Most Beautiful Buildings We Ever Razed

[ljbab728]

Here is a full article by Steve based on his original blog.

Lost Treasures: Many Oklahoma City buildings have fallen for renewal | News OK

[UnFrSaKn]

Developing history: 100-year-old photos of Oklahoma City seen for first time

[Just the facts]

I'd like a list of the beautiful buildings made ugly by silly cladding, paint, additions, and obsolete antennas.

It's not that OKC doesn't have some gems left - it is just that most of what is left is covered by a bunch of mid-century crap attached to the sides. The City IT building adjacent to the Main St parking garage is a perfect example. If they would just take off that siding, reopen the windows along Walker, restore the sidewalk retail space, and convert the upper floor to residential it would be one of the coolest building in downtown OKC. The part that makes it so sad is that this building is owned by the city and they could fix this problem with a simple vote.

[Urbanized]

That's hardly mid-century. It's an EIFS-based exterior renovation from the eighties or nineties; I don't recall which. Which of course makes it even more regrettable. True mid-century design is beautiful in its own right and much sought-after, the real problem is the re-skinning during any era of quality buildings from another. It is almost never an improvement.

[Just the facts]

That's hardly mid-century. It's an EIFS-based exterior renovation from the eighties or nineties; I don't recall which. Which of course makes it even more regrettable. True mid-century design is beautiful in its own right and much sought-after, the real problem is the re-skinning during any era of quality buildings from another. It is almost never an improvement.

I stand corrected then on the timing. I thought it had been done much earlier. Anyhow, I couldn't agree more with your last statement - it is almost never an improvement.

[Urbanized]

OK, I was irritated that I could not recall exactly, but the current EIFS cladding of that building went up in 1996. There was another abortion of a re-cladding performed in the late seventies which appears to have obliterated the original facade, and 1996 was apparently an attempt to fix that. You can read about it on Doug's blog: Doug Dawgz Blog: What Became of The Downtown USO?

[KayneMo]

Wanted to show you all what I've been working on the past few days.

A few years ago I modeled the Baum Building in SketchUp. I revisited it and decided to make a new, more accurate model.

Here, the old model is on the left, new on the right:


Close-up of the new model (still a work in progress):

[Pete]

^

Awesome!