Brad Pitt's New Orleans Housing Criticized

Can you believe it?

Brad Pitt's Make It Right Houses Are Ugly?

Brad Pitt's eco-friendly houses have been criticized by an architect who grew up in the city, saying that the buildings (most still under construction) aren't keeping with the architectural tradition of the Big Easy. Do you think that's a valid complaint, or is Brad Pitt just doing his best to get people back in the Lower Ninth Ward?

The brightly-colored buildings, says Manhattan-based architect James Dart, aren't as popular as was expected. The Brad Pitt Houses, located along the main drag of the Lower Ninth, are built on stilts to protect against flooding, and dwarf the smaller Ninth buildings nearby.

"It's like New York, you know, the skyscrapers," one neighbor said. "And there are going to be more."

The 150 eco-friendly homes were designed by 13 architecture firms, and are "alien, sometimes even insulting," according to Dart. "The biggest problem is that they are not grounded in the history of New Orleans architecture," he added, saying that Pitt could have constructed up to 5 times the number of homes if he had stuck to the original housing plans of Lower Ninth Ward bungalows.

Do you think that different plans should have been made to replace homes in the Lower Ninth Ward? While I think that faster homes could have been beneficial, building something that could be destroyed in the next storm seems silly. Architect James Dart may be from New Orleans, but I'm not sure if what he's saying represents the majority of Lower Ninth residents.