Preservation
The Robinson Building’s wavy facade at 1020 Market Street in 2015. | Photo: Michael Bixler
Philadelphia will be in the spotlight in 2026. The city is hosting numerous large-scale sporting events, including the MLB All-Star game, March Madness games, and, most noteably, six international soccer matches for FIFA’s World Cup. The world’s eyes will be on Philadelphia, and every aspect of our culture, history, and built environment will be on display, faults and all.
Recently, HBSE, a sports and entertainment venue management company, which owns most of the 1000 block of Market Street, declared that a portion of the block will be demolished on Tuesday, November 11. This is the same Sixers/Comcast billionaire group that played the City with its arena proposal across the street. Located within that block, and slated for demolition, is the Robinson Building at 1020 Market Street. It was designed in 1947 by Victor Gruen, who is most famous for being the first architect to propose and design shopping malls. The “cresting wave,” as the Inquirer’s architecture critic Inga Saffron referred to the iconic building in her 2015 article, is the last standing edifice Gruen developed for the chain of Robinson department stores. For 78 years, the near monolithic building has stood out on Market Street. For many of those years it has been in a state of neglect.
Vacancy and deferred maintenance is often the preferred method of demolition for urban developers. Significant buildings are permitted to decay, and the public becomes anesthetized to the structures’ slow death. In this way, people are lulled into thinking that there is no value in retaining an historical edifice. Philadelphia has a long history of this approach. Yet, the Robinson Building, with its unique form, scale, history, and site, still has much to offer.
The Robinson Building’s sign illuminated at night circa 1950s. | Photo: Prints and Photographs, Library of Congress
The real jewel of the Robinson Building is its north-facing facade. Behind decades of grime and soot lies a mosaic of tiny, variegated purple tiles that once served as an undulating backdrop to a neon cursive sign for Robinson’s. The electric night lighting was something to behold: American commercial architecture at its 1940s best. The mosaic turns outward at the cornice and then curves inward above the ground level, floating the whole remarkable, multi-story, monolithic composition above what was glass casework. Although the ground-floor casework is long gone, the impressive character of the monumental facade is still extant. A power-washed Robinson Building exterior could be a powerful main attraction on Market Street.
Preservationists have fought, and are likely continuing to fight, to preserve the Robinson Building. They may balk at a facadectomy, which is the process whereby the exterior of a building is retained and the remainder of the building is removed. It is accomplished by installing a reinforcing structure behind and then integrating the facade into a new complex, thereby retaining a semblance of historical value, while preserving contemporary development opportunities beyond. It is a careful operation, and detailed integration is the key to its success. One of Philadelphia’s finest examples of a facadectomy is the Penn Mutual Life Insurance building at 510 Walnut Street. There, the Egyptian Revival marble exterior designed in 1836 by noted Philadelphia architect John Haviland was preserved and masterfully showcased by the elegant 1970s modernist tower designed by Mitchell/Giurgola. Facadectomies have their critics because they are often seen as a poor last resort of preservation as suggested in Starr Herr-Cardillo’s 2018 op-ed for Hidden City. However, applying this method to the Robinson Building would result in a thick, well-reinforced poche akin to the heft of a castle wall and a dramatic entry to the site.
It is unclear what HBSE will do with a partially razed Market Street block, which is concerning given Philadelphia developers’ history of tearing down buildings only to have the lots sit empty for decades. One plan that the company recently floated is to use the empty space to host pop-up events in connection with the 2026 sporting festivities. Here is where the Robinson Building and its distinctive facade can be an asset: as a monumental gateway to a FIFA World Cup Fan Zone.
The Robinson Building’s facade reimagined as a gateway to Market Street’s FIFA World Cup Fan Zone. | Rendering: Jason Lempieri
The World Cup is a spectacle like no other. People travel from all over the world to support their teams. Some can afford the tickets to attend the games, but many others come to party with their compatriots, tour local sites, and watch the games at designated outdoor venues. The City plans to host a Fan Fest at Fairmount Park’s Lemon Hill, but that site is challenging to reach using public transportation and unusable in the inevitable summer thunderstorm.
Once the other buildings slated for demolition in the 1000 block of Market Street are cleared, the Robinson Building facade, festooned with temporary FIFA-related regalia, would stand tall as a gateway to a Center City Fan Zone. Like I.M. Pei’s Louvre pyramid in Paris, but in Moderne style, the facade and its supporting structure would serve as a memorable entry to the site. Along with fencing displaying the flags of the competing countries, the Robinson facade would help to secure the site, which has ample space for concessions, bathrooms, games, and a multi-story game screen to show the soccer matches. This plan fits perfectly with the sports-oriented mission of its developers and could be a “mea culpa” for the Sixers arena fiasco that consumed so much of our legislators’ and citizens’ time. Once again, the Sixers would have the chance to preserve an historic asset rather than destroying a significant element of our city’s cultural history.
After the games, the storied Robinson Building facade can be a portal for a new, large-scale development, and Philadelphia can shake off its history of demolition by neglect in favor of preservation by reincarnation.
Jason Lempieri has a Bachelor of Architecture degree from Pratt Institute and a Master’s degree in Industrial Design from the University of the Arts. A devout urbanist and city resident, he is the principal and owner of the design firm RethinkTANK and the brand Tombino. Lempieri has taught architecture and design at local universities including the University of Pennsylvania and the former Philadelphia University and UArts. He is a long-time contributor of architectural criticism to Hidden City.