Photos Of Crazily Beautiful Buildings Before They Were Lost To History Forever

Seen here in 1961 and designed by Henry Cobb, the Chicago Federal Building opened for business in 1905. Its magnificent 300-foot tall cupola stood proud over downtown Chicago for six decades. Sparing no expense, the builders used white and Siena marble, polished granite and gilded bronze. It was pulled down in 1965 to make way for a replacement by modernist architect Mies van der Rohe.

This imposing structure is the Paleis voor Volksvlijt which was completed in 1864 – this image is from about 25 years later. Its Dutch name translates as “Palace of Industry” and it was indeed built as an exhibition hall. Said to have been influenced by the 1851 Crystal Palace in London, England, it too was lost to an inferno, meeting its fiery fate in 1929.

This ornately decorated Beaux-Arts building stood in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the golden days of railroad travel. Dreamed up by Theodore Link, it was the terminus of the Wabash-Pittsburgh line when it opened in 1904. Sadly, it burnt down in the spring of 1946 when it was engulfed by two major fires inside of a month.

Rather battered but undeniably quaint, this ancient building was said to be the oldest house in Hamburg when this photo was taken in 1898. Dating back to 1524, the building also housed shops in its ground floor. Signs to the front include one reading “Haarschneide-Salon”, German for hairdresser. Despite local opposition the building was pulled down in 1910.

This imposing edifice in Toronto with its soaring chimneys and turrets had taken four years to build by the time of its completion in 1915. Its architect, F.R. Heakes, was inspired by the grand chateaux of France. Originally, it was the official residence of Canada’s Lieutenant-Governor when the country was still a British dominion. The building was demolished in 1961.

Photographed in the early part of the 20th century, the splendid Mathewson Hotel stood on the beachfront in Narragansett Pier, Rhode Island. It was built in the mid-19th century and with subsequent extensions could host up to 500 guests. In its day, the Mathewson was the epitome of luxury but by 1919 it was past its sell-by-date and was demolished.

This charming vista has the look of a medieval city street. That’s no surprise since the city of Hildesheim in Germany’s Lower Saxony has a history dating back to at least the 9th century. Lower Saxony was the scene of fierce fighting towards the end of World War II as the Allies swept through Germany. In March 1945 intensive aerial bombing largely destroyed Hildesheim’s historic city center.

This is the reading room of the Detroit Public Library, photographed in all its splendor. Construction started in 1875 and the library opened a couple of years later. The Michigan building’s centerpiece was this extraordinary reading room with its intricately decorated iron pillars framing the long shelves of books. The library was razed in 1931.

This photograph shows the elegant domes, spires and piers of the lavish Saltair Pavilion. Opened in the resort town of Saltair, Utah, in 1893 the pavilion overlooks the Great Salt Lake, famous for the extraordinary buoyancy it gives to swimmers. Catastrophe hit the Saltair Pavilion in 1925 when a fire started in the Ali Baba Cave. The flames largely destroyed the structure. 

This engraving from 1827 shows a 3,600-year-old pyramid in Meroe, built in the northern deserts of modern Sudan. As you can see, it is extraordinarily complete. But that was to change in the 1830s when a piratical Italian, Giuseppe Ferlini, blasted the tops off many of the pyramids of Meroe with explosives. He then looted the priceless antiquities revealed by his vandalism.

The Waldorf Hotel opened on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue in 1897. The hotel was the result of a family spat between fabulously wealthy cousins William Waldorf Astor and John Jacob Astor IV. William demolished his own home and built the Waldorf to pique John. John in turn tore down his Fifth Avenue mansion and built the Astoria Hotel. Eventually the two reconciled and created the Waldorf Astoria by joining the two hotels with a passageway. The original Waldorf Astoria was demolished in 1929 to make way for the Empire State Building.

Built in the 1670s, the Old Dutch House sat on the High Street of the English port city of Bristol. The strange overhang of the second floor was created when the lower floor was cut back to widen the street. The building variously housed a goldsmith, a bank and a milliner. German WWII bombing destroyed the house in 1940.

Texas businessman William Henry Sinclair raised the finance for this Galveston resort hotel and Nicholas J. Clayton designed it. The Beach Hotel was supported on 300 cedar piles set in the sands of Galveston’s beach. It opened in 1883 but was plagued by financial difficulties, bankruptcies and changes of ownership. Fire destroyed the building in 1898. 

The grandiose Royal Opera House opened in 1866 in the Maltese capital city of Valletta. It seems that the Mediterranean island nation had a well-developed taste for the delights of operatic theater. Sadly, the building was wrecked by a German bomb in 1942. Today all that remains of this entrancing building are the foundations although the space is used as an open-air venue. 

Sir Joseph Paxton designed this fabulous glass building as a hall for the 1851 Great Exhibition in London, England. Originally the structure was set in the green surroundings of central London’s Hyde Park but after the exhibition it was dismantled and rebuilt in Sydenham, a suburb in the south of the capital. Unfortunately, a devastating fire razed it to the ground in 1936.

This superbly sleek creation of the 1920s was the headquarters of the Richfield Oil Company. Built in flamboyant Art Deco style, this 13-story Californian skyscraper was opened in 1929. The architect Stiles Clements’ building was one of the most exciting examples of its type. To the outrage of architectural conservationists, demolition started at the end of 1968 and was completed the next year.

As the Preservation Resource Center of New Orleans puts it, this extraordinary Louisiana building represented “14th-century Gothic on St. Charles Avenue.” James Freret was the architect for this headquarters for New Orleans Freemasons. The building was completed in 1892 and replaced a previous freemasons’ center on the site. But it didn’t last long – demolition came in 1926.

Set in San Francisco’s Nob Hill neighborhood this eccentric Californian mansion with its mishmash of styles was built in 1878. It was to be a home for railroad magnate Mark Hopkins, but it seems that he spent little time there: he died the year it was completed. Eventually it ended up in the hands of the San Francisco Art Institute in 1893, but the great earthquake of 1906 reduced the edifice to rubble.

Also known as The Mrs O.H.P. Belmont house, Beacon Towers was set on Sands Point on Long Island’s Golden Coast. Alva Erskine Smith was the widow of Mr. Belmont and this massive and stylish New York mansion was built for her in 1918. It’s said that the building inspired the castle in 1939 movie The Wizard of Oz. Beacon Towers was razed in 1946.

The sheer scale and grandeur of New York City’s original Pennsylvania Station astonishes. Built between Manhattan’s 31st and 34th Streets, the railroad station opened to travelers in 1910. Architects McKim, Mead & White designed this stunning example of the Beaux-Arts genre. Some 500 buildings were demolished to make way for this monument to the railway age. But Pennsylvania Station was itself razed in a three-year demolition starting in 1963.

This six-story edifice in California looked for all the world like it might tip into the Pacific at any moment. There have been various versions of the Cliff House Restaurant and this photograph shows it as it was in about 1900. Local businessman Adolph Sutro bought the restaurant in 1883 only to see it burn down in 1894. He rebuilt, but his later creation was consumed by a fire in 1907, just after surviving the great earthquake the previous year.

The Queen’s Building overlooked Hong Kong Harbor, and it’s seen here in 1920 when the territory was a British colony. Since this grand imperial building was constructed in 1899, the queen in question was of course Victoria. The building was home to the offices of various European shipping and commercial concerns. It was razed in 1963 to make way for a hotel, the Mandarin Oriental Hong Kong.

This shot from 1897 shows the august magnificence of Detroit’s City Hall. The Michigan building is aptly described by Country Living magazine’s website as “a sumptuous mishmash of the Italian Renaissance and French Second Empire styles.” The building was completed in 1871 and the architect responsible for the medley of genres was one James Anderson. The grand structure was pulled down in 1961.

This fantastic building was not erected with humans in mind: it was designed to house elephants at Berlin Zoo. Of course exactly what the pachyderms thought of this exotic structure will always remain a mystery. But it was human action that destroyed the elephant’s home when it was bombed during WWII by Allied air forces.

This impressively soaring building with its distinctive dome was designed for a newspaper, the New York World. The New York World Building was completed in 1890 and was also known as the Pulitzer Building, as the editor of the day was Joseph Pulitzer. It disappeared from the Manhattan skyline in 1955 to make way for increased traffic crossing the Brooklyn Bridge.

Cornelius Vanderbilt II built this extravagant five-story mansion on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue in 1877. He used some of the $5 million his grandfather Cornelius Vanderbilt had left him when he died that same year. Vanderbilt II later bought and demolished five adjacent houses to expand his own mansion. Eventually it had 130 rooms, making it the largest private residence in New York City. The house was demolished in 1926 and the Bergdorf Goodman department store was built on the site.

This splendid example of an English country house was located in Cassiobury Park in the county of Hertfordshire, some 15 miles north-west of central London. From 1546 the ancestral home of the Earls of Essex stood at the site. But the castle-like structure in this photograph from 1883 was mostly built in the early 19th century. The house and the surrounding estate were swallowed up by the expansion of the city of Watford in the 20th century. The mansion was demolished in 1927. 

At first sight, you’d be hard-pressed to guess the purpose of this imposing building with its stately classical columns. But it was in fact the Kowloon-Canton Railway Terminus in Hong Kong, which opened for business in 1910. Built in granite and red brick, the station was demolished in 1978 despite determined opposition. Today, only the clock tower survives.

This magnificent Gothic building was the Hotel Ryan, which welcomed guests in the city of St. Paul, Minnesota. It was said upon its opening in 1885 to be the city’s finest hotel in its heyday in the latter part of the 19th century. The architect was James J. Egan and the financier was gold and silver mining millionaire Dennis Ryan. Distressingly, it was demolished in 1962 to make way for something as prosaic as a parking lot.

This beautiful baroque building stood on Moscow’s Pokrovka Street. There had been a church at this site since the 17th century but this structure was built later and even admired by Napoleon when he captured Moscow in 1812. The church was torn down in 1936.

Set on the corner of Manhattan’s 59th Street and Fifth Avenue, the Hotel Netherland was completed in 1893. William Waldorf Astor hired the architect William H. Hume to design the imposing 17-floor building. At the time this grandiose edifice was said to be the tallest hotel anywhere in the world. The building didn’t last long, demolished in 1927 to make way for the Sherry Netherland Hotel.

This monumental pile, the Royal Aquarium, was set in the central London district of Westminster, not far from the Houses of Parliament. It was completed in 1876 to a design by Alfred Bedborough. Despite its name, it wasn’t just a place to view sea life in glass tanks. There was also a theater on-site and it included a winter garden complete with lush greenery. It succumbed to the wrecker’s ball in 1902.

This massive building might have the look of a Greek-revival temple, but it is in fact a railroad station, the Chicago and North Western Terminal. Its Beaux-Arts style was the work of architects Frost and Granger and it was completed in 1911. This monumental Illinois structure on Madison Street was torn down in 1984 to be replaced by the Ogilvie Transportation Center.

This house from the 16th century stood in Edinburgh’s old town overlooking a square called Lawnmarket which still exists today. In his Old and New Edinburgh, published in the 1880s, James Grant wrote that the building was “one of the finest specimens of the wooden-fronted houses of 1540.” More than three centuries after it was built, demolition came in 1878-’79.

This photograph from the late 19th century shows the Great Northern Railway Station, also called Great Victoria Street Railway Station, which stood in the Irish city of Belfast. Designed by John Godwin, this station was opened in 1848 and served the Dublin and Belfast Junction Railway line. The station closed to passengers in 1976. It was then demolished and the site was used as a bus stand.

Overlooking the spacious Place Charles Rogier, the neo-classical Brussels North Station was built in 1846 and designed by François Coppens. The square still exists today, although it’s now mostly flanked by contemporary buildings including the modern Rogier metro station. The old Brussels North Station building had been completely demolished by 1955 and the high-rise Rogier Centre now stands in its place. 

The Erie County Savings Bank stood on Niagara Street in the financial district of Buffalo, New York. Looking rather like a German schloss that you might see on the banks of the Rhine, the building opened for business in 1893. The architect was George B. Post and Thomas Edison was involved in the installation of the building’s electrics. It was pulled down in 1968.

This image from 1904 shows the Imperial Hotel in Indianapolis, Indiana. Built in the 1890s it was not originally a hotel but the National Surgical Institute. This enterprise went bankrupt in 1898 and the building became the 200-roomed Imperial Hotel in about 1900. As the century went on the hotel was renamed the Metropole and then the Roosevelt. Demolition came in the late 1940s and a parking lot occupied the site.

The splendidly baroque Neue Elbbrücke Bridge in Hamburg, Germany, seen here in 1887 would hardly look out of place in Disneyland. The bridge was an important crossing point over the River Elbe as it flowed through Hamburg. Sadly a road-widening scheme meant that the bridge lost its distinctive Gothic towers in 1959.

This stately pile from the colonial era is the Hong Kong Club, built in 1897. Architects Palmer & Turner designed this grand Italianate building set on reclaimed land overlooking Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbor. Facilities within the club included a bowling alley, electric lifts and nine billiard tables. Judged too costly to keep in shape, it was razed in 1981.