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Press
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1907 Hospital Building
Demolished
Michael Reese Campus
In April
2011, the City of Chicago’s Public Building Commission
began demolition of the historic Michael Reese Hospital,
designed by Schmidt, Garden & Martin in 1907. This
Prairie School-style building was one of the city’s most
significant early hospital designs. The Michael Reese
Hospital Campus had been included on Landmarks Illinois’
statewide list of “Ten
Most Endangered Historic Places” in 2009.
In that same year, Landmarks Illinois released an
alternative site plan demonstrating that the historic
hospital building, along with five other mid-20th
century hospital buildings co-designed by influential
architect Walter Gropius, could be integrated into an
Olympic Village plan for the city’s 2016 Olympic bid.
After Chicago lost its Olympic bid, plans were announced
to demolish all buildings on the campus with the
exception of the 1907 hospital and the Singer Pavilion,
a 1948 Gropius structure. In November 2010, the city
announced its decision to raze the 1907 building, citing
its deteriorated condition. The only hospital building
scheduled to remain—at present—is the Singer Pavilion.
For more background on this issue, see:
Preservation News
Michael Reese Campus.
(photo) Ace program students working on reuse design
study for Singer Pavilion.
More Reese
News
Student Project Award Winner
A proposed
student reuse study for Singer Pavilion—the only
building remaining on the historic Michael Reese
Hospital campus on Chicago’s Near South Side—has won an
“Honorable Mention/Second Runner Up” award in the 2011
ACE National Competition. The
ACE Chicago Chapter works with public high school
students who are interested in architecture,
construction, and engineering. This past year, the
Chicago students prepared a reuse design study for the
vacant Singer Pavilion, which was designed by
internationally known architect Walter Gropius in 1948.
The students’ project proposed converting the building
into a school for the performing arts. It was the first
ACE Chicago Chapter project to place in the top tier of
this national competition. Victor Jimenez of De Stefano
Partners, one of the team’s professional mentors, said:
“As mentors we really pushed the students to develop a
strategy for reuse, but at the same time we allowed them
to creatively explore a design solution.” The award came
with a cash prize that will help support the chapter’s
mentor programs and scholarships. The student design
team hopes to have the opportunity to present their plan
to City of Chicago officials. Also see:
Cirt/ACE National Design Competition.
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