This version of the Pruitt-Igoe story is a myth. At the core of the myth is the idea that architectural design was responsible for the demise of Pruln-Igoe, In the first section of this essay I debunk the myth by offering a brief historyof Pruirt-Igoe from the perspectiveof its place within a larger history of urban redevelopment and housing policy. This history engages the profoundly embedded economic and political conditions that shaped the construction and management of
Pruirr-lgoe, I then consider how the Pruitt-Igoe myth carne to becreated and disseminated. both by the national press and by architects and architecture critics. and how each successive retelling of the
Pruirt-Igoe story has added new dimensions to the myth. I want to
focus