George Hellmuth and Minoru Yamasaki - Pruitt-Igoe
George Hellmuth and Minoru Yamasaki - Pruitt-Igoe
Completed in 1956, St. Louis's Pruitt-Igoe housing complex is perhaps the biggest example of how concentrated, high-density urbanism is doomed to fail. After its construction, and until 1972, St. Louis Housing Authority spent more than $5 million in attempts to fix the urban issues that plagued the complex, before giving up and destroying three of the structures. A year later, the remainders of the buildings were demolished after recognizing the project would never work. The architects George Hellmuth and Minoru Yamasaki were appointed by Joseph Darst (the mayor) in 1950, insisted on a modernist high-rise system that, in its totality, housed 2,870 rooms in thirty-three eleven-story buildings.
At the time, segregation was still popular, and so the Igoe apartments were designated for whites and Pruitt apartments were for blacks. For whatever reason, the white population refused to move in, and thus all the apartments were of a black population majority. With complaints about racism and prejudice against the poor, these minorities reluctantly allowed themselves to accept housing in the Pruitt-Igoe complex. Soon after the opening, with little if any maintenance to the building, and with crime and vandalism levels at an unbearable level, even the poor began to move out. The theory behind this high-density urbanism is sound, and there is no technical reason why the project should have failed. The fact that it did can simply be attributed to human nature, and therefore one may categorically state that high-density urban environments are doomed to fail.
Completed in 1956, St. Louis's Pruitt-Igoe housing complex is perhaps the biggest example of how concentrated, high-density urbanism is doomed to fail. After its construction, and until 1972, St. Louis Housing Authority spent more than $5 million in attempts to fix the urban issues that plagued the complex, before giving up and destroying three of the structures. A year later, the remainders of the buildings were demolished after recognizing the project would never work. The architects George Hellmuth and Minoru Yamasaki were appointed by Joseph Darst (the mayor) in 1950, insisted on a modernist high-rise system that, in its totality, housed 2,870 rooms in thirty-three eleven-story buildings.
At the time, segregation was still popular, and so the Igoe apartments were designated for whites and Pruitt apartments were for blacks. For whatever reason, the white population refused to move in, and thus all the apartments were of a black population majority. With complaints about racism and prejudice against the poor, these minorities reluctantly allowed themselves to accept housing in the Pruitt-Igoe complex. Soon after the opening, with little if any maintenance to the building, and with crime and vandalism levels at an unbearable level, even the poor began to move out. The theory behind this high-density urbanism is sound, and there is no technical reason why the project should have failed. The fact that it did can simply be attributed to human nature, and therefore one may categorically state that high-density urban environments are doomed to fail.
posted by microzeta at
6:55 PM
1 Comments:
it's very complexed problem. there were many small things that led to the failure of "pruitt-igoe" idea. mostly it was about not dividing the space, what started to be considered shortly after demolition ("defensible space" by o. newman, 1972). the buildings "belonged" to everyone, so noone felt like taking care of it by themselves. a person must feel that the space is private (own apartament), semi-private (garden or so, where only people you know by name or face are allowed), semi-public (like block's inner parks) and public (streets, pavements). in p-i there was only private facing public, so inhabitants didn't feel safe and couldn't do much to make the space around themselves- their own.
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