Modernidad ¿culpable? El papel de la arquitectura en la vivienda social. Pruitt-Igoe como símbolo

Abstract

Taking as a reference the social housing project Pruitt-Igoe, which has been uncountably named and extensively studied since its demolition in 1972, the study approaches to an analysis of the disjunction between space, program and action, as Bernard Tschumi sets. He questions whether the relationship between architecture and user is symmetrical or asymmetric, based on the observation of events, as an unavoidable fundamental fact. In the determination if one of them dominates another, there is debate about the role of architectural design, as well as the role of the profession in social housing processes. Although it is essential to create spaces of dignified habitability and appropriate architectural design, an asymmetric relationship between action and space is evidenced. In Pruitt-Igoe’s analysis there was a necessity to overcome the biased criticisms of the object (and its iconic guilt based on its conception of the modern movement) to analyse the context in which it was built, inhabited and demolished. In this perspective, Pruitt-Igoe is a widely symbolic project in the discussion about the real extent in which architecture is able to achieve social changes, being fundamental to avoid entrenched dogmas and to glimpse that social and political structures have more causal power than the architectural design.