Journal of Architectural Education

ISSN: 1046-4883 (Print) 1531-314X (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rjae20

The Pruitt-Igoe Myth

Katharine G. Bristol

To cite this article: Katharine G. Bristol (1991) The Pruitt-Igoe Myth, Journal of Architectural
Education, 44:3, 163-171, DOI: 10.1080/10464883.1991.11102687

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10464883.1991.11102687

Published online: 31 Mar 2015.

Submit your article to this journal

Article views: 19

View related articles

Citing articles: 5 View citing articles

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at

http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=rjae20

Download by: [University of California Santa Barbara] Date: 19 February 2016, At: 15:04
 The Pruitt-Igoe Myth

KAllWUNE G. BRISTOl, UnivmityafCalifOrnia. &rktky

This paperIs an effort to debunk the mythsassociated with the demolition of FEW ARCHITEC11JRAL IMAGES ARE MORE POWERFUL TIIAN THE SPECfACLE
Downloaded by [University of California Santa Barbara] at 15:04 19 February 2016

the Prultt-Igoe publichousing project.In the seventeen yean since Its demise,
thisprojecthasbecome a widelyrecognized symbol of architectural failure. of the Pruitr-Igoe public housing project crashing to the ground (Fig-
.Anyone re~otely familiar with the recenthistoryof American architecture ure I). Since the trial demolition of three of its buildings in 1972 •
knows to associate Prultt·lgoe with the failure of HighModernism, and with the Pruirt-Igoe has attained an iconic significanceby virtue of its continu-
Inadequacy of efforts to provide livableenvironments for the poor. It Is this
association of the projects demolition with the failure of modemarchitecture ous use and reuse as a symbol within a series of debates in architec-
that constitutes the core of the Prultt·lgoe myth.In place of the myth.this ture, In these discussions there is vinual unanimity that the project's
paperoffen a brief historyof PruItt.Jgoe that demonstrates howIts construc· demise demonstrated an architectural failure. When Charles Jencks
tIon and management wereshaped by profoundly embedded economic and
politicalconditions In postwar Sl Louis. It then outlines howeachsuccessive announced in 1977 that the demoliron of Pruirt-Igoe represented the
retellingof the Prultt·lgoe storyIn boththe national andarchitectural press death of modern architecture. he invoked an interpretation of the
hasadded newdistortions and misinterpretations of the originalevents. The project that has today gained widespread acceptance. Anyone re-
paperconcludes by offering an Interpretation of the Prultt·lgoe mythas
mystification. By placingthe responsibility for the failure of publichousing on motely familiar with the recent historyofAmerican architecture auto-
designers. the myth shiftsattention from the Institutional or structuralsources matically associates Pruitt-Igoe with the failure of High Modernism.
of publichousing problems. and with the inadequacy ofefforts to provide livableenvironments for
the poor.
This version of the Pruitt-Igoe story is a myth. At the core of
the myth is the idea that architectural design was responsible for the
demise of Pruln-Igoe, In the first section of this essay I debunk the
myth by offering a brief history of Pruirt-Igoe from the perspective of
its place within a larger history of urban redevelopment and housing
policy. This history engages the profoundly embedded economic and
political conditions that shaped the construction and management of
Pruirr-lgoe, I then consider how the Pruitt-Igoe myth carne to be cre-
ated and disseminated. both by the national press and by architects
and architecture critics. and how each successive retelling of the
Pruirt-Igoe story has added new dimensions to the myth. I want to
focus particular attention on one of the most important aspects of the
myth: the alleged connection between the project's failure and the
end of modern architecture. In the final section I argue for an inter-
pretation of the Pruin-Igoe myth as mystification. By placing the re-
1. PruitHgoe demolition. (Courtesy St. Louis Post-Dispatehl sponsibility for the failure of public housing on designers, the myth
shifts attention from the institutional or structural sources of public
. housing problems. Simultaneously it legitimates the architecture pro-
fession by implying that deeply embedded social problems are caused.
and therefore solved. by architectural design.

The Pruitt-Igoe story: Public housing and urban redevelopment

Pruitt-Igoe was created under the United States Housing Aa of 1949.

which made funds directly availableto cities for slum clearance, urban
redevelopment, and public housing. Like many other cities in the
postwar era. St. Louis was experiencing a massiveshift of its predomi-
nantly white middle-class population towards the suburbs. At the
same time, central city slums were expanding as poor households
moved into units abandoned by those leaving the city.' Located in a
ring immediately surrounding the central business district, these

1 6:3 Bristol
 J L I 1....._ _- - ' '--- -->
slums were racially segregated. Blacks occupied the area immediately
Downloaded by [University of California Santa Barbara] at 15:04 19 February 2016

north of downtown, while whites tended to live to the south. The

black ghetto expanded particularly fast with the postwar influx of -- = ..- .
poor black population from the South. As the growing slums crept
closerto the central business district, city officials and the local busi-
ness community feared the accompanying decline in property values
would threaten the economic health of downtown real estate. They
responded by developing a comprehensive plan to redevelop the zone
immediately surroundingthe downtown business core.'
Using the urban redevelopment provisions of the 1949 Hous-
ing Act, St. Louis' Land Clearance and Redevelopment Authority
planned to acquireand clearextensive tractswithin the slums and to
sellthem at reducedcost to privatedevelopers. These redevelopment
projects wereslated to accommodate mainly middle-income housing
and commercial development in an effort to lure the middle class
back to the centralcity.At the same time, the St. LouisHousing Au-
thority would clearland for the construction of public housing. These
projects were intended to providelarge numbers of low-rent units to r -

the poor in order to stem ghetto expansion, and also to accommodate

3. SIleplan. (C<u!esy Roger Montgomery)
households displaced by redevelopment and other slum clearance
projects.'
Pruin-Igoe was one of these public housing projects. Located velopment officials' expectations that these projects would eventually
on a 57-acresite on the north side blackghetto, it was one of several come to house not only those displaced by slum clearance for Pruitt-
tracts that had been targeted for slum clearance under the postwarre- Igoe,but also by demolitionfor redevelopment projects and for future
developmentplan. In 1950 St. Louis received a federal commitment public housing.
for 5800 public housing units, about half of which wereallocated by In 1950 the St. Louis Housing Authority commissioned the
the St. Louis Housing Authority to Pruitt-Igoe, The 2700-unit firm of Leinweber, Yamasaki & Hellmuth to design Pruitt-Igoe. The
projectwould house 15,000 tenantsat densities higher than the origi- architects' task was constrainedby the size and locationof the site, the
nal slum dwellings. The high densityresulted from housingand rede- number of units, and the project density, all of which had been pre-
determined by the St. Louis Housing Authority. Their first design
proposals called for a mixture of high-rise, mid-rise, and walk-up
structures. Though this arrangement was acceptable to the localau-
thority, it exceeded the federal government's maximumallowable cost
per unit. At this point a field officer of the federal PublicHousingAd-
ministration (P.H.A.) intervened and insistedon a scheme using 33
identical eleven-story elevator buildings (Figures 2 and 3).~ These de-
sign changes took place in the context of a strict economy and effi-
ciency drive within the P.H.A. Political opposition to the public
housing program was particularly intense in the conservative political
climate of the early 1950s. In addition, the outbreak of the Korean
war had created inflation and materials shortages, and the P.H.A.
found itselfin the position of havingto justifypublic housingexpen-
ditures to an unsympathetic Congress.'
Despite the intense pressure for economicaldesign, the archi-
tects devoted a great deal of attention to improving livability in the
2. Aerial view 01 PnitNgoe. (C<u!esy Missouri Historical Society) high-rise units. One of their strategies was to use two popular new de-

Mav 1991 JAE 44/3 184

 sign features: skip-stop elevators and glazed internal galleries (Figures
Downloaded by [University of California Santa Barbara] at 15:04 19 February 2016

4 and 5). These were intended to create "individual neighborhoods"

within each building. The galleries, located on every third floor, were
conceived as "vertical hallways." Skip-stop elevators transported resi-
dents to the gallery level, from which they would walk to their apart-
ments. Laundry and storage rooms also opened off the galleries.
When Pruirt-Igoe was published in the Arcbitarural Forum and Ar-
chiuetura/ Rtcord,6 it was these specific design features that received
the most attention. The Architectural Rtcord praised the skip-stop el-
evators and galleries as innovative compensations for the shortcom-
ings of the high-rise housing form:

Since all of these are, under federal legislation, combined low-

4. VI~ of ~ PrLOtt1goe bLOldlng. ICOUftesy MIssouri Hlstorical rent housing and slum-clearance projects, located near the heart
Society)
of the city, a high-rise, high-density solution was inescapable,
and the problem was how to plan a high-rise project on a huge
scale, and still provide, to the greatest extent possible under
present legislation,communities with individual scaleand char-
acter which would avoid the "project" atmosphere so often
criticized?

Even after the architects had switched to an all high-rise

scheme, they faced continued pressure from the Public Housing Ad-
ministration to keep costs to a bare minimum. In a 1975 study of the
St. Louis Housing Authority's expenditures 011 Pruitt-Igoe, political
scientist Eugene Meehan analyzed the extent to which these budget
constraints affected the final design. In addition to the elimination of
amenities, such as children's play areas,landscaping. and ground-floor
bathrooms, the cost cutting targeted points of contact between the
tenants and the living units. "The quality of the hardware wasso poor
that doorknobs and locks were broken on initial use....Windowpanes
were blown from inadequate frames by wind pressure. In the kitch-
ens, cabinets were made of the thinnest plywood possible."
Pruin-Igoe was completed in 1954. Though originally con-
ceived as two segregated sections (Pruitt for blacks and Igoe for
whites), a Supreme Court decision handed down that same year
forced desegregation. Attempts at integration failed, however, and
Pruirr-Igoe was an exclusivelyblack project virtually from inception.
5. o.agrammallC section. (Courtesy Rogef Montgomeryl
Overall Pruirr-Igoe's first tenants appeared pleased with their new
housing. Despite the relatively cheap construction quality, the units
still represented a much higher level of amenity than the dilapidated
units they had vacated or been forced to leave.
By 1958, however, conditions had begun to deteriorate. One of
the first signals was a steadily declining occupancy rate. As Roger
Montgomery has persuasively argued, St. Louis' housing officials
failed to anticipate changing postwar demographic trends that dra-

165 Bristol
 matically affectedthe inner-city housing market and threatened the Rise of the Pruitt·lgoe myth
Downloaded by [University of California Santa Barbara] at 15:04 19 February 2016

viabilityof public housing projects," Pruirt-Igoe was conceivedat a

time when the demand for low-income housingunits in the inner city Clearlythere were a number of powerful social and economic factors
had neverbeen higher,due to widespread dislocation causedby slum at play in the riseand fall of Pruirr-Igoe. Yet for most architects the
clearance, urban renewal, and the federal highway program. However, entire story can be reducedto a one-line explanation: The design was
by the time the projectopened in 1954, this demand had taperedoff. to blame. This interpretation gained its greatest acceptance in the af-
Slowoverall metropolitan populationgrowth and the overproduction termath of the project's demolition. The roots of the Pruitt-Igoe
of inexpensivesuburban dwellings helped open up the previously myth, however, go back to the firstyears of the project's history,
tight inner-city rental market to blacks. Many chose.to live in inex- The deterioration of Pruirt-Igoe became evident only a few
pensive privatedwellings rather than in public housing. Pruin-Igoe's years after its completion in 1954, and the local press noted as earlyas
occupancy rate peakedin 1957 at 91% and immediately began to de- 1960 that certaindesignfeatures exacerbated the project'sproblems,"
cline. The skip-stopelevators and galleries, far from promoting community
This decline in occupancy directly impacted the St. Louis association, had proved to be opportune environments for violent
Housing Authority's ability to maintain the project, as Eugene crime. Forcedto walk through the galleries to reach their apartments,
Meehan has amplydemonstrated. to Under the 1949 HousingAct, lo- residents were threatened and attacked by gangs, who used these
cal housing authorities were expected to fund their operations and spaces as hangouts. Residents were also frequently attacked in the
maintenance out of rents collected from tenants. In a period of rising elevators.
costsand declinihg occupancy, the HousingAuthority was placed in a This connection between imputed design flaws and Pruitt-
cost-income squeeze that impeded its abilityto conduct basic repairs. Igoe's deterioration first came to the attention of a wide audience of
In addition, average tenant income was declining.The project came design professionals in 1965, when the growing notoriety of the
increasingly to be inhabited by the poorest segment of the black project prompted Archiuctura/ Forum to publish a second article on
population: primarily female heads of households dependent on pub- Pruin-Igoe.In "The Case Historyof a Failure," James Bailey retracted
lic assistance. These demographic shifts and economic pressures re- vinually all of Forum's earlierstatements about the project, acknowl-
sulted in chronic neglect of maintenance and mechanical breakdowns. edging that many of the features praised in their 1951 article had
Elevators failed to work and vandalism went unrepaired. In a project provedto be hazards, rather than improvements to the qualityoflife:
increasingly inhabited by the poorestand most demoralized segment
of the population, the vandalism came also to be accompanied by in- The undersized elevators are brutallybattered,and they reekof
creasing rates of violentcrime. urine from children who misjudged the time it takes to reach
The ongoing problems of vandalism, violence, and fiscal insta- their apartments. Bystopping only on every third floor, the el-
bility prompted a number of efforts to salvage Pruitt-Igoe. In 1965 evators offerconvenient settings for crime. ...The galleries are
the first of several federal grants arrivedto provide physical rejuvena- anything but cheerful social enclaves. The tenants call them
tion and the establishment of social programsto benefit the residents "gauntlets" through which they must passto reachtheir doors.
and to combat further rent artearages. The programshad littleeffect: ...Heavy metal grilles now shield the windows, but they were
Occupancy ratescontinued to decline, crime ratesclimbed, and rou- installed too late to preventthree children from falling out. The
tine management and maintenance were neglected. In 1969 Pruitt- steam pipes remain exposed both in the galleries and the apart-
Igoe tenants joined residentsof two other St. Louis public housing ments, frequently inflictingsevere burns. The adjoining laun-
projects in a massive nine-month rent strike. This further depleted the dry rooms are unsafeand little used....The storage rooms are
Housing Authority's limited financial reserves and aggravated the va- also locked-and empty. They havebeen robbed of their con-
cancy problem, prompting H.U.D. to considerclosingthe project." tents so often that tenants refuse to use them."
In an effort to determine whether explosion or traditional headache-
ball demolition would be cheaper, all the remaining tenants were To his credit, Bailey tempered his criticism of the architecture by
moved to 11 buildings, and on March 16, 1972 a demolitionexperi- pointing out that the problems at Pruitt-Igoewent deeper than physi-
ment levelled three buildings in the center of the project. Despite cal design. He mentioned, in particular, the absence of adult males as
somelast-minute rehabilitation plans,in 1973 H.U.D. decidedto de- heads of households, the project's notoriety, and the deficient man-
molish the restof the project, and finally finished it off in 1976. agementand maintenance. Nonetheless, Bailey's article laid the foun-

May J99J JAE 44/3 1 SS

 dation for a continuous rearticulation of the Pruitr-Igoe story With all the attention being paid to the project's design in the
Downloaded by [University of California Santa Barbara] at 15:04 19 February 2016

throughout the late sixties and early seventies as the situation at early 1970s, a strong associative link was forged between architectural
Pruitt-Igoe continued to deteriorate. flaws and Pruin-Igoe's deterioration. In 1965 James Bailey had taken
The trial demolition of 1972 brought Pruirr-Igoe unprec- care to point out that two of the major causes of the deterioration of
edented attention in the architectural and the national press. Ardntec- Pruin-Igoe were chronically inadequate maintenance and the increas-
turalForum, AIA journal, Anhiteaur«Plus, and TheArchi~et sjournal ing poverty oftenants. By 1972 these crucial elements ofthe story had
all published articles on the failure of the supposedly innovative de- been all but forgonen in the rush to condemn the architecture. It is
sign features." Lift, Time, The Washington Post, and The National the privileging of these design problems over the much more deeply
Obseroer; among others, reported on the demolition experiment and embedded economic and social ones that constitutes the core of the
pointed to the architecture as one of the contributing causes,' S These Pruin-Igoe myth.
articles represent the first appearance of the Pruitt-Igoe myth. No The myth ignores the connection between Pruirr-Igoe's prob-
longer confining their criticism to particular architectural features, lems and the fiscal crisis of the St. Louis Housing Authority, or what
such as the open galleries, the critics now began to relate the project's Eugene Meehan has called the "programmed failure" of American
failure to flaws in the overall approach or design philosophy. The gen- public housing." Political and social ambivalence to public housing
eral theme that emerged was that the architects were insensitive to the had resulted in a token housing program burdened by impossible fis-
needs of the lower class population and were trying to use the design cal management constraints. The federal Public Housing Administra-
to force a middle-class, white, lifestyle on Pruitt-Igoe residents. For tion also impeded public housing efforts by insisting on unrealistically
example, an article in Architecture Plus argued that the design was low construction costs. The myth also omits the subordination of
simply inappropriate for the social structures of the people who were public housing to postwar urban redevelopment programs. Federal
going to live there. George Kassabaum, one of the project architects, dollars helped cities clear unsightly slums and assisted private interests
was quoted as saying, "You had middle class whites like myself de- in developing valuable inner city land. Public housing projects were
signing for an entirely different group. "16 The implication was that confined to the unwanted sites in the heart of the slums, and devel-
low-income urban blacks constituted a tenant group with special oped at high densities to accommodate those displaced by the whole-
needs: They were not instilled with the middle class value of taking sale clearance of poor neighborhoods.
pride in the upkeep of their environment, and they also brought with The myth also ignores the connection between social indiffer-
them certain destructive behaviors. As the Washington Post put it, ence to the poverty of inner city blacks and the decline ofPruin-Igoe.
there was an "incompatibility between the high-rise structure and the In 1970 sociologist Lee Rainwater wrote Behind Ghmo Walls, based
large poor familieswho came to inhabit it, only a generation removed on the findings of a massive participant observer study conducted
from the farm."? during the mid-I960s at Pruirr-lgoe.f Rainwater argued that the vio-
This interpretation of the demise of Pruin-Igoe receivedstrong lence and vandalism that occurred at the project were an understand-
reinforcement when it appeared in Oscar Newman's DifmsibkSpact able response by its residents to poverty and racial discrimination. In
in the same year as the trial demoliton, This seminal text of the then his view architectural design was neither the cause nor the cure for
emerging discipline of environment and behavior argued that there these problems. Improved housing conditions and other efforts di-
was a direct relationship between physical environments and human rected at changing the behavior of the poor were, in his opinion, use-
behavior. According to Newman, the widespread vandalism and vio- lessif not accompanied by efforts to raise their income level.
lence at Pruitt-Igoe resulted from the presence of excessive "indefen- This evidence directly contradicts the Pruitt-Igoe myth by
sible" public space." Corridors were too long and not visible from the demonstrating the significance of the political and economic sources
apartments. The residents did not feel that these spaces "belonged" to of Pruirt-Igoe's decline. In addition, it reveals that the type of argu-
them and so made no effort to maintain or police them. The ment proposed in DifmsibkSpact is a subtle form of blaming the vic-
entryways, located in large, unprotected open plazas, did not allow tim. The idea of defensible space is based on the assumption that
tenants any control over who entered the buildings. Newman further certain "populations" unavoidably bring with them behavioral prob-
argued that by designing public housing in such a way as to provide lems that have to be designed against. This kind ofargument does not
an appropriate amount of private, semiprivate, and public space, ar- question why public housing projects tend to be plagued by violent
chitects could reduce violence and vandalism in the environment. crime in the first place. It naturalizes the presence of crime among

187 Bristol
 low-income populations rather than seeing it as a product of institu- premise that the Modern movement's architectural and social revolu-
Downloaded by [University of California Santa Barbara] at 15:04 19 February 2016

tionalized economic and racial oppression. tion had backfired-.Instead of furthering the development of a new
society, "the city of modern architecture, both as psychological con-
struct and as physical model, had been rendered tragically
Pruitt·lgoe and the end ofModernism ridiculous ... the city of Ludwig Hibersheimer and Le Corbusier, the
city celebrated by ClAM and advertised by the Athens Charter, the
Despite the extensiveevidence of multiple social and economic causes former city of deliverance is everyday found increasingly inad-
ofPruitt-lgoe's deterioration, the Pruitt-Igoe myth has also become a equate."23 Though Rowe and Koetter do not refer to Pruirt-Igoe spe-
truism of the environment and behavior literature. For example, John cifically, the implication of the photograph's inclusion is clear.
Pipkin's Urban Social Space, a standard social-factors textbook, uses Pruitt-lgoe is used as an example of this "city of modem architecture"
Pruitt-Igoe as an example of indefensible space and of the lack of fit whose revolution failed. It presents Pruirt-Igoe as a.product of the
between high-rise buildings and lower classsocial structure. "In social ideas of Hibersheimer, Le Corbusier, and ClAM and implicates the
terms, public housing has been a failure. Social structures have disin- inadequacy of their ideas in the demolition of the project.
tegrated in the desolate high-rise settings Many projects are ripe for Only one year after the publication of Collag( City, Charles
demolition. One of the most notorious was Pruitt-Igoe, When built, Jencks further advanced this interpretation in The Languag( ofPost
it won an architectural prize, but... it epitomized the ills of public Modan Architecture. In the introduction to his discussion of
housing,'?' Posrrnodernism, Jencks asserted that the demolition of Pruirr-Igoe
This passage is notable because it illustrates one particular ex- represents the death of modern architecture. Like Rowe and Koetter,
ample of how the Pruitt-lgoe myth has grown by incorporating mis- he associated Pruitt-Igoe with the rationalist principles of ClAM, and
information. Though it is commonly accorded the epithet particularly with the urban design principles of Le Corbusier. Accord-
"award-winning," Pruitt-Igoe never won any kind of architectural ing to Jencks, even though the project was designed with the inten-
prize. An earlier St. Louis housing project by the same team of archi- tion of instilling good behavior in the tenants, it was incapable of
tects, the John Cochran Garden Apartments, did win two architec- accommodating their social needs:
tural awards. At some point this prize 'Seems to have been incorrectly
attributed to Pruirt-Igoe. This strange memory lapse on the part of Pruirt-Igoe was constructed according to the most progressive
architects in their discussions ofPruitt-lgoe is extremely significant. ideas of ClAM ...and it won an award from the American In-
Beginning in the mid-1970s, Pruitt-Igoe began increasingly to be stitute of Architects when it was designed in 1951. It consisted
used as an illustration of the argument that the International Style was of elegant slab blocks fourteen storeys high, with rational
responsible for the failure of Pruirr-Igoe. The fictitious prize is essen- "streets in the air" (which were safe from cars, but, as it turned
tial to this dimension of the myth, because it paints Pruitt-Igoe as the out, not safe from crime); "sun, space and greenery", which Le
iconic modernist monument. Corbusier called the "three essential joys of urbanism" (instead
The association of Pruin-Igoe's demise with the perceived fail- of conventional streets, gardens and semi-private ~pace, which
ures of the Modern movement had begun as early as 1972. In the af- he banished). It had a separation of pedestrian and vehicular
termath of the project's demolition, several writers suggested that traffic, the provision of play space, and local amenities such as
insensitivity to residents' needs was typical of modern architecture. laundries, creches and gossip centers-all rational substitutes
The Architra'sJournal called the demolition of Pruirt-Igoe "the mod- for traditional panerns."
ern movement's most grandiloquent failure."22 With the critique of
Modernism emerging in the 1970s, it was not surprising that a num- These uses of the Pruitt-Igoe symbol added significandy to the
ber of critics and theorists, who can be loosely termed Posrmodern, Pruitt-Igoe myth. Like the defensible space argument popularized by
began to use the project in their writing to represent the Modern Oscar Newman, these accounts failed to locate Pruirr-Igoe in its his-
movement. torical context and thereby ignored evidence that economic crisis and
The first important appearance of Pruitt-Igoe in a critique of racial discrimination played the largest role in the project's demise.
Modernism came in 1976 when Colin Rowe and Fred Koetter used Now, they added a set of ideas about the architects' intentions in de-
the photograph of the demolition in their introduction to Collag( signing the project. Both accounts presented the project as the ca-
City. This section of the book was devoted to a demonstration of the nonical modernist monument (jencks in particular perpetuating the

May 1991 JAE 44/3 1 BB

 mistaken idea that it was an award-winning design). They described business interests and city officials were willing to locate projects on
Downloaded by [University of California Santa Barbara] at 15:04 19 February 2016

the project as Modernist not only in formal terms, but in political and the urban periphery then the high-density, high-rise projects would
social terms as well, as reflecting an agenda for social engineering. be unnecessary. Bauer criticized Yamasaki less for his architectural
These uses ofPruitt-Igoe misrepresented the designers' inten- views than for his politics; he was too willing to give in to prevailing
tions and the extent to which the architects controlled the project's profit-motivated redevelopment and housing policy.
design. As the summary of Pruitr-Igoe's history demonstrates, much In his statements in this debate, Yamasaki hardly fits the image
of the project's design was determined by the St. Louis Housing Au- of the radical social reformer depicted by the Pruitt-Igoe myth. His
thoriry and the federal Public Housing Administration. The architects firm did indeed adopt particular design features in order to conform
had no control over the project's isolated location, its excessive densi- to the latest trends and was insensitive to the potential effects of those
ties, the elimination of amenities, or the use of high-rise elevator features. The architects also incorrectly assumed that the galleries
buildings. Their task was limited to providing the form of the indi- would help promote community interaction in what was bound to be
vidual buildings and incorporating as much ameniry as possible, given a harsh environment. Yet before making any of these decisions, they
the restricted budget. had agreed to work within the framework of the large-scale, high-rise,
In carrying out this task, the architects did follow the formal high-density project mandated by urban redevelopment practices.
conventions of modern architecture. Pruirr-Igoe was one of Rather than social reformers destroying the public housing program
Leinweber, Yamasaki & Hellmuth's first major commissions, so it is with their megalomaniac designs, the architects were essentially pas-
certain that they wished to make an impression on their architectural sive in their acceptance of the dominant practices oftheir society.
peers. The glazed galleries combined with skip-stop elevators, the ex- Despite its dubious authenticity or historical accuracy, the
tensive open spaces between the slabs, and the minimalist surface Pruitt-Igoe myth had achieved the status of architectural dogma by
treatment certainly reflected the prevailing interest in Modernism as the late 1970s. The idea that Pruin-Igoe's failure resulted from the in-
elaborated by ClAM. However, the use of these formal conventions sensitivity of orthodox modernist design found a receptive audience
does not demonstrate that the architects had particular intentions for and became an illustration for many Postmodern and anti-Modern
social reform. In fact, in published statements Minoru Yamasaki ex- texts. Peter Blake, in Form Follows Fiasco: Wiry ModemArchitecno»
pressed doubt that the high-rise form would have a beneficial effect Hasn't Worktd, echoed the assertion that Pruirr-lgoe followed "Ville-
on public housing tenants. Radieuse" design ideas. As a result, he argued, there was "no way this
These statements appeared in a seriesofarticles in the journalof depressing project could be made humanly habitable" and communi-
Housingin which Yamasaki engaged in a debate with the progressive ties of high-rises are inherently doomed." It also became a convenient
housing reformer Catherine Bauer." Yamasaki defended high-rise de- symbol for Tom Wolfe to include in his attack on the importing of
sign, not on its architectural merits, but as the best possible response German-inspired 1930s architecture to the United States after World
to what he perceived as the social imperative ofslum clearance and the War 11. 28 In From Bauhaus to OurHouse Wolfe repeated the by now
economic necessity for urban redevelopment. Given the high cost of generally accepted fiction that the project was an award winner, and
urban land occupied by slum housing. he argued, it is most economi- then added a fabrication of his own, asserting that in 1971 a general
cally efficient to acquire small parcels and build at high densities. Yet meeting was held at which the residents called for blowing up the
despite its economic advantages, Yamasaki was skeptical of the value buildings."
of the high-rise as a form for mass housing: "the low building with
low density is unquestionably more satisfactory than multi-story liv-
ing... .IfI had no economic or social limitations, I'd solve all my prob- The Pruitt·lgoe myth as mystification
lems with one-story buildings. "26 He defended high-rise design as the
only way to respond to external economic and policy conditions. Why is the Pruin-Igoe myth so powerful? There is clearly ample evi-
In her defense of low-rise housing. Catherine Bauer suggested dence that architectural design was but one, and probably the least
. that the policy of clearing slums and then rehousing low-income important, of several factors in the demise of the project. Why then
populations in high-density central city projects is not necessarily the has the architecture community been so insistent that the failure of
result of economic imperatives but a conscious choice on the part of Pruirt-Igoe was its own fault?
policy-makers. High-density inner city projects are the result of mak- At one level, the myth can be understood simply as a weapon
ing public housing subordinate to urban redevelopment schemes: If in an ongoing conflict between different factions within the architec-

1 BS Bristol
 rure profession. The two most central critiques of the design of Pruitt- design. By continuing to promote architectural solutions to what are
Downloaded by [University of California Santa Barbara] at 15:04 19 February 2016

Igoe have come from successor movements to High Modernism: fundamentally problems of class and race, the myth conceals the
Posrmodernism, and environment and behavior. For proponents of complete inadequacy of contemporary public housing policy. It has
these new approaches, such as Oscar Newman or Charles Jencks, quite usefully shifted the blame from the sources of housing policy
Pruitt-Igoe provides a convenient embodiment of all the alleged fail- and placed it on the design professions. By furthering this misconcep-
ings of Modernism. However, though these successors are critical of tion, the myth disguises the causes of the failure of public housing,
the modernist approach to the design of public housing. they do not and also ensures the continued panicipation of the architecture pro-
question the fundamental notion that it is at the level of tksign that fession in token and palliative efforts to address the problem of pov-
public housing succeeds or fails. They attribute the problems of pub- erty in America. The myth is a mystification that benefits everyone
lic housing to architectural failure, and propose as a solution a new involved, except those to whom public housing programs are suppos-
approach to design. They do not in any significant way acknowledge edly directed.
the political-economic and social context for the failure ofPruitt-lgoe.
This is because the myth is more than simply the result of debate
within architectural culture: It serves at a much more profound level
the interests of the architecture profession as a whole.
Notes
As we have seen in tracing the rise of the Pruitt-Igoe myth, the I. St. Louis City Plan Commission. Comprthmsiw City Pun (St. Louis.
architects' version has consistently insisted on the primary significance 1947). pp. 27-34; James Neal Primm. Lion oftht Va/lty (Boulder. CO: Pruett.
1981). pp. 472-473.
of the project's overall design in its demise. This interpretation denies
2. "Progress or Decay?St. Louis Must Choose: The Sordid Housing Story,"
the existence oflarger problems endemic to St. Louis' public housing St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Masch 3. 1950. Pan Four in a Series.
program. By attributing more causal power to architecture than to 3. For the role played by the public housing program in St. Louis redevel-
flawed policies, crises in the local economy, or to class oppression and opment plans. see Roger Montgomery, "Pruin-Igoe: Policy Failure or Societal Symp-
racism, the myth conceals the existence of contextual factors structur- tom," in Barry Checkoway and Carl V. Patton. eds.• The Mttropo/itanMidwtst:
Policy Prob/nns and Prosp«ts fir Changt (Urbana: University of Illinois Press. 1985).
ing the architects' decisions and fabricates a central role for architec-
pp. 23~239; and Kate Bristol and Roger Montgomery. "The Ghost of Pruirt-Igoe"
ture in the success or failure of public housing. It places the architect (paper delivered at the Annual Meeting of the Association of Collegiate Schools of
in the position of authority over providing low-income housing for Planning. Buffalo. NY. October 28. 1988). On the relationship of public housing to
the poor. urban renewal more generally. see Mark Weiss. "The Origins and Legacyof Urban
This presentation of the architect as the figure of authority in Renewal," in P. Clavell, J. Forester. and W. Goldsmith. eds.• Urban ana &giona/
Punning in an Agt ofAusttrity (New York: Pergamon Press. 1980); Richard O.
the history ofPruitt-lgoe is reinforced by linking the project's failure
Davies. Housing Rrform Duringtht Truman At/ministration (Columbia: University of
to the defects of High Modernism. The claim that Pruitt-Igoe failed Missouri Press. 1966); and Arnold Hirsch. Maltingtb« Stcona Ghetto: RaCt ana
because it was based on an agenda for social reform, derived from the Housing in Chicago. 1940-1966(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1983).
ideas of Le Corbusier and the ClAM, not only presupposes that 4. Eugene Meehan. TbeQUIllity ofFtJn-a/ Policymalting: Programmta Fail-
physical design is central to the success or failure of public housing, un in Public Housing (Columbia: University of Missouri Press. 1979). p. 71; James
Bailey."The Case History of a Failure," Architmura/Forum 123 (December 1965):
but also that the design was implemented to carry out the architects'
p.23.
social agenda. What this obscures is the architects' passivity in the face 5. U.S. Public Housing Administration. Annual RLport (Washington. D.C..
of a much larger agenda that has its roots not in radical social reform, 1951); Davies. Housing Rrform, pp. 126-132.
but in the political economy of post-World War II St. Louis and in 6. "Slum Surgery in St. Louis," Archittctura/ Forum 94 (April 195 I): pp.
practices of racial segregation. Pruitt-Igoe was shaped by the strategies 128-136; "Four Vast Housing Projects for St. Louis: Hellmuth. Obara and
Kassabaum, Inc.," Archit«tura/RLcorJ 120 (August 1956): pp. 182-189.
of ghetto containment and inner city revitalization-strategies that
7. "Four Vast Housing Projects for St. Louis," p. 185.
did not emanate from the architects, but rather from the system in 8. Meehan. QUIllity. p. 71.
which they practice. The Pruitt-Igoe myth therefore not only inflates 9. Montgomery. "Pruin-Igoe," pp. 235-239.
the power of the architect to effect social change, but it masks the ex- 10. Meehan. QUIllity. pp. ~3. 65-67. 74-83.
tent to which the profession is implicated, inextricably, in structures II. In 1965 the U.S. Public Housing Administration (P.HA) was incorpo-
rated into the newly created Department of Housing and Urban Development
and practices that it is powerless to change.
(H.U.D.).
Simultaneously with its function of promoting the power of 12. "What's Wrong with High-Rise?," St. Louis Post-DispalCh. November 14.
the architect, the myth serves to disguise the actual purpose and im- 1960.
plication of public housing by diverting the debate to the question of 13. Bailey. "Case History," pp. 22-23.

May 1991 JAE 44/3 1 70

 14. "St. Louis Blues: Arrhitmural Forum 136 (May 1972): 18: Arrhitm's 22. Arrhitm'sJournal p. 180.
Downloaded by [University of California Santa Barbara] at 15:04 19 February 2016

Journal (july 26. 1972): Wilbur Thompson, "Problems that Sprout in the Shadow of 23. Colin Rowe and Fred Koeller. Collag~ City (Cambridge, MA: MIT
No Growth: AlA Journal GO (December 1973); "The Experiment Thar Failed: Ar- Press,1976).pp.4.6.
chit«tlm Plus (October 1973). 24. Charles Jencks. The IAnKU4g~ ofPost-Motkm Arrhitmur~ (New York:
15. "The Tragedy of Pruin-Igoe," Tim~. December 27. 1971, p. 38: Jerome Rizzoli. 1977). pp. 9-10.
Curry, "Collapse of a Failure." TbeNationalObstrWr, May 20, 1972, p. 24: Andrew 25. Minoru Yamasaki, "High Buildings for Public Housing?" Journal of
B. Wilson. "Demolition Marks Ultimate Failure of Pruin-Igoe Project," Washington Housing 9 (I952): p. 226: Catherine Bauer. "Low Buildings! Catherine Bauer Ques-
Post, AUgus127. 1973, p. 3. lions Mr. Yamasaki's Arguments: Journal ofHousing 9 (I952): p. 227.
16. "The Experiment ThaI failed," p. 18. 26. Yamasaki, "High Buildings," p. 226.
17. Wilson. "Demolition," p. 3. 27. Peter Blake. Form Follows Fiasco: Why Mod~rn Arcbitectur« Hasn't
18. Oscar Newman. Difmsibk Spau (New York: Macmillan. 1972) pp. 56- Worlt~d(Boslon: Atlanlic Monthly Press. 1977), pp. 80-81.
58,66,77,83.99,101-108,188,207. 28. Tom Wolfe, From Bauhaus to Our Houu (New York: Simon and
19. Meehan, QU4lity, pp. 83-87,194-198. Schuster, 1981). pp. 73-74.
20. Lee Rainwater, B~hind Gbett» Walls; Blaclt Familie« in a htkral Slum 29. Actually in the (ale seventies a local communiry redevelopment group
(Chicago: Aldine Publishing. 1970), pp. 9. 403. thar included fonner Pruin-lgoe residents made a proposal 10 buy and renovate four
21. Mark LaGory and John Pipkin, Urban Sodal Spau (Belmont, CA: of the buildings, but were turned down by H.U.D. Mary Comerio, "Pruitt-Igoe and
Wadswonh, 1981), p. 263. Other Stories." Journal ofArrhitmuralEducation 34 (Summer, 198 I): pp. 26-3 I.

171 Bristol