When Andrew Callis took a sledgehammer to a community art project earlier this month, onlookers didn't frown at the destruction — they cheered with approval.

And when a bulldozer ripped through vibrant murals, reducing what was once an expanse of intertwined paintings to broken chunks of colored stucco and concrete, the cheering grew louder.

Callis, a Salt Lake City artist, was not recklessly destroying an exhibit, but rather initiating the final phase of a visual display known as the 337 Project. Comprised of a two-story building located at 337 S. 400 East, the 337 Project was a collaborative effort of more than 150 artists who covered the building in original artwork knowing it was intended for demolition.

"This (destruction) is totally the essence of why we're doing this," Callis said, watching as the claw of a bulldozer crashed through the east wall of the multicolored structure on April 5.

Owned by Salt Lake residents Adam and Dessie Price, the now-leveled building was initially just a drab-looking structure that occupied a lot on which they intended to build condos. With scores of professional artists and hobbyists the Prices had invited to transform the building, it stood as a conspicuous, ephemeral tribute to commercial-free art.

It was during a trip to New York in 2006 that the Prices were inspired about the project. They were impressed by a rundown building at 11 Spring St. in Manhattan where graffiti artists had spraypainted overlapping art for years. Before developers renovated the building, they turned it over to a group of street artists known as the Wooster Collective, who covered the building with spray paint and other media, transforming it into a six-story work of art which was open to the public for two days in December 2006.

Price said he was amazed at the droves of people who showed up to admire the art, and even more amazed that there was no admission fee, nor were the artists paid. Without the need to create pieces that were marketable, the artists truly had freedom of expression, he said.

"There was just this exuberance and energy to it," Price said.

Upon returning to Salt Lake City, the Prices decided they could do something similar with their own downtown building. Once Adam Price contacted a local artist friend, the word spread quickly and soon nearly 150 men, women and even some children painted, tagged and installed sculptures throughout the building.

Not only did the artists like the idea of using a building as a canvas, they were very excited that it was non-commercial and temporary, said local artist Trent Call, who was a participant in the project.

Call said it was freeing to not have to find a buyer when he was through with his creation. "A lot of the time you make art and then have to deal with it after the fact. This time, they're dealing with it for us — destroying it for us," he said.