Beginner Hive Mind from Juan William Chavez on Vimeo.

Filmed at the Pruitt Igoe Bee Sanctuary pilot site, the footage explores the hive as a superorganism and demonstrates the bees collective goal bringing in pollen. Beginner Hive Mind references the Zen Buddhist practice of learning as a beginner and keeping your mind empty of preconceived notions in order to be open to the many possibilities that may be. Chavez’s close observation of the bees allows him to reconnect to a deeper ecology to view nature, food and architecture as a whole, which provokes the question: Are we as a community able to learn from the bees and function as a superorganism?

untitled (sacred real estate)

Untitled (Sacred Real Estate), 2012, assembled from 14 recycled street lampposts are arranged to create a 1:1 scale footprint of a Pruitt-Igoe building, is Chávez’s version of the Native American Mississippian’s “Woodhenge”.
It replicates the form of the contemporary reconstruction of the henge, providing a monumental, poetic echo of the collapsed civilization. The towering wooden poles compare modern and prehistoric construction that acknowledges
St. Louis’ successes and failures acting as both functional architecture and a living memorial.

-Dana Turkovic: Curator of Exhibitions

Approaching Juan William Chavez’s untitled sculptural meditation on the buildings of the Pruitt-Igoe housing project, I finally saw Pruitt-Igoe. Through research, site visits and examination of every photograph and blueprint I have seen, I have tried to construct a Pruitt-Igoe tower to experience. Never have I been able to pare down the buildings to the elegant ghost form of posts that now stands at Laumeier. Based on one of the single module towers, which were 180’ wide, the installation suggests a ground-level scale that is approachable. In fact, I could walk in, around and through it in any number of ways.  This tower form is not threatening, but open and even vulnerable. Of course, it is built out of an impermanent unit – not reinforced concrete that resisted even a spectacular explosive blast.

The material of the piece conjures connections both manifest and diffuse. For one thing, the ragged wooden utility poles were the gift of Ameren, which still maintains an electric substation inside of the Pruitt-Igoe forest. Appended to the little brick substation, which was built to serve Pruitt-Igoe, is a single pole on which is mounted a light. Some nights, within the pitch, the woods are broken by the glow coming form that light. Seeing the installation echoes the solace that a functioning utility system provides when present on a site that seems to have gone wild. That paradox is reversed in Juan’s piece, where the posts are broken and functionless.

The other references that Juan’s piece evokes are less literal. The wood could well be the rough and strange trunks of Pruitt-Igoe’s volunteer canopy-bearers, which make the site into a living timeclock of the city’s rebound from fateful decline. Then again, the simple posts echo the structural grid of the lost towers, suggesting building anew may be imminent. Even further still, the rugged wood reminds me of Richard Serra’s plan for installing Twain amid a forest-like canopy downtown. Like Twain, Pruitt-Igoe was a materially-stark modern monument, and like the sculpture was supposed to be (but never quite have been) its vestiges would become cloaked in natural life. Suggested is that the power of nature might be the most potent on the lives of people – much more than manmade modern architecture, no matter how overscaled. The complexity of Pruitt-Igoe can be quantified (stilled), while the living complexity of a forest is unknowable (growing). Juan’s piece presents that opposition, and then makes us resolve it. Are we beholding a single tower, or a forest of trees, or both?

Architectural historian Michael R. Allen is the Director of the Preservation Research Office, a St. Louis-based historic preservation and public history firm. Allen served as co-manager of the Pruitt Igoe Now ideas competition throughout 2011 and 2012.

Video by Timothy Nordmann from Nordmann Video.
The Pruitt-Igoe Bee Sanctuary is a proposal for the City of St Louis to transform the urban forest where Pruitt-Igoe housing development once stood into a public space that cultivates community through education and urban agriculture. Drawing parallels to the depleting population of bees and shrinking cities, this interdisciplinary project-in-progress has the unique opportunity to reignite the conversation about urban abandonment and creative strategies for addressing it.

Pruitt-Igoe Bee Sanctuary ( film ) from Juan William Chavez on Vimeo.

This 8mm film explores the land where the Pruitt-Igoe housing projects once stood in St. Louis, Missouri. After the demolition of all 33 buildings that comprised Pruitt-Igoe the remaining empty lot of several acres over time has naturally transformed into an overgrown urban forest. The film begins with the site-specific installation of bee hives referencing the Pruitt-Igoe high-rise designed by architect Minoru Yamasaki and concludes with a scene taken of the Man of Bicorp, a 8,000 year old cave drawing of a figure gathering honey.

Pruitt-Igoe Bee Sanctuary Photographs: explores the land where the Pruitt-Igoe housing project once stood in St. Louis, Missouri. After the demolition of all 33 buildings that comprised Pruitt-Igoe, the remaining empty lot of several acres naturally transformed into an overgrown urban forest.

Pruitt-Igoe Bee Sanctuary Beehive Installation: is a site-specific installation of beehives by Chavez that reference the Pruitt-Igoe complex that was designed by architect Minoru Yamasaki, who also designed the World Trade Center towers.