Rubble, Unearthing the History of Demolition

by Ed Buch, CSI, CCS, AIA

Demolition isn’t a subject frequently considered by those of us focused mostly on new construction. Of course there is the momentary fascination when a Las Vegas hotel is imploded in spectacular fashion, but beyond this, I suspect most of us don’t give it too much thought. This isn’t surprising given that, until recently, taking a building down has been a pretty low tech enterprise. Think crow bar and wrecking ball. But like many things, there’s more to it than you might have thought. Jeff Byles presents this in his book, “Rubble, Unearthing the History of Demolition”, (2005, Three Rivers Press, 303 pages).

Demolition can be viewed as a counterpoint to historic preservation, or as an extreme spectator sport, or as performance art. It has also been used to implement social policy in cities such as Paris, Philadelphia, St. Louis, and Detroit. It has also been the terrorist’s tool, used with unimaginable effectiveness on Sept 11, 2001 at the World Trade Center.

The roots of planned demolition go back to Sept. 1666, when it was used to clear a fire break in advance of the Great London Fire. Explosive demolition was used effectively to stop the advance of large fires in New York City in 1835, at the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, and more recently following the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906.

Alfred Nobel’s invention of dynamite in 1867, by combining nitroglycerin with a clay like substance, made him the patron saint of demolition.

Jacob Volk, was the preeminent “deconstructionist” of the early 20th Century demolishing over 900 buildings in New York City. Most of this was done using hand tools until he invented the crane mounted wrecking ball.

The art of demolition was raised to a new level in 1997 when Controlled Demolition, owned by the Loizeaux family, dropped the Seattle Kingdome using 4,728 pounds of high-velocity gelatin explosives. Jack Loizeaux started his career in the 1940s blasting tree stumps with dynamite. He founded Controlled Demolition in 1960.

The history of demolition as a city planning tool is presented in the instance of Baron Haussmann’s creation of the grand boulevards in 19th century Paris where nearly 30,000 houses were demolished.

Protests in advance of the demolition of Madison Square Garden lead to the creation of the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1962. This in turn saved New York City’s Grand Central Station and, as a result, the historic preservation movement across the US achieved increased prominence and new energy.

The National Ass’n of Demolition Contractors was formed in 1972. This coincided with the creation of two federal agencies that imposed new regulations on the industry: the EPA and the OSHA. These new rules, especially those regulating the handling of lead paint and asbestos, greatly increased the demolition contractors revenue. Today, it’s the demolition of decommissioned nuclear plants that holds great future for the demolition industry.

The flawed social theory behind the development of the Pruitt-Igoe public housing in St. Louis and its subsequent demolition by the Loizeauxs in 1972 is detailed. On a less grand scale, between 1949 and 1973, the federal government paid over $12M to bulldoze 2500 neighborhoods in 992 American cities in the name of urban renewal. The process continued on an almost unimaginable scale in cities like Detroit where 161,000 abandoned dwellings were demolished between 1970 and 2000.

The book wouldn’t have been complete without some observations on the destruction of the World Trade Center towers on Sept. 11, 2001, even though this is strictly an act of terrorism rather than a planned demolition. The destruction of the World Trade Center is compared with the atomic devastation of Hiroshima and the London blitz in WWII.

The book concludes with a description of the demolition derby in Las Vegas where one hotel after another has been imploded, sometimes with the addition of auxiliary fireworks. The Superbowl of wrecking.

Ed Buch is an architect in the Los Angeles office of Leo A Daly. A Nebraska native, he has worked in Los Angeles since 1988. Prior to that, he worked in Omaha and Lincoln, Nebraska, and 5 years in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.