A Dictionary of Postmodernism by Lucy Niall;

Author:Lucy, Niall; [Lucy, Niall]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wiley
Published: 2015-11-23T00:00:00+00:00

Nobody admitted at the time that it was not postmodernism but institutional racism, “white flight” to the suburbs, and poor decisions by government that doomed Pruitt-Igoe. The desegregated complex struggled to fill its tenancies, and deterioration of the external environment (stairwells, galleries, elevators, open space) led to vandalism, violence, garbage and “rampant vacancy.” Drug dealing and prostitution filled empty spaces; “occupancy rates continued to decline, crime rates climbed, and the most basic building management and maintenance were neglected” (Allen and Wendl, 2011).

As for the architect, Minoru Yamasaki had already washed his hands of it, having told Architectural Forum that “I never thought people were that destructive … It’s a job I wish I hadn’t done” (Bailey, 1965). Blaming the victim, Yamasaki went on to design the World Trade Centre in New York City (1970). He died in 1986, so did not live to see the implosion of a second example of his iconic modernism, the “twin towers,” on 9/11.

It is hardly surprising that the St Louis site became the stuff of legend (filmmaker Chad Freidrichs unpicked that in The Pruitt-Igoe Myth, in 2011). However, the actual site remains derelict. It was leveled, fenced and abandoned. It still is. Of the original 57-acre site, 33 acres remain undeveloped: “The undeveloped part of the site is marked by several paths … Surrounding these paths … is a large forested area of both deciduous and coniferous trees, shrubs and other plants. … a prairie-like area exists between wooded areas” (Allen, 2011). The winning entry in a 2011–12 competition to imagine new uses for the site came up with an “ecological assembly line” – effectively an urban tree farm with aquaculture, education and recreation on the side (Dunbar and Wang, 2012). However, at the time of writing the site remained undeveloped (but thick with trees).

Charles Jencks saw Pruitt-Igoe as an example of the hubris of International Style architecture. The reality was certainly more complex, because of urban decline (St Louis was depopulating and still is), poverty, racial inequality, and the regulatory, budgetary and political constraints exercised over the project by the authorities responsible for it. Changes were forced on Yamasaki that he apparently fought hard to resist (Bailey, 1965). Nevertheless, in the end he did put up higher, cheaper slabs that mocked his original vision of an airy garden city. Ironically (first sign of postmodernism), that vision has at last returned to the cleared site, but without the architecture.

Meanwhile, Jencks himself could rightly lay claim to first mover advantage in developing the concept of postmodern architecture. His book The Language of Post-Modern Architecture (1977/2002) established and guided what soon became a dominant topic and some familiar tropes in urban design across the 1980s and 1990s. He introduced the ideas of hybridity, irony, reference back to the past as well as forward to the future, combining modernist universalism with local quotation, relying on what he called “double coding” (high and low culture, global and local, etc.). The style strives for communication and reflexivity, playfulness and

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