Forms of Inquiry

16 March 1972: Richard Nixon is US president, but not for much longer. In St Louis, the first blocks of the Pruitt-Igoe housing project are blown up — Charles Jencks claims this is the day that modernism died. The architect of Pruitt-Igoe, Minoru Yamasaki, won’t live to see the destruction of the World Trade Center, which he also designed.

Our choice of date is the beginning of the destruction, rather than the end. A naive reflex to celebrate the start of something new, rather than the demise of modernism. Come to think of it, news of modernism’s death has arguably been exaggerated.

Architects only wear black, so do heavy metal headbangers. Our Pruitt-Igoe t-shirts will be sold in the AA shop during the show and worn by invigilators.

John Wayne, the quintessential American, died of cancer. Some say it was because of his 100-a-day cigarette habit. Others claim he ‘got’ it while filming in Utah, where nuclear tests took place. An unusual number of cast, crew and extras have also died since. The movie (The Conqueror, 1956) was not a success, perhaps because for once he did not incarnate America, but Genghis Khan.

Monument Valley is the location for our monument to Wayne, not neighbouring Utah where he arguably met his death, but at the very heart of where John Ford made him.

Monument Valley is administered by the Navajo nation.