Message #232275

[Athena Goldsmith]

Prentice Women's Hospital, Illinois

Photograph by Kiichiro Sato, AP

Chicago's concrete-and-glass, cloverleaf-shaped icon, the original Prentice Women's Hospital (pictured June 15), was built as an alternative to the modernist, box-shaped hospitals of the 1970s.

Believing boxy hospitals were dehumanizing and insensitive to their surroundings, Chicago architect Bertrand Goldberg designed Prentice with an open floor plan that created four circular "villages" of care on each floor. The structure facilitated interaction between patients and staff while improving the patient experience, according to the Trust.

But even its progressive architecture may not be able to save the building from demolition: The building's owner, Northwestern University—which moved Prentice to another building in 2007—plans to raze the 1970s tower in late 2011 and replace it with a new research facility.

Published June 23, 2011