Pruitt-Igoe section from Koyaanisqatsi

March 2nd, 2008 · or link to (permalink)

St. Louis’ Pruitt Igoe represented the failure of modernist town planning and architectural determinism from Robert Moses to Corbusier, respectively. Shoveling up the uncomfortable mess of slums into machines for living in, threw out the soul with the sewage. The mess came back, as modernist slum replacements deteriorated, but the soul often didn’t. They also act as a reminder of how America was not really a democracy, within living memory; Pruitt was designed for Black people, Igoe for White people.

When I first came to New york in the 80s I asked the cab driver to take me to see a similar Corbusier style project in the Bronx. The first cab driver refused to even drive there, and when I went, the scenes of burning rubble in the streets and sheer squalor, were unlike anything I had ever seen in a developed country.

Koyaanisqatsi is hit or miss in parts, but the Philip Glass score has become a classic, and nowhere was the film more powerful that the scenes of the Pruitt Igoe projects prior to and during their demolition in 1972, only 20 years after their completion. Even before its use in Koyaanisqatsi, the film of the controlled destruction became the worlds most iconic footage of demolition. Architect and Critic, Charles Jencks said their destruction marked the end of modernism. Years later, this film with its powerful score, takes on an entirely different meaning, marking the end of something else, since the architect, of the Pruitt Igoe, Yamasaki - also designed New York’s World Trade Center.

Pruitt-Igoe section from Koyaanisqatsi trailer

tags: architecture clips society

3 responses so far »

Jim N : Mar 2, 2008 at 9:47 pm

You’d have to make the case that the failure of these buildings is that they “threw out the soul with the sewage”. As if architecture were the problem, where people had their homes taken away and replaced with newer, badly maintained ones at a higher population density, during a period of deurbanization. Not that this type of forced-radiant architecture doesn’t have inherent problems. A dozen floors, sharing two elevators, with one poorly paid janitor, is a situation where the most antisocial types will be able to have their presence amplified.
Eamonn Doyle : Mar 5, 2008 at 11:09 am

I definitely think Koyaanisqatsi is a lot more hit than miss !!
moondancer : Mar 5, 2008 at 2:45 pm

When I was a kid growing up in St Louis, the Pruitt-Igoe was to be the jewel in the crown of the great society. Within months it was clear that something was very wrong. Adults were saying things like “they don’t appreciate what they got, etc..” I just remember it as a monument to the zenith of the American Empire.