From Public

Housing to the

Palaces of the

Great:

Where Does

Art Belong?

agenda 3.30.15

review:

Depression era sees creation of first US housing policy

Huge demand for urban housing in WWII to keep a roof over

factory workers' heads.

Brewster Homes and Cabrini Homes both got their start

during WWII.

After WWII, the approach to building changed: high rises.

Case Study: Cabrini Green in Chicago.

Does architecture have to be for the rich?

CHICAGOThe Story of Cabrini-Green

The name “Little Hell” was derived from the large gasworks at Crosby and Hobbie

streets whose flames lit the skies at night. Furnaces could be heard for blocks as coal

was poured into the ovens and moistened with water from the Chicago River to create

gas that was used for heating, cooking and lighting.

The city's newest immigrants (at that time Italian and Irish) were housed

to this area.

Housing and factories are sited directly next to each other.

The landscape of "Little Hell."

The neighborhood had a reputation for danger and crime.

Goose Island

In 1853, William B. Ogden, a Chicago real estate developer,

built a channel to provide a more straightforward alternative

to Chicago River’s winding North Branch.

The result was an island, the only island in Chicago.

It quickly became a haven for Irish immigrants who were so

poor they couldn’t afford proper housing. This island became

part of the “Little Hell” neighborhood.

early Chicago map showing the Branch Canal that created Goose Island

Goose Island

today

Goose Island 2015

Digital Manufacturing and Design Innovation Institute

• awarded to Chicago 2014

• $70 million in federal funds

• $16 million from the state

• another $250 million from private industry, like

General Electric, Rolls-Royce, Procter & Gamble,

Siemens, Lockheed Martin and Dow Chemical Co.

• managed by UI Labs (Universities and

Industries)—a subsidiary of U of I

Goose Island today

Goose Island today

map showing the location of Goose Island

Near North

During World War II, the Chicago Housing Authority razed

the "Little Hell" neighborhood and built a low-rise apartment

project for war workers.

They called it the Frances Cabrini Homes after the first

American canonized by the Catholic Church.

Timeline: Early Years

1929 - Harvey Zorbaugh writes "The Gold Coast and

the Slum: A Sociological Study of Chicago's Near

North Side," contrasting wealthy Gold Coast, with

poor Little Sicily (“Little Hell”)

1942 - Frances Cabrini Homes (two-story

rowhouses), with 586 units in 54 buildings,

completed. Initial regulations stipulate 75% white and

25% black residents. Holsman, Burmeister, et al,

architects.

Cabrini Homes, 1942

housing for war workers

Cabrini Homes, today

Cabrini Homes, refurbished on the left side of the photo, vacant on the right side

Alamer Lee Vassar“I came to Chicago in 1942. I moved into a building at 1230 North

Larrabee on October 2nd of that year. There wasn’t no projects

here then and my husband was in the service. That’s what brought

us up here from Mississippi. I got a job and went to work. Back

then they would beg you when you walked out the door, sayin,’Do

you wanna work for me, do you wanna work for me?’

“It was beautiful down here. They used to have

this festival and parade in the summer, and they

had these lights that run from Chicago [Avenue]

all the way up to North, and we used to sit out

in front of 1230 and look at the people drivin’ by

and parkin’ their cars—whites and colored

people at that time—and everything was lovely,

I mean, beautiful. And the kids they’d go around

the corner...

Paulette Simpson

“My mother was the second person to move into 502. The

elevator excited me and everything was perfect. If you had a

problem with anything in your house, CHA was out there

within 24 hours or less. They were on top of everything then.

I went to Jenner school. I played out in the playground. I

went to Lower North Center to take dancing classes, and I

used to go to Stanton Park for swimming.”

Cabrini Homes, after WWII

1958 - Cabrini Homes Extension (red brick mid- and high-rises),

with 1,925 units in 15 buildings, is completed. A. Epstein &

Sons, architects.

1962 - Green Homes (1,096 units, north of Division Street) is

completed. Pace Associates, architects.

Wanda Hopkins

“We moved here September 1, 1960. We were the second ones in the building at 534 W. Division.

When I moved in it was just so beautiful, the buildings wasn’t grayish the way it is now but really the white color, and the apartments were so new, and the floors were shining…I was about four or five…

It was so new and so pretty and the grass was green….My mother says you’re really crazy to remember all that, but I look at it now after all these years and I can just remind myself of how it was and I can tell people that this was not the original plan. But I remember other families moving in, and these were all white families, and someone organized the Cub Scouts and the Brownie Scot because I remember I became a Brownie…I remember the Brownie uniform and all that, my brothers were in the Cub Scouts.”

Wanda Hopkins (continued)

“Yeah, and we used to live right next door to a white family,

I’ll never forget, we’d spend the night at each other’s house,

stuff that you’d never think of would happen back then. I

remember Alice and Sally. I lived in 402, they lived in 403. My

mother never felt that anything would happen to me when we

spent the night at each other’s house, and her mother never

felt that….It’s almost unheard of now. But I keep tellin’ people

the way it is now was the original plan, and I just wanted

them to know that. I guess that’s why I kept it all in my

memory.”

(p. 53)

Cabrini-Green, 1990s

1994 Chicago receives one of the first HOPE VI (Housing Opportunities for People Everywhere) grants to redevelop Cabrini-Green as a mixed-income neighborhood.

1995 Demolition begins.

1997 Chicago unveils Near North Redevelopment Initiative, a master plan for development in the area. It recommends demolishing Green Homes and most of Cabrini Extension.

1999 Chicago Housing Authority announces Plan for Transformation, which will spend $1.5 billion over ten years to demolish 18,000 apartments and build or rehabilitate 25,000 apartments. Earlier redevelopment plans for Cabrini-Green are included in the Plan for Transformation. New library, rehabilitated Seward Park, and new shopping center open.

Old Town Village West townhomes, a new mixed-income development, in the

background is the William Green Homes high-rise, part of Cabrini-Green, later

demolished. [Photo: Lawrence J. Vale]

North Town Village mixed-income housing, on the left, with the last of the

Cabrini-Green high-rises on the right; the high-rise was demolished in 2011.

[Photo: Lawrence J. Vale]

the new improved Near North side

now, "Parkside of Old Town"

The new Cabrini Target, opened in 2013.

outcome re: low-income units

"And yet, nearly 20 years into the redevelopment, there exist

fewer than 400 replacement public housing units, counting

both the Cabrini site itself and the mixed-income

communities in the broader neighborhood. With nearly 3,000

deeply subsidized apartments already torn down, the 586

Cabrini row houses — the low-rise housing that has so far

survived the clearance — seem likely to fall next."

—"Up," p. 14

outcome, continued

"The CHA assures ex-Cabrini residents forced from vacated

and demolished buildings that they can enter the lottery for

replacement units on site and in the neighborhood; but all the

existing apartments reserved for public housing residents are

already occupied, and the prospect of achieving the 700

units mandated in the consent decree depends upon the

completion of the glacially implemented new construction on

the Cabrini Extension North site — still unfinished from the

HOPE VI grant of 1993. And even if new units do materialize,

the screening processes — even under the more liberal

terms negotiated though the consent decree — ensure that

most ex-Cabrini households will not be welcomed." [Up," p.

14]

“[The American Dream is] that dream of a land in which life should be

better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each

according to ability or achievement. It is a difficult dream for the European

upper classes to interpret adequately, and too many of us ourselves have

grown weary and mistrustful of it. It is not a dream of motor cars and high

wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each

woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are

innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are,

regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position." James

Truslow Adams The Epic of America (1931):

(p.214-215)

Adams’s text is quoted at:

http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/lessons/american-

dream/students/thedream.html

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/income-inequality-in-america-chart-graph

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/income-inequality-in-america-chart-graph

Krzysztof Wodiczko

born 1943 Warsaw, Poland

emigrated to Canada in 1977

established residency in NY in 1986

teaches in Cambridge, MA at MIT and the Graduate School of Design (GSD) at Harvard

Krzysztof Wodiczko

Homeless Vehicle, Variant 5, c. 1985

Aluminum, fabric, wire cage, and hardware

60 x 36 x 56 inches (152.4 x 91.4 x 142.2 cm)

Krzysztof Wodiczko

Homeless Vehicle, Variant 3, pictured outside Trump Tower, NYC, 1988

insulated portable shelter

Occupy Boston, 2011

Sage Radakowsky

member, Winterization Working Group

deliberately unfriendly design

attempting to sleep on a "leaning bench"

Louis Vuitton window display with sculptures by Frank Gehry

Frank GEHRY, Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris, 2014 (art museum branded with LV logo)

GEHRY, Fondation Louis Vuitton, 2014

Stay in touch, y'all!

SAM MOCKBEE

(1944-2001)

On receiving a Macarthur

“Genius” Award: “I’m no

genius, but I’m smart enough

to take the money.”

4 examples

• Bryant House (Haybale House), Mason’s Bend, AL, 1994

• Harris House (Butterfly House), Mason’s Bend, AL, 1996

• Lucy's House, Mason's Bend, AL, 1997

• Mason’s Bend Community Center, Mason’s Bend, AL,

2000

Mockbee's philosophy

"Critical thought requires looking beyond architecture

towards an enhanced understanding of the whole to which it

belongs. Accordingly, the role of architecture should be

placed in relation to other issues of education, healthcare,

transportation, recreation, law enforcement, employment, the

environment, the collective community that impacts on the

lives of both the rich and the poor."

—Samuel Mockbee, "The Rural Studio," 1998

Mockbee/Coker, The Roger Cook House, Memphis, TN 1994

Roger Cook House,

interior

Mockbee’s evolution

from larger to smaller jobs

from wealthier to poorer clients

from metropolitan to rural areas

Bryant House (Hay Bale House)

Mason’s Bend, AL, 1995

The Bryants told Mockbee and the students that they wanted

mainly two things in a house: a room big enough for a bed and

desk for each grandchild and a front porch to entertain neighbors

and family.

Bryant Houserear elevation

3 culverts adapted and mounted on concrete block to make the 3 small

bedrooms

"Architecture has to be greater than just architecture. It has to

address social values, as well as technical and aesthetic values."

Harris House (Butterfly House), Mason’s Bend, AL, 1996

Samuel Mockbee, Harris House (The Butterfly House), 1996

interior, showing screened and closed living areas and sleeping porch

"Everyone, rich or poor, deserves a shelter for

the soul."

Lucy's House, 1997

three main elements

• a single-story living space,

• a screened-in porch, and

• tower that doubled as a master bedroom upstairs and

tornado shelter/family room downstairs.

what material are

these walls made of?

can you tell?

72,000 individually stacked carpet tiles,

donated for this house

closeup

view of carpet

tiles

The finished house has a living space, screened porch, and bedroom.

Sam Mockbee and the Rural Studio, Mason’s Bend Community Center, 2000

This building features another surprising recycled material. Can you tell what it is?

Detail, interior

interior, during construction

Community Center, illuminated at night

The Rural Studio, Mason’s Bend Community Center, 1997-2001