Blaming the Architecture
"By 1968, HUD had prohibited the building of high-rises for families, but they continued to be operated successfully for elderly residents."
-J.A. Stoloff
-J.A. Stoloff
HUD reacted by blaming the high-rise, ignoring other, more important factors.
"High-rise public housing projects of equal or greater density than Pruitt-Igoe have proven viable in such cities as New York and Chicago."
-Thomas Costello, executive director of the St. Louis housing authority
-Thomas Costello, executive director of the St. Louis housing authority
In 1977, in The Language of Post-Modern Architecture, Charles Jenks claimed that Pruitt-Igoe's implosion represented the death of Modernist architecture. Many people came to believe that the high-rise style was the fatal flaw. "By placing the responsiblilty for the failure of public housing on designers, the myth shifts attention from the institutional or structural sources of public housing problems."
-Katharine Bristol |
"The St. Louis Housing Authority, the Public Housing Administration, and the press has had us believe that the failure of the project was a failure on the part of the architect, a failure in design. We have been told the the problem was simply one of bad buildings."
-Mary C. Comerio
-Mary C. Comerio