The Friend Convalescent Hospital was the first of Walter Gropius' modernist buildings to be destroyed at Chicago's Michael Reese hospital. Bulldozing began on Wednesday with more still to go.
"Tim Samuelson, the city's cultural historian, at least was able to get into three of the still-standing Reese buildings and get copies of the hospital's architectural drawings. The drawings and photographs will allow these buildings to live on in the archives, but they should have lived on in real life. Of the 8 Gropius-related buildings at Reese, only the Singer Pavilion--a psychiatric and psychosomatic institute--may be saved. That's appropriate, in a bizarre way: What Chicago's doing is crazy."
Read the full story: Chicago lets its savage side show: First Gropius building being demolished at Michael Reese; more still to be destroyed
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