Research Article
BibTex RIS Cite

Entangled histories of Architecture and Dispossession in The Pruitt-Igoe Myth (2011)

Year 2025, , 241 - 262, 29.04.2025

Ekin Pınar

https://doi.org/10.37246/grid.1467404
Cited By: 1

Abstract

This paper addresses how documentary film may attend to, mediate, and negotiate the histories of the entanglement between housing and dispossession. For this purpose, it focuses on Chad Freidrichs’ 2011 documentary film The Pruitt-Igoe Myth that centers the accounts of Pruitt-Igoe’s African American residents. As it is well-known, the media images as well as the initial scholarly accounts of the demolishment of the housing complex have largely served as an icon of reactions against modernist architecture. The majority of later accounts, while steering the conversation away from a sole focus on architecture, singled out one or two aspects of this intricate tangle and approached the residents of the complex as passive victims rather than active agents. Here, The Pruitt-Igoe Myth constitutes a unique case not only within the popularized and highly mediatized conceptions of but also the extensive sholarship on the building complex. The paper argues that, in its centering of the first-hand accounts as well as documents of lives that unfolded in the building complex, this documentary offers us a more open mode of architectural historiography that centers the complex intersections of structural racism, dispossession, and built environment.

Keywords

Architectural historiography Disposession Documentary Pruitt- Igoe

References

  • Agamben, G. (1998). Homo sacer: Sovereign power and bare life. Stanford University Press.
  • Ameri, A. (2011). Imaginary placements: The other space of cinema. The journal of aesthetics and art criticism, 69(1), 81-91.
  • Bailey, J. (1965). The case history of a failure. Architectural forum 123(12), 22-25.
  • Balsom, E. (2013). Exhibiting cinema in contemporary art. Amsterdam University Press.
  • Balsom, E. (2013). To narrate or describe? Experimental documentary beyond docufiction. K. Redrobe and J. Scheible (Ed.), Deep mediations: Thinking space in cinema and digital cultures, (p. 180-196). University of Minnesota Press.
  • Balsom, E. and Peleg, H. (2016). Introduction: The documentary attitude. E. Balsom and H. Peleg (Ed.), Documentary across disciplines, (p. 10-19). The MIT Press.
  • Beckman, K. (2009). Back to the future: The JSAH and new media. Journal of the society of architectural historians, 68(2), 148-150.
  • Biltereyst, D., Maltby, R., and Meers, P. (2019). The Routledge companion to new cinema history. Routledge.
  • Birmingham, E. (1999). Refraining the ruins: Pruitt‐Igoe, structural racism, and African American rhetoric as a space for cultural critique. Western journal of communication, 63(3), 291-309.
  • Bristol, K. G. (1991). The Pruitt-Igoe myth. Journal of architectural education, 44(3), 163-171.
  • Brown Jr., S. (2014, September 22). The long fuse to Ferguson: How the city of St. Louis sparked the explosion. http://sylvesterbrownjr.blogspot.com/2014/09/the-long-fuse-to-ferguson-how-city-of.html.
  • Bruno, G. (1993). Streetwalking on a ruined map: Cultural theory and the city films of Elvira Notari. Princeton University Press.
  • Bruno, G. (2014). Surface: Matters of aesthetics, materiality, and media. University of Chicago Press.
  • Butler, A. (2019). Displacements: Reading space and time in moving image installations. Palgrave MacMillan.
  • Butler J, and Athanasiou, A. (2013). Dispossession: The performative in the political. Polity.
  • Butler, J. (2015). Notes toward a performative theory of assembly. Harvard University Press.
  • Cheng, I., Davis II, C. L., and Wilson, M. O. (2020). Introduction. Cheng, I., Davis II, C. L., and Wilson, M. O. (Ed.), Race and modern architecture: A critical history from the enlightenment to the present. University of Pittsburgh Press.
  • Comerio, M. C. (1981). Pruitt Igoe and other stories. Journal of architectural education, 34(4), 26-31.
  • Doane. M. A. (2007). Introduction: indexicality, trace and sign. Differences: A journal of feminist cultural studies, 18(1), 1-6.
  • Elcott, N. M. (2016). Artificial darkness: An obscure history of modern art and media. University of Chicago Press.
  • Enwezor, O. (2008). Archive fever: Photography between history and the monument. O. Enwezor (Ed.). Archive fever: Uses of the document in contemporary art, (p. 10-51). Steidl Publishers.
  • Ferguson, R. A. (2015). Michael Brown, Ferguson, and the ghosts of Pruitt-Igoe. Cultural critique, 90, 140-142.
  • Foster, F. (2017). Real fictions: Alternatives to alternative facts,” Artforum international. https://www.artforum.com/inprint/issue=201704&id=67192.
  • Freidrichs, C. (Director). (2011). The Pruitt-Igoe Myth. [Film]. USA: Unicorn Stencil.
  • Froechlich, D.E. (2018). The chameleon effect: Architecture’s role in film. Birkhäuser.
  • Fuerst, J. S. and Petty, R. (1991). High-rise housing for low-income families. Public interest, 103, 118-130.
  • Gunning, T. (2007). Moving away from the index: Cinema and the impression of reality, differences: A journal of feminist cultural studies, 18(1), 29-52.
  • Handa, R. (2010) Using popular film in the architectural history classroom. Journal of the society of architectural historians, 69(3), 311-319.
  • Harvey, D. (1989). The condition of postmodernity: An enquiry into the origins of cultural change. Blackwell.
  • Jacobson, B.R. (2015). Studios before the system: Architecture, technology, and the emergence of cinematic space. Columbia University Press.
  • Jacobson, B.R. ed. (2020). In the studio: Visual creation and its material environments. University of California Press.
  • Jencks, C. (1977). The language of postmodern architecture. Rizzoli.
  • Klenotic, J. (2020). Mapping flat, deep, and slow: On the 'spirit of place' in new cinema history. Tijdschrift voor mediageschiedenis, 23(1-2), 1-31.
  • Koeck, R. (2013). Cine-scapes: Cinematic spaces in architecture and cities. Routledge.
  • Latour, B. (2005). Reassembling the social: An introduction to actor-network-theory. Oxford University Press.
  • Lind, M. and Steyerl, H., eds., (2008). The greenroom: Reconsidering the documentary and contemporary art #1. Sternberg Press.
  • Lobsinger, M. L. Architectural history: The turn from culture to media. Journal of architectural education, 75(2), 135-139.
  • Lu, A. ve Penz, F., ed. (2011). Urban cinematics: Understanding urban phenomena through the moving image. Intellect.
  • Ma, J. (2021). Deep in the cave. K. Redrobe and J. Scheible (Ed.), Deep mediations: Thinking space in cinema and digital cultures, (p. 57-69). University of Minnesota Press.
  • Magagnoli, P. (2015). Documents of utopia: The politics of experimental documentary. Wallflower Press.
  • Major, M. D. (2021). ‘Excavating’ Pruitt-Igoe using space syntax. Architectural research quarterly 25(1), 55-68.
  • Marcus, S., Love, H., Best, S. (2016). Building a better description. Representations, 135, 1-21.
  • McGuire, L. M. (2007). A movie house in space and time: Frederick Kiesler's Film Arts Guild Cinema, New York, 1929. Studies in the decorative arts, 14(2), 45-78.
  • Meehan, E. J. (1979). The quality of federal policymaking: Programmed failure in public housing. University of Missouri Press.
  • Melnick, R. (2022). Hollywood’s embassies: How movie theaters projected American power around the world. Columbia University Press.
  • Montgomery, R. (1985). Pruitt-Igoe: Policy failure of social symptom. B. Checkoway and C. V. Patton (Ed.), The metropolitan midwest: Policy problems and prospects for change, (p. 230-239). University of Illinois Press.
  • Nash, M. (2004). Experiments with truth: The documentary turn. M. Nash (Ed.), Experiments with truth, (p. 15-21). Philadelphia Fabric Workshop and Museum.
  • Nash, M. (2008). Reality in the age of aesthetics. Frieze, 114, 118-125.
  • Newman, O. (1972). Defensible space: Crime prevention through urban design. Macmillan.
  • Nieland, J. (2020). Happiness by design: Modernism and media in the Eames era. University of Minnesota Press.
  • Paul, W. (2011). When movies were theater: Architecture, exhibition, and the evolution of American film. Columbia University Press.
  • Rhodes, J. D. and Gorfinkel, E., ed. (2011). Taking place: Location and the moving image. University of Minnesota Press.
  • Rhodes, J. D. (2017). Spectacle of property: The house in American film. University of Minnesota Press.
  • Rowe, C. and Koetter, F. (1978). Collage city. The MIT Press.
  • Schleier, M., ed. (2021). Race and the suburbs in American film. SUNY Press.
  • Sborgi, A. V. (2021). Media, precarity, and the home: An introduction. Mediapolis: A journal of cities and culture 6(5), n.p.
  • Szczepaniak-Gillece, J. (2018). The optical vacuum: Spectatorship and modernized American theater architecture. Oxford University Press.
  • Smoodin, E. (2020). Paris in the dark: Going to the movies in the city of light, 1930-1950. Duke University Press.
  • St. Louis Housing Authority. (1974). Pruitt Homes and Igoe Apartments public housing complex: Final environmental impact statement. St Louis Area Office Public Report.
  • Stallabrass, J., ed. (2013). Documentary. The MIT Press.
  • Stieber, N. (2005). Learning from interdisciplinarity: Introduction. Journal of the society of architectural historians, 64(4), 417-418.
  • Takahashi, T. (2013). Walid Ra’ad and The Atlas Group: The photograph and the archive in experimental documentary. Moving image review & art journal, 2(1), 68-78.
  • The Pruitt-Igoe Myth DVD, First Run Features, 2012.
  • The Pruitt-Igoe Myth press materials, http://www.pruitt-igoe.com/press-materials.
  • Uroskie, A.V. (2014). Between the black box and the white cube. Chicago University Press.
  • U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development archive.
  • Vidler, A. (1992). The architectural uncanny: Essays in the modern unhomely. The MIT Press.
  • Von Fischer, S. and Toulomi, O. (2018). Sound modernities: Histories of media and modern architecture. The journal of architecture, 23(6), 873-880.
  • Von Hoffmann, A. (2000). Why they built Pruitt-Igoe. Bauman, J. F., Biles, R., and Szylvian, K. M. From tenements to the taylor homes: In search of an urban housing policy in twentieth-century America. Penn State University Press.
  • Wasson, H. (2016). Introduction: Entering the movie theater. Film history, 28(3), v-xi.
  • Welling, D. (2007). Cinema Houston: From nickelodeon to megaplex. University of Texas Press.
  • Wojcik, P. R. (2010). The apartment plot: Urban living in American film and popular culture, 1945 to 1975. Duke University Press.

Pruitt-Igoe Efsanesi filminde (2011) dolaşık Mimarlık ve Mülksüzleştirilme Tarihleri

Year 2025, , 241 - 262, 29.04.2025

Ekin Pınar

https://doi.org/10.37246/grid.1467404
Cited By: 1

Abstract

Bu makale, belgesel filmin konut ve mülksüzleştirme arasındaki karmaşık ilişkilerin tarihçesine nasıl katkıda bulunup aracılık edebileceğini ele alır. Bu amaçla Chad Freidrichs'in 2011 yapımı Pruitt-Igoe bina kompleksinin Afro-Amerikalı sakinlerinin hikayelerini merkeze alan belgesel filmi Pruitt-Igoe Efsanesi'ne odaklanır. Bilindiği gibi, bu konut kompleksinin yıkılmasına ilişkin medya görüntüleri ve ilk bilimsel açıklamalar, büyük ölçüde modernist mimariye karşı tepkilerin simgesi haline gelmiştir. Konu hakkındaki sonraki literatürün çoğunluğu ise, konuyu yalnızca mimariye odaklanmaktan uzaklaştırırken, bu karmaşık düğümün sadece bir veya iki yönünü öne çıkardı ve kompleksin sakinlerine aktif özneler yerine pasif kurbanlar olarak yaklaştı. Bu bakımdan, Pruitt-Igoe Efsanesi, yalnızca popüler ve medyatik temsiller arasında değil, aynı zamanda bina kompleksine ilişkin kapsamlı bilimsel çalışmalar içinde de benzersiz bir örnek oluşturmaktadır. Makale, bina kompleksinde ortaya çıkan yaşamlara ilişkin belgelerin yanı sıra ilk elden anlatımları merkeze alan bu belgeselin, yapısal ırkçılık, mülksüzleştirme ve yapılı çevre arasındaki karmaşık kesişimleri merkeze alan daha açık bir mimari tarih yazımı tarzı sunduğunu ileri sürer.

Keywords

Belgesel Mimarlık tarihi Mülksüzleştirilme Pruitt-Igoe

References

  • Agamben, G. (1998). Homo sacer: Sovereign power and bare life. Stanford University Press.
  • Ameri, A. (2011). Imaginary placements: The other space of cinema. The journal of aesthetics and art criticism, 69(1), 81-91.
  • Bailey, J. (1965). The case history of a failure. Architectural forum 123(12), 22-25.
  • Balsom, E. (2013). Exhibiting cinema in contemporary art. Amsterdam University Press.
  • Balsom, E. (2013). To narrate or describe? Experimental documentary beyond docufiction. K. Redrobe and J. Scheible (Ed.), Deep mediations: Thinking space in cinema and digital cultures, (p. 180-196). University of Minnesota Press.
  • Balsom, E. and Peleg, H. (2016). Introduction: The documentary attitude. E. Balsom and H. Peleg (Ed.), Documentary across disciplines, (p. 10-19). The MIT Press.
  • Beckman, K. (2009). Back to the future: The JSAH and new media. Journal of the society of architectural historians, 68(2), 148-150.
  • Biltereyst, D., Maltby, R., and Meers, P. (2019). The Routledge companion to new cinema history. Routledge.
  • Birmingham, E. (1999). Refraining the ruins: Pruitt‐Igoe, structural racism, and African American rhetoric as a space for cultural critique. Western journal of communication, 63(3), 291-309.
  • Bristol, K. G. (1991). The Pruitt-Igoe myth. Journal of architectural education, 44(3), 163-171.
  • Brown Jr., S. (2014, September 22). The long fuse to Ferguson: How the city of St. Louis sparked the explosion. http://sylvesterbrownjr.blogspot.com/2014/09/the-long-fuse-to-ferguson-how-city-of.html.
  • Bruno, G. (1993). Streetwalking on a ruined map: Cultural theory and the city films of Elvira Notari. Princeton University Press.
  • Bruno, G. (2014). Surface: Matters of aesthetics, materiality, and media. University of Chicago Press.
  • Butler, A. (2019). Displacements: Reading space and time in moving image installations. Palgrave MacMillan.
  • Butler J, and Athanasiou, A. (2013). Dispossession: The performative in the political. Polity.
  • Butler, J. (2015). Notes toward a performative theory of assembly. Harvard University Press.
  • Cheng, I., Davis II, C. L., and Wilson, M. O. (2020). Introduction. Cheng, I., Davis II, C. L., and Wilson, M. O. (Ed.), Race and modern architecture: A critical history from the enlightenment to the present. University of Pittsburgh Press.
  • Comerio, M. C. (1981). Pruitt Igoe and other stories. Journal of architectural education, 34(4), 26-31.
  • Doane. M. A. (2007). Introduction: indexicality, trace and sign. Differences: A journal of feminist cultural studies, 18(1), 1-6.
  • Elcott, N. M. (2016). Artificial darkness: An obscure history of modern art and media. University of Chicago Press.
  • Enwezor, O. (2008). Archive fever: Photography between history and the monument. O. Enwezor (Ed.). Archive fever: Uses of the document in contemporary art, (p. 10-51). Steidl Publishers.
  • Ferguson, R. A. (2015). Michael Brown, Ferguson, and the ghosts of Pruitt-Igoe. Cultural critique, 90, 140-142.
  • Foster, F. (2017). Real fictions: Alternatives to alternative facts,” Artforum international. https://www.artforum.com/inprint/issue=201704&id=67192.
  • Freidrichs, C. (Director). (2011). The Pruitt-Igoe Myth. [Film]. USA: Unicorn Stencil.
  • Froechlich, D.E. (2018). The chameleon effect: Architecture’s role in film. Birkhäuser.
  • Fuerst, J. S. and Petty, R. (1991). High-rise housing for low-income families. Public interest, 103, 118-130.
  • Gunning, T. (2007). Moving away from the index: Cinema and the impression of reality, differences: A journal of feminist cultural studies, 18(1), 29-52.
  • Handa, R. (2010) Using popular film in the architectural history classroom. Journal of the society of architectural historians, 69(3), 311-319.
  • Harvey, D. (1989). The condition of postmodernity: An enquiry into the origins of cultural change. Blackwell.
  • Jacobson, B.R. (2015). Studios before the system: Architecture, technology, and the emergence of cinematic space. Columbia University Press.
  • Jacobson, B.R. ed. (2020). In the studio: Visual creation and its material environments. University of California Press.
  • Jencks, C. (1977). The language of postmodern architecture. Rizzoli.
  • Klenotic, J. (2020). Mapping flat, deep, and slow: On the 'spirit of place' in new cinema history. Tijdschrift voor mediageschiedenis, 23(1-2), 1-31.
  • Koeck, R. (2013). Cine-scapes: Cinematic spaces in architecture and cities. Routledge.
  • Latour, B. (2005). Reassembling the social: An introduction to actor-network-theory. Oxford University Press.
  • Lind, M. and Steyerl, H., eds., (2008). The greenroom: Reconsidering the documentary and contemporary art #1. Sternberg Press.
  • Lobsinger, M. L. Architectural history: The turn from culture to media. Journal of architectural education, 75(2), 135-139.
  • Lu, A. ve Penz, F., ed. (2011). Urban cinematics: Understanding urban phenomena through the moving image. Intellect.
  • Ma, J. (2021). Deep in the cave. K. Redrobe and J. Scheible (Ed.), Deep mediations: Thinking space in cinema and digital cultures, (p. 57-69). University of Minnesota Press.
  • Magagnoli, P. (2015). Documents of utopia: The politics of experimental documentary. Wallflower Press.
  • Major, M. D. (2021). ‘Excavating’ Pruitt-Igoe using space syntax. Architectural research quarterly 25(1), 55-68.
  • Marcus, S., Love, H., Best, S. (2016). Building a better description. Representations, 135, 1-21.
  • McGuire, L. M. (2007). A movie house in space and time: Frederick Kiesler's Film Arts Guild Cinema, New York, 1929. Studies in the decorative arts, 14(2), 45-78.
  • Meehan, E. J. (1979). The quality of federal policymaking: Programmed failure in public housing. University of Missouri Press.
  • Melnick, R. (2022). Hollywood’s embassies: How movie theaters projected American power around the world. Columbia University Press.
  • Montgomery, R. (1985). Pruitt-Igoe: Policy failure of social symptom. B. Checkoway and C. V. Patton (Ed.), The metropolitan midwest: Policy problems and prospects for change, (p. 230-239). University of Illinois Press.
  • Nash, M. (2004). Experiments with truth: The documentary turn. M. Nash (Ed.), Experiments with truth, (p. 15-21). Philadelphia Fabric Workshop and Museum.
  • Nash, M. (2008). Reality in the age of aesthetics. Frieze, 114, 118-125.
  • Newman, O. (1972). Defensible space: Crime prevention through urban design. Macmillan.
  • Nieland, J. (2020). Happiness by design: Modernism and media in the Eames era. University of Minnesota Press.
  • Paul, W. (2011). When movies were theater: Architecture, exhibition, and the evolution of American film. Columbia University Press.
  • Rhodes, J. D. and Gorfinkel, E., ed. (2011). Taking place: Location and the moving image. University of Minnesota Press.
  • Rhodes, J. D. (2017). Spectacle of property: The house in American film. University of Minnesota Press.
  • Rowe, C. and Koetter, F. (1978). Collage city. The MIT Press.
  • Schleier, M., ed. (2021). Race and the suburbs in American film. SUNY Press.
  • Sborgi, A. V. (2021). Media, precarity, and the home: An introduction. Mediapolis: A journal of cities and culture 6(5), n.p.
  • Szczepaniak-Gillece, J. (2018). The optical vacuum: Spectatorship and modernized American theater architecture. Oxford University Press.
  • Smoodin, E. (2020). Paris in the dark: Going to the movies in the city of light, 1930-1950. Duke University Press.
  • St. Louis Housing Authority. (1974). Pruitt Homes and Igoe Apartments public housing complex: Final environmental impact statement. St Louis Area Office Public Report.
  • Stallabrass, J., ed. (2013). Documentary. The MIT Press.
  • Stieber, N. (2005). Learning from interdisciplinarity: Introduction. Journal of the society of architectural historians, 64(4), 417-418.
  • Takahashi, T. (2013). Walid Ra’ad and The Atlas Group: The photograph and the archive in experimental documentary. Moving image review & art journal, 2(1), 68-78.
  • The Pruitt-Igoe Myth DVD, First Run Features, 2012.
  • The Pruitt-Igoe Myth press materials, http://www.pruitt-igoe.com/press-materials.
  • Uroskie, A.V. (2014). Between the black box and the white cube. Chicago University Press.
  • U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development archive.
  • Vidler, A. (1992). The architectural uncanny: Essays in the modern unhomely. The MIT Press.
  • Von Fischer, S. and Toulomi, O. (2018). Sound modernities: Histories of media and modern architecture. The journal of architecture, 23(6), 873-880.
  • Von Hoffmann, A. (2000). Why they built Pruitt-Igoe. Bauman, J. F., Biles, R., and Szylvian, K. M. From tenements to the taylor homes: In search of an urban housing policy in twentieth-century America. Penn State University Press.
  • Wasson, H. (2016). Introduction: Entering the movie theater. Film history, 28(3), v-xi.
  • Welling, D. (2007). Cinema Houston: From nickelodeon to megaplex. University of Texas Press.
  • Wojcik, P. R. (2010). The apartment plot: Urban living in American film and popular culture, 1945 to 1975. Duke University Press.
There are 72 citations in total.

Details

Primary Language English
Subjects History and Theory of the Built Environment
Journal Section Research Articles
Authors

Ekin Pınar 0000-0002-8367-1234

Publication Date April 29, 2025
Submission Date April 10, 2024
Acceptance Date September 17, 2024
Published in Issue Year 2025

Cite

APA Pınar, E. (2025). Entangled histories of Architecture and Dispossession in The Pruitt-Igoe Myth (2011). GRID - Architecture Planning and Design Journal, 8(1), 241-262. https://doi.org/10.37246/grid.1467404

Cited By

CityBuildAR: Enhancing Community Engagement in Placemaking Through Mobile Augmented Reality
Future Internet
https://doi.org/10.3390/fi17030115