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Towers in the park is a
Globe and Mail, John Bentley Mays, May 12, 2011 high rise apartment buildings characterized by a high-rise building (a "slab") surrounded by a swath of landscaped land. Thus, the tower does not directly front the street. It was popular in North American and European cities in the 1960s and into the 1970s, especially for
Towers in the park is a morphology
Morphology, from the Greek and meaning "study of shape", may refer to:
Disciplines
*Morphology (archaeology), study of the shapes or forms of artifacts
*Morphology (astronomy), study of the shape of astronomical objects such as nebulae, galaxies, ...
of modernistHow to rejuvenate urban 'towers in the park'Globe and Mail, John Bentley Mays, May 12, 2011 high rise apartment buildings characterized by a high-rise building (a "slab") surrounded by a swath of landscaped land. Thus, the tower does not directly front the street. It was popular in North American and European cities in the 1960s and into the 1970s, especially for
public housing
Public housing is a form of housing tenure in which the property is usually owned by a government authority, either central or local. Although the common goal of public housing is to provide affordable housing, the details, terminology, de ...
. The towers themselves are typically simple, brick-clad high-rise buildings with rectangular footprints and little ornamentation other than repeating series of balconies
A balcony (from it, balcone, "scaffold") is a platform projecting from the wall of a building, supported by columns or console brackets, and enclosed with a balustrade, usually above the ground floor.
Types
The traditional Maltese balcony is ...
for each apartment. However, some apartment buildings from this era use less conventional designs in the "tower in the park" format.
History
Le Corbusier pioneered the "tower in a park" morphology in his unrealized 1923Ville Contemporaine The Ville contemporaine (, ''Contemporary City'') was an unrealized utopian planned community intended to house three million inhabitants designed by the French-Swiss architect Le Corbusier in 1922.
Plan
The centerpiece of this plan was a group of ...
. Responding to the squalid conditions of cities in the 1920s, Le Corbusier proposed razing the old cities and replacing them with new, clean, hyper-rationalist layouts employing the "tower in a park" morphology. The skyscrapers were intended to house the new city's three million residents on only 5% of the land. By placing the buildings near the center of the block, there is room for parking, lawns, trees, and other landscaping elements. Le Corbusier further employed the morphology in his 1930 plan for Paris, the Ville Radieuse
Ville radieuse (, ''Radiant City'') was an unrealised urban design project designed by the French-Swiss architect Le Corbusier in 1930. It constitutes one of the most influential and controversial urban design doctrines of European modernism.
Al ...
(also unrealized). Owing to the wide diffusion and influence of these two plans and their ideas post– World War II, especially the latter, the "tower in the park" morphology spread throughout Europe and North America.
Criticism and current state
By the early 1970s, opposition to this style of towers mounted, with many, including urban planners, now referring to them as " ghettos".Tall Buildings, Toronto Star, August 27, 1973, C3 Neighbourhoods likeSt. James Town
St. James Town (sometimes misspelled St. Jamestown) is a neighbourhood of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It lies in the northeast corner of the downtown area. The neighbourhood covers the area bounded by Jarvis Street to the west, Bloor Street East to ...
were originally designed to house young "swinging single" middle class residents, but the apartments lacked appeal and the area quickly became much poorer.
Some public housing projects taking the form of towers in a park in the United States, most notably Pruitt-Igoe in St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...
, were demolished because of deteriorating conditions. This was principally caused by the worsening economic circumstances of residents and an overall disinvestment in public housing. By the mid 2000s, green space surrounding some of the towers began being developed with new towers in an effort to increase density.
See also
Some examples of the tower in a park morphology are below: *Vladeck Houses
Vladeck Houses is a public housing development built and maintained by the New York City Housing Authority on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.
Background
The development is named after Baruch Charney Vladeck (1886–1938), who was general ...
in New York City, New York
*Morrisania, Bronx
Morrisania ( ) is a residential neighborhood in the southwestern Bronx, New York City, New York. Its boundaries are the Cross-Bronx Expressway to the north, Crotona-Prospect Avenue to the east, East 161st Street to the south, and Webster Avenue ...
in New York City, New York
*Pruitt–Igoe
The Wendell O. Pruitt Homes and William Igoe Apartments, known together as Pruitt–Igoe (), were joint urban housing projects first occupied in 1954 in St. Louis, Missouri, United States. The complex consisted of 33 eleven-story high rises, d ...
in St. Louis, Missouri (demolished)
*Red Road Flats
The Red Road Flats were a mid-twentieth-century high-rise housing complex located between the districts of Balornock and Barmulloch in the northeast of the city of Glasgow, Scotland. The estate originally consisted of eight multi-storey block ...
in Glasgow, Scotland (demolished)
*Broadwater Farm
Broadwater Farm, often referred to simply as "The Farm", is an area in Tottenham, North London, straddling the River Moselle. The eastern half of the area is dominated by the Broadwater Farm Estate ("BWFE"), an experiment in high- density soc ...
in London, England
*Co-op City, Bronx
Co-op City (short for Cooperative City) is a cooperative housing development located in the northeast section of the borough of the Bronx in New York City. It is bounded by Interstate 95 to the southwest, west, and north and the Hutchinson River ...
in New York City, New York
* Ballymun Flats
The Ballymun Flats referred to a number of flats—including the seven Ballymun tower blocks—in Ballymun, Dublin, Ireland. Built rapidly in the 1960s, there were 36 blocks in total, consisting of seven 15-storey, nineteen eight-storey, and t ...
in Dublin, Ireland (demolished)
* Bishan-Ang Mo Kio Park
Bishan-Ang Mo Kio Park or Bishan-AMK Park, (formerly known as Bishan Park) is a major park in Singapore, located in the popular heartland of Bishan. Serving the residents of Bishan, Yishun and Ang Mo Kio, the park sits entirely within Bishan, runn ...
in Singapore
* Parkchester
Parkchester is a planned community and neighborhood originally developed by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company and located in the central Bronx, New York City. The immediate surrounding area also takes its name from the complex. Its boundari ...
in New York City, New York
* Starrett City, Brooklyn
Starrett City (formally known as the Spring Creek Towers) is a housing development in the Spring Creek section of East New York, in Brooklyn, New York City. It is located on a peninsula on the north shore of Jamaica Bay, bounded by Fresh Creek t ...
in New York City, New York
* Stuyvesant Town–Peter Cooper Village in New York City, New York
* Unité d'habitation in Marseille, France
References
{{reflist Modernist architecture