It was a Thursday afternoon, shortly before 4 pm. I had had another tight day at work, but had started early, so I was also allowed to escape early. When leaving work, I noticed something was different, so I decided to take a detour.
This building was a part of the headquarters of newspaper Kaleva. Originally built in the mid 1960’s, the complex featured the editorial and commercial offices of the newspaper and a printing press.
In the early 1980’s the compex was enlarged. The company bought a new, much larger printing press and built a larger printing house for it. The printing company became a subsidary, broadened its operations to other prints than newspapers and an office wing was added. And now somebody had driven an excavator right through the wall of this 80’s annex.
Of course we knew this was coming. Technology developed, and the printing press and editorial offices were no longer needed in the same building. A new press was bought, a new printhouse was built outside town and the entire 80’s annex was abandoned. The whole premises including the original 60’s headquarters building was sold to property developers, who planned to demolish everything and build around a dozen blocks of flats on the site. So, what’s with all the fuss, then?
Well, I worked in this building.
Right that morning I had walked in through the main entrance, and while I was doing my job, they had started the demolition without anybody noticing anything special.
I decided to bike past the printing house every day after work to document the progress, and I have to say, that they progressed pretty quickly with the demolition. This picture was taken the following Monday.
Tuesday. Here you can see the looks of the concrete built printing house.
I have to say, that this part of the building was really not a loss.
They had at least three excavators working on the site.
This sight made me a bit sad. After all, I had been to this complex almost every day during the four years the annex had stood abandoned, and I had never given a thought to exploring it despite having keys there.
Fast forward to the following day, another section of wall had vanished.
Although this section of the complex was around 20 years younger than the original part, it looked very much the same, both from the inside and the outside.
Another day has passed, another section has vanished.
What used to be our parking lot was now a scrapyard.
The following day they had almost managed to cut the printing house in half.
Around half of the office wing was gone, too.
I actually walked through those halls before they were abandoned. The company gym was in the basement, which is no more.
The end of the building seen in the second photo of this post had shrunk quite a bit.
The following tuesday the printing hall was down.
And not much of the office building remained either. Notice the sky blue elevator doors.
The following saturday they had finally broken through the printing house.
Most of the office wing was also gone by now.
They had also advanced in the end. Wonder, where the huge neon sign went.
A day later they had again advanced.
The end was still standing, though. It looks as though a lot of it still remains, but that isn’t exactly the case.
The southeastern corner of the office wing still stands.
Compare this with the second picture of this post.
By the end of July most of the place was gone.
And by early August all that was left was the former printing hall and the old headquarters on the right, where I still continued to work daily.