PRUITT IGOE MYTH

"It began as a housing marvel. Built in 1956, Pruitt-lgoe was heralded as the model public housing project of the future, the poor mans penthouse. Two decades later, it ended in rubble its razing an iconic event that the architectural theorists Charles Jencks famously called the death of modernism. The footage and images of its implosion have helped to perpetuate a myth of failure, a failure that has been used to critique Modernist architecture, attack public assistance programs, and stigmatize public housing residents. The Pruitt-Igoe Myth seeks to set the historical record straight. To examine the interests involved in Pruitt-Igoes creation. To re-evaluate the rumors and the stigma. To implode the myth."