Léon Krier 1

Léon Krier

Village Hall, Windsor Fla,1997, by Léon Krier

Léon Krier (born 7 April 1946 in Luxembourg City) is an architect,architectural theorist and urban planner. From the late 1970s onwardsKrier has been one of the most influential neo-traditional architects andplanners. He is best known for his on going development ofPoundbury, an urban extension to Dorchester, UK for the Duchy ofCornwall under the guidance of Prince of Wales and his Masterplan forCayalá, an extension of Guatemala City. He is one of the first and mostprominent critics of the architectural modernism, mainly of itsfunctional zoning and the ensuing suburbanism, campaigning for thereconstruction of the traditional European city model. These ideas hada great influence on the New Urbanism movement, both in the USAand Europe. The most complete compilation of them is published in hisbook "The Architecture of Community". Léon Krier is the youngerbrother of architect Rob Krier.

He acts as architectural consultant on his urban planning projects butonly designs personnally choice buildings. Amongst his best knownrealizations are the temporary façade at the 1980 Venice Biennale; theKrier house in the resort village of Seaside, Florida, USA (where healso advised on the masterplan); the Arqueological Museum [1] of Sintra, Portugal; the Windsor Village HallFlorida; the Jorge M. Perez Architecture Center[2] on the campus of the University of Miami in Miami, Florida; andthe new Neighbourhood Center Città Nuova in Alessandria, Italy. Currently Leon Krier is involved in the planningfor the reconstruction of Tor Bella Monaca, a degraded suburb of Rome.

CareerKrier abandoned in 1968 his architectural studies at the University of Stuttgart, Germany, after only one year, towork in the office of architect James Stirling in London, UK. After working for Stirling for three years, Krier thenspent 20 years in England practicing and teaching at the Architectural Association and Royal College of Art. In thisperiod, Krier's statement: “I am an architect, because I don’t build”,[3] became a famous expression of hisuncompromising anti-modernist attitude. In 1987-90 Krier was the first director of the SOMAI, the Skidmore,Owings & Merrill Architectural Institute, in Chicago. Since 1990 Krier is involved in designing furniture forGiorgetti, ItalyThough Krier is well known for his defence of classical architecture and the reconstruction of traditional “Europeancity” models, close scrutiny of his work in fact shows a shift from an early Modernist rationalist approach (projectfor University of Bielefeld, 1968) towards a vernacular and classical approach both formally and technologically.The project that marked a major turning point in his campaigning attitude towards the reconstruction of thetraditional European city was his scheme (unrealised) for the 'reconstruction' of his home city of Luxembourg(1978), in response to the radical modernist redevelopment of the city. He later master planned Luxembourg's newCite Judiciaire that was to be architecturally designed by his brother (1990-2008)

Léon Krier 2

On architecture and the cityThe principle behind Krier’s writings has been to explain the rational foundations of architecture and the city, statingthat “In the language of symbols, there can exist no misunderstanding”. That is to say, for Krier, buildings have arational order and typology: a house, a palace, a temple, a campanile, a church; but also a roof, a column, a window,etc., what he terms “nameable objects”. As projects get bigger, he goes on to argue, the buildings should not getbigger, but divide up; thus, for instance, in his unrealised scheme for a school in Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (1978),France, the school became a “city in miniature”. In searching for such a typological architecture, Krier’s work hasbeen termed “an architecture without a style”. However, it has also been pointed out that the appearance of hisarchitecture is very much like Roman architecture, which he then places in all his projects, be it central London,Stockholm, Tenerife or Florida.”[4]

On the development of the cityKrier has written a number of essays − many first published in the journal Architectural Design, often in his ownhandwriting in the form of series of didactic annotated diagrams − against modernist town planning and its principleof dividing up the city into a system of single use zones (housing, shopping, industry, leisure, etc.), as well as theresultant suburbia, commuting, etc. Indeed Krier sees the modern planner as a tyrannical figure that imposesdetrimental megastructural scale.[5]

A selection of manifesto texts by Léon Krier•• The idea of reconstruction•• Critique of zoning•• Town and country•• Critique of the megastructural city•• Critique of industrialisation•• Urban components• The city within the city – Les Quartiers•• The size of a city•• Critique of Modernisms•• Organic versus mechanical composition•• Names and nicknames•• Building and architecture•• The reconstruction of the European city•• What is an urban quartier? Form and legislation

The size of the cityKrier agreed with the viewpoint of the late Heinrich Tessenow that there is a strict relationship between theeconomic and cultural wealth of a city, on the one hand, and the limitation of its population on the other. But this isnot a matter of mere hypothesis, he argues, but historical fact. The measurements and geometric organization of acity and of its quarters are not the result of mere chance or accident or simply of economic necessity, but ratherrepresents a civilizing order which is not only aesthetic and technical but also legislative and ethical.Krier claims, for instance, that “the whole of Paris is a pre-industrial city which still works, because it is so adaptable, something the new creations of the 20th century will never be. A city like Milton Keynes cannot survive an economic crisis, or any other kind of crisis, because it is planned as a mathematically determined social and economic project. If that model collapses, the city will collapse with it.” Thus Krier argues not merely against the contemporary modernist city (he in fact argues that places like Los Angeles, U.S., are not cities), but against a gigantism tendency in urban growth, evident in the exploding scale of urban blocks in European cities throughout the

Léon Krier 3

19th century, which was a result of the concentration of economic, political and cultural power.[6] In response to this,Krier proposed the reconstruction of the European city, based on human scale, with size determined not by zoningand transport routes, but by artisan industries, neighbourhood quartiers, and the premise that one should be able towalk across the quartier in less than ten minutes.Krier has applied his theories in several large-scale, detailed plans for cities in the Western world, including:Kingston upon Hull (1977), Rome (1977), Luxembourg (1978), West Berlin (1980–83), Bremen (1980), Stockholm(1981), Poing Nord, Munich (1983), Washington D.C, (1984); Atlantis, Tenerife (1988); Area Fiat, Novoli, Italy,(1993); Knokke-Heist, Heulebrug Belgium (1998); Newquay growth area (2002-2006), Cornwal, UK; CorbeancaRomania (2007)and Tor Bella Monaca, Rome, 2010. And the ones he is currently implementing for Poundbury(1988 onwards) and Cayalá, Guatemala City (2003 onwards).

A selection of publications• Léon Krier. Houses, Palaces, Cities. Edited by Demetri Porphyrios, Architectural Design, 54 7/8, 1984.• Léon Krier Drawings 1967-1980, Bruxelles, AAM Editions, 1981.• Albert Speer, Architect, Bruxelles, AAM Editions, 1985. New York, Monacelli Press, 2013.• Léon Krier: Architecture & Urban Design 1967-1992, Chicester, John Wiley & Sons, 1993.• Architecture: Choice or Fate, London, Andreas Papadakis Publishers, 1998.• Drawings for Architecture, Cambridge (Massachusetts), MIT Press, 2009.• The Architecture of Community, Washington, Island Press, 2009.

References[1] http:/ / www. museudeodrinhas. com[2] (http:/ / www. traditional-building. com/ Previous-Issues-06/ AprilProject06sensibilty), additional text.[3] Ian Latham, "Léon Krier. A Profile....", Architectural Design, vol. 57, no 1/2, 1987, p.37[4] Charles Jencks, “Post-Modernism and Eclectic Continuity”, Architectural Design, vol. 57, no 1/2, 1987, 25[5] Leon Krier; 'Houses, Palaces, Cities', Architectral Design, London, 54, 7/8, 1984.[6] Leon Krier, “Urban Components”, Architectural Design, vol. 54, no 7/8, 1984, p.43

External links• Léon Krier website (http:/ / zeta. math. utsa. edu/ ~yxk833/ KRIER/ index. html)• 2001 interview on New Urbanism (http:/ / www. planetizen. com/ node/ 32)• Salon.com on Choice or Fate (1998) (http:/ / www. salon. com/ books/ sneaks/ 1998/ 10/ 29sneaks. html)• Drawings for a Danish Pavillon (http:/ / www. arcspace. com/ studio/ krier/ index. htm)• Article 'Cities for Living' (http:/ / www. city-journal. org/ 2008/ 18_2_urb-leon_krier. html) by Roger Scruton at

city-journal.org• New Neighbourhood Centre Città Nuova (http:/ / www. sivim. it/ progetti/ residenziale/ citta_nuova),

Alessandria, Italy.

Article Sources and Contributors 4

Article Sources and ContributorsLéon Krier  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=530616050  Contributors: Altenmann, Bastin, Bryan Derksen, CJGB, Choess, ChrisGualtieri, Christopher Cooper, ColoniesChris, Crystallina, D6, Davidwhitehill, Elekhh, Gilliam, Ipps506, Joy, Kjmiller3, LilHelpa, Mairi, Nikos.salingaros, Pearle, Quaque, RJFJR, Sicilarch, TTKK, TheLongTone, Timrollpickering,Valentinian, Verne Equinox, 30 anonymous edits

Image Sources, Licenses and ContributorsFile:WINDSOR-VILLAGE HALL 1997.tiff  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:WINDSOR-VILLAGE_HALL_1997.tiff  License: Creative CommonsAttribution-Sharealike 3.0  Contributors: Ipps506

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