Syeda Fatima Ms. Bochenek APLAC 18 May 2015 WHAT ROLE DID
ARCHITECTURE PLAY IN THE FAILURE OF THE ROBERT TAYLOR HOMES?
Slide 2
My interest in public housing Gang Leader for a Day History
fair project Architecture in Chicago PROCESS
Slide 3
Newspaper articles Books focus on public housing in general
Difficult to find books specific to the Robert Taylor Homes
SOURCES
Slide 4
Began with internet sources Discovered the three main reasons
for the failure of the Robert Taylor Homes Chicago Housing
Authority Institutionalized racism Architecture RESEARCH
PROCESS
Slide 5
Architecture was the greatest factor in the failure of the
Robert Taylor Homes 28 high-rise buildings, housed 27,000 people
Built by the Dan Ryan Expressway ARGUMENT
Slide 6
Youth disorder Maintenance issues Lack of schools Illicit
activities RESULTS OF THE ARCHITECTURE OF THE ROBERT TAYLOR
HOMES
Slide 7
Many cite tenant selection as the reason for the failure of the
Robert Taylor Homes Institutionalized Racism CHA wanted the Robert
Taylor Homes to fail COUNTERARGUMENT
Slide 8
RTH were demolished by 2007 after new legislation was passed in
Congress Residents were relocated to scatter site housing projects
Large scale public housing projects were never again constructed
Failed due to its architectural structure CONCLUSION
Slide 9
Biles, Roger. Richard J. Daley: Politics, Race, and the
Governing of Chicago. DeKalb: Northern Illinois UP, 1995. Print.
Brodt, Bonita. "Dream of Progress Died Quickly at Taylor Homes."
Chicago Tribune 3 Dec. 1986: 13. Print. Hunt, D. Bradford.
Blueprint for Disaster: The Unraveling of Chicago Public Housing.
Chicago: University of Chicago. 2009. Print. Jacobs, Scott, and
Edward T. Pound. "Elevator Repairs-- a $2.5-million-a-year CHA
Expense." Chicago Sun-Times 23 July 1975: 21. Print. Kamin, Blair.
Why Architecture Matters: Lessons from Chicago. Chicago: U of
Chicago. 2001. Print. Prince, Alice. "The Robert Taylor Homes:
Failure of Public Housing." The Urban Fringe. Berkeley Planning
Journal, 04 June 2013. Web. 22 Mar. 2015.. Urban, Florian. Tower
and Slab: Histories of Global Mass Housing. Abingdon, Oxon:
Routledge, 2012. Print. Venkatesh, Sudhir Alladi. American Project:
The Rise and Fall of a Modern Ghetto. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP,
2000. Print. WORKS CITED
