IBM Building 25 Burns

In a sad footnote to the preservation of Modern buildings issue of AIArchitect two weeks ago, IBM Building 25, which was already threatened with demolition to make room for a Lowe’s Home Improvement Store, was gutted by fire March 8. The fire is still under investigation, and arson is a possibility. The seminal Silicon Valley research facility, built in 1957 and designed by John Savage Bolles, was abandoned after 40 years of use and had already been vandalized in the decade since. The Preservation Action Council of San Jose has been working with Lowe’s to save at least some of the building as part of the home-improvement company’s development of the 18-acre property and is currently working toward a possible restoration of what remains.