Washington Square Village and University Village: Le Corbusier’s Garden City in a New York Context
Washington Square Village and University Village are two superblocks to the south of Washington Square Park, both property of NYU. Built during the 1950s and 60s respectively, these apartment blocks are very much reminiscent of their European contemporaries, and provide a great insight to the developing aesthetics of modern housing architecture during that time period.
Washington Square Village was developed by Paul Tishman and Morton S. Wolf opened for rent in 1958. Designed by S. J. Kessler and Sons with help from Paul Lester Weiner and Sasaki, Walker & Associates, The complex takes up the space of 6 normal blocks, and consists of 2 main buildings, a courtyard in between them, and a string of shops on the west side of the complex. The main buildings are concrete plastered in tiles, which are mostly a light grey-ish white, with strips of red, blue, and yellow going down the long faces. The structures run almost the entire 3 blocks West to East, in a form very much reminiscent of Le Corbusier’s Unite d’Habitation projects from the late 40s to the 50s, from the long strip shape, to the use of primary colours as accents to the otherwise plain and geometric forms.
On the other hand, University Village took a quite different approach to the superblock design. Sprawling four blocks, it consists of three tall but skinny towers, with a supermarket and green space filling the rest of the area. It was designed by James Ingo Freed and Ioeh Ming Pei and completed in 1966. The three towers are constructed in a brutalist style, with exposed rough-cast concrete and large, uniform windows, creating a sense of solidity and weight. This style is way more reminiscent of its English contemporaries, such as the Barbican Estate and Balfron Tower, both of which started construction in 1965. There is again a central square between the three residential buildings of University Village, even featuring a Picasso sculpture. An NYU gym was once also on property, though it has since been demolished and in its place today is the University’s brand new 181 Mercer St building, nearing completion and set to be open in Spring 2023.
Washington Square Village’s design loyally follows the theories (and at this point in time also existing executions) of Le Corbusier’s Garden City:
“There are gardens, games and sports grounds. And sky everywhere, as far as the eye can see. The square silhouettes of the terraced roofs stand clear against the sky, bordered with the verdure of the hanging gardens. The uniformity of the units that compose the picture throw into relief the firm lines on which the far-flung masses are constructed. Their outlines softened by distance, the sky-scrapers raise immense geometrical façades all of glass, and in them is reflected the blue glory of the sky.”
If one were to take a walk through the garden of Washington Square Village, they would find that it almost perfectly matches Corbusier's visions. Meanwhile, University Village’s architecture is somewhat more fitting to Le Corbusier’s vision of the Sky-scraper area, where he envisions“95 per cent of the ground is open (squares, restaurants, theatres).” Although no Theatre is present and the restaurants are a block north, alongside Washington Square Village, this is very much a trivial deviation from the Corbusian principles.
Interestingly enough, Corbusier himself was very critical of New York in the interwar era, criticising its chaotic nature, congestion, and in the context of this essay, “the meagre shaft of sunlight which so faintly illuminates the dismal streets of New York”. While Le Corbusier’s criticism of New York is more based on its overwhelming amount of skyscrapers compacted into tight areas downtown, there is no denying of New York’s lumination problem within its older housing units either. Jacob Riis’ photographs depicting the horrible living conditions of Tenement housing were made less than 40 years before Corbusier’s writings, and one could argue that the conditions after the New York State Tenement House Act of 1901 is still less than ideal. Perhaps at least humane, but nowhere near satisfactory. New York would end up enforcing setbacks on skyscrapers above a certain height in the 1916 Zoning Resolution, but it is still nowhere near the level of openness that Le Corbusier proposes.
Washington Square Village and University Village are not the only housing complexes following Corbusian philosophy in the US during that period. However they definitely have some of the best resolutions. Many similar buildings, mostly Government housing projects, end up with issues of crime and decay, from a complex array of socio-economic problems and lack of proper care and administration from the government. One particularly unfortunate example is the Pruitt-Igoe Housing Project of St Louis, which after its opening in 1954, quickly fell into decline and was ultimately demolished in 1972, not even 20 years after opening. University of Missouri professor Eugene Meehan, a researcher of public policy making, wrote that The Pruitt-Igoe project was haunted by “a set of policies programmed for failure”. The two NYU superblocks on the other hand are extremely lucky to be in the hands of a large private university. As they are used mostly for student and faculty housing, they are well taken care of by not only the university, but also the group of educated tenants.
The Future of the blocks is not exactly certain, especially with Washington Square Village, which is under consideration for demolition and/or rebuild under the NYU 2031 plan. Some of the more outrageous plans, including one that proposes “a five-story building and two-story plinth replacing the Sasaki-designed garden, and a 20-story building to replace the children’s playground to the east of the garden”. The plan is under fire from Architecture fans and preservation communities for understandable reasons, and no official plan has been made for the complexes. For as long as we know, they will continue to stand tall in Greenwich Village, as a testament to the Utopian urban ideals of Le Corbusier.