Herzog and de Meuron, Souto de Moura, Ando and Venturi add their voices to saving Bertrand Goldberg's Prentice Hospital

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The agenda for next Thursday's meeting has yet to be published, but the Save Prentice Coalition has again called for an end to the string of 14 consecutive monthly meetings where the Commission on Chicago Landmarks has deliberately suppressed discussion on the issue of providing Bertrand Goldberg's iconic Prentice Hospital official landmark designation to keep Northwestern University's from its  obsession with smashing it into dust.

In a letter to Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, released this morning, the coalition added the support of Pritzker-Prize winning architects Robert Venturi, Tadao Ando, Jacques Herzog, Pierre de Meuron and Eduardo Souto de Moura to the growing A-list of international architects, designers, and scholars stating that . . .

The legacy of Bertrand Goldberg’s Prentice Women’s Hospital is unmistakable. It stands as a testament to the Chicago-led architectural innovation that sets this city apart. Chicago’s global reputation as a nurturer of bold and innovative architecture will wither if the city cannot preserve its most important achievements.

As members of the architecture community, we believe Goldberg’s Prentice should be given a permanent place in Chicago’s cityscape. A building this significant – this unique in the world – should be preserved and reused.

The growing list - which already included another Pritzker Prize winner, Frank Gehry, has also added Denise Scott Brown, Bjarke Ingels, Jack Hartray, Dan Coffey and George Miller to the original  60+ signers of the original letter in July.   

image: Landmarks Illinois

You can find our own take on the subject, Northwestern, Grow Up:  Refuting Northwestern's desperate PR campaign to destroy Prentice, here.

You can read the full text of today's letter and see the current list of signatories after the break.