Houston's lack of nostalgia for historic buildings went on vivid display Sunday when a 60-year-old office tower once considered a masterwork of modern architecture was demolished.
Originally the Prudential Insurance Co.'s regional offices, the sleek, 20-story limestone and granite tower was owned by MD Anderson Cancer Center. Cracks in the foundation were too costly to repair, officials said, so the building was razed to make way for a new clinic.
The tower, designed by Kenneth Franzheim, was once Houston's tallest building outside of downtown. The lobby's 16-by-46-foot fresco by Peter Hurd, depicting ranch life, was removed for a new home at a New Mexico library.Hundreds of spectators gathered as early as 5 a.m. Sunday to watch the demolition in Houston's medical-center neighbohood, five miles southwest of downtown. Scheduled for 8, the implosion operation was delayed repeatedly by fog.
At 11:15 a.m., a series of thunderclaps rang out from the building. After a pause, black puffs of smoke erupted in neat rows from the windows of the previously gutted building. The structure collapsed in a cloud of gray and red smoke.
Crowds gathered on sidewalks and streets less than a half-mile away cheered before turning to flee in a mix of laughter and mild panic as the dust cloud rushed toward them. Flecks of dust and debris rained on nearby cars and homes.
Warren Rawson, a high school English teacher, and his wife, Patty, took their 5-year-old son to see the blast because of the building's historic significance and the spectacle of its demise. "I'm sad to see such a classic-looking building go," Mr. Rawson said. "Houston seems to have a history of ignoring its history."
But Anna Mod, a historical preservation specialist whose new book on Houston's modernist architecture is scheduled to be released Monday, said that while she lamented the demolition, the city's attitude toward its past is changing. "We are saving more and more buildings every year as preservation is more now part of the culture," she said.
One of the few major cities with no zoning, Houston didn't adopt historic-preservation ordinances until 1995, later than in other U.S. metropolises. But local government and business have started to embrace the preservation movement.
Last summer, Harris County finished a five-year, $65 million renovation of its 1910 courthouse in downtown Houston. In December, the city completed a preservation effort of the 1926-built Julia Ideson Building that houses the city's archives.
The future of at least one other modernist structure remains in limbo: the Astrodome. The stadium, considered a modern marvel when it opened in 1965, has been used only sporadically since 2003. Harris County, which owns it, is struggling with plans to convert the structure to another use or tear it down.