O T H E R T R U T H S
ARCH 3302 TALL TALES
PROFESSOR IFE VANABLE, FALL 2024, YALE UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE
"State"
Any entity that claims to represent the people while simultaneously confusing them with bureaucratic jargon and labyrinthine legislation. "City"
A concrete jungle where dreams are built and subsequently trapped in elevators "Suburb"
An area strategically designed to be just far enough from the city to avoid its problems, yet close enough to complain about them "Urban"
A term used to describe any area with more concrete than trees, often used interchangeably with "problem that needs solving" "Low income"
A classification used to justify architectural experiments on unsuspecting populations "Middle income"
A mythical economic status that politicians promise but architects forget to design for "Median"
The statistical middle ground between "low income" and "high income," often used to justify inadequate housing solutions for both "Municipality"
A governing body that believes all urban problems can be solved with the right combination of concrete and bureaucracy. "Private"
Anything not yet acquired by the state through "condemnation" "Investor"
One who believes in the alchemical process of turning human housing needs into profit "Renter"
An individual who pays for the privilege of living in an architectural experiment "Owner"
A mythical figure in low-income housing projects "Body"
In architecture, a unit of measurement used to determine how many humans can be stacked vertically in a sand castle with an overactive thyroid "Public"
The entity invoked to justify any project, regardless of its actual beneficiaries "Tall Tale"
A critical analysis of Tracey Towers through the lens of information loss with a comparative analysis of The Mathematics of the Ideal Villa which animates a theological framework on the state, body and the plan.
¹ "Chapter
In the aftermath of World War II, New York City faced a pressing need for affordable housing The Mitchell-Lama program, established in 1955 by New York State Senator MacNeil Mitchell and Assemblyman Alfred Lama, emerged as a retroactive response to this crisis
This program aimed to incentivize the private development of affordable housing for middle-income residents, a demographic often overlooked in public housing initiatives
The state's approach to the Mitchell-Lama program reflected a broader post-war ethos of urban renewal and social engineering
To understand the housing landscape of this era, we must examine the intricate financial frameworks that shaped it The Mitchell-Lama program's state-backed financing and tax incentives created a template that Rockefeller would later expand through the Housing Finance Agency (HFA) and the economic data is overwhelming and more so striking: by 1976, HFA had amassed $15 billion in debt, reflecting both the ambitious scale of these initiatives and their ultimate un sustainability
This financial architecture was intimately connected to the state's desperate attempt to prevent urban exodus The allocation of resources - with 70% of UDC units designated for moderate/middle-income residents compared to only 20% for low-income residents - reveals a clear strategy to retain middle-class residents within city confines This statistical disparity, when viewed through Scott's lens of "seeing like a state," exemplifies how bureaucratic rationality often prioritized certain populations over others
The syntax of these housing policies is particularly revealing The use of terms like "moral obligation" bonds - which enabled projects to proceed without voter approvaldemonstrates how rhetoric itself became a tool for reshaping urban governance. This linguistic framing helped legitimize a new model of public-private partnership in housing development
This "two-dimensional vision," as it might be termed, sought to flatten the complex landscape of urban life into manageable, plannable units. However, this approach often failed to fully grasp the nuanced realities of community life and individual needs The state's desire to make conditions "legible" for better community management often resulted in oversimplification
In the case of Tracey Towers, the state's vision was manifested in the form of towering concrete structures designed to house and organize a diverse population The project was conceived as a beacon of progress, particularly for those categorized as "other" - often a euphemism for non-white, non-male, and non-elderly individuals
"Plan"
A plan or undertaking of an area or areas for providing low rent housing for persons of low income, and for other facilities incidental and appurtenant thereto.
"Plan"
Cylindrical facades masquerade as Grecian columns, a peculiar pas de deux between brutalism and antiquity, where the raw materiality of post-war pragmatism pirouettes gracefully with aspirational aesthetics
Enter Paul Rudolph, the visionary architect commissioned to design Tracey Towers
Rudolph's approach to the project was characteristic of his bold, brutalist style, emphasizing raw concrete forms and innovative spatial arrangements His design for Tracey Towers consisted of two 41-story buildings, featuring a unique cylindrical form with protruding balconies, creating a distinctive silhouette on the Bronx skyline
Rudolph's plans for Tracey Towers reflected a tension between architectural ambition and the practical needs of future residents The lower floors, lobby, and vestibules were designed with grandeur, featuring barrel-vaulted ceilings and multiple seating bays that invited communal interaction
However, as one ascended to the individual apartments, this sense of spaciousness gave way to a more utilitarian approach
The floor plans of the apartments reveal Rudolph's attempt to maximize space efficiency within the cylindrical form of the towers This approach, reminiscent of Colin Rowe's observations in "The Mathematics of the Ideal Villa," suggests a tension between architectural idealism and practical living conditions Just as Rowe compared Villa
Malcontenta and Villa Garches to illustrate the disconnect between ideal proportions and lived spaces, Tracey Towers exemplifies a similar disjunction between Rudolph's vision and residents' needs
In a peculiar inversion of typical skyscraper design, closets were often positioned where one might expect windows, limiting natural light and views. This design choice reflects a complex interplay between various state actors involved in the project While architects like Rudolph prioritized aesthetic vision, urban planners and politicians likely had different priorities, such as maximizing occupancy or adhering to budget constraints
The resulting design represents a compromise between these competing interests, often at the expense of individual living spaces This dynamic highlights the tension between architectural ambition and practical considerations in state-sponsored housing projects
The circulation core, with its complex system of ramps and stairs, created a labyrinthine interior that contrasted sharply with the sleek exterior, echoing the broader trend in modernist architecture of prioritizing form over function
The perspective drawings and sections of Tracey Towers, with their stick figure inhabitants, were beautiful, highly animated renderings that produced a dream-like vision These representations reveal another aspect of the state's two-dimensional thinking. These drawings help us think about how we define "The Plan " for legibility's sake - whether it's for function, to build, or to sell and confirm individual desire lines under one conceptual or physical roof
In 1974, from a distance, these nine windowless concrete monoliths, reaching skyward, were hailed as "New York's ultimate exemplar of futuristic design" However, thinking of living within Tracey Towers might be rendered unproductive without considering the First-hand accounts paint a complex and often contradictory picture of the towers' evolution over time
Initially, in the early 1980s, Tracey Towers was viewed positively by some. As one former resident recalls, "Back in the early 80's Tracey Towers was nice Honestly I think it was a status symbol of sorts My grandparents had a place there for years and we LOVED to go visit because of the terrace and the awesome view of the Bronx at night " Another user affirms this sentiment: "Tracey Towers was considered 'movin' on up' back in the day and the buildings were highly regarded " However, this rosy view is sharply contested by others who lived in or near the towers during the same period One user, StaggerLee22, emphatically states, "Tracy Towers??? Are you NUKIN FUTS? That place is a dive. Always has been." They recount a disturbing incident from the early 80s: "I remember leaving there one summer night and having to take the stairs because a crack head got stabbed in the elevator " This user insists there was "a LOT of drug dealing going on there " Over time, a significant demographic shift occurred within Tracey Towers, accompanied by a further decline in its reputation More recent accounts paint an even bleaker picture One user states bluntly, "Tracey Towers is notorious for gang activity, drugs and crimes The Tracey Tower demographic is no different than the demographics of the projects " Another user describes Tracey and River Park Towers as "just as worse or even more worse than some of the infamous housing projects in the Bronx "
"Tenant."
One who, through a complex web of legal and financial obligations, temporarily occupies a space within a housing development, subject to the terms, conditions, and limitations prescribed by the housing company and applicable regulatory agreements
"Tenant"
One that occupies non-white space - a statistical anomaly too insignificant to warrant individuality, yet paradoxically substantial enough to be catalogued as middle income - existing purely as a bureaucratic checkbox in the grand farce of urban planning
These conflicting accounts highlight the complex challenges faced by residents and the multifaceted nature of life in Tracey Towers The grand communal spaces of the lower floors now contrast sharply with the often problematic realities of life in the towers Residents grapple not only with issues of limited natural light and complex circulation patterns but also with more pressing concerns of safety and community well-being. It's important to note that these personal accounts, while vivid and compelling, represent individual experiences and may not capture the full complexity of life in Tracey Towers The stark contrast in perceptions - from "status symbol" to "dive" - underscores the subjective nature of lived experiences and the potential for vastly different interpretations of the same space
Nevertheless, they provide crucial insight into the lived reality of this architectural experiment, highlighting the widening gap between the original vision for integrated, affordable housing and the challenges that have emerged over time. Today, the towers house a vibrant Ghanaian immigrant community, transforming the space into what could be described as a "vertical village" This shift tells a nuanced story of diasporic movement and cultural resilience, illustrating the ever-evolving nature of urban demographics and the complex interplay of global migration patterns. The Ghanaian community's presence in Tracey Towers raises important questions about the nature of community formation in urban spaces The concentration of this specific community in these towers likely stems from a combination of factors: existing social networks, affordable housing opportunities, and the gradual formation of cultural enclaves within the city Interestingly, the building's design may inadvertently support and sustain this community
The spatial politics of Tracy Towers emerge through a complex interplay of institutional control and resident agency, where "survival through partial visibility" becomes a crucial strategy Within this framework, residents navigate between being "recognizable subjects" while maintaining spaces of autonomy and cultural identity The transformation of stateplanned housing into what becomes a "microcosm of Accra in the Bronx" demonstrates how residents actively reshape institutional spaces through practices of cultural translation and community building
The documentary apparatus surrounding Tracey Towers reveals a fundamental tension between institutional power and lived experience. This tension manifests in the constant translation between three-dimensional reality and two-dimensional representation - a process that Michel de Certeau might characterize as the "flattening of spatial practice " The state's compulsion to document, categorize, and render legible the complex social fabric of Tracey Towers produces what James C. Scott terms "state simplifications"administrative abstractions that attempt to make complex social realities manageable through bureaucratic processes
These processes of documentation and categorization operate through what might be termed an "administrative code" - a system of classification that determines who qualifies as "other" and under what conditions This coding system works simultaneously through economic metrics (income thresholds, rent calculations) and social taxonomies (racial categories, citizenship status), creating what Sylvia Wynter would call "genres of being human " Yet residents engage in what we might term "counter-coding" practices, utilizing the very specificity of bureaucratic language to create spaces of autonomy within the administrative framework.
The architectural discourse surrounding Tracey Towers exemplifies what Henri Lefebvre identifies as the contradiction between "representations of space" (conceived space) and "representational space" (lived space). The initial characterization as "New York's ultimate exemplar of futuristic design" operates not merely as architectural criticism but as what Reinhold Martin calls "organizational complex" - the intersection of architectural form with managerial control The subsequent description as "sand castles with overactive thyroids" marks not just aesthetic critique but a fundamental questioning of modernism's social engineering aspirations
Within this matrix of control and resistance, the emergence of "Little Ghana" represents what Homi Bhabha terms "third space" - neither fully compliant with nor entirely resistant to institutional power. The Ghanaian community's presence introduces what Katherine McKittrick would call "black geographies" into the modernist grid, creating alternative cartographies of belonging that exist alongside, yet distinct from, official spatial narratives Through cultural practices, community formation, and strategic engagement with institutional structures, residents demonstrate what Robin D G Kelley calls "infrapolitics"forms of resistance that operate below the threshold of official political recognition
Recent incidents, such as the trapped delivery driver, illuminate what AbdouMaliq Simone terms "people as infrastructure" - the way human activity and social networks compensate for and transform institutional inadequacies These moments of breakdown in the architectural-bureaucratic apparatus reveal what Saidiya Hartman might call "the afterlife of slavery" in modern urban governance - the persistent tension between surveillance and invisibility, control and resistance, that characterizes state-sponsored housing projects
The architectural dialogue between Tracey Towers, Villa Malcontenta, and Villa Garches spans nearly 500 years, revealing fascinating parallels in their organizational principles despite their distinct historical contexts. Each building emerges from a specific sociocultural moment: Villa Malcontenta exemplifies Renaissance complexity and ornamentation, Villa Garches embodies 1920s modernist functionality, and Tracey Towers reflects 1970s post-war social housing concepts
The mathematical precision underlying these structures is evident in their ratios Villa Malcontenta and Tracey Towers share the same proportional system of 2:2:1.5, suggesting an enduring architectural logic that transcends their temporal separation Villa Garches introduces a more complex ratio of 0 5:1 5:1 5:1 5:0 5, reflecting modernism's reinterpretation of classical proportions This mathematical framework becomes particularly significant when examining how the American foursquare plan attempted to translate classical proportions into a uniquely American vernacular, establishing a foundation for suburban architectural identity
Villa Malcontenta's centralized plan represents Renaissance ideals of harmony and balance, with all floors following the same arrangement. This consistency reflects the mathematical principles that were thought to embody "moral education for the soul" The cellular characteristics of its plan permit sculpted space in section, creating a dynamic vertical experience within a rigidly organized horizontal framework This approach to spatial organization demonstrates how wealth and social status were expressed through architectural complexity in Renaissance Italy
Villa Garches presents a radical departure through its open plan, with different spatial arrangements across floors The point supports on the Garches plan are exaggerated and permit thin exterior walls to be placed freely, contrasting sharply with the cellular heavyduty compression absorbing walls in both Malcontenta and Tracey Towers This structural innovation creates what Rowe identifies as a paralyzed section with insistent floor planes
The design reflects Le Corbusier's vision of the nuclear family of wealth, demonstrating how modernist principles could be applied to luxury residential architecture.
The American foursquare plan represents more than just an architectural typology - it embodies a distinctly American fiction about domestic life and social order This typology, which defined the single-family suburban home from the late 19th to mid-20th century, speaks to a broader cultural need for order and legibility in domestic architecture Tracey Towers reinterprets these suburban ideals at an unprecedented scale, creating a labyrinthine plan that maintains consistent floor arrangements while challenging traditional notions of domestic space. Unlike its predecessors, residents do not get their own plot of land, raising questions about the relationship between individual units and collective space
The tension between individual and collective identity becomes particularly acute in Tracey Towers, where the unit becomes disembodied from traditional notions of home The bureaucratic functionality of the towers, combined with its reinterpretation of suburban ideals, creates a complex narrative about American domesticity and social housing This narrative is further complicated by questions of racial thinking and economics, suggesting that the pursuit of architectural order often intersects with broader social and political concerns. The surfaces of the building demonstrate a gardening approach, while the interior spaces prioritize simplistic efficiency, reflecting the state's approach to social calibration of diverse communities
The concept of beauty in form, order, and proportion was heavily based on mathematical discipline. This raises an intriguing philosophical question: perhaps it is the mathematics which is real, and the villas themselves that are abstract The buildings become physical manifestations of abstract mathematical principles, challenging our understanding of what constitutes architectural reality The universal nature of mathematics serves as a tool for classification and epitomology, creating a framework where the average is translated into the ideal through repetition and frequency
The comparative analysis ultimately reveals how these buildings, despite their outward differences, respond to fundamental truths about order, beauty, and civilization Their shared mathematical underpinnings suggest a kind of architectural truth that exists outside of time and style, while their different approaches to individual and collective space reflect the evolving social conditions of their respective eras This creates what might be called an "unresolved legibility" - a state where familiar domestic forms are reinterpreted at scales and in contexts that challenge our understanding of home and community. The analysis demonstrates how architectural principles can be both resistant to change and adaptable to new social contexts, creating a dialogue between tradition and innovation that spans centuries
This housing approach reflected both the post-war liberal embrace of capitalism as a pragmatic partner and the complex interplay between urban history, policy, and social needs The eventual default on $135 million in bonds in 1975 serves as a stark reminder of the limitations of market-oriented solutions to social housing needs, echoing contemporary debates about the role of private capital in public housing initiatives Drawing from Rowe's analytical framework and Wölfflin's formal elements, we can understand how the state's documentation and classification systems attempt to create an idealized, legible "other" - one that can be efficiently managed, controlled, and integrated into the broader socioeconomic fabric This process of administrative abstraction, much like mathematical principles in architectural beauty, seeks to establish a priori truths about human habitation and social organization
The parallel between single-family villas and high-rise stacks reveals not just architectural distinctions, but deeper ideological assumptions about civilization, domesticity, and social order Just as Rowe's analysis exposes the tension between mathematical ideals and physical reality, the state's housing initiatives expose the gap between bureaucratic rationality and lived experience The state's attempt to calculate and codify the "ideal other" - through income thresholds, spatial arrangements, and social taxonomies - reflects a broader project of creating subjects who can be grouped, domesticated, and controlled in their capacity to function, live, produce, and consume
This process of information management and loss - where complex social realities are reduced to administrative abstractions - mirrors the architectural discourse's own struggle with representation and reality The failure of these housing initiatives, both financially and socially, suggests that perhaps, like the mathematical principles underlying architectural beauty, the state's idealized vision of controlled domesticity remains abstract while the actual lived experiences of residents constitute the true reality