Figure 27
Figure 28
Figure 29
Broken windows covered in icicles, circa 1968. (The Pruitt-Igoe Myth)
Broken windows, circa 1968. (The Pruitt-Igoe Myth)
Walking through the rubble, circa 1973. (The Pruitt-Igoe Myth)
1968: ‘case history of a failure’ So read the headline of an Architectural Forum article from 1968 (The Pruitt-Igoe Myth), seventeen years after the same magazine had praised the project as precent-breaking, a shining example of Modernism at work (see Figure 07). By the mid-1960s, the infrastructure and social structure of PruittIgoe were crumbling, and the project was becoming a haven for crime. In less than 15 years, “the words ‘Pruitt-Igoe’ have become a household term...for the worst in ghetto livFigure 30
Figure 31
Example of vandalism common in the buildings. (The Pruitt-Igoe Myth)
Policeman patrolling corridors at night, circa 1965. (The Pruitt-Igoe Myth)
ing” (“The Lessons of Pruitt-Igoe” p. 116).
history • 15