35 Interesting Buildings That Got Lost As The World Changed, Posted On 'Lost Architecture'

Just last week, on May 25, the ‘Lost Architecture’ project celebrated its 4th birthday. Founded back in 2017, the subreddit has, since then, become a staple for architecture and history lovers who are redditors or simply passing through alike.

'Lost Architecture's' founder, Tom, revealed to Bored Panda that he founded the subreddit because of one specific event that occurred in 2014. "The sub was born as a direct response to the sad demolition of Bertrand Goldberg's Brutalist Prentice Hospital in Chicago, which featured in the sub's first post and is still the sub's icon," he said.

After posting a picture of the hospital before it was demolished on Reddit, he then realized that there was no subreddit dedicated exclusively to lost architecture. And that's what drove him to create r/Lost_Architecture.

"The community was started, and remains, a place to celebrate the breadth of lost architecture, highlighting buildings that are no longer with us from the significant to the bizarre, or even mundane. As it has grown so too has the breadth of the lost architecture featured, allowing me and the community to learn both about long disappeared buildings and recently demolished buildings," Tom praised the community that has grown immensely since 2017.

Tom also opened up about his love for architecture and how this passion has woven itself into his life. "Architecture has fascinated me for a very long time and I'm lucky enough to have studied it and now worked near it for an age. My masters are in architectural history and I have worked as an architecture journalist for years—currently, I am the editor of the world's largest architect and design site Dezeen—so I get to enjoy architecture a lot! Lost Architecture is another place to reveal buildings I was not aware of and then jump down rabbit holes of researching them. I hope others enjoy it too," he detailed.

"Lost Architecture has showcased lost buildings of all styles from all around the world. Although I enjoy the sub, there are many many buildings I never want to see in it. Right now there are numerous examples of both historical and more contemporary modernist, Brutalist and PoMo buildings that are under threat from demolition. I hope we won't be seeing any of them in Lost Architecture any time soon," he shared that as much as he enjoys the subreddit, protecting the historic buildings themselves is more important than a quality photo that would fit the community's theme.

The subreddit is pretty much straightforward and only has a tiny handful of rules (which, considering Reddit’s love for long lists of rules as a whole, is fairly surprising yet refreshing). So anyone thinking about posting on r/Lost_Architecture should focus on posting buildings that have been lost (duh!) and avoid before-and-after images. There’s plenty of room on Reddit for B&A’s, but r/Lost_Architecture is not one of them.

Architectural history itself is the study of buildings in their historical context. What the historian focuses on depends on their interests: some put all of their energy into the conservation and preservation of buildings while others see education—whether at university or through other means like traditional, digital, or social media—to be their calling.

These architectural historians are people of many, many talents. They have to know a bit about a wide range of subjects, ranging from architecture and history (obviously) to archaeology, art history, engineering, sustainability, and building design.

Studying architectural trends and styles, placing building innovations into their proper context, and determining how everything changes over time and in different geographical locations are all an architectural historian’s bread and butter.

After all, the way in which buildings are built, what materials are used, what the aesthetics are, and how quickly they’re replaced by different styles altogether can tell us a lot about the particular time period, as well as the mentality and philosophy of the locals.

The founder of the subreddit, Tom, currently lives in London and works as the editor of Dezeen. He got his master’s degrees in architectural history from both the University of Edinburgh, as well as The Bartlett. In other words, architecture and design are his lifeblood. And his passion is evident in the ‘Lost Architecture’ project.