For all those who would like to bulldoze L'Enfant Plaza and remake what's often considered the District's worst example of urban planning, you might run into some problems with architect I.M. Pei, who designed many of L'Enfant Plaza's buildings.

Take a lesson from New York City from earlier this week, where New York University backed off from a plan to construct a new campus tower in the footprint of an existing Pei-designed complex of towers in Greenwich Village.

According to New York magazine:

The contentious political atmosphere gave Pei, the world-famous architect who built the towers in the sixties, considerable sway as the Landmarks Commission weighed the university's proposal. In February 2008, NYU’s architects sought a meeting with Pei to present their plans. The hope then was that he would support the bid, or at a minimum, stay quiet and not inject himself in the process. The plan would be "shattered" if Pei spoke out, said David Rubin, one of NYU’s outside architects.

And sure enough, Pei, 93, expressed his displeasure with the plan.

If there were a grand plan to raze L'Enfant Plaza or radically reshape it sometime down the road, would planners defer to Pei the same way NYU did? There's no telling.

But if we can learn anything about notable but unloved architecture in the city's Southwest quadrant, there's not much sentimental value. Just look at the reskinning of Edward Durrell Stone's Nassif Building, the former U.S. Department of Transportation headquarters that was remade into the glass and steel Constitution Center. Just as many in New York were crying foul about the reskinning of a Stone-designed building, nobody in D.C. really paid attention as the identity of one of our own Stone designs was radically remade.

Photo by Allie_Caulfield via Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

The Constitution Center, no longer much of an Edward Durell Stone building anymore. (Photo courtesy Constitution Center)

But its exterior, with its narrow vertical window wall clad in bright white stone, was an amazing physical structure to approach every morning, especially coming up on Metrorail escalators that spit you out in the middle of the equally impressive courtyard, with a fountain in the middle. The building was designed by Edward Durell Stone, the architect better known for designing the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the National Geographic headquarters at 17th & M streets NW.

Over the years, critics have not been kind to Stone. His main appeal these days seems to be as an icon of a certain historic era in architecture. A couple years ago, some New Yorkers—including Tom Wolfe—were up in arms a couple years ago when Stone's No. 2 Columbus Circle "lollypop" building was being "reskinned" in ways that fundamentally altered its historic appearance. But in D.C., Stone's Nassif Building near L'Enfant Plaza has met a similar fate with barely anyone raising a fuss.

The renovated Nassif Building became the generic-sounding Constitution Center, and the exterior narrow and vertical window wall was replaced with glass starting in 2007. (D.C. developers love glass!) And as the Washington Business Journal reported Wednesday, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has signed a lease for 900,000 square feet worth of space in the empty building.

The Constitution Center's history page notes the building was designed by "noted architect" Edward Durell Stone. But with the building's exterior so fundamentally changed, why even bother to mention Stone's name anymore?

Anthony F. Musolino, who designed the Bob Peck Chevrolet building (above, by Darrow Montgomery) as well as some lovely hotels and a spate of area high schools, died last week.

The Bob Peck building got torn down, to be replaced by this thing, which at least pays tribute to the dealership's iconic shape.

Some other Musolino buildings:

Langley High School, Great Falls

(photo by Patrickneil, via Wiki Commons)

Robinson Secondary School, Fairfax

The Golden Triangle Hotel in Norfolk, Va. (Now a Radisson)

I'm still looking for pictures of Fairfax High School (the 1972 building), the Strawberry Banks Inn in Hampton, Va., something called the Prosperity Center in Leesburg, Va., and the Leesburg Vo-Tech Center. If you have any, e-mail me and I'll add them to the gallery.

UPDATE 1615: Dave "Institutional Memory" McKenna IMs me to say that Fort Hunt High School, also designed by Anthony Musolino, was burned down in 1978 by three young men, one of whom was named Matthew Musolino. Weird, eh?

A few days ago Mr. T in DC, inspired by this NYT essay, decided to make a list of local buildings that should get the wrecking ball.

Mr. T offers some surprising and controversial choices: The Hirshhorn, the Kennedy Center, the FBI Building, the HUD building, among others.

Well, I'm sorry Mr. T. But I disagree with you about a few of your choices! The HUD building is cool in a Jetson's kinda way. The Kennedy Center is iconic at this point. I agree that the FBI building is ugly as hell.

I would also add that the relatively new ATF building is the ugliest building in D.C. right now. For another picture, go here. And I'd take some dynamite to any rowhouse built right after the riots on 14th Street.

What are we missing? What else should get the wrecking ball?