Your city's lost heritage: Buildings that should never have been demolished.

[the glimpser]

Originally Posted by the spliff fairy

I've heard Manila was the second most destroyed Allied city after Warsaw in WWII. 100,000 died in the Battle of Manila.

True. Sad but Manila never fully regained her status as a proud city of the Far East after WWII.

I don't know if this was posted before but here's a video clip of Manila before WWII (aerial view of city starts at 4:09):


Anyway, going back to the topic, here's another building in Manila that never should've been demolished: The Jai-Alai Building.



Credits to edelrosario of rewind for the photos..

The Manila Jai Alai Building was a building designed by American architect Welton Becket that functioned as a building for which jai alai games were held. Built to the Streamline Moderne style, the building was completed in 1940 and survived the Battle of Manila. It was demolished on 2000 upon the orders of the Mayor of Manila Lito Atienza amidst protests, to make way for the Manila Hall of Justice, which was never built.
Source:
wikipedia

[daneo]

How about Chinese cities? Are they trying to preserve the old towns or are they also slowlyy disappearing?

[Aaronj09]

Most of this street

[the spliff fairy]

Originally Posted by daneo

How about Chinese cities? Are they trying to preserve the old towns or are they also slowlyy disappearing?

Almost all of China's great cities were destroyed in the Taiping Rebellion (the worlds second deadliest ever war, over 30 million died) during the 19th Century. More devastation followed in the end of the Qing Dynasty (temples and palaces in Beijing went from 3000 in 1900 to 300 in 1930), WWII, the Civil War, the Cultural Revolution, and the latest wave of demolition, the economic rise and spectacular population growth of the cities since 1990. Its a wonder anything older than a hundred years stands to this day. Although many major monuments have somehow survived or been restored, many of the Old City districts have long gone - but watch this space, Beijing and Xian are rebuilding theirs from scratch using old maps and photos, while Shanghai, Suzhou and Chongqing are restoring thousands of old streets.

There are also tentative plans to rebuild the Old Summer Palace (+worlds largest gardens) in Beijing, destroyed by Western troops in 1860 and again in 1900, and the City Walls, once the worlds greatest, that were bulldozed to make way for a ringroad and subway in the 1950s.

The Old Summer Palace would be one of the wonders of the world if it were extant today, hundreds of pavilions and palaces on islands in myriad lakes. So big it took 3 days to burn and loot:




Beijing's City walls were 24 km long, 60ft thick at the base and 50ft high. The watchtowers and gates were castle sized:

[erbse]

^ Thanks for your input! I remember stumbling upon some threads dealing with old town redevelopments and reconstructions in China once in a while, but I can't find them anymore.

Could you provide some links? Thanks a lot.

[Rabid Troll]

Originally Posted by erbse

Pure geiloness.






image hosted on flickr

Do you mean "guileless"?
This building still exists and recently restored.

[erbse]

Oh boy... My post was related to this plain stupid comment:

Originally Posted by Suburbanist

St. Pancras should have been torn down and replaced by some glassy post-modern station, like Berlin Hauptbanhof or Liège Guillemins.

"Geiloness" comes from the German geil, quite obviously.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_P3uwRiimo

[George W. Bush]

I agree. St. Pancras is not glassy enough. Makes London look like a very backward city. Tear it down.

[erbse]

Stop provoking, bearded troll.

[George W. Bush]

[kaligraffi]

Modernist architecture was once called the greatest crime against beauty in human history, and looking at this thread it's quite impossible to disagree. Countless pleasing, sensibly-built buildings replaced by what can only be described as garbage. It's a cautionary tale that is somehow not heeded by today's architects and planners.

As Orwell said of ideas and intellectuals, there are some buildings so stupid that only modernists enjoy them.

Originally Posted by Suburbanist

It is less about tearing something down than what you could build instead.

The mere fact that you only attempt to justify what was built on the grounds of abstract principle proves the futility, and ultimate meaninglessness, of your position. Well done on illustrating for us the absurdity of modernist argumentation.

Perhaps this example was already posted, but here's the old Marion County Courthouse of Indiana:


credit to indygov.org

This was demolished and replaced by this:


credit to indydemocrat.blogspot.com

[Suburbanist]

Sorry, mate, photo-wars don't cut it to me. I HATE the excessive ornamentation of medium/late 19th Century European classical revival. Too much information, too much details.

I'm a big fan of things that are done on monumental scale, that reduces human beings outside a building to insignificance and that portray an architectonic language that resembles neatness, open plans, vast spaces, endlessly and transiency.

[the spliff fairy]

ah yes, the cold and inhuman look. Sociopathically neat and ordered.

[Mr Bricks]

^You really are an architectural nazi

EDIT: referring to suburbanists post.

[kaligraffi]

Originally Posted by Suburbanist

Sorry, mate, photo-wars don't cut it to me. I HATE the excessive ornamentation of medium/late 19th Century European classical revival. Too much information, too much details.

Hating things with "too much information": the calling card of the vacuous and vapid.

Hating things with "too much detail [read: sophistication]": the calling card of the crass and uncultured.

You want the architectural equivalent of gruel. Everyone else wants a five-course meal.

I'm a big fun of things that are done on monumental scale, that reduces human beings outside a building to insignificance and that portray an architectonic language that resembles neatness, open plans, vast spaces, endlessly and transiency.

Once again you so ably illustrate the basic absurdity of your ideology: modernism seeks to reduce human beings to insignificance because modernism actively disregards the human condition. Humans, for the modernist, are merely annoying inconveniences. What modernists fail to realize is that in reality their creations, not human beings, are precisely that.

PS, "photo-wars" don't cut it with you because you know you'll lose every single time.

[erbse]

^ Well put, my sincerest congratulations!


Modernism has no place in true human aesthetics.

[Suburbanist]

Originally Posted by erbse

Modernism has no place in true human aesthetics.

Maybe. But I despise traditional human aesthetics in favor of a whole new aesthetic paradigm that values the achievements of industry, engineering and what else. I don't want to be entertained by ornate walls or fractalized windows of a building, I want to be impressed, overwhelmed and shocked by something that reminds me how humans without technology are nothing much more than wasted potential.

That is probably why brutalism is my all-time favor genre, likely. But I'll save that for other thread.

[erbse]

You should have your own brutalism-admirer-thread, as no one else cares about it, pal. Hatred is one of the more pleasant feelings offered towards the fallacy of modernist failures.

[OtAkAw]

Some more of Manila's lost heritage...

Manila from the air
image hosted on flickr

Aerial photo of Manila, Philippines Jan. 15, 1925, 4 PM by John T Pilot, on Flickr

Puerta de Santa Lucia
image hosted on flickr

Puerta de Santa Lucia Gate into Intramuros, Manila, Philippines 1899 by John T Pilot, on Flickr

1930's Intramuros with burnt-out Ateneo de Manila in the foreground:
image hosted on flickr

Intramuros 1930s, San Ignacio Church, Manila Cathedral, burnt out Ateno de Manila, and Augustinian Provincial House which later became the Adamson University, Manila, Philippines by John T Pilot, on Flickr

The pre-war Manila Cathedral
image hosted on flickr

Manila Cathedral, Intramuros, Manila, Philippines, Unknown date (Early 20th century up to 1930) by John T Pilot, on Flickr

Iglesia de San Ignacio, with an intricate interior made of fine hardwood, some say it took 3 days to burn off completely during the war:

image hosted on flickr


American colonial buildings and Daniel Burnham's grand plan for Manila are visible in these photos:
image hosted on flickr

Intramuros, Manila Hotel, Luneta Park, Rizal Monument, Army and Navy Club, Elks Club, Bayview and Luneta Hotels, c1930s Manila, Philippines by John T Pilot, on Flickr
image hosted on flickr

Army and Navy Club, Rizal Monument, Luneta Park, Luneta Hotel, Intramuros, Legislative Building, Manila, Philippines, 1931 by John T Pilot, on Flickr

Jones Bridge
image hosted on flickr

Jones Bridge over the Pasig River, Manila, Philippines, c1930s by John T Pilot, on Flickr


And now the sad part...

image hosted on flickr

Japanese controlled Manila Ship Docks on fire after being bombed by American carrier based aircraft. Notice Intramuros behind smoke still with little damage, Manila, Philippines, 1944 by John T Pilot, on Flickr

image hosted on flickr

Burning Manila Feburary 27, 1945 by John T Pilot, on Flickr

image hosted on flickr

Scenes from a Department of Defense 1959 documentary film “The Battle for Manila” (2) by John T Pilot, on Flickr

image hosted on flickr

Americans entering Intramuros during the Battle for Manila, Philippines late Feb. 1945 by John T Pilot, on Flickr

image hosted on flickr

Intramuros, Manila, Philippiines, Just after the Battle for Manila 1945 by John T Pilot, on Flickr

image hosted on flickr

Casas Consistoriales (Ayuntamiento) in the foreground and the Manila Cathedral in the background just after WWII, 1945 by John T Pilot, on Flickr

image hosted on flickr

American troops move into Intramuros section of Manila, Philippines Feb. 23, 1945 by John T Pilot, on Flickr

[erbse]

Manila really suffered badly, such a pity. So much of the former colonial heritage in the New World is gone... Think of Rio, Sao Paulo, Mexico City... It's too bad, really.