Fires¶
Fire comes up again and again in this project. Grand buildings burn soon after they open, burn again decades later, or are gutted and rebuilt inside their old walls. In the alternative view, fire is one of the main ways old buildings were cleared away or "rebuilt" (see the fire and demolition theme). The ordinary explanation is that 19th-century buildings, full of timber, gas lighting, stage scenery and exhibits, were genuinely at risk.
This page lists every building in the project that has been damaged or destroyed by fire, and, separately, those damaged by bombing in war. Click a building to go to its entry.
The lists are generated automatically by scripts/build_index.py from the Fires and War damage rows in each entry's details table, so don't edit them by hand. To add a building, give its entry a row like this, with each event separated by a semicolon:
| **Fires** | 9 June 1873: destroyed 16 days after opening; 10 July 1980: about a third destroyed |
Damaged or destroyed by fire (9)¶
| Building | Country | Built | What happened | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cologne Cathedral | Germany | Begun 1248; work stopped 1473; resumed 1842; completed 1880 | 1248: the Old Cathedral damaged by fire, the year the new cathedral was begun (reported) | In use |
| Royal Pavilion, Brighton | UK | 1787 (Marine Pavilion); rebuilt and extended c. 1815–1823 | 2 November 1975: Music Room badly damaged by arson; restored and reopened in 1986 | Museum, run by Brighton & Hove Museums |
| United States Capitol | USA | 1793–1829; extended 1851–1868; cast-iron dome 1855–1866 | 24 August 1814: burned by British troops; 24 December 1851: fire destroyed the Library of Congress in the west front, with about 35,000 of its 55,000 books; 1898: gas explosion and fire in the Senate wing (reported) | In use |
| Palace of Westminster and Elizabeth Tower | UK | Rebuilt c. 1840–1870 after the fire of 1834; clock tower completed c. 1859 | 16 October 1834: most of the old palace destroyed, after old tally sticks were burned in its furnaces; the present palace replaced it | In use |
| The Crystal Palace | UK | 1850–1851; dismantled and rebuilt larger at Sydenham 1852–1854 | 30 December 1866: north transept destroyed and never rebuilt; 30 November 1936: main building destroyed in a few hours, cause never established | Destroyed by fire 1936 |
| Alexandra Palace | UK | First palace c. 1865–1873 (burned 1873); rebuilt 1873–1875 | 9 June 1873: destroyed 16 days after opening, three staff killed; 10 July 1980: about a third destroyed, including the Great Hall and its organ | In use as an events venue. Burned 1873, rebuilt 1875 |
| Lyceum Theatre, Newport | UK | c. 1867 as the Victoria Assembly Rooms; gutted by fire 1896; rebuilt inside as the Lyceum Theatre 1896–1897 | 27/28 May 1896: the Victoria Theatre gutted; the Lyceum was built inside its surviving walls | Demolished 1961. The site was used for an ABC cinema (1968) and is now a Travelodge and car park |
| Seattle Underground | USA | Streets and buildings mostly 1889–1890s; streets raised in the years after 1889 | 6 June 1889: the Great Seattle Fire destroyed the business district, which was rebuilt and its streets raised | Partly accessible on guided tours |
| Palace of Fine Arts, Chicago | USA | 1891–1893; rebuilt in stone c. 1929–1933 | 1894: fires destroyed most of the World's Fair buildings around it; the Palace of Fine Arts itself survived | In use as the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry |
Damaged by bombing in war (5)¶
| Building | Country | Built | What happened | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cologne Cathedral | Germany | Begun 1248; work stopped 1473; resumed 1842; completed 1880 | 1939–1945: hit many times in Allied bombing, but stayed standing | In use |
| Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II | Italy | 1865–1877 | Second World War: damaged by bombing, later restored | In use as a luxury shopping arcade |
| Anhalter Bahnhof | Germany | 1876–1880, replacing a station of 1841 | 1943–1945: badly damaged in Allied bombing | Demolished 1959–1960 |
| Frankfurt (Main) Hauptbahnhof | Germany | 1883–1888 | Second World War: damaged by bombing, then repaired | In use |
| Dresden Hauptbahnhof | Germany | 1892–1898 | February 1945: badly damaged in the Allied bombing of Dresden, while crowded with refugees | In use |
What to look for¶
For each fire, the entries try to answer the same questions:
- When, and how soon after the building was finished?
- The cause: was it established, and was there an inquiry or inquest?
- What was lost, and what survived (walls, towers, foundations)?
- What happened next: was the building rebuilt, and to the same design, or cleared away?