December 30, 2008 – An early drawing by Bertrand Goldberg’s architectural firm is getting a new audience after being rescued from an antique shop, hanging in an office, and sitting in storage.

Richard Wallach bought the 24 x 32-inch architectural drawing about ten years ago from an antique shop in Chicago. At the time, they thought it was an early rendering of Marina City.

Recent sleuthing by Wallach and Marina City Online, however, revealed this to be an early architectural drawing of Affiliated Hospitals Center, a project of Bertrand Goldberg Associates in Boston in 1971. (Click on images to view larger versions)

“It is clearly from the office of Bertrand Goldberg Associates,” says Geoffrey Goldberg, son of the Marina City architect. He says it is part of a set of drawings by Zbigniew Andrew Cianciara, Chief Designer at BGA and now an architect with his own firm in Highland Park, Illinois.

According to a web site that researches Polish-American history, Cianciara was born in Warsaw in 1936 and worked with Goldberg from 1967 to 1984.

Recalls Geoffrey, the drawing was an early conceptual study. He has seen two later versions, done later in 1971, showing refinements to the original design. In those later drawings, says Geoffrey, “You can see variations in the tower form, the structure, and in the contextual information.”

Affiliated Hospitals Center was Goldberg’s first major medical project. The plan was to consolidate several older hospitals at Harvard University.

“This plan was subject to a lot of politicking,” says Geoffrey, “and at the end of a long day, the project became several individual buildings – built in proximity but not one entity.”

Built between 1970 and 1984, the complex included Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Brigham & Women’s Hospital, and Thorn Research Building.

In his autobiography, famed surgeon Dr. Francis D. Moore said the project was referred to in its early stages as “the hospital complex” and “the complex hospital.” The first real title for the project was Affiliated Hospitals Complex, then Affiliated Hospitals Center.

According to Bertrand Goldberg Archive, the design of Affiliated Hospitals Center was altered dramatically as plans progressed. “The original plan proposed a radical form for the bed towers – three monolithic cloverleaf shaped concrete shell structures supported by delicate concrete piers. Bands of elliptical windows gave the facade a rich texture. The towers would be perched atop a massive three-story building which would link all the buildings.”

The resulting design, says the archive, was dominated by “a four-lobed, 16-story, 680-bed tower and a three-story ambulatory care building. Both buildings rise up from a two-level base structure which contained the laboratory and other support services. Each floor in the patient tower was divided into four patient ‘villages’ or clusters organized around a central core which provided support services. At the heart of each cluster was the nurse’s station.”

Wallach says the drawing is an original, done in ink on a heavy drafting stock and now under glass. It is displayed over a stairway landing at his home in Columbus, Ohio.

“There is an area on the bottom left where it appears a label was originally attached and some courier markings [are] on the back.”

Wallach says he has always been fascinated with Chicago architecture and modern design and was curious about the drawing’s true origins.

 Bertrand Goldberg Archive