Hall.

Preservationists quietly conceded this loss, due to several factors. For one thing, the San Luis Apartments battle took a lot of activist work, and captured a lot of the will to stand up to a powerful institution over a modern building whose architectural merit has yet to be widely realized. People saw a “done deal” and let it lie.

Column near the entrance of Rabe Hall.

The timing of this post, I suppose, places me in the majority camp. However, I think that the demolition of Rabe Hall raises questions about the Cultural Resources Office and Preservation Board’s treatment of mid-century buildings.

Rabe Hall is not exactly a masterpiece. In fact, historian Esley Hamilton points out that the greatest significance with Rabe Hall is that it occupies part of the site of Grape Hill, estate of Edward Bates. The building dates to 1964, when Town House Apartments West, Inc. took out a permit to build a 64-unit apartment building. The cost was $401,000 and the architect was Bert Luer, about whose work little is recorded. The final occupancy permit dates to December 17, 1965 — not even 44 years ago. A 1977 building permit shows the owner as Washington University, making the conveyance cycle elliptical.

There are some charming features on Rabe Hall, especially the unique tapestry brick wall sections. The striking white columns and balcony walls are a fine contrast to that brick. Unfortunately, the yellow panels on the recessed walls replaced a more open fenestration that gave the building a more attractive look.

My point here is that Rabe Hall is not very old, its architectural pedigree is minor, and its design is not especially refined. Yet it is a handsome minor work of its period, has not outlived its functional life and is part of a cluster of modern buildings around the intersection of Forest Park and Taylor. The proposed use of the site is parking, not a new building.

What should CRO and the Preservation Board do in cases like this? We will get more chances to refine the approach, but it demands careful attention. Our proximity to the date of construction for Rabe Hall blinds many of us to later significance. Also, we are a ways off from developing a strong preservation approach to minor and workaday modern buildings, although historians have started to recognize the collective significance of districts of these buildings.

Across the street from Rabe Hall at 4545 Forest Park once stood the Parkway House Motel (1962), now demolished, and at 4511 Forest Park, a medical office building (1961) designed by California architect J. Richard Shelley. That office building raises the same questions as Rabe Hall. The one change, of course, is that now it is the last minor modernist work on the block. Strike three?

One block east on the south side of Forest Park is a building owned by Washington University more clearly worthy of protection. The Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butchers Workmen of American Local 88 built the building at 4488 Forest Park in 1957. The renowned modern master Harris Armstrong designed the $100,000 clinic.

The two-story building expresses great architectural originality, is the work of a master and is over 50 years old. Clearly, there is eligibility for both City Landmark and National Register of Historic Places designations. I would expect CRO to deny any demolition permit for this building. A strong individual work, the building benefited from the presence of modern buildings its construction encouraged. Most of that context will be gone soon.

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Central West End Demolition DeVille Motor Hotel Mid-Century Modern Preservation Board

San Luis Column Spacing, Partitions Were Not Limiting

by Michael R. Allen

Even before the Building Division issued the demolition permit for the San Luis Apartments (originally the DeVille Motor Hotel), interior demolition began. That work showed anyone who passed by that the assertion by the St. Louis Archdiocese that the building’s tiny, “prison-like” (as one staff member put it) rooms impeded rehabilitation was false. The room partitions crumpled at the strike of the Bobcat, and their removal had no structural bearing.

Moreover, demolition showed us that the the DeVille’s column spacing was far more generous than represented by the Archdiocese. The photograph above shows that the columns on the wings were located only on the sides of the concrete floor plates. Once the partitions were removed, we all saw wide open floors that could be configured any way a developer wished.

Look at that generous open space between the columns, and the ample ceiling height. There were many possibilities for reuse. At the Preservation Board, the Archdiocese and its architect Dan Jay gave the impression that the column spacing and motel-sized rooms were fixed limits to the future use of the building. Not so.