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The Guardian
25-06-2025
- General
- The Guardian
Léon Krier obituary
A colonnade of doric columns flanks the entrance to the neoclassical Waitrose building in Poundbury, Dorchester, in Dorset, facing on to the congested car park of Queen Mother Square. Across the plaza stands a creamy yellow palazzo, crowned with a royal crested-pediment, and a Palladian hotel named the Duchess of Cornwall. A gigantic brick campanile rises above the Royal Pavilion from a triumphal stone arch, looming over the square. 'It was supposed to be the magistrates court,' the town's master-planner, Léon Krier, told me in 2016, on a tour of the then Prince Charles's model village. 'But it ended up as luxury flats. I suppose that's the spirit of our time. After all, the master-planner is not the master of the game.' Krier, who has died aged 79, was one of the most influential town planners of his generation, but not always in the way he intended. He was a leading figure of the New Urbanism movement, advocating a return to traditional, walkable neighbourhoods and compact, human-scale development, railing against modernism as the 'perpetrator of sprawl'. And yet his work often led to car-reliant dormitory towns, exclusive gated communities, and the very suburban sprawl he despised. Poundbury is Krier's most substantial built legacy, a project that was widely ridiculed when it began in the 1980s, but which time has vindicated in many ways. Set in 200 hectares of the Duchy of Cornwall in Dorset, the plan was modelled on an 18th-century English village, with narrow, winding streets, lined with traditional terraced homes, leading to public squares, where grander classical buildings would indicate their civic function. Critics compared it to Marie Antoinette's 'hameau' in Versailles, a pretend rustic hamlet where the haughty queen played at being a peasant. The Observer slammed it as 'fake, heartless, authoritarian and grimly cute,' decrying its 'counterfeit design and cack-handed pastiche.' Yet unlike so many lifeless developer-built estates, it combined industrial space, stores and small workshops among the housing, now employing 2,600 people in 250 businesses. It has worked: house prices are up to a quarter higher than the surrounding area, while 35% of the homes are affordable, scattered throughout the development, rather than corralled into separate blocks. Far from being an anachronism, Poundbury's principles of mixed-use, low-rise high-density have been widely taken up, forming the basis of the present government's new towns plan – if, perhaps, without the classical fancy dress. Krier was born in Luxembourg to Jean, a tailor who specialised in bishops' robes, and his wife, Emma (nee Lanser). As a child he had dreams of becoming a professional pianist, but eventually followed his elder brother, Robert, by studying architecture at the University of Stuttgart, where he developed an enthusiastic interest in the work of Albert Speer, architect of the Nazi regime. He dropped out in 1968, after only a year. Many years later, in 1985, Krier wrote a book on Speer that brought him notoriety and condemnation, but he always insisted that architecture could be separated from the ideology of the regime it serves. 'You can accuse almost every decent building in the past of being built by a regime which you don't agree with,' he said. 'If your clients are evil people, but they let you build what you think is right, you should do it. These evil people will leave something behind which is going to better serve mankind.' Having dropped out from his studies, Krier sent his portfolio of drawings to the architect James Stirling in London, who spotted the talent in this confident young draughtsman and hired him. Together they worked on a project for Olivetti headquarters in Milton Keynes, and a competition for the Siemens headquarters in Munich. Both were unrealised, but Krier's neoclassical proclivities had a great influence on Stirling as he shifted towards postmodernism, incorporating historical motifs and playful touches in his work. However, after three years with Stirling, Krier decided to move into teaching architecture and urbanism at the Architectural Association from 1974 to 1976, where Zaha Hadid was one of his students, and then at the Royal College of Art in 1977. Something of a lone voice in the 70s, he saw modernism as an aberration, a 'totalitarian ideology' responsible for the 'garbage culture' of the North American city, which he saw as 'a place of damnation'. He published his fiery proclamations in pithy texts, illustrated by witty cartoons, but his work mostly remained on paper, in the world of hypothetical plans – in part thanks to his stubborn refusal to compromise. 'I can only make architecture,' he said, 'because I do not build.' He thought that 'accepting compromises means losing. I have seen it in all my friends who build.' That changed when Krier met the then Prince of Wales. Their first encounter, at an exhibition of Krier's unrealised vision for Spitalfields market in 1986, led to several invitations to Highgrove. At one such meeting, two years into sharing their passions for traditional architecture, Charles had a brainwave. 'We were sitting in the garden at the palace,' Krier told me. 'Then HRH banged the table, pointed at me, and said: 'How can I build Krier Town?''. Though Krier generally approved of the results, he thought some of the first Poundbury buildings were 'ghastly', criticising the architects for getting their columns upside down and chastising the builders for making most of the homes with concrete blocks, not load-bearing stone, as he had wished. As the master-planner he had little control over such things. Begun in 1993, the project is due to be completed by late 2028, when it will be home to around 6,000 people. Krier might have longed to revive the golden age of European city building, but his most receptive audience was found in Florida. There he master-planned Seaside, a resort community of white picket fences where The Truman Show was filmed, and where he built a house for himself, styled like a Greek temple perched atop a clapboard villa. His other completed buildings in Florida included a town hall for Windsor, a luxury golf-themed gated community in North Beach, styled like a huge dovecot, and an architecture centre for the University of Miami, crowned with art deco-ish turrets. He also realised an archaeology museum in Portugal, a plan for the city centre of Alessandria in Italy, and an exclusive extension to Guatemala City, called Cayalá, advertised as a place 'where the rich can escape crime'. Many more elaborate visions came to nought. In 1987 Krier concocted a utopian 'academic village' in Tenerife, called Atlantis, commissioned by a pair of German art gallerists. Inspired by Persian, Greek and Roman architecture, dotted with pyramids, obelisks and conical spires, it was to be a place, said Krier, where 'meritorious individuals who excel in their fields of science, humanities, arts, ecology, crafts, philosophy, farming' would be invited to live. It never left the realm of the evocative renderings painted by his first wife, Rita Wolff. More recently Britain narrowly missed out on a final Krier confection when his £2.3bn scheme for the site of Fawley power station on the Solent, near Southampton, was abandoned last year, on grounds of viability. He had once hoped to top the power station's defunct 200-metre high chimney with a classical capital, to make it the largest Tuscan column in the world. Sometimes such flights of fancy prove impossible without the patronage of a prince. Krier is survived by his second wife, Irene Stillman (nee Pérez-Porro), whom he married in 2021. His brother Robert died in 2023. Léon Ernest Krier, town planner, born 7 April 1946; died 17 June 2025
Times
20-06-2025
- General
- Times
Léon Krier obituary: architect who designed Poundbury
Léon Krier once described himself as 'an architect, because I don't build'. As a minority voice in his profession who deplored the modernism that had dominated postwar architecture, Krier said he had made himself redundant. He assumed that he would remain a 'utopianist' for the rest of his life. Then he met Prince Charles (now the King). By the mid-Eighties the Prince of Wales was the British architecture profession's public enemy No 1 after a speech in 1984 in which he described a proposed extension of the National Gallery as a 'monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much-loved and elegant friend'. Charles and the London-based architectural theorist and academic Krier were destined to meet. They did so at an exhibition in 1986 to present Krier's masterplan to restore a Georgian quarter of London's Spitalfields that was under threat from modern development. Krier's elegant drawings acted like catnip on the royal visitor. 'He [Charles] said, 'Let's talk',' recalled the Luxembourg-born Krier, who wore slightly dandified Edwardian-style outfits topped off by his trademark silk scarves and had the air of a central European intellectual. 'And then he [Charles] said 'Would you like to be my consultant on architecture and particularly on urbanism?' and I said, 'Wow, my God. How could I refuse.' And then we'd meet at strange times and places. Like 3am with some Russian princess in Chelsea.' He remembered feeling touched by the 'desperate, even tragic ring' to Charles's voice when lamenting architecture. Charles had continued to blame architects for ruining postwar Britain, but in 1988 seized his chance to develop his own urban Arcadia on 400 acres of land, near the Dorset town of Dorchester, owned by his Duchy of Cornwall. The development would be planned in rigorous accordance with Krier's 'New Urbanist' principles of human scale. No building could be more than five storeys and would be configured in traditional street patterns. Houses and businesses would exist cheek by jowl. 'Timeless' materials of stone, brick and wood would be used. No one could be more than 15 minutes away from all the amenities they might need and even their place of work. Car use would be minimal. To reduce the urban sprawl he so deplored, he proposed reintroducing terraced housing that had become anathema to the modernists. It was a social experiment to disprove so much of the postwar urban redevelopment that replaced traditional street patterns and market squares with dual carriageways through town and city centres surrounded by residential tower blocks and the zoning of residential and commercial uses that created car-dependent suburban sprawl. 'Modernism is a totalitarian ideology which, like all dogmatism, is based on unprovable assumptions,' Krier said. About a year after starting on the project, Krier presented his masterplan for Poundbury, replete with Italianate piazzas linked by tree-lined streets. The plan was strong on details, from elaborate lampposts to wrought-iron fencing. Alarmed staff at the Duchy of Cornwall warned Charles that Krier's plans would be far too expensive. Krier countered that the rise in values would justify the cost in the long run. According to Clive Aslet's recent book King Charles III: 40 years of Architecture, the duchy appointed the surveyors Drivers Jonas to 'rein Krier in'. Krier had walked away from many other projects for less. 'He was gentle but uncompromising in everything he did, preferring to withdraw than be drawn into political skirmishes, inhuman bureaucracy or pollute his designs,' said his wife Irene. Matters came to a head at the prince's home, Highgrove, in Gloucestershire, when Krier, Christopher Jonas and Charles looked at the plans laid out on the large dining table. Jonas said: 'Sir, we will of course take on board what Mr Krier says.' The prince banged his fist on the table and replied: 'Christopher, you are not going to take on board what Leo says, you are going to do what he tells you.'Krier recalled: 'From then on it was open war. He called me from everywhere saying, 'You can't do this.' And I'd say, 'You have to do it. The prince wants it and he is The Boss.'' In June 1989 a marquee was erected at Poundbury Farm and the public were invited to view Krier's masterplan. It was an exercise in community architecture run by Charles's friend, the architect John Thompson. Sometimes the prince himself would arrive by helicopter and drop in on meetings unannounced. The marquee was packed and local people were mostly won round, although many thought that the buildings were too classical. An unabashed classicist by personal taste, Krier revised his plans with vernacular architecture more in keeping with the surrounding area. Planning permission for phase one was achieved in 1991. Britain was in the midst of a property crash, which many smugly predicted would scupper Poundbury — especially as Krier had ignored the advice of property experts and sited affordable housing alongside the more expensive private properties. As the buildings started to rise up in 1993, the profession went to war on Poundbury. It was sneeringly described as a 'Toy Town' pastiche of neoclassicism with its portentous porticos and public squares. A critic in this newspaper once said: 'If Hallmark were to film a Christmas movie in Britain, Poundbury would be an ideal setting.' Yet over the years the community has continued to thrive. There are now some 4,500 people living there, with 185 businesses sustaining 2,300 jobs. Poundbury has been visited by architects, planners and developers from all over the world. The estate agent Savills reported that Poundbury homes are on average worth 25 per cent more than other homes on the local market. Krier himself lived for many years in a townhouse in Belsize Park, north London, full of 19th-century Biedermeier furniture. To his critics in the profession Krier said: 'Look at where architects live. They live in old traditional houses just as I do. Why do they impose these inhuman structures on others?' For much of Krier's professional life this view was countercultural, but when the tide turned he came to be known as the 'godfather of New Urbanism'. Léon Ernest Krier was born in Luxembourg in 1946 to Jean Pierre Jacques Krier, a tailor who specialised in ecclesiastical robes and supplied most of the bishops in the country. His mother was Emma Marguerite (née Lanser). He grew up in a small, handsome town that he later described as a 'perfect embodiment of New Urbanism' and attended the Lycée Classique in the baroque monastery of L'Abbaye d'Echternach. He wanted to be a pianist, but decided to study architecture to follow in the footsteps of his elder brother Robert, whom he hero-worshipped. As a teenager he was a confirmed modernist and dreamt of 'blasting the cities I saw around me and building skyscrapers'. Then he realised that he was 'in love with the cities of Italy'. 'I tried hard to reconcile them with the theories of Le Corbusier. It was impossible.' He won a place to study architecture at the University of Stuttgart, but found his tutors impossible to talk to. The situation worsened when he researched the work of Albert Speer, the architect of the Third Reich, and his teachers described Krier's scholarship as 'fascist'. He left without graduating and moved to London, where he worked in the office of the modernist architect James Stirling. Four years working for 'big Jim' cured him of any remaining proclivities towards modernism. After leaving Stirling's office he developed masterplans for Kingston upon Hull, Rome, Luxembourg, West Berlin, Bremen, Stockholm, Munich and Washington, none of which were taken forward. He made his living teaching at the Architectural Association and the Royal College of Art, where he made his reputation as a lone architectural theorist crying in the wilderness. While working on Poundbury in the Nineties, he also masterplanned the Cité Judiciaire in his native Luxembourg. In recent years he worked on projects in Guatemala City and a new town near San Miguel de Allende in Mexico. In 2017 it emerged that he was working on a waterside masterplan to redevelop Fawley power station on the Solent, near Southampton, into 1,500 homes on a 300-acre site. The £2.3 billion project became known in the press as 'Venice in Britain', but, without the royal protection he had enjoyed at Poundbury, the scheme was largely cancelled last year after the developers said it was no longer viable. Krier was divorced from his first wife Rita Wolf, a painter. He is survived by his second wife Irene. Defending his New Urbanist approach to placemaking, Krier said: 'Traditional architecture and urbanism is not an ideology, religion, or transcendental system. It cannot save lost souls or give meaning to empty lives. It is a body of knowledge and know-how allowing us to build practically, aesthetically, socially and economically satisfying cities and structures. Such structures do not ensure happiness but they certainly facilitate the pursuit of happiness for a large majority of people.' Poundbury is due to be completed in 2028, 35 years after it broke ground, at which point there will be homes for 6,000 people. When he started work on the project Krier was a 43-year-old with what a profile in The Guardian described as 'a mad scientist mop of black hair'. By the time of his death the hair was snowy white but in the same unruly mop and he was proud to be the only member of the original team still involved in the project, along with the King. Léon Krier CVO, architectural theorist and urban planner, was born on April 7, 1946. He died of colon cancer on June 17, 2025, aged 79
