“A refined version of plans for the cancer facility, presented by the hospital to the University Circle Design Review Committee 10 days ago, shows only marginal improvement since the hospital unveiled its disappointing initial concept in the spring.
Designed by architect George Nikolajevich, from the St. Louis office of Cannon Design, the cancer hospital strives for iconic impact. But it isn’t distinctive enough to fire the imagination. Nor does it express a desire to melt into the rest of the hospital complex. It lies somewhere between those two extremes – calling to mind an actor in a lead role who can’t command the spotlight but who can’t bear the thought of being an ensemble player…” (go to article)
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January 24, 2008 at 11:14 pm
There are so many features to praise I don’t know where to begin. Maybe with the giant west-facing wall of glass that sweeps out to meet an inspired sunken terrace or the wonderful pedestrian friendly urban form ala Le Corbusier. But what the building does best is symbolize its function, as a cancer.
January 25, 2008 at 9:54 am
Without getting into the discussing the various architectural ‘treatments’, my biggest issue is that the building should have a stronger relationship to Euclid Ave. The rendering exposes its ignorance of the street when you see a few rogue trees floating in a grass strip between the building and the sidewalk.
Why organize this cancer center as a tower-in-a-park when University Circle is striving to create an active streetlife along Euclid at Cornell and Euclid moving east. Its a very simple priority that UCI should impress upon UH’s new construction.
January 25, 2008 at 3:41 pm
I like the guy on Litt’s blog defending this thing. It does not need a driveway on Euclid to address the street edge. It just needs to, you know, front the street.
Its odd how the orientation and scale of this thing seems to be mimicking the Cleveland Clinic’s new Heart Center down the street.
The forms, to me, rather then feeling poetic and beautiful just seem awkward and forced. Its like a second year design project, with way too much emphasis on formal fireworks and absolutely no attention, to very little paid to urban context. What attempts that were made to fit the building into its site and context seem, once again, rather sophomoric.
On the architect’s website it speaks of the project in terms of being in a ‘campus context’. I think they missed the part that the UH campus is not an isolated, suburban campus, but is rather an integrated urban campus.
As is too often a typical case in Cleveland, it does not look the client, UH, has gotten the best out of the architect.
January 25, 2008 at 3:43 pm
Also, Litt once again describes a building as glassy.