I don’t think the architecture can be blamed for the fate of Pruitt-Igoe. After all, architecture is mainly important to architects. Of course there is a certain influence: it can work a bit better or a bit less; it can make a body happier or calmer or more depressed. But the color of your house doesn’t make you a criminal.

With the text I wrote I try to explain all the things that I think have an important influence on the development of a project. Of course, this list will not be complete, and since I haven’t seen the site and don’t know much about St. Louis it is not an inside view but an outside view. But that might be a chance too…

For me this site has a lot of potential, and when I was writing the text, I tried to picture a vision of how it could develop if I was in charge. The picture I have in mind is quite fuzzy, but I hope I can make you see some of the points that are important to me.

The most important point is probably that the picture IS fuzzy, because this task is not about creating utopia. Utopia in its intrinsic one-sidedness is bound to fail. That’s the most important lecture we learned form Modernity.