Am I the only one who can't wait for this building to be imploded? (Chicago: home builders, tenants)

[Drover]

Prentice Women's Hospital gets a temporary reprieve - chicagotribune.com

I'm sorry but the building is fugly. Yes, it's "architecturally significant" ... it's an architecturally significant eyesore. If you just must look at a similarly ugly "architecturally significant" eyesore, River City is only a couple miles away.

If it were practical to retrofit this place into the kind of state-of-the-art medical facility that would replace it, I might be a bit sympathetic to the preservationists' concerns. Otherwise... take pictures for posterity and then blow the place up.

[Dreadnought]

Yeah I am not familiar with this particular building, but when I saw the pics it definitely reminded me of River City.

[MassVt]

Yes, that is certainly one ugly complex; I'm guessing that it was constructed in the late 60s/early 70s; looks like it has the broad appeal of "prison architecture"...

[marothisu]

That building..lol. Everytime I pass it, I think of a bad 1970s sci fi flick space ship. That's basically what it is. I don't understand why people are so keen on keeping it. Okay, it's an "interesting" building, but we aren't dealing with office space here. We're dealing with a medical complex that says they need to demolish it to build something which will help out the medical field more.

[aragx6]

I'm a bit of a preservation junkie, and I clicked the link already formulating a rebuttal, but, damn that thing is ugly. It's less about the design itself, which I do find pretty cool, but more about all the concrete. I hate concrete.

[chet everett]

Wow, harsh critics.
There are plenty of folks that understand there is a gulf between the tastes of the masses and the being able to appreciate the talents of architects that had abilities to see WAY outside "the box" when looking for solutions. Concrete is and remains a very important part of why / how some structures can be built in ways that are extremely well suited to the needs of tenants from medical to office to residential, those that prefer to "pretty up" surfaces are either unaware of the rich architectural tradition of honestly displaying the structure or a building or just too steeped in the practice of putting a lovely facade on everything ala the set creators from Disneyland. Frank Lloyd Wright -California Concrete Homes If any one cares those buildings were the inspiration for generations of forward thinkers, from Goldberg, who was born in Chicago Bertrand Goldberg | Chicago Architect, to the those who designed futurist buildings for films like Blade Runner.
I can't really stomach those who would preserve only "pretty" buildings of the type that are reproduced over and over -- the model for most tract home builders was cast around the time the of US Revolution, and the "design" of most of those homes were cribbed off of watered down interpretations of what English builders believed the Romans and Greeks would have done if forced to use timber instead of stone...
Of course the core functional aspects of being able to attend to patients from central nursing stations was answered very well in that building, and the organic shape of buildings like Marina City also serve the tenants desire for balconies and views far better than any other solution There is a high level of hypocrisy at work from an academic institution that strongly defends the decision of its faculty to offend community standards and then relies on some argument about how they serve the community. Really distasteful line of bull...

The reality is that NU has boatloads of cash and if they cared to incorporate the existing structure into whatever facility they claim to need they could do that. The tastes of their DONORS and the choices of the administration / senior faculty are why they want to tear down the existing structure and create something that, in their view, is more "appropriate"...

I doubt that the lawsuit to preserve the structure will be successful but I applaud those that that are moving forward with this effort. There is an ugly lack of respect for preservation minded architecture in Chicago and the legacy of folks that have literally died trying to catalog the loss of some of Chicago gems is too often not the popular path... Richard Nickel - Death & Legacy

[urbanlife78]

Oh I love that building, Chicago has a great collection of architecture throughout the city. It is good to see efforts to try and preserve the building, but I won't be surprised to see it come down due to pressure from academic donors with little care for architecture.

I just hope whatever replaces it represents cutting edge architecture.

[ERS-One]

I'd like it more if were to be updated like this:



Jeanne Gang Pitches Adaptive Reuse Proposal for Chicago's Threatened Prentice Women's Hospital | Inhabitat - Sustainable Design Innovation, Eco Architecture, Green Building

[urbanlife78]

I would be okay with Jeanne Gang doing a renovation and redesign of the building.

[rparz]

Thing is, they want to knock down an architecturally significant building when they have a closely related arm that owns a FRIGGING EMPTY LOT one block over. Build your new facility there!