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?

Juan William Chávez presents at the 2013 Creative Capital Artist Retreat from Creative Capital on Vimeo.

Juan William Chávez (2013 Emerging Fields grantee) presented on his Creative Capital-supported project, The Pruitt-Igoe Bee Sanctuary, at the 2013 Artist Retreat. Read more about his project here: creative-capital.org/projects/view/745.

Young Honey Crew is a seasonal youth program located in North Saint Louis that teaches students the importance of bees to their health through beekeeping,  growing food, cooking fresh ingredients, and the arts.

Michael Allen is an architectural historian and founder of Preservation Research Office. He authors the blog, Ecology of Absence. Allen’s research is concerned with the impact of deindustrialization, population loss and postwar urban renewal projects on the preservation of historic urban landscapes.

Roundtable Discussion Part 2-Michael Allen by Juanwilliamchavez

Sylvester Brown, Jr  talks about the Sweet Potato Project.  The mission of the Sweet Potato Project is to create a North St. Louis program that offers educational and money-making opportunities for “at risk” urban youth. The expanded goal of the project is to bring vibrant economic activity back to long-neglected urban areas by creating alternative and progressive ways to create and distribute products that are grown and created within these disadvantaged communities.

Sylvester Brown, Jr. is an award-winning journalist, former publisher of Take Five Magazine and metro columnist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. In January 2011, Brown established When we Dream Together, a nonprofit aimed at revitalizing long-ignored urban areas.

Roundtable Discussion Part 3 – Sylvester Brown Jr by Juanwilliamchavez

When did the buildings come down?
The St. Louis Housing Authority demolished three buildings in 1972; these were demolished through explosive blasts. The remaining 30 buildings came down in 1976 and 1977; these were demolished by wrecking ball. (The buildings were built between 1952 and 1956.)

How many acres is the site?
Pruitt-Igoe is 33 acres.

Are there any Pruitt-Igoe remains? (Example lamppost or structures)
The only buildings still standing on the site are accessory structures: the Union Electric Sub-Station (1952), Pruitt Elementary School (1955) and the Crunden Branch Library (1959). There are some crushed bits of reinforced concrete from the buildings that remain, as well as footings, tunnels and other underground components. Throughout the site, concrete walkways and curbs remain both exposed and under rubble piles. Dickson Street, the east-west street, is intact despite encroaching tree lines. A lamp post that once lit the walk in front of a tower inexplicably stands on the south end of the site. A few fence posts can be found that correspond to Housing Authority efforts to secure vacant towers before demolition.

Who planted the trees?
Some of the oaks in the site are street and lawn trees planted by the St. Louis Housing authority before the demolitions. The other trees are all volunteers.

Why did they plant the trees?
The trees were planted to provide shade to the residents.

What types of trees or plants are in there?
There are some slow-growth trees including oaks and maples, but the most common trees on the site are fast-growing somewhat invasive types that include poplar, tree of heaven and mimosa. Juniper trees can be found throughout the site. Sumac and bush honeysuckle have invaded many areas on the site, choking out other plant growth.

What types of animals have you seen in there?
There are wild turkeys, squirrels, opossums, rabbits, dogs, cats and many birds.

Who owns the Pruitt-Igoe lot?
The Land Clearance for Redevelopment Authority.

How much does it cost?
The Land Clearance for Redevelopment Authority has not set any price for the land. Staff members have stated that they would negotiate with any interested buyer.

What are the stipulations or condition of purchasing the lot?
The St. Louis Development Corporation, the city’s development agency that staffs the Land Clearance for Redevelopment Authority, has stated that it will privilege redevelopment plans for the site that create permanent jobs.

What make Pruitt-Igoe a brownfield?
Although Pruitt-Igoe’s soil has not been professional evaluated, it is known that the buildings were demolished containing lead paint and asbestos not remediated or removed. Additionally there are potential PCBs and gasoline contaminants from previous uses on the site before Pruitt-Igoe was built.

What has been dumped there?
The city government dumped tons of debris and fill from the excavation for the Edward Jones Dome in 1993-1994, and that material contains parts of buildings and other elements. Other dumping includes tires, building debris, computers, gravel and other un-inventoried materials.

What ward is Pruitt-Igoe in?
Ward 5.

What are the details of Paul McKee’s two-year option to purchase Pruitt-Igoe?
McKee’s company Northside Regeneration LLC paid $100,000 to hold an exclusive two-year option to purchase the site. Under the agreement, McKee can close on the site for an additional $900,000 only if he can finance site redevelopment that includes creation of permanent jobs. The Land Clearance for Redevelopment Authority will determine if the plans meet those requirements.

When will his two-year option end?
The option expires on February 23, 2014.

What is the process to purchase the Pruitt-Igoe lot?
An interested buyer can make an offer directly to the Land Clearance for Redevelopment Authority, which has a board appointed by the mayor that makes all final sales decisions. The sale does not require legislation or the approval of the alderperson.

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.