Pruitt-Igoe Case Study

Architecture aspects:

The architects of Pruitt-Igoe innovated skip top elevators and glazed internal galleries in order to encourage a sense of community among residents and make the buildings seem less like a project. The skip top elevators, which only stopped every third floor, forced residents to walk through the galleries to go to their apartments and the internal galleries were supposed to give residents common areas to congregate and interact with each other-- of vital importance since there were no other recreational areas (due to budgetary constraints). The idea behind this concept is that giving residents a sense of neighborhood would make them more inclined to maintain public spaces and less likely to participate in crime and vandalism.

Contribution to social problems:
The skip-top elevators and galleries proved to be opportune environments for violent crime because they became havens for gangs and other criminals who would harass, threaten, and attack residents who were forced to walk through the galleries to get home. There were other architectural issues that contributed to social problems too, mostly those architectural decisions made because of budgetary constraints and political pressures. For example, there were very few amenities inclusive of the project (no ground floor bathrooms, children’s play areas, or landscape), and there was a poor quality of hardware (door knobs, windowpanes, kitchen cabinets, and locks) that were easily damaged but not quickly repaired. Elevators were too small and often smelled of urine, exposed steam pipes burned people, children fell out of windows, unsecured storage areas were robbed, laundry rooms were unsafe and little used, etc.-- all of these architectural flaws and the subsequent lack of maintenance created an environment that was unwelcoming and discouraging to keep up for residents. The high-density of each building, the location of the complex, and the enormous size of the whole project also played a significant role in creating social problems. Because entryways were located in large, unprotected open plazas, there was no control over who entered and residents were very susceptible to dangerous intruders.

If one were to adopt the myth of Pruitt-Igoe, that High-Modern architectural design—an experiment for social engineering to encourage improved behavior of low income residents—they would attribute the failure of Pruitt-Igoe to purely architectural faults.

Proponents of this idea argue the building was designed to force a middle-class, white lifestyle on a lower class population, without regard for the fact that lower class, rural black residents were not instilled with values like taking pride in upkeep in environment and were prone to destructive behaviors. This concept is based on the idea of defensible space, that certain “populations” unavoidably bring with them the behavioral problems that have to be designed against, which Pruitt-Igoe’s design failed to do. They argue there is a direct relationship between physical environments and human behavior, and Pruitt-Igoe had too much public space relative to private spaces that the residents didn’t feel a responsibility to maintain leading to vandalism and

violence.

This author, however, argues that this belief fails to locate Pruitt-Igoe in its historical context, thereby ignoring evidence that the economic crisis, budgetary and political constraints, the decreasing St. Louis population, and racial and economic discrimination, all played larger roles in the project’s demise. He argues the myth is a form of victim blaming that further reinforces segregation and normalizes crime as a natural component of low income populations, rather than a product of institutionalized economic and racial oppression. Institutional decisions made by the St. Louis Housing Authority and the Federal Public Housing Administration, like the isolated location, the excessive densities, the elimination of amenities, and the use of high elevator buildings, all exacerbated the major social problems in Pruitt-Igoe. Architects don’t have the power to inflict social change, and it’s not their responsibility. But administrators and law makers, in an effort to contain the ghetto and revitalize urban areas, imposed politics and social beliefs on the architectural design, without regard for the social and economic implications for the residents.

Other factors outside of architectural design:

The author argues that it’s more useful to consider the institutional, political, and social aspects of Pruitt-Igoe’s conception and management to truly understand its failure.

It was conceived at a time when the demand for low-income, inner-city housing was historically high, due to an increasing St. Louis population, widespread dislocation caused by slum clearance, urban renewal, and the federal highway program. However, due to slow overall metro population growth and the overproduction of inexpensive suburban dwellings, demand tapered off by the time Pruitt-Igoe opened. This directly impacted St. Louis Housing Authority’s ability to maintain the project because they were expected to fund their operation and maintenance out of rents collected from tenants, but in a period of rising costs and declining occupancy, their ability to conduct basic repairs was impeded. The previously tight inner-city rental market was now overtaken by the poorest (and most demoralized) segments of the black population—primarily female head of households dependent on public assistance (by law)—and as average tenant income decreased, neglect of maintenance and corresponding vandalism and violent crime

increased.

There were deeply embedded economic and social problems since the very conception of the project. In the very early beginnings, the project was intended to be a segregated project but after integration, it became an exclusively black project with all the racial implications that compels. Most especially, the political and social ambivalence to public housing resulted in the program being constrained by impossible budgets and management constraints, confinement to the unwanted sites in the heart of the slums, and the priority of private interests in developing urban lands than the poverty of inner-city black people. The thought was that improved housing conditions and other efforts to establish social programs would change the behavior of poor, but it was useless without accompanying efforts to raise their income levels. Crime and vandalism are common, and understandable responses to poverty and racial discrimination.