A Brief Note On Pruitt Igoe

Submitted By Abdalkhan19
Words: 1078
Pages: 5

ARC132-­‐Public
Thursday, April 2, 2015

9:09 AM

What public?
• Pruitt Igoe was a myth -­‐ Built in St. Louise by Yamasaki to replace slums of the city • Architecture came up with different scheme but all of them were rejected.
Finally they came up with elevator scheme
• Complex was built not accroding to arch specs but there was a demographic problem • Segregation was disallowed but it eventually was populated with black population • Maintaince was not provided by the owners, condition went bad
• Crime started to appear, tenant went on strike, no more rent and condition went from bad to worst
• Bailey explanation of Pruitt Igoe building " The case history of a failure" -­‐ Check slides • For this reason people like charles Jencks ( 1977)-­‐ Identified as the moment in which modern arch died or the moment the faith mod arch put to improve society failed
• Similar story -­‐ Regent Park Toronto ( built on slums)
○ First things were going well
○ Then problems started
○ Strikes and crime started
○ Revitalization of Regent Park -­‐ On going project
○ Was not extremely big issue in Canada atleast
Return of Pruitt-­‐ lgoe -­‐ Whats the Myth?
• Myth of ownership of the society
○ People wont take it if they don’t own it
• Myth of self-­‐sufficiency
○ Nothing was public
• Myth of well fare system
○ Only give money if father died or left
• Myth of arch can save or destroy the society
○ Charles saying earlier -­‐ He didn’t take consideration that why this complex failed ( didn’t consider the design)
○ Lost of faith in the idea of public

• Myth of well fare system
○ Only give money if father died or left
• Myth of arch can save or destroy the society
○ Charles saying earlier -­‐ He didn’t take consideration that why this complex failed ( didn’t consider the design)
○ Lost of faith in the idea of public
Public
• Exposed to general view: Open
• Relating or affecting all the people or the whole area of nation -­‐ Other definitions -­‐ Check notes
• Idea of public emerged when people started to come together and socialize -­‐ opinion generated in mass media
• Idea of public was not for rich people only it was for public who had no attention • Public has lost his meaning?
Rem Koolhaas: Delirious New York -­‐ OMA and AMO Firms
• Social condenser -­‐ Russian arch to spatial planing to get rid of private unit-­‐ maximize public life -­‐ more better life (structure of tradition family can be broken down)
• Feed low volt creativity and get high volt activity
• Rem adopted the phase of social condenser
• Rem first book -­‐ Delirious NY
○ Manifesto -­‐ Declaration of Intent, motives (Defination)
○ Acted as historian-­‐ Happened around the same time when debate was happening btw white vs black
○ Post modern debate ( white vs Gray)
○ Rem turns to NY city ( 1970's NY was in really bad shape)
§ Subconscious of modernity that we need to look at
§ NY represented culture of congestions
§ NY unique history of urbanism -­‐ (Early 90's )
§ NY was also very different from other metropolis -­‐ NY skyscraper were cramped together
§ Each skyscraper was representation of its own combined together in one
§ Rem Koolhass -­‐ congestion was demonstrated clearly
§ He called NY as social condenser
§ He was infatuated it this idea
§ "Oysters eating with boxing gloves, naked on the 9th floor" -­‐
Everything was merged together.
§ Synthetic intimacy was formed -­‐ forcing to live a collective live together § Elite downtown