Pruitt-Igoe Now

There is not one answer for urban development. The goal is reinvention, assessment and continued development. The past, however conflicted, should open new avenues of exploration and not serve to impede our imagination or our practical needs. The challenge is not to right wrongs, but to offer function where none currently exists.

Contemporary housing development by those such as Habitat for Humanity and McCormack Baron Salazar should be sought. Residential parcels would mix subsidized and marketrate housing. Corner commercial spaces should be developed and pocket parks created. The Pruitt-Igoe site was a neighborhood prior to the expansive public housing project, Pruitt-Igoe was a community of life and of the city. The goal is the return of community.

The Pruitt-Igoe site is centrally located in the City of St. Louis and must return to the city. The street grid should be reestablished. The above Sanborn Fire Map overlay shows how clearly the Pruitt-Igoe site was once an integrated component of the City of St. Louis. Existing buildings of all periods should be retained and new development should be varied, with no single archetype or developer planning more than a portion of the newly divided parcels.

An 11-story pre-cast concrete observation tower would be erected to mark the scale of the Pruitt-Igoe buildings. Situated at the western end of building A-10, adjacent to the public housing research center, the tower would provide a magnet for visitors to explore and be drawn into the PruittIgoe site and story. At the top of the tower, a visitor would see what residents sawmore sun, fresh air and a better view of the city than the millionaires in nearby mansions.

This is not the erasure of Pruitt-Igoe, its story and what we can learn. Learning and research play a central role in the sites future. The footprint of buildings A-10, A-11 & A-12 would be rebuilt with a central building erected to house a research center for the study of American public housing and urban development. Public housing policy, history and architecture would feature prominently, giving weight and meaning to what once stood at the site.

Community, the city, recognition and research are the hallmarks of the future Pruitt-Igoe site. Long neglected, both physically and mentally by the city and surrounding community, every effort should be made to reintegrate the land back into the life of the city. Construction of contemporary public housing reintroduces the vibrant experimentation that produced PruittIgoe. The community reinvented.

The failure of Pruitt-Igoe today is that experimentation has stopped

Centrally located in the City of St. Louis the site must be opened to welcome in the urban form. The street grid should be reestablished. Corner commercial spaces should be sought and pocket parks created. Its imperative that we recognize and remediate the obstacle of the super-block.

While cognizant of the impassioned and widely varied historical ownership of the site, Pruitt -Igoe must not be erased. Learning and research play a central role in the sites future. Preserving a buildings footprint informs us of the projects once dominating scale and no other site is as fitting to locate a center for study of American public housing.