Northwestern’s MRC2 is Hard Core
Streeterville’s new MRC2 building is slowly climbing into view at 320 East Huron Street. In the photo supplied by Joe Zekas at YoChicago!, you can see a steel grid facing the street has already reached its second level and continues to climb. But don’t look for the concrete core of the building to go much farther. The Perkins+Will-designed building, which has the given name of Northwestern University’s Louis A. Simpson...
Purple Walls and Pilings: Northwestern’s Biomedical Center Gets Down
Construction crews are getting down… into the funky funky stuff that passes for dirt in Streeterville as they lay the groundwork for Northwestern University’s new biomedical research tower at 303 East Superior Street. If you’re not tall enough to see over the purple painted walls, or lucky enough to have an office overlooking the construction, you might not be aware that progress is being made below grade....
Northwestern Can Now Go Deep, Reach High in Streeterville
The muddy mess that once one Prentice Women’s Hospital is about to really and truly become Northwestern’s new medical research building. The city has issued a permit so that all that heavy machinery that’s been planting caissons at 303 East Superior Street can plant those caissons and do the rest of the foundation work on the Perkins+Will-designed building: Foundation and below grade (2 basements) construction for...
Work Starts on Streeterville Biomedical Research Tower
Work has begun at 333 East Superior Street on Northwestern University’s new research tower. Officially called the Louis A. Simpson & Kimberly K. Querrey Biomedical Research Center, the tower designed by Perkins+Will replaces Bertrand Goldberg’s legendary Prentice Women’s Hospital. Dr. Robert L Vogelzang, of Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, alerted us when the first dirt moved, and sent...
Another Skyscraper to Sprout in Streeterville This Month
It’s been several months since Northwestern University held its official and very elaborate groundbreaking ceremony for the Louis A. Simpson & Kimberly K. Querrey Biomedical Research Center at 333 East Superior Street. If you’re preservation-minded, you may remember this as the skyscraper that killed Bertrand Goldberg’s beloved Prentice Womens’ Hospital. If you’re not preservation-minded, you may...
Prentless Whisper: Is This The Calm Before the Form?
Two months after the official — and strangely semi-private — groundbreaking ceremony for Northwestern University’s new biomedical research tower, things are starting to stir at 333 East Superior Street. It is not yet beating a dead horse to mention that this was formerly the location of Bertrand Goldberg’s bulbous but beloved Prentice Women’s Hospital, which was torn asunder (first and last time I’m...
New Northwestern Tower Will Scrape the Streeterville Sky… Eventually
If you are hooked up to our Twitter or Facebook feeds, then you were among the first people in Chicago to find out that today the Chicago Plan Commission approved the construction of a new 37-story office and medical research tower at 303 East Superior Street, the vacant lot that used to be Pentice Women’s Hospital. After handily defeating local and national preservation groups that tried to save the old hospital, everyone and...
Northwestern’s New Med Tower Back on the Books
A month after swimming free of the city’s workflow for new skyscrapers, Northwestern’s proposed biomedical research tower (303 East Superior Street) has been thrown back into the bureaucratic flume to resume its downstream journey. This little paper fishy is hoping to spawn a 37-story building designed by Perkins + Will on the site that until last year held Bertrand Goldberg’s bulbous and brutalist Prentice...
Northwestern Gets an Earful About the Latest Design For its Prentice Replacement
The trouble with replacing an iconic, historic building is, well, nothing else quite measures up, unless it, too, is iconic and historic. The trouble with that premise is, you don’t always know how history will judge an architectural design. It’s also the challenge faced by Perkins+Will when it won the competition to create the new Northwestern University Medical Research Center (MRC2) in Streeterville. It’s on the property where the...
Northwestern Sticks a Fork in Prentice, Then Serves up a New Skyscraper Design
The former women’s hospital known as Prentice is well and truly gone. Dr. Robert L Vogelzang, of Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine sent in this latest photograph of the demolition team wrapping up their work on what some considered a landmark building, and others considered an eyesore. Then just a day into our mourning, comes word that Northwestern University is moving forward with its plan to fill...
