Today, Walter Gropius’s built legacy in Chicago is highly threatened.

Chicago was one of four finalist cities competing for the 2016 Olympics. As part of the Olympics proposal, Chicago purchased the site of Michael Reese Hospital (and surrounding grounds) for the purposes of creating an Olympic Village.  Chicago then proceeded to destroy the campus’s landscaping and prepare all but one of the campus’s 29 buildings for rapid demolition.  These include at least 8 buildings designed with the involvement of Walter Gropius, one of the most famous architects in the history of the world.

Chicago’s vague contingency plan, to find a private developer to build a residential project on the site, is now being enacted.  To date, however, there are no firm plans for the campus, except for demolition and near-total clearance.  The demolition contracts were signed on July 23rd, 2009, months in advance of the 2016 Olympic vote.

	Campus Redevlopment Explorer The Gropius in Chicago Coalition’s Campus Redevelopment Explorer is an interactive map specifically designed to quickly illustrate the Olympic Village proposal’s impact on Walter Gropius’s work and the surrounding urban environment.  Simply click the image above to begin exploring.  This link will open a separate window (110K).

The 37-acre site of Michael Reese Hospital is desirable to the city due to its proximity to downtown and the lakefront, and for a perceived potential to inject new energy into the surrounding Bronzeville neighborhood. Also, as Michael Reese Hospital was troubled financially, some community leaders presumed that the hospital would end up for sale one way or another. The move to purchase the property, supporters of the proposal contend, is a means of safeguarding the ultimate outcome of the prime Lake Michigan parcels.

The City of Chicago’s purchase price for Michael Reese Hospital was $86 Million, with a “credit” from the seller to pay for environmental remediation, demolition, and site clean up.  Per the sales agreement, however, the purchase price increases, due to Chicago’s loss of the Olympics.

The official Chicago Olympic Bid Book, released February 13, 2009, indicated that the Olympic Village will replace all of Michael Reese Hospital and its grounds, and Chicago has proceeded accordingly.  Only one building is currently planned to be spared, the old Main hospital, by Prairie School architects Schmidt, Garden, and Martin (1905). Responding to Alderman Toni Preckwinkle’s strong but misguided desire to have a rigid street grid on the site, many roads are run through the current campus, including a new “Main Street” concept. Today, Gropius’s parks and some buildings sit in the theoretical rights of way.

To learn more about the former Olympic Village Plans, the Chicago 2016 Candidature File (Bid Book) is available for download at the Official 2016 site.  The Olympic Village plan is described to a certain degree of detail in the second volume.

Today’s Post-Olympics Plans

Thanks to the strong advocacy of the Gropius in Chicago Coalition and the support of our many partners, none of Gropius’s buildings at Michael Reese Hospital were demolished before the International Olympic Committee’s October 2nd rejection of Chicago as the 2016 host city.  However, significant damage has occurred and demolition appears imminent.

Without the 2016 Olympics, the future of Bronzeville and the Walter Gropius campus is a nagging question on the minds of Chicagoans.  No firm plans exist that would chart the course for the site’s future, yet the plans for demolition remain intact.  Certainly, without the Olympic Games, potential future uses for the Gropius campus and its highly flexible buildings are virtually endless.

Michael Reese Hospital is one of Walter Gropius’s most outstanding and vast projects.  It is a unique and irreplaceable asset to Illinois.  Countless other cities around the world have embraced this great architect’s work, incorporating his accomplishments into healthy visions for the future. 

We call upon Chicago to deliver an inspired and sensitive plan for the reuse and rebirth of the Michael Reese Hospital Campus, and encourage you to do the same.

Earlier Plans

Former Chicago Olympic Village Proposal Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill, 2007.

The initial plans for the Olympic Village, prepared by Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill (SOM), did not occupy space used by Michael Reese Hospital. Instead, SOM’s team, led by Ross Wimer (architectural design) and Phil Enquist (planner), made use of reclaimed land to the east of the hospital campus.

As originally planned, the Olympic Village was intended to be built on air-rights over the Illinois Central tracks and the McCormick Place staging yards, thus connecting the Bronzeville community to lakefront parks and covering a detrimental eyesore. The community also would gain considerable amounts of green space in the process. However, this scheme was not preferred by the City’s planners, as it was seen to be too costly and possibly too distant from the neighborhood.

Ironically, even if SOM’s architects were not aware of the connection, building towers over the Illinois Central tracks in many ways would have brought the Gropius master plan for Michael Reese to a state of near-completion. Certainly, some aspects of Gropius’s vision never materialized, but in this condition all of the plan’s major points would have been fulfilled.