Lindley Annex was far from perfect.

Termites munched on the walls. Rain dripped through holes in the roof onto students, who were usually hot during summer and cold during winter because of ventilation troubles.

Even so, Anne Patterson couldn’t help but feel a little sad that the Kansas University building, which she had taught in for nearly 10 years, was being demolished.

“There was some real creative energy down there,” said Patterson, an instructor for the School of Architecture and Urban Design. “There were creative ideas. It was not about its broken windows and kicked-in walls. Secretively, people kind of liked the floods on rainy days.”

It took only a few hours Wednesday morning for a backhoe from BA Green Construction Co. to level Lindley Annex, just south of Lindley Hall.

The annex was built as a military cafeteria during World War II and was moved to KU in 1947.

“It’s been ‘temporary’ since it was put up,” said Jim Modig, director of design and construction management at KU.

Lindley Hall Annex, built in the 1940s as a cafeteria on a military base, is razed Wednesday morning in the shadow of Lindley Hall on the KU campus. Visible in the background is KU's engineering school and student dorms on Daisy Hill.

KU officials have wanted to knock the building down for almost a decade but didn’t have new spaces for the architecture studios that met in the annex.

That changed when Eaton Hall and an addition to the Baehr Audio-Reader Center were constructed. Departments moving into those buildings freed up space in Snow Hall and the former Kansas Public Radio Building – now called Marvin Studios – for the architecture classes.

Modig said there were no problems with the demolition, which cost the university about $48,400, including asbestos removal.

“It’s a wood structure,” he said. “It’s fairly easy (to demolish), compared to concrete and steel.”

Crews will begin work next month to turn the space into a parking lot.

6News video: KU building demolished

Patterson, who now teaches her architecture studio class in Snow Hall, said she’d miss the annex.

“Everything’s so slick at KU,” she said. “I kind of like the rough edges, myself. There was a lesson to be learned: what a beautiful drawing you can make in such a dump of a place.”