ARCHITECTURE: Pruitt-Igoe.

From: IN%"URBAN-L%TREARN.BITNET@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" "Urban Planning Discussion List"
2-SEP-1993 17:12:26.51
To: IN%"HRL@xxxxxxxxxxxx" "Howard Lawrence"
CC:
Subj: Pruitt-Igoe implodes on tape

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Date: Thu, 2 Sep 93 16:29:45 EDT
From: Eric Weiss-Altaner <R22104%UQAM.BITNET@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Pruitt-Igoe implodes on tape
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To: Howard Lawrence <HRL@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
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Comments: cc: "maclachlan, ian" <maclachlan@xxxxxxxxxxx>

On 1 September, Ian Maclachlan (maclachlan@xxxxxxxxxxx) asked whether anyone kn
ew of film clips showing the destruction of the award-winning Pruitt-Igoe housi
ng project in St.Louis.

The demolition appears in an excellent documentary directed by
Tina Viljoen in 1979 for Canada's National Film Board.
The French version (dubbed over the English original) is called
"Vers un habitat humain." Its number is 113C-0279-630. It runs 29.5 minutes.

The micro-computer revolution doesn't seem to have struck fully at the NFB.
I've just gotten off the phone with their downtown state-of-the-art video
library, where a Robocop contraption(probably called "Fetch") gets the
disks from the rack, loads them and puts them back.

However, their computerized catalog only shows the tapes they have
in that particular library. How much would it cost to add one or two
fields to their data base? Are they using DB-II??

Still, the film does an outstanding job in 29(.5) minutes,
covering urban development from its beginnings to the megalopolis of
today's Third World. They touch on housing in communist countries
(Warsaw and Poland), which of course seems so distont when seen in 1993.

Viljoen interviewed Oscar Newman ("Defensible Space," 1972) and John
Turner ("Housing by people"). This is where Pruitt-Igoe appears. The
demolition falls into itself like the proverbial house of cards,
and is a great way to start an urban history course!


Eric Weiss-Altaner
Universite du Quebec a Montreal
[email protected]
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