2008 Woodie Awards
WU professor explains public housing failures
By: Leah Merriman
Issue date: 11/1/07 Section: News
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Students who attend Webster University may not realize that St. Louis was once home to one of the largest public housing developments in the United States, Pruitt-Igoe. The development not only failed within 20 years of being built, from 1954 to 1972, but great controversy and finger-pointing arose over the project's demise. One of WU's educators is working to shed some light on the role that the architecture played in the project's downfall.
Adjunct art professor Douglis Beck gave a Brown Bag Lecture to about 40 people titled "Ethics, Architecture and the Myth of Pruitt-Igoe," at noon on Oct. 29 in the Emerson Library conference room. He cited many reasons for the failure of the modernistic housing complex in North St. Louis.
Beck went through a brief history of architectural icons in St. Louis, such as the Wainright building and the Arch. He then continued to briefly describe other Modernistic buildings, such as the Bauhaus in Dessau, Germany, which inspired ideas in architects about rationalistic city planning. This train of thought ultimately led to Pruitt-Igoe.
He spoke of the slums, which 90 percent of low-income families lived in the 1940s, when planning for the project began.
The situation was fully illustrated for the audience through a clip from the film Koyaanisqatsi, which Beck played for the audience. The clip featured various slums and decrepit buildings inhabited by low-income families. The film's peak was an aerial view of Pruitt-Igoe followed by footage of its demolition.
A project of this size was massive, with 33 structures each towering 11 stories high and housing a population half the size of Webster Groves', Beck said.
The fact that it didn't last more than 20 years was a sad situation, he said.
"Pruitt-Igoe was needed at the time," Beck said. "As an aesthetic project it was high on the list, a new way of living for these people."
Beck then introduced the "Pruitt-Igoe argument," the controversy over why the project ultimately failed. He said the myth of the situation was that the failure of the complex was entirely the fault of the architect. However, he said that the real solution to the problem was in the ethics of the building.
Adjunct art professor Douglis Beck gave a Brown Bag Lecture to about 40 people titled "Ethics, Architecture and the Myth of Pruitt-Igoe," at noon on Oct. 29 in the Emerson Library conference room. He cited many reasons for the failure of the modernistic housing complex in North St. Louis.
Beck went through a brief history of architectural icons in St. Louis, such as the Wainright building and the Arch. He then continued to briefly describe other Modernistic buildings, such as the Bauhaus in Dessau, Germany, which inspired ideas in architects about rationalistic city planning. This train of thought ultimately led to Pruitt-Igoe.
He spoke of the slums, which 90 percent of low-income families lived in the 1940s, when planning for the project began.
The situation was fully illustrated for the audience through a clip from the film Koyaanisqatsi, which Beck played for the audience. The clip featured various slums and decrepit buildings inhabited by low-income families. The film's peak was an aerial view of Pruitt-Igoe followed by footage of its demolition.
A project of this size was massive, with 33 structures each towering 11 stories high and housing a population half the size of Webster Groves', Beck said.
The fact that it didn't last more than 20 years was a sad situation, he said.
"Pruitt-Igoe was needed at the time," Beck said. "As an aesthetic project it was high on the list, a new way of living for these people."
Beck then introduced the "Pruitt-Igoe argument," the controversy over why the project ultimately failed. He said the myth of the situation was that the failure of the complex was entirely the fault of the architect. However, he said that the real solution to the problem was in the ethics of the building.
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