Saving Prentice Hospital

[desertpunk]

http://www.chicagoarchitecture.info/...s-Hospital.php


An awesone midcentury Chicago landmark is threatened with extinction. Here's one idea for reviving this iconic structure:


arcchicago

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Michael Kimmelman pops by Prentice for a few minutes - solves problem


image courtesy Studio/Gang, Jay Hoffman


New York Times architecture critic Michael Kimmelman was in town recently, and between looking at the new Logan Center for the Arts, making some side excursions, and helping several little old ladies across the street, he managed to shoehorn in a couple minutes to come up with the solution for saving Bertrand Goldberg's Prentice Hospital that should have been obvious to all of us all along: just build a 31-story tower on top of it.

I'll give him credit for this: the proposal does seem to have caught everyone off guard - including Northwestern's press spokesman Al Cubbage who, of course, wouldn't say if the University would so much as consider the proposal.

Kimmelman enlisted architect Jeanne Gang and the staff at Studio/Gang, whose Jay Hoffman came up with the renderings you see here. The proposed structure is very striking. Its facades provide a concave scalloped counterpoint to Prentice's convex cloverleafs. Its very New York in its audacity, which can also be interpreted as meaning far more complicated than necessary - Kimmelman simply declined to see the two-block-square empty lot across the street.

Unlike Studio/Gang, which researches all of its projects thoroughly, it doesn't look like Kimmelman spent much time fact checking. He refers to Blue Cross/Blue Shield as a precedent for a building that added 25 stories years after its completion, but seems unaware that the original structure was designed specifically to bear the weight of the later addition. Is Prentice engineered to carry another tower above it, or would a massive new support structure have to be inserted inside ? The illustration shown below seems to depict the base of the Jeanne Gang tower pretty much covering the entire floorplate of Prentice as they meet. Would Prentice become a hollowed-shell, a kind of facadectomy?

[...]




images courtesy Studio/Gang, Jay Hoffman

See related article: http://www.chicagotribune.com/entert...,0,70032.story



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[tpe]

I did read this article in the Times today and found it quite interesting...

[rgarrison]

Oh gross. This does not "solve the problem"

[desertpunk]

Chicago Tribune

Preservationists unveil 4 new ways to save Prentice


BauerLatoza Studio's 24-story addition plan for old Prentice Hospital was one of four architectural renderings presented by preservationists Thursday. (BauerLatoza Studio HANDOUT / January 4, 2013)


By Ron Grossman, Chicago Tribune reporter
8:03 p.m. CST, January 3, 2013

The latest pitch by preservationists to save seemingly doomed old Prentice Women's Hospital includes reams of statistics, architectural renderings and perhaps a bit of hyperbole — a claim that the structure's survival is "integral to the revitalization of Streeterville."

Bounded by luxury high-rises along Lake Shore Drive and the upscale hotels and boutiques of Michigan Avenue, Streeterville doesn't seem a neighborhood in need of revitalization.

But a report and renderings by consultants and architects working with preservationists suggest that reusing old Prentice would have an economic impact well beyond that of Northwestern University's plan to tear down the building and replace it with a medical research facility.

Jim Peters, former deputy commissioner of Chicago's Department of Planning and Development, on Thursday introduced four possibilities for reusing old Prentice assembled by different teams of architects.

The proposals represented a change of direction for Save Prentice, a coalition of preservationist groups. Previously, preservationists championed alternative uses — for example, transforming it into condos or a hotel — an argument Northwestern rejected, saying it needed the site for research that could provide cures for intractable diseases.

The four variations presented Thursday share the common feature of preserving old Prentice as the administrative hub of Northwestern's research facilities. In each, the architectural team proposed building new research facilities alongside or around it.

Under the proposals, an additional floor that partially hid the arches holding up the tower would be removed, revealing the full sweep of the base as designed by famed Chicago architect Bertrand Goldberg.

[...]

[desertpunk]

City rejects landmark status for The Prentice: http://www.chicagorealestatedaily.co...ED03/130209804

The Commission on Chicago Landmarks has again voted to reject preliminary landmark status for the former Prentice Women's Hospital in Streeterville, setting the stage for a potential legal showdown with preservationists who want to save the historic building from the wrecking ball.

The panel took up the contentious issue again after Cook County Circuit Court Judge Neil Cohen last month criticized how the commission voted last year to give the vacant building preliminary historic protections but then immediately reversed its designation on the building, 333 E. Superior St. “We are disappointed that the Commission on Chicago Landmarks voted to again reject its unanimous preliminary landmark recommendation for Prentice,” the Save Prentice Coalition said in a statement.

At that January court hearing, Judge Cohen also dismissed a lawsuit brought by two preservationist groups seeking to save the building but left in place an order preventing owner Northwestern University from moving ahead with plans to demolish the structure. The ruling gave the preservationists 30 days — until Feb. 11 — to file an amended complaint.

Despite the advocacy groups' efforts, the city's Department of Housing and Economic Development has argued the economic benefits of Northwestern's plans to replace the structure with a new research facility outweigh historic preservation considerations. “Northwestern can now move forward with its plans to build a new, state-of-the-art biomedical research facility on that site,” Northwestern's Senior Vice president for Business and Finance Eugene Sunshine said in a statement.

[...]
Read more: http://www.chicagorealestatedaily.co...#ixzz2KTiVa1Bv
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[1772]

Solve the problem would be toring that concrete modernist thing down.

[desertpunk]

Originally Posted by 1772

Solve the problem would be toring that concrete modernist thing down.

That's exactly what's going to happen. A lawsuit filed by presevationists was withdrawn so now Northwestern University can proceed with their plans for a research center at the site.

[historybuffer]

Originally Posted by desertpunk

That's exactly what's going to happen. A lawsuit filed by presevationists was withdrawn so now Northwestern University can proceed with their plans for a research center at the site.

Who would ever imagined citizens lobbying to save a building built in the worst
decade in architectural history? Yes, it is a fine example of "Brutalism" and?

My two favorite buildings from that Modernist/Brutalist era weren't even built in the 1970s:
Marina City (1964)
John Hancock Center (1969)

Okay I apologize to all the Brutalist zealots, I do like some of Harry Weese's work
like the Pentagon City Station for the D.C. Metro for example.

[desertpunk]

Originally Posted by historybuffer

Who would ever imagined citizens lobbying to save a building built in the worst
decade in architectural history? Yes, it is a fine example of "Brutalism" and?

My two favorite buildings from that Modernist/Brutalist era weren't even built in the 1970s:
Marina City (1964)
John Hancock Center (1969)

Okay I apologize to all the Brutalist zealots, I do like some of Harry Weese's work
like the Pentagon City Station for the D.C. Metro for example.

Considering that the designer of the Prentice Hospital, Bertrand Goldberg, was the same architect that did the Marina City towers, it's odd to me that the Prentice Hospital is regarded as somehow inferior. Of course, Like most brutalist buildings, there are strong opinions against it. In the end, it was just too hard to defend Prentice from those who wanted it gone. At least it will be replaced (by a facility that does testing on animals) and not just remain an empty lot.

[historybuffer]

Originally Posted by desertpunk

Considering that the designer of the Prentice Hospital, Bertrand Goldberg, was the same architect that did the Marina City towers, it's odd to me that the Prentice Hospital is regarded as somehow inferior. Of course, Like most brutalist buildings, there are strong opinions against it. In the end, it was just too hard to defend Prentice from those who wanted it gone. At least it will be replaced (by a facility that does testing on animals) and not just remain an empty lot.

Marina City is iconic blessed with a dramatic setting, and to see dozens of cars parked seemingly precariously on the edge ready to plummet into the Chicago River also is a tremendous feature of Goldberg's design. The building is a lot more airy, and less clunky than Prentice.

Did Corbusier's Notre Dame du Haut start the whole Brutalist thing?

[desertpunk]

Originally Posted by historybuffer

Marina City is iconic blessed with a dramatic setting, and to see dozens of cars parked seemingly precariously on the edge ready to plummet into the Chicago River also is a tremendous feature of Goldberg's design. The building is a lot more airy, and less clunky than Prentice.

Did Corbusier's Notre Dame du Haut start the whole Brutalist thing?

Yes but I really think Hitler began the trend. Seriously. The heavy poured concrete fortifications of the Atlantic Wall along the coast of France had a kind of raw, essential aesthetic and might have inspired Corbu. But he would have to have had balls of steel to admit it at the time.

[historybuffer]

And Corbu's influence on Cabrini Green, Robert Taylor Homes and the CHA in general.

[desertpunk]

Demolition permit issued: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Chica...3/a35AZ1On5go/

The demo itself could be quite epic.

[desertpunk]

Grossman and Kent's Final Word on how Chicago's Good-Old-Boys network rallied to Wreck Prentice