Raymond Hilliard Center, Chicago, Illinois, Site and Landscape Plan

Goldberg’s Raymond Hilliard Center for the Chicago Housing Authority presented a radical new vision of public housing that rejected minimal national standards for space and amenities. In order to promote community interdependence, Goldberg integrated housing for families with young children and the elderly, preserving family groups and creating opportunities for new social relationships within a well-planned site. Apartments for the elderly were planned in two fluted concrete towers that complement the gentle curve of the two highrise buildings for families at the northern boundary of the complex. As a corrective to the anonymous plans of typical high-rise buildings, Goldberg developed an undulating wall for the family buildings to provide sheltered doorsteps for each apartment and impart a sense of privacy and individuality in the large structures. Planned to support a wide range of activities with a community building, tennis courts, an outdoor amphitheater, picnic areas, and an unrealized bikeracing track, this radical new model of public housing prompted Mayor Richard J. Daley to declare, “This is how people ought to live.”