Pruitt-Igoe housing project, from Koyaanisqatsi

St. Louis, Missouri's infamous Pruitt-Igoe public housing project was less than 20 years old when it was demolished. Once heralded as architectural innovations, the 33 11-storey apartment buildings had become nuisances and danger zones. In 1972, after spending than than five million dollars in failed attempts to cure the massive project's physical and social problems, three highrises were demolished in a broadly publicized event. A year later Pruitt-Igoe was declared unsalvageable and the remaining buildings were razed to the ground. Some experts marked this event as the end of Modernism.

See Pruitt-Igoe before and after the destruction in this clip from Koyaanisqatsi [Life Out of Balance], a haunting film of urban and landscape images to to the music of Philip Glass.

This clip is an extra from "Faulty Towers" by Edmund P. Fowler, in A\J's Out of the Box, issue 34.1 (http://www.alternativesjournal.ca/mag...). Fowler argues that, contrary to popular belief, highrises are not the answer for higher density living.

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