We need to fight harder to protect the future of our past

FROM AN EXAMPLE OF CORPORATE PRIDE AND CUTTING EDGE RESEARCH—

—TO DEMOLITION BY NEGLECT AND MISINFORMATION.

The Burroughs Wellcome Building is no more.

• One of America’s most forward-looking buildings, an icon of design, and -

• the site of Nobel Prize-winning and life-saving research, and -

• a research center designed for growth - a feature so appreciated by the client that they brought the architect back (three times!) to expand the building, and -

• a building made, inside and out, to inspire and foster innovation, and -

• a design so striking that it was used as sets for film and television, and -

• a landmark of its region and state, and -

• one of architect Paul Rudolph’s largest creations -

—is gone.

Modern architecture is part of America’s cultural legacy - and buildings designed by Paul Rudolph are among some of the best examples of the our architectural achievements: Rudolph’s architecture simultaneously displays practical innovation, creative exuberance, spatial richness, and symbolic depth.

Built as Burroughs Wellcome’s US headquarters and research center (and a prominent landmark within North Carolina’s Research Triangle Park), the building was praised by the company leadership which commissioned it:

“This building is an exciting and ingenious combination of forms [in which] one discovers new and different qualities of forms and spaces . . . a splendid climate for scientific scholarship and for the exchange of ideas.” — Fred A. Coe Jr., President of Burroughs Wellcome

and was hailed by:

• architectural historians

• architectural critics

• heritage preservation organizations

• and—most meaningfully, by the people who worked there:

“. . . .all of us who recall the vibrancy of this building . . . .I count myself very fortunate to have worked there. It was an amazing structure. We were young, and life was full of hope and promise. We were all witnesses, if not direct contributors, to amazing scientific discoveries and their promotion, during an exciting time for medical research.”

“I spent 32 years with [Burroughs Wellcome]. . . At that time, if any space was conceived to bring out the creative, inspirational, thoughts—this was it, in my opinion. I loved working there. We invented and developed more pharmaceutical products in those years. . . .We were “family” but more to the point we were colleagues who were allowed to trust the expertise of each other.”

United Therapeutics - the current owner of the site - had asserted that a significant portion of the building would be restored and reused, but - despite Burroughs Wellcome’s important history and innovative design - they decided to demolish the structure without discussion. So little discussion, that local preservation groups we reached out to about the demolition permit thought it must be for an anticipated asbestos abatement. Wholesale demolition was not considered a possibility.

When supporters learned of its impending demolition, there was enough people trying to see it that security had to push an existing fence farther from it to hide the destruction from the public. People we spoke to who tried to photograph the building were threatened by security guards with trespassing and had photos deleted from their cameras.

PROTECTING THE FUTURE OF THE PAST

Burroughs Wellcome, a significant work of architecture, is now permanently, irretrievably lost. This puts a spotlight on the need to protect America’s cultural heritage—and that includes this country’s great buildings.

The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation and other organizations are engaged in that fight to preserve our past.

The destruction of Burroughs Wellcome led the United States chapter of the international preservation organization Docomomo to create The Advocacy Fund:

As part of our #ModernLove campaign, and in response to the recent demolition of Burroughs Wellcome, Docomomo US is announcing the creation of a new initiative: The Advocacy Fund. Gifts to this new initiative will go directly to critical advocacy efforts and will support local and national work.

Modern Love means many things to us: it means celebrating iconic sites like the Ford Foundation Center for Social Justice that received a 2020 Modernism in America Award of Excellence; it means fighting for significant sites like the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden; and it means avoiding the loss of significant buildings like Burroughs Wellcome designed by Paul Rudolph that was demolished earlier this year because it lacked appropriate preservation protections.

With your support, Docomomo US can provide assistance to local advocates and campaigns, participate in local and national preservation review meetings including the Section 106 process, and continue to speak out on the issues that concern you the most.

If the loss of the Burroughs Wellcome building makes you angry, please consider donating to the Advocacy Fund. All gifts up to $10,000 will be matched by the Docomomo US Board of Directors!

Buildings by Rudolph—among the world’s most significant works of Modern architecture—are continually threatened with demolition or abuse. Vigilance and advocacy is needed.

We are committed to urging, advising, and campaigning for the preservation (and proper care) of PAUL RUDOLPH’s architectural legacy.

Please give to the Advocacy Fund to preserve the richness of Paul Rudolph’s contributions—and to show:

Demolition is never the answer.

FROM AN ICON OF AMERICAN DESIGN —

— TO DEMOLITION DEBRIS.

And if you see something going on at a Rudolph site—that a building may be threatened, or is not maintained, or is about to be marred by an insensitive ‘update’ - please let us know (we’re easy to contact.)

---

IMAGE CREDITS:

Top photograph of the Burroughs Wellcome Building: image courtesy of the Joseph W. Molitor architectural photographs collection, located in Columbia University, Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Department of Drawings & Archives; Photographs of the Burroughs Wellcome building, in the process of demolition: photography by news photojournalist Robert Willett, as they appeared in a January 12, 2021 on-line article in the Raleigh, NC based newspaper The News & Observer; Perspective-section drawing, by Paul Rudolph, through the main body of the Burroughs Wellcome building: © The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation

Burroughs Wellcome: activist calls it "Hallowed Ground In AIDS History"

The opening image of our recent post about the importance Burroughs Wellcome Building as an historic site, both in the history of protest, AIDS, and in the history of medicine. Shown are ACT UP protesters, arrested and being led out of Burroughs Wellcome, with the building in the background. Peter Staley is at the right-hand edge of the image.

We recently wrote about the importance of the Burroughs Wellcome Building: both as a center of pharmaceutical research for drugs to treat AIDS, and as a site of protest—and you can read the full, in-depth story here: BURROUGHS WELLCOME: SITE OF HISTORIC PROTEST

THE PROTEST

Our post covered the controversy, outlining who the protagonists and what was at issue—which we can summarize here:

Burroughs Wellcome: the international pharmaceutical company, originally founded in 1880. Numerous medicines had been developed at their US headquarters and research center (designed by Paul Rudolph, and located in North Carolina’s Research Triangle Park), and Nobel-prize winners Gertrude Elion and George Hitchings had done significant work there.

ACT UP: (the AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power) Founded in 1987, in the heated heart of the AIDS crisis, it has worked to end AIDS through direct action, research, treatment, advocacy, and urging changes to legislation and public policy. ACT UP became famous for their “actions”: well-planned and provocative demonstrations, at key locations, to get maximum attention on the issues.

The Burroughs Wellcome Building, designed by Paul Rudolph. It was here that the important AIDS drug AZT was developed—and also the site of the historic first protest about the company’s policies for pricing the life-saving medicine. Image courtesy of Lockwood Greene Records, Archives Center, National Museum of American History

The Controversy: It was at Burroughs Wellcome that the first effective medicine to treat HIV had been developed: AZT. The company’s pricing of AZT was the prime issue. In an interview, one of ACT UP’s most well-known activists, Peter Staley, explained.:

When they [Burroughs Wellcome] announced the $10,000 [annual] price for the drug, [it] shocked not only us but the New York Times. At the time, it was the highest price of any drug in history.

What ensued were ACT UP protests at Burroughs Wellcome’s US headquarters (see photo at top), and a follow-up demonstration at the New York Stock Exchange (which temporarily halted trading.) As a consequence, Burroughs Wellcome did change their pricing policy, and there were other positive results. Perhaps as important: it showed that a committed community group could push-back at a financial-medical giant, and get results.

Peter Staley’s statement, as received directly from the activist.

“HALLLOWED GROUND”

We reached out to Peter Staley, who had been central to the planning and carrying out of both those ACT UP demonstrations, for a comment on the Burroughs Wellcome building—and are happy to share his emphatic response:

“The building is hallowed ground in AIDS history, where the first drug approved against HIV was launched from, priced, and defended. Epic battles with AIDS activists ensued, including an "invasion" of the BW's headquarters in 1989. Ultimately, the company took a far more cooperative approach to activists in the 1990s, leading to the triple-drug regimens that turned HIV from a death sentence to a manageable disease.”

YOU CAN HELP SAVE BURROUGHS WELLCOME !

The Burroughs Wellcome building is threated with imminent demolition.

It’s loss would be a disaster—a titanic waste of our nation’s cultural heritage.

When a great building is destroyed, there are no second chances.

NOW— THERE ARE TWO THINGS YOU CAN DO:

• Sign the petition to save Burroughs Wellcome— Please sign it here.

• We can keep you up-to-date with bulletins about the latest developments. To get them, please join our foundation’s mailing list: you’ll get all the updates, (as well as other Rudolphian news.)—you can sign-up at the bottom of this page.

The Burroughs Wellcome Building, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina — an historic site. Image courtesy of the Wellcome Collection

The Burroughs Wellcome Building: Incubator of Nobel Prize-Winning Research— and Cures

The Nobel Prize—the world’s most distinguished form of recognition. Show here is the Nobel medal, awarded to each recipient. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

ULTIMATE ACHIEVEMENT

Can buildings make a difference for the people who live and work in them? The power of design is an article of faith for architects, but the ultimate verification comes from the evidence presented by the users—individuals who actually inhabit their designs. Here’s testimony from one who worked at at Paul Rudolph’s Burroughs Wellcome building:

I spent 32 years with [Burroughs Wellcome]. . . .and helped work on the layout of the labs to fit the 22.5 degree sloping walls of bright orange and blue. At that time, if any space was conceived to bring out the creative, inspirational, thoughts—this was it, in my opinion. I loved working there. We invented and developed more pharmaceutical products in those years. . . .We were “family” but more to the point we were colleagues who were allowed to trust the expertise of each other.

Even more convincing evidence of the positive environment of the building is the work which emerged from Burroughs Wellcome: the scientific research, and the products which were the practical application of that research. When that research saves, ultimately, many millions of lives, there could be no finer acknowledgement of great human and scientific accomplishment—but when the creators of that work is then recognized by the world’s most distinguished judges, one has risen to a level few ever achieve.

That is what happened with the work of Gertrude Elion and George Hitchings. It was for their work over decades (and particularly the work done while they were at the Burroughs Wellcome building in North Carolina’s Research Triangle Park) that they became Nobel Prize laureates in Medicine in 1988.

“Wellcome News” was the journal of the Burroughs Wellcome company. This is the cover of their “Special Nobel Prize Issue” from 1988, showing the prize-winning scientists, Elion and Hitchings (who had done much of their research within the Rudolph-designed building in Research Triangle Park.) A close viewing of the photo will reveal Burroughs Wellcome’s famous unicorn logo on Dr. Elion’s lab coat. Image courtesy of: Wellcome Collection (CC BY 4.0)

THE NOBEL PRIZE

Here are excerpts from the official announcement of Elion’s and Hitchings’ prize:

The Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute has today decided to award the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for 1988 jointly to Sir James W. Black, Gertrude B. Elion and George H. Hitchings.

The discoveries awarded with this year’s Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine concern important principles in drug treatment, principles that have resulted in the development of a series of new drugs.. . .

The discoveries awarded with this year’s Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine concern the development of new drugs which have become essential in the treatment of a number of different disorders, mainly myocardial ischemia (angina pectoris), hypertension, gastroduodenal ulcer, leukemia, gout and infectious diseases. However, the research work carried out by Black, Elion and Hitchings has had a more fundamental significance. While drug development had earlier mainly been built on chemical modification of natural products they introduced a more rational approach based on the understanding of basic biochemical and physiological processes.

. . . .An even more recent application of these ideas is the development of azidothymidine (AZT) which was described in 1985 by other scientists from the same institute, and which is the hitherto best documented drug in the treatment of AIDS. It can be added that trimethoprim-sulfa is used in the treatment of Pneumocystis carinii, a relatively common complication to AIDS.

The official Nobel Prize website features an article on Gertrude Elion, citing her as an example of Women Who Changed Science. It includes numerous images from her life, including her time working at Burroughs Wellcome. This scan from the web page shows Elion and Hitchings, together in front of a 1976 addition to the building,, also designed by Paul Rudolph

Nobel Prize winners, Dr. Gertrude Elion (left) and Dr. George Hitchings (right) worked together for several decades, before being awarded the Nobel Prize in 1988 for their research. Here, they are photographed working in their laboratory, circa 1948. Photograph courtesy of GlaxoSmithKline plc., GSK Heritage Archives, via Wikimedia

The Burroughs Wellcome building was renamed the Elion-Hitchings Building in 1988, honoring Gertrude Elion and George Hitchings. It’s worth speaking of their careers and research—including the era when they were working at the Burroughs Wellcome building in Research Triangle Park.

Nobel Prize winner Dr. Gertrude Elion, photographed in 1983. Image courtesy of GlaxoSmithKline plc., GSK Heritage Archives, via Wikimedia

GERTRUDE ELION

(1918-1999) From 1967 to 1983, Elion was the Head of the Department of Experimental Therapy for Burroughs Wellcome. She officially retired in 1983—but even after her retirement from Burroughs Wellcome, she continued almost full-time work at the lab. She played a significant role in the development of AZT, one of the first drugs used to treat HIV and AIDS.

Rather than relying on trial-and-error, Elion and Hitchings discovered new drugs using rational drug design, which used the differences in biochemistry and metabolism between normal human cells and  pathogens (disease-causing agents such as cancer cells, protozoa, bacteria, and viruses) to design drugs that could kill or inhibit the reproduction of particular pathogens without harming human cells. The drugs they developed are used to treat a variety of maladies, such as leukemia, malaria, lupus, hepatitis, arthritis, gout, and organ transplant rejection.

Elion was Adjunct Professor of Pharmacology and of Experimental Medicine from 1971 to 1983, and Research Professor at Duke University from 1983 to 1999. She was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 1990, a member of the Institute of Medicine in 1991, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences also in 1991.

Nobel Prize winner Dr. George Hitchings. Image courtesy of Wellcome Images, a website operated by Wellcome Trust, a global charitable foundation based in the United Kingdom., via Wikimedia

gEORGE HITCHINGS

(1905-1998) In 1942, Hitchings went to work for Wellcome Research Laboratories at in their Tuckahoe laboratory (their US research center, before it was moved to North Carolina). There, he began working with Gertrude Elion in 1944. Drugs Hitchings' team worked on included 2,6-diaminopurine (a compound to treat leukemia) and p-chlorophenoxy-2,4-diaminopyrimidine (a folic acid antagonist). According to his Nobel Prize autobiography,

The line of inquiry we had begun in the 1940s [also] yielded new drug therapies for malaria (pyrimethamine), leukemia (6-mercaptopurine and thioguanine), gout (allopurinol), organ transplantation (azathioprine) and bacterial infections (co-trimoxazole (trimethoprim A)). The new knowledge contributed by our studies pointed the way for investigations that led to major antiviral drugs. . [including for] AIDS (zidovudine).

In 1967 Hitchings became Vice President in Charge of Research of Burroughs-Wellcome. He became Scientist Emeritus in 1976. He also served as Adjunct Professor of Pharmacology and of Experimental Medicine from 1970 to 1985 at Duke University.

The ground breaking ceremony for the Burroughs Wellcome building. Both the architect—Paul Rudolph, at far right)—and one of the firm’s most distinguished scientists—Dr. Hitchings, standing next to him—are participants at the occasion. Credit: Wellcome News, Summer/Fall 1969 Issue. Credit: Wellcome Collection. Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Dr. Hitchings (left) and Dr. Elion (right), 1988, the year they received the Nobel Prize. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia.

YOU CAN HELP SAVE BURROUGHS WELLCOME !

The Burroughs Wellcome building is threated with imminent demolition.

It’s loss would be a disaster—a titanic waste of our nation’s cultural heritage.

When a great building is destroyed, there are no second chances.

NOW— THERE ARE TWO THINGS YOU CAN DO:

• Sign the petition to save Burroughs Wellcome. You can sign it here.

• We’ll send you bulletins about the latest developments. To get them, please join our foundation’s mailing list: you’ll get all the updates, (as well as other Rudolphian news.)—you can sign up at the bottom of this page.

The Burroughs Wellcome building, designed by Paul Rudolph—the site of Nobel Prize-winning, and life-saving research. Image courtesy of Joseph W. Molitor architectural photographs. Located in Columbia University, Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Department of Drawings & Archives