Friday Photos
The Deconstruction of Northwestern Mutual
Floor-by-floor, NML's 1970s office tower is coming down.
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Floor-by-floor, NML's 1970s office tower is coming down. Back to the full article.
Photos - Page 3
Categories: Friday Photos
I’m actually a bit sad to see it go from an architectural history standpoint. Der Scutt only designed a handful of buildings outside NYC, this was the only one west of Reading, PA. A lot of late 20th century modernism is in that phase where our contemporary view no longer sees it as practically or aesthetically valuable, and we have yet to see these buildings as historically valuable, meaning many well designed buildings from the era will get scuttled. It will be interesting to see which cities do the best at preserving this era of modernism as an intact architectural period of record.
Kendall raises a good point. This building was from a defining period in our architectural history, filled with many disappearing gems (at least we still have the marvelous USB tower across the street).
That being said, the East Building was poorly constructed and/or maintained, leading to prohibitive maintenance costs. Perhaps this is for the best.