Demolition of Paul Rudolph's Burroughs Wellcome building underway in North Carolina

[Celerity]

https://www.dezeen.com/2021/01/27/demolition-of-paul-rudolphs-burroughs-wellcome-building-underway-in-north-carolina/



Demolition of the Paul Rudolph-designed Burroughs Wellcome building in North Carolina has gone ahead, despite attempts to protest the destruction of the Brutalist landmark. Heavy machinery has been photographed dismantling the former medical facility where AZT, the first antiretroviral drug approved to treat patients with HIV, was developed. AIDS activists famously broke into and occupied the building in 1989 to protest the company's price gouging of the lifesaving medicine.



United Therapeutics Corporation obtained a permit to demolish the building in September 2020. A spokesperson for the biotechnology company told local paper The News and Observer that the site will be cleared by April. "The destruction of Burroughs Wellcome is a deep wound to this country's cultural heritage," the Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation wrote in response to the news. "That makes us even more committed to keeping urging, advising, and campaigning for the preservation and proper care of Paul Rudolph's architectural legacy."



The foundation launched a campaign to try and save the Burroughs Wellcome building last year, after receiving a tip-off that a demolition permit was being sought. United Therapeutics Corporation, which obtained the building in a land deal with GlaxoSmithKline, had originally planned to restore the concrete building but decided it was too costly. "We looked for ways to incorporate the building into our plans," the United Therapeutics Corporation spokesperson said in September. "After conducting exhaustive studies, we have concluded that the building is unsafe, not environmentally sound, and functionally obsolete." The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation argued that this failed to take into account the environmental impact of demolition over adaptive reuse, and the cultural significance of Rudolph's design.



Rudolph designed the building to be adaptable, with hexagonal volumes that could be added to over time. Also called the Elion-Hitchings Building, the facility was commissioned in 1969 as the headquarters for the Burroughs Wellcome Company. The building was named for Gertrude Elion and George Hitchings, a pair of chemists who won the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1988 for their work on discovering new ways to develop drugs.



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[marble falls]

1. Looks like an intellegence building.

[riversedge]

2. I certainly think it is an ugly building.

[Celerity]

3. not a Brutalist fan?