Rm W Vu, Wi-Fi, Oxygen: Rush Presbyterian's Proud Tower on the way to January opening

It's a long way from here . . .

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. . . to here:

The countdown is on towards the scheduled January 9, 2012 opening of Rush-Presbyterian's new 806,000-square-foot, 14-story, billion dollar East Tower, designed by Perkins+Will, the hospital's first major new facility in 25 years, with over 300 beds.

The top five floors, in a stretched cloverleaf reminiscent of the design of Bertrand Goldberg's threatened Prentice Hospital, is for acute and critical care. Each single-patient room is identical, with discrete areas for patient, caregivers, and visitors, and including a sleeper sofa, Wi-Fi, 42-inch flat panel, and large windows with spectacular views.

The columns of the 3-story high entry pavilion are wired for oxygen, so the space can be converted into a treatment center with temporary beds in case of a catastrophic epidemic or bio terrorism event.

On Saturday, December 10th of this year, the hospital will be offering one hour preview tours of the new facility. Registration required. Info here. The hospital's website is also offering an interactive tour.

 

Sometimes, architectural traditions aren't really worth continuing: Northwestern's OCP

In a presentation to SOAR this summer, this is actually how Northwestern described the design for it's new 25-story, $344 million Outpatient Care Pavilion, to be built at Fairbanks and Erie . . . .

"The OCP is a campus building continuing the architectural tradition of Feinberg, Galter and Prentice . . . "

Could they set the bar any lower?

This is the new Rush Presbyterian Hospital, designed by Perkins+Will, and the adjacent Midwest Orthopaedics building . . .

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This is the Zimmer Gunsul Frasca's new Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital . . .

. . . and this is Northwestern's new OCP . . .

Can anyone explain the logic of this design?  Why, on the Erie and Fairbanks elevations shown above, the precast concrete piers or fins are rendered as being continuous, while on Ontario street . . .

the concrete piers start, and then stop, and then the curtain wall is all steel-and-glass, and then it stops, and then the piers start again, and then they stop again, and then its steel and glass again, and then it's a steel penthouse like the top of a cheap medicine bottle.  And what's the deal with those metal louvers like hanging chads that cover over half the windows between the piers?  If they're venting the parking garage, why are they on only some of the parking floors?  Could there be any more graceless way to do this?

Could a design be any more jumbled and incoherent? If it were a patient, attention-deficit-disorder would be the easy diagnosis.  I suppose you could try to pass it off as a kind of Mannerist Modern, but I'm not sure even that would wash.

As someone who was recently there for an outpatient procedure,  I can attest that Northwestern's medical credentials are top drawer.  It's now embarked on a campaign to establish itself as a world-class institution, on the level of the Cleveland and Mayo Clinics.  So why does it insist on presenting itself through buildings whose profiles are relentlessly indifferent, so generic and forgettable?

And why is it so hell-bent on destroying the only truly distinctive work of architecture on its campus, Bertrand Goldberg's Prentice Hospital?