Northwestern's Prentice Hospital: Demolishing Architecture to Advance Science

What constitutes a landmark or an architectural building worth preserving? Let's find out in Chicago, a city renowned for its architecture. In this short documentary, Nathan Eddy discusses the value of Prentice Women’s Hospital, which Northwestern gained a permit to demolish.

Prentice Women’s Hospital is located in Northwestern University’s downtown medical campus. Architect Bertrand Goldberg designed Prentice to be a modernized maternity ward, after researching the flaws with health care infrastructure. His solution was inspired by nature: patient rooms bloomed like petals from a flower, enabling a nurse in the middle to attend to each expectant mother quickly instead of running down a long corridor. In practice, its implementation was not that straightforward though. 

Goldberg’s Prentice will be replaced by a $370 million biomedical research facility with the aim of advancing science. Remodeling the building is not an option in terms of efficiency. This is an example when the practical and scientific replaces the artistic and creative, reflecting a shift in society's thinking.  

We also recommend watching: "Tecorep: Japan's Eco-Friendly Demolition of Skyscrapers" and "China's Real State Bubble: Building Ghost Cities to Keep GDP Up".

Northwestern's Prentice Hospital: Demolishing Architecture to Advance Science

The Old Prentice Women's Hospital Building is a vacant hospital on the Downtown Chicago campus of Northwestern University in the Streeterville district of Chicago's Near North Side. The brutalist design by architect Bertrand Goldberg features a 9-story concrete cloverleaf tower with oval windows cantilevered over a rectangular 5-story podium. The tower was used as a maternity center, with nursing stations located in the central core and patient wards in the four lobes - a layout which minimized distances between nurse and patient.