Early scheme for Prentice Women's Hospital. (Courtesy AIC)

Bertrand Goldberg:
Architecture of Invention
The Art Institute of Chicago
111 S. Michigan Avenue, Chicago
Through January 15, 2012

Bertrand Goldberg has become known, and increasingly loved, for his expressive use of concrete, particularly his curved forms in projects like Marina City and the endangered old Prentice Women’s Hospital (an early design for that project is pictured at top, with a San Diego theater scheme). The first retrospective of his work shows there is so much more to admire about this one-of-a-kind Chicago architect who died in 1997 at 84. Drawn from the Art Institute’s Goldberg collection and several other collections, Bertrand Goldberg: Architecture of Invention includes more than 100 drawings, models, and photographs, including designs for housing, hospitals, urban plans, furniture, and graphics. Early in his career, he designed innovative, prefabricated solutions for low-cost housing. His later designs, like “the city within a city” attracted avant-gardes around the world, including the Japanese Metabolists and Britain’s Archigram.