A prophet is not without honour, except in his own country, and his own house.
It is nearly a week now since the death was announced of the visionary architect and planner Leon Krier. For most of his life he was a prophet in his own country and largely without honour. Certainly he was disliked within his own household of architecture by plenty in the profession and associated journalists. I think he may have been held in suspicion by some of the few traditionalist architects working in the UK at the time. One of the reasons for this was stylistic; Krier's classicism was like nothing else, and it certainly was not 'English', certainly not the early 19th century Neo-classical rectory ideal. Unlike them, LK was a polemicist - a rather ungentlemanly thing, perhaps - happy to take the war to the enemy. 'They', after all, had been at war with the city for years - and continue to be so. And then there was his implacable hostility to compromise; 'I am an architect because I don't build', he stated. He was suspected of having private income, and his desire for a better 'work-life balance' was held in suspicion both by Modernist and Traditionalist - how could he be serious?
Leon Krier was born in 1946 in Luxembourg in a Europe damaged by war and beginning a process of reconstruction. And I suppose it was that process of rebuilding, and its manifest failures, that contributed to his conversion from Modernist to Classicist/Traditionalist. In 1968, after a year at the University of Stuttgart reading architecture, he moved to London and the office of James Stirling. He stayed for some four years before striking out on his own. At this point architecture had reached a crisis and 'the ever more militant conservation movement suddenly found itself standing victorious over the collapsed remnants of the Modern Movement.'* (Charles Jencks, tongue in cheek perhaps, pinpointed the time and place of the demise of Modernism thus: "Modern architecture died in St Louis, Missouri on July 15 at 3.32pm (or thereabouts)." That was the moment when the city authorities blew up the Pruitt-Ilgoe housing complex designed by Minoru Yamsaki.)
As I wrote earlier this month about the optimism that a scheme such as the Comyn Ching Triangle evoked. I think the 1970s/80s was an exciting time in London architecturally. Change was in the air. LK was part of this. There was the regular column in Andreas Papadakis's AD Magazine. At a time when Hugh Cumming was editor. Yes, I think it was that monthly column that got me hooked on his work, the designs also and those clever cartoons. LK had a very direct way of communication. And there was the flat in Belsize park where he lived with his then wife the artist Rita Wolff. I went there a number times and it really was something. I suppose it was, and perhaps still is, one of the most sophisticated spaces I 've yet experienced. In the early-ish 1980s I rather cheekily wrote to him to see if he would be kind enough to look over my work. I was invited down to London and his flat. I suppose he was the first intellectual I had met. Thankfully there was ego at at work and he kind and generous - not only with his time (we talked for hours, only taking a break because he had a piano lesson), but with his books. I left with three! As you may know I went on to Kingston Poly (as was) to read architecture. It was not a good place for me. There was barely any formal education, and it had an intellectual life like - well, I don't remember one. I became withdrawn and isolated and that meant amongst other things that shamefully I failed to maintain by friendship with LK, when it may have been in part at least, an antidote to life at Kingston. I still regret my stupidity.
As I wrote earlier this month about the optimism that a scheme such as the Comyn Ching Triangle evoked. I think the 1970s/80s was an exciting time in London architecturally. Change was in the air. LK was part of this. There was the regular column in Andreas Papadakis's AD Magazine. At a time when Hugh Cumming was editor. Yes, I think it was that monthly column that got me hooked on his work, the designs also and those clever cartoons. LK had a very direct way of communication. And there was the flat in Belsize park where he lived with his then wife the artist Rita Wolff. I went there a number times and it really was something. I suppose it was, and perhaps still is, one of the most sophisticated spaces I 've yet experienced. In the early-ish 1980s I rather cheekily wrote to him to see if he would be kind enough to look over my work. I was invited down to London and his flat. I suppose he was the first intellectual I had met. Thankfully there was ego at at work and he kind and generous - not only with his time (we talked for hours, only taking a break because he had a piano lesson), but with his books. I left with three! As you may know I went on to Kingston Poly (as was) to read architecture. It was not a good place for me. There was barely any formal education, and it had an intellectual life like - well, I don't remember one. I became withdrawn and isolated and that meant amongst other things that shamefully I failed to maintain by friendship with LK, when it may have been in part at least, an antidote to life at Kingston. I still regret my stupidity.
Further Reading
'Leon Krier: drawings 1967-1980' Leon Krier, Archives d'Architecture Moderne, 1980
'Rational Architecture: The Reconstruction of the European City' Leon Krier, Archives d'Architecture Moderne, 1985
'Architecture: Choice or Fate' Leon Krier, Andreas Papadakis, 1998
'Drawing for Architecture', Leon Krier, The MIT Press, 2009
'The Architecture of Community' Leon Krier, Island Press, 2009
'Leon Krier: scritti e disegni', Edizione Cluva, 1980, English ed 1984
'Leon Krier: Houses, Palaces, Cities' Demetri Porphyrios, Academy Editions, 1985
'Leon Krier Architecture and Urban Design 1967-1992' Leon Krier, Richard Economakis, David Watkin, Academy Editions, 1992
* 'Scottish Architeture'. Miles Glendinning and Aonghus MacKechnie. Thames & Hudson, 2004
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