This Month we put aside the eyesore motif to remember Leon Krier (1946-2025), the great architect and urbanist who was “godfather” to the movement for restoring artistry, beauty, and decorum in an everyday world much debased by the idiocies of various Modern-isms, and by the fiasco of suburban sprawl.
I stumbled on Leon Krier in 2009 when our beautiful, walkable village proposed a monstrous apartment complex in its heart and next door to our home. I was just a layman with zero knowledge of zoning laws, city planning and architecture. I carried my copy of Krier's "Architecture in Community" to every borough council and zoning meeting, and boy did I get an education in public apathy and how corrupt little towns can be. I found and personally financed an urban architect familiar with Krier's work to redesign the apartment complex, and got the developer and the town's zoning commission to approve. Because of the enemies I made among the borough council--uncovering their corruption--it took another election cycle to get their approval. Krier was a genius and gave me the ammunition I needed to stop an architectural disaster.
There's a Gehry museum in Minneapolis that looked like a giant forced air furnace dumped on the bank of the Mississippi. It offended me so much that I searched and found New Urbanism (before it went all wrong.)
The art museum in Mpls. you refer to is the Weisman. It's the first building you see on the east side of the Mississippi as you enter the Univ. of MN from the west. What a great intro to the campus. Gasp!
Thank you, Jim. In what is now a darkening world, this gentleman does indeed bring beauty and decorum to the man-made environment. Would that there were more like him!
I didn’t know that Cayala was designed by Leon Krier. I visited my sister in-law in Guatemala three times when she had an apartment in the Cayala village. I love the place and always felt like that is how humans were meant to organize their civic spaces.
Fine post, JHK. About five years ago you had a podcast with Ann Sussman on the impact of architecture on our brain - it was a real eye opener for me how she described the framework of positive and negative buildings and design in urban settings.
Hoping our host gets back to writing occasionally about architecture and urbanism. It’s really bizarre how the topdown, often academic-leftist, we-know-what’s-good-for-everyone crowd has appropriated the principles and rhetoric of the New Urbanism, a populist and bottom-up movement if ever there was one. What kind of sense does JHK make of this?
It's Woke politics and DEI, which infected the Congress for the New Urbanism org as badly as any other elite institution in our country. Sorry to say, the joint was different when men ran it in the early years.
Nothing could be more true that this man was a world treasure. As a person that was heavily involved in New Urbanism, I can confirm that Krier was the guiding light and beacon everyone was directed by. Godspeed his passing, and his peaceful repose. The world is better for his having been here. I pray all of us can claim that when we meet our gentle goodnight.
What a wonderful tribute. Thanks Jim for sharing with us someone who made the world a prettier place.
I stumbled on Leon Krier in 2009 when our beautiful, walkable village proposed a monstrous apartment complex in its heart and next door to our home. I was just a layman with zero knowledge of zoning laws, city planning and architecture. I carried my copy of Krier's "Architecture in Community" to every borough council and zoning meeting, and boy did I get an education in public apathy and how corrupt little towns can be. I found and personally financed an urban architect familiar with Krier's work to redesign the apartment complex, and got the developer and the town's zoning commission to approve. Because of the enemies I made among the borough council--uncovering their corruption--it took another election cycle to get their approval. Krier was a genius and gave me the ammunition I needed to stop an architectural disaster.
It sounds like heroic work you did!
What a great figure. And unlike a lot of “great” architects who peddle their “greatness,” Krier's drawings and writing embody his cosmic wit.
As opposed to today's celebrity architects, who create monuments to their own egos that are pure misery for human beings to inhabit.
There's a Gehry museum in Minneapolis that looked like a giant forced air furnace dumped on the bank of the Mississippi. It offended me so much that I searched and found New Urbanism (before it went all wrong.)
Gehry's buildings look like waking nightmares and, as Jim has pointed out, will be impossible to maintain, once they start to deteriorate.
The art museum in Mpls. you refer to is the Weisman. It's the first building you see on the east side of the Mississippi as you enter the Univ. of MN from the west. What a great intro to the campus. Gasp!
Thank you, Jim. In what is now a darkening world, this gentleman does indeed bring beauty and decorum to the man-made environment. Would that there were more like him!
Eloquent tribute. Thank you for introducing Leon to your readers.
That cityscape pic is really pretty.
I didn’t know that Cayala was designed by Leon Krier. I visited my sister in-law in Guatemala three times when she had an apartment in the Cayala village. I love the place and always felt like that is how humans were meant to organize their civic spaces.
The photograph is wonderful. Perfect balance in design. I hope Battenkill has Krier's book.
Amazon is "Brutalist Architecture".
Thank you!
Lovely
Thanks!!! Some years ago, I attended a New Urbanism conference in Seaside, Florida! I did not know of this gentleman!
His beautiful face reflects the lovely mind and artist within. I'm sorry for your loss, and sorry for society's loss.
Fine post, JHK. About five years ago you had a podcast with Ann Sussman on the impact of architecture on our brain - it was a real eye opener for me how she described the framework of positive and negative buildings and design in urban settings.
https://www.kunstler.com/p/kunstlercast-331-b93
We sure need more of the positive these days.....
Thanks for sharing. RIP Leon 🙏🏻♥️
Hoping our host gets back to writing occasionally about architecture and urbanism. It’s really bizarre how the topdown, often academic-leftist, we-know-what’s-good-for-everyone crowd has appropriated the principles and rhetoric of the New Urbanism, a populist and bottom-up movement if ever there was one. What kind of sense does JHK make of this?
Wjhat do I make of it, Sawbilly?
It's Woke politics and DEI, which infected the Congress for the New Urbanism org as badly as any other elite institution in our country. Sorry to say, the joint was different when men ran it in the early years.
I’d love to buy you a drink and hear more about that.
Might be of interest:
https://stephnakhleh.substack.com/p/abundance-strong-towns-and-the-real
Nothing could be more true that this man was a world treasure. As a person that was heavily involved in New Urbanism, I can confirm that Krier was the guiding light and beacon everyone was directed by. Godspeed his passing, and his peaceful repose. The world is better for his having been here. I pray all of us can claim that when we meet our gentle goodnight.