While bombs did some damage, they did nothing compared with a disastrous postwar planner, Rowland Nicholas, who sought to demolish much of the city – even the town hall – to rebuild a socialist utopia.
The nursery – which was shut at the end of March, leaving 15 pre-school children with nowhere to go – has become the focal point for protests against Barnet council's plans to demolish 400 council homes on the Dollis Valley estate, sell off the land for £11m and build a mix of private and social housing.
In America, he wanted to demolish financial institutions such as the New York stock exchange and World Bank.
If he decides to demolish Douglas quickly, it will probably be an attempt to get an early plane out.
The group warned Bank of England governor Sir Mervyn King that efforts to keep the world below 2C of warming will demolish the value of carbon-heavy assets listed in the City of London, creating a "carbon bubble" that will impact institutional investors and pension funds.
Plans to demolish it would be resisted by an army of conservationists.
Second, it falls into that happy category of desserts masquerading as drinks, which means it is quite acceptable to put one away while you're waiting for your food to arrive, then demolish another one immediately afterwards, even as you wave away suggestions of pudding.
An unprecedented scheme to buy and demolish Canberra homes riddled with asbestos could begin as early as next week after parliament approved $750m for the project.
That would give David Cameron too tempting a target to resist as he seeks to demolish Brown's standing.
Sinisa Mihajlovic went so far as to draw comparisons with Cristiano Ronaldo after watching the player demolish his Sampdoria side at the start of the week.
As Mr Buchan puts it, "it was as if [the shah's] haste to force modernity on Iran was matched by a haste to demolish it, and the conflicts of centuries were being squeezed into half a dozen years".
