History of architecture

Minoru Yamasaki

Sharadindu-19181AA074
Introduction
● Minoru yamasaki was an american architect
● December 1st 1912 - February 6th 1986, Seattle, washington, US
● He is famous for designing the world trade centre
● His famous works :
➢ Pruitt - Igoe , 1954
➢ Pacific Science Center , 1962
➢ World Trade Center , 1972
➢ Rainier tower , 1977
➢ Federal reserve bank of richmond , 1978
 Pruitt-Igoe

● Yamasaki's first major project was the Pruitt–Igoe public housing project
in St. Louis in 1955.
● The Wendell O. Pruitt Homes and William Igoe Apartments, known
together as Pruitt–Igoe, were joint urban housing projects first occupied
in 1954 in the US city of St. Louis, Missouri.
● The construction started in 1951 and it took 4 years to complete the
building.
● It consisted of 33, 11 storey buildings on a 57 acre site.
● It was initially seen as a breakthrough in urban renewal.
● Residents considered it to be "an oasis in the desert" compared to the
extremely poor quality of housing they had occupied previously, and
considered it to be safe.
 DEMOLISHMENT

● In December 1971, state and federal authorities agreed

to demolish two of the Pruitt–Igoe buildings with
explosives.
● Authorities considered different scenarios and
techniques to rehabilitate Pruitt–Igoe, including
conversion to a low-rise neighborhood by collapsing
the towers down to four floors and undertaking a
"horizontal" reorganization of their layout.
● The Pruitt - Igoe was imploded within a span of 4 years
i.e. 1972 - 1976.
● Explanation for the failure of Pruitt - Igoe are
complex.
● It is often presented as an architectural failure.
● While it was praised by one architectural
magazine prior to its construction as "the best
high apartment of the year", Pruitt–Igoe never
won any awards for its design.
● Initial proposal by Yamasaki provided a mix of
high-rise, mid-rise and walk-up buildings. But it
exceeded the budget.In 1951, an Architectural
Forum article praised Yamasaki's original
proposal as "the best high apartment" of the year.
● Despite poor build quality, material suppliers
cited Pruitt–Igoe in their advertisements,
capitalizing on the national exposure of the
project.
 WORLD TRADE CENTER
● The original World Trade Center was a large complex of seven buildings in
the Financial District of Lower Manhattan, New York City, United States.
● It opened on April 4, 1973, and was destroyed in 2001 during the September
11 attacks.
● The buildings at the complex were designed by Minoru Yamasaki.
● On September 20, 1962, the Port Authority announced the selection of Minoru
Yamasaki as lead architect and Emery Roth & Sons as associate architects.
● Yamasaki's design for the World Trade Center, unveiled to the public on
January 18, 1964, called for a square plan approximately 208 feet (63 m) in
dimension on each side.
● The buildings were designed with narrow office
windows 18 inches (46 cm) wide, which reflected
Yamasaki's fear of heights as well as his desire to
make building occupants feel secure.
● His design included building facades clad in
aluminum-alloy.
● A major limiting factor in building height is the issue
of elevators; the taller the building, the more
elevators are needed to service it, requiring more
space-consuming elevator banks.
● Yamasaki and the engineers decided to use a new
system with two "sky lobbies"—floors where people
could switch from a large-capacity express elevator
to a local elevator that goes to each floor in a
section.
THANK YOU