Friday, April 24, 2009

IGNORANCE PIT




Pictured here are images of the latest historic Cleveland building whose senseless demolition is being presently planned by the world-famous Cleveland Clinic, who has devoured an area the size of a small city, sometimes vacating entire former streets in their madness to build more and more shiny new structures to dazzle the eyes with. Reportedly built in 1930 as the Carnegie Medical Building, it is a fairly impressive example of the Art Deco style. According to a recent Cleveland newspaper article, the Clinic construction manager referred to this building as a "money pit", that it would be "substandard in comparison with other Clinic buildings", would always be "dark and cramped", and would have only "half the usable space" that other Clinic buildings have. It's always so convenient to use the tired "money pit" cliche, isn't it? What all this really tells us is that the Clinic wants only new buildings. They have no respect for history. Guess what's presently planned for the site -- a parking lot. And just how well will that "structure" measure up to the Clinic's lofty standards for structures? And what about the collosal waste of embodied energy that destroying such a large building will result in? Who cares about Sustainability, here? The only "pit" that's "substandard" and "dark and cramped" is the shallow cesspool of thought that ultimately leads to decisions to destroy buildings like this -- the Ignorance Pit.