Houston Architects

Responding to Swamplot’s request last week for photos of the former Prudential Life Insurance Tower the University of Texas’s M.D. Anderson Cancer Center is getting ready to demolish, architect Karen Lantz sends in a few photos she took while on a mod-gawking expedition in September 2003. Last week the medical institution began knocking down the porte-cochere at the building’s Holcombe St. entrance — to allow workers to remove one of the few items being preserved from the building: a mural in the building’s lobby painted by Peter Hurd in 1952. Lantz, who’s a bit of a demolition expert herself (her piece-by-piece dismantling of a home in Ranch Estates was awarded Swamplot’s Best Teardown Award in 2009), includes a few views of the grand entrance to Houston’s first-ever corporate campus:

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Update, 5:14 p.m.: Today’s demo is just of an exterior canopy. But the entire building will likely be demolished next month.

The Rice Design Alliance is reporting that M.D. Anderson has begun tearing down the former Prudential Life Insurance building at 1100 Holcombe St. in the Med Center. Since 1975, it has served as the “Houston Main Building” for the medical institution’s campus. The 18-story limestone tower was constructed as the centerpiece of Houston’s first suburban office park in 1952, from a design by Kenneth Franzheim. For almost 10 years, the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center has been floating plans to knock it down and replace it with a new medical facility. Got any pics of the action, or images of the building’s notable interior to share? Send them in! We’ll publish updates as we get them.

• Prudential/Houston Main Building [arch-ive.org]
• Preservationists oppose plan to demolish historic building [Houston Business Journal]

Photo: Candace Garcia