In the years leading up to World War II the Whelan the Wrecker firm had already pulled down thousands of structures in both the city and surrounding suburbs, as Melbourne became particularly conscious of International Modernism. James Paul Whelan's obituary of 1938 suggests that his company had the task of demolishing up to 98% of buildings marked for removal in the city alone. The rise of this International Modernism saw a new approach that valued replacing older, elaborate inefficient buildings with new ones. An early example of this was a City of Melbourne by-law in 1954 that mandated the demolition of all posted cast-iron verandas, thought to be dangerous as well as old fashioned, in order to 'clean up' the city before the 1956 Summer Olympics.