Discipline Park

Discipline Park, published in a limited edition of 1,000 copies, documents the demolition of Prentice Women’s Hospital on the campus of Northwestern University’s Memorial Hospital on Chicago’s Near North Side.

The hospital was a landmark of architectural brutalism designed by Bertrand Goldberg and opened in 1975. Altman, visiting professor of English and Creative Writing, was born in the building and was employed by Northwestern University when it was demolished in 2014.

Preservationists and prominent architects unsuccessfully petitioned the university to halt the demolition. The building was razed, leaving behind only “fragments of another, better world,” and this poetic elegy, part autobiography and part architectural history.