The problem with dull alienating social housing has nothing to do with modernism per se, but to do with mindless design. This scheme uses non-modernist styles but the result is terrifyingly soul-less like so many Mcmansion developments.
15 housing projects from hell
Despite the title of this list, several of these housing projects were designed by some of the world’s most famous architects and lauded at the time. The undeniable squalor of 19th Century slums combined with modernism to produce and attempt to clean things up and create a crystalline utopia. The end result was often an anti-septic vision of hell, a place devoid of organic spaces and evolved social interaction.
The architectural crime that started with Corbusier’s insane proposal to demolish the historic center of Paris and replace it with something like the worst of the South Bronx and culminated in the White and Black racially segregated human silos of St Louis’s Pruitt-Igoe, continues to this day and even as middle class, owner-occupied dwelling such as those in Hong Kong. Its principal feature is de-humanizing alienation. Vote for your worst…
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At one point the garbage piled up the blocked chutes to the 15th floor and rat and roach infestations were common. The thing that differentiated Cabrini Green from other failed projects, however, was its location in a relatively wealthy part of Chicago.
For all its pretense at modernism, the fact that the Pruitt Igoe was built in two complexes, one for white people and one for black, speaks volumes of its primitive ideology.<p /><p />When the Pruitt Igoe was demolished, Charles Jencks declared it as the death of modernism. The demolition sequence itself features in the movie, Koyaanisqatsi.
Jeanneret proposed razing the organic street pattern of the entire Marais district in Paris and replacing it with a half baked neo-fascist masterplan, the product of excessive ego. The fact that he was deadly serious almost entirely negates the undoubted talents that he possessed.
The origins of modernism were a reaction by the elite that the masses could afford decorative styles. The Barcelona Pavilion was built with expensive Onyx, Travertine and Stainless Steel. Modernism for the masses had neither the luxury of decoration or materials. This unbelievably badly built student housing block in Poland demonstrates the point perfectly.
The word suburb, ‘banlieue’, conjures up something very different in France to the US. Burning cars and desolate tower blocks, rather than SUVs and low-rise strip malls. These superficially rather interesting looking towers are visible from Paris’ financial district, La Defense, and are a reminder of what lies outside of the Peripherique.
This Vienna housing estate is often commended, with its terraced gardens that swoop to earth and Logan’s Run appearance. Ultimately, however, it entirely ignores the architecture of a city which gave birth to a sensible approach to modernism. The result is a blot on the landscape.
Singapore’s housing projects represent where European modernism was in the 50s - still hopeful and still better than a low rise slum. Clearly, however, one day these will be terribly vertical slums.
Although this is a hotel converted to housing it demonstrates perfectly how people will do anything to individualize an oppressive modernist space with no identity.
The Soviet style blocks with predominantly Russian inhabitants face away from the sea front. There is architecture which ignores its context in the extreme, a sad situation at best and a crime when by the sea.
Anyone who has been to Hong Kong will have been , stunned, depressed to see these anonymous gigantic housing blocks. The amazing thing is that these are owner occupied rather than social housing.
The tenements of Glasgow epitomized urban squalor and modernism was a chance to scrub the dirt of Glasgow clean. With broken elevators and desolate stairways, the view over teh nearby Scottish countryside is as cruel as Marin from Alcatraz. Nothing quite shows the insanity of this scheme than the green surrounding it.
This image is from a postcard, proudly displaying the neat rows of workers houses as tidy and democratic. Everyone knows how these spaces deteriorate, with no sense of ownership or place.
An innovate structure and a break from the mold, but nevertheless an arrogant architectural one-liner as a repository for people, that is reminiscent of a giant washing machine. A Chinese architectural laundry.
The architect of this housing scheme, Erno Goldfinger, is one of Britain’s most celebrated modernists and the model for James a Bond villain, having live opposite Ian Flemming, who hated him. His buildings are undoubtedly dramatic and sculptural, but when Architects brag about how many people want to live in the iconic Trellic Tower, this has more to do with the proximity of Notting Hill than an affection for bush-hammered concrete.
