Restoration of Pueblo del Rio, Los Angeles
Project type
In 1942, the National Housing Administration established in 1937 to impose order, slow down indiscriminate urban sprawl and provide low income housing determined to build a Los Angeles subdivision to house the growing mass of workers, mostly Mexican, employed by the war industry, one of the citys biggest sources of income at the time.
The project fell under the scope of a wider-ranging social policy which resulted in construction of over 14,500 low cost housing units in New York alone between 1937 and 1945, plus almost 7,000 in Chicago, while similar projects in Los Angeles traditionally little inclined toward social housing initiatives due to the excessive power of the landowners were concentrated between 1940 and 1945, when it became absolutely essential to house the flood of immigrants attracted by the citys flourishing shipbuilding and aeronautics industries.
The architecture of the day is characterised by a modern, progressive aesthetic, of which R. Neutras Channel Heights Housing is the most widely admired and fitting example.
But in the 50s the city authorities were already renegotiating the agreement with the federal government, branding a policy privileging public housing projects as evidence of creeping socialism and stopping completion of projects.
The Pueblo del Rio project - for this is the name of the 1942 subdivision was allocated land in south-central L.A.. Top local architects of the day were involved in its planning, including Paul Revere Williams, Gordon Kaufman, Adrian Wilson and Richard Neutra, the famous architect from Vienna.
Evidence of the optimism and deeply rooted faith in progress of the United States during the Second World War, the subdivision was built with a stated social intent, expressed in planning and architecture which drew its principal formal inspiration from the precepts of Rationalism and, above all, the concept of the garden city.
The Pueblo del Rio community consisted of 57 apartment buildings with low, tapered forms arranged harmoniously on 17.5 acres of land. The relationship with green areas is fundamental in the housing project, thanks to a well thought-out spatial hierarchy which, while permitting homes to face onto gardens on both sides, also created a relationship between them and the road around the site, through use of common spaces planned in a variety of different ways.
The buildings are characterised by long horizontal projections which frame them, giving them a more human look and visually interrupting the courtyards, while tapered bastions identify points of access.
Given the projects low budget, the interiors had to be simple, even Spartan.
The site is completed with an L-shaped Social Hall providing a meeting place, set at one corner of the complex, facing onto a park enclosed by a curved wall. The building has large glass sliding doors and big windows permitting interaction of the inside with the outside, and connecting the nursery with the playgrounds outside.
Pueblo del Rio has remained essentially unchanged in appearance over the years, partly as a result of its inhabitants low budgets, despite the damage inevitably caused by time and wear and by modest, often ephemeral changes such as the park flooring or the proliferation of murals on the walls and of little shacks built without permission in the yards.
But now, the L.A. Housing Autority has decided to renovate a part of the site to meet todays new standards in quality of life and hygiene. The work, with a budget of 49.5 million dollars, will principally involve a number of buildings which were added to the original development in the 50s, as well as restyling of the Social Hall.
But the greatest topic of debate is, of course, renovation of the 400 original buildings, which must meet the inhabitants needs (especially in terms of health, hygiene and number of rooms) and the demand for conservation voiced by critics and academics in complete opposition to the trend of the 90s, which preferred destruction to restoration of buildings, even buildings which had an undeniable architectural value despite their recent construction.
The renovation is therefore a complex project, especially the work on the Social Hall. The project proposed by Gruen Associates is overly invasive with regard to the existing building, with an exercise area, a common kitchen and a computer room which would effectively do away with the outdoor playground with construction of a new façade imitating the curved wall enclosing the garden.
Elena Franzoia
Links:
www.hacla.org
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