Los Angeles architect Frank Gehry and Chicago architect Jeanne Gang are among more than 60 prominent architects, educators and historic preservationists who on Wednesday urged Mayor Rahm Emanuel to save architect Bertrand Goldberg’s old Prentice Women’s Hospital and grant city landmark status to the threatened structure.
Northwestern University wants to tear down the vacant 1975 building, whose cantilevered concrete shells soar over a steel-and-glass base, to make way for a medical research tower that is not yet funded. But old Prentice, located at 333 E. Superior St., has been in limbo since June, 2011 when the city’s landmarks commission tabled a vote on whether to grant it protection from demolition.
Gehry is a winner of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, the field’s highest honor, and his designs include the Pritkzer Pavilion in Millennium Park. Gang is a winner of the MacArthur Foundation “genius” grant and the architect of Chicago’s Aqua tower.