Florence City-County Complex

[Florencebballer]

[swags]

That thing looks so much better at night.

[Florencebballer]

Yeah but being in that building OMG that thing is stuck in the late 70's early 80's feel it is horrible and the windows reminded me of the ones in the world trade center they are just big enough

[Spartan]

It looks almozt exactly like the Humanities Office Building at USC. It just has a largeer base at the bottom.

[monsoon]

[Florencebballer]

I believe this style of architecture is known as Brutalism as in brutal to look at. LOL

Well I guess after to see the building for the past 7 years every other weekend it grows on you. It may not be the best looking building in the world but it has a special place in the hearts and minds of the people of Florence and me.

[vicupstate]

As a native Florentine, (I live in Greenville SC now), I have some thoughts on this building I would like to share.

It was built in 1972 and was a very big step for a city of 30,000 (County 100,000). Cities like Jacksonville and Nashville were starting to consolidate around the country and I think this was Florence's idea of 1) adding needed space 2) replacing it's "old " courthouse and city hall with something more "progressive" (it was the 70's after all) and 3) be ready for future consolidation of the city and county if that did happen.

It was a icon to the citizens when it opened because it was a skyscraper and no other city in SC had combined their city and county offices. Unfortunately the distinguished old courthouse was destroyed to make a parking lot for this building. Also, the city hall, which was itself very attractive before being remuddled in the 50's was also torn down.

Now, eveyone laments the loss of those old buildings. Much of the other buildings of the 1800's and early 1900's were also razed during the 60's, 70's and 80's. A shame.

This building does need updating inside, but I still think the outside has a certain grandeur to it, for a 70's building.

[monsoon]

[Spartan]

Welcom to the forums vicupstate! Its good to have another SC forumer. It is also good that you are from the Pee Dee since we are severely under represented by that area.

Spartanburg did alot of the same type of thing. We demolisged our old County Courthouse and bulit a horrid new "progressive" modern box with glass courthouse. It is quite hideous. (I'll try to post some pics later on) We did the same thing with our old library too... although a new and very nice one exists now (the old one has been rennovated and is an office building.) And one of the central bloks of downtown was razed and for many years it was an mostly empty parking lot (except for one buliding). But now with the Renaissance program everything is starting to come alive again, and that parking lot is now a beautiful building.

I guess my point is that Florence was certainly not alone in this state for destroying beautiful historic bulidings in favor of "progressive" and "modern" buildings.

Thanks for that info though. I would be interested to see any other photo's you might have of Florence. If you have the time it would interesting to see a post on some facts and history of Florence.

[vicupstate]

Thanks monsoon and Spartanburger. That was my first post in the Coastal Carolinas but I have been posting in the Jacksonville room for about two weeks. I am making plans to move there in the not too distant future.

I will work on getting some pics and info on Florence as well. The Florence County website would provide some info.

My WFlorence County

Interesting that you mentioned the library Spartanburger. S'burg's is quite nice. Florence also has a new one. It opened just a week ago. I haven't been inside, but their are pics on the above county website. The style is Greek revival and it looks really good. The now vacate library was built in 1925 and is a nice buiding as well. It has a '70s addition that does not match the original architecture (of course) but I think they are thinking of tearing it down and building a larger and more matched addition. I think the county is going to move some offices into it. The City-County complex is getting overcrowded.

Below is a link to the library rendering

Florence County Library

P.S. The Renaissance program is really starting to take hold in Spartanburg, it's nice to see.