Michael Reese campus to come before landmarks commission

The Michael Reese Hospital campus, which Chicago's Olympic organizers and the Daley administration want to demolish for a residential complex, will come before the Commission on Chicago Landmarks on Thursday, August 6.

The commission apparently will be considering whether to recommend to the Illinois Historic Sites Advisory Council whether the campus should be nominated to the National Register of Historic Places.

The meeting will give historic preservationists an official forum at which to air their view that all or part of the campus should be preserved. Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius helped plan the campus and co-designed several of its buildings.

With the city racing toward demolition, however, it would seem that the hearing will be little more than a formality. The Daley adminstration has pledged  only to save the hospital's main building, a Prairie Style structure with which Gropius was not involved.

If the campus were given National Register status, it would mean that state historic preservation officials would be called in before federal funds could be used for demolition.

The meeting is at 12:45 p.m. at City Hall, 121 N. LaSalle St., room 201-A.

  

  

Comments

[Patricia Joseph]

Follow up to Reese activity. You commented on WTTW that a case has to be made by preservationists to save buildings like Reese where there are no "beautiful decorations, gargoyles, swirling Louis Sullivan ornament." I understand that.

But does that mean that any important mid-century building lacking the decorative and swirly elements is doomed to the wrecking ball? There has to be a way to preserve, appreciate, educate and celebrate the aesthetic that mid-century represents.

BK: Of course there is a way and I've explained it in pieces on the Yale Art and Architecture Building, the Farnsworth House and other modern landmarks.

These buildings don't appeal with decoration; they appeal with the fruits of 20th century technologies--soaring, complex interior spaces; stunning transparency; lightness rather than mass (though Brutalism can be quite massive).

But those things are difficult to communicate to the public. Why? Perhaps because, while they convey the architectural element of "delight," it's subtle delight, not the easier-to-digest delight you get from Sullivan's ornament.

Of course, it took a long time for people to appreciate Sullivan--too long to save some of his great buildings in Chicago. So the critic's job is to keep on articulating the reasons why the best buildings--not all buildings--are worth saving.