Advocacy Lessons from the Campaign to Save Prentice

The story of the campaign to save Chicago’s Prentice Women’s Hospital is a complicated one—involving political wrangling, packed commission hearings, and impassioned pleas from big-name architects.

Demolition on this modernist icon began a year ago, in spite of a well-publicized and well-coordinated effort by a coalition of partners to convince the owner, Northwestern University, to save and find a new use for this innovative and striking building.

Prentice Women’s Hospital, design by Bertrand Goldberg, opened to international acclaim in 1975. In spite of a spirited and determined advocacy campaign to save the building, it was demolished in 2013.

PHOTO BY JIM PETERS

Yet even though the structure was demolished, most people who worked on the campaign don’t see it as a failure. Yes, Prentice Women’s Hospital is gone, but the partners have raised their profile and influence in the community, and have come away with much greater advocacy skills and know-how. The strategies they used—building a strong coalition, employing experts to craft a unified message and distribute it widely through social media, taking legal action—can provide models for other preservationists facing similar challenges.

A BRIEF BACKGROUND

It is hard to condense the sequence of events leading up to the building’s demolition into just a few paragraphs, but here’s a brief summary.

Prentice Women’s Hospital was designed by bertrand Goldberg, an award-winning Chicago architect with Bauhaus training, and opened in 1975. The distinctive, concrete, cloverleaf-shaped building was considered a groundbreaking Modernist treasure by people across the world. Healthcare professionals praised the innovative design that clustered patient rooms into four “villages of care” on each floor, to facilitate better interaction among staff, patients and families. In 2007, the Women’s Hospital moved to a new facility, leaving half of the building vacant. In late 2011, the building’s owner, Northwestern University, announced plans to raze Prentice and construct a new research facility in its place.

Prentice Hospital featured an open-floor plan with four circular villages of care on each floor to improve the patient experience at the hospital.

PHOTO COURTESY ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO

Preservation Chicago and Landmarks Illinois had been urging the Commission on Chicago Landmarks (Landmarks Commission) for years to designate Prentice as a city landmark as a means of gaining formal recognition for this important Modernist landmark, which clearly met and exceeded Chicago landmarking criteria. When it finally came up for vote during a hearing in November 2012, the Landmarks Commission voted unanimously to give the building preliminary landmark status—and then two hours later in the same meeting, the commission reversed its decision after hearing the results of a report prepared by the City’s Department of Housing and Economic Development (HED) that recommended not granting landmark status, paving the way for demolition. Because the preliminary landmark designation, the presentation of the economic report, and the rescinding of the preliminary designation all took place within a two-hour meeting, the public did not have the opportunity to respond to the department report.

In an effort to reinstate the commission’s landmark designation, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, joined by Landmarks Illinois, filed a lawsuit against the Landmarks Commission and the City of Chicago. The suit argued that the commission unlawfully rescinded the designation in violation of Chicago’s landmarks ordinance by improperly weighing alleged economic arguments and by usurping the authority of City Council. The City Council, which has the right to make the final decision on landmarking when landmark status is granted by the Landmarks Commission, never got to vote on whether Prentice met the criteria for a Chicago Landmark because the HED report prevented that from happening, based solely upon economic factors.

There were more twist and turns in the saga, but ultimately, in February 2013, the National Trust and Landmarks Illinois voluntarily withdrew their legal challenge against the City of Chicago and the Commission on Chicago Landmarks believing that they had pursued all options...