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Leon Krier: Crusader Against Post-Modernism
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16903 |
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Section : |
THE ARTS
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| Issue
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4 / 1990 |
2,562 Words |
| Author
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Kenneth Powell
Kenneth Powell is an architecture writer for the London Daily
Telegraph. |
Leon Krier is a self-confessed extremist. He is waging a crusade against the modern city - against the automobile; the sprawling suburb; the business district, busy by day, deserted at night; and against the architects and planners who, he believes, have prostituted their callings by aiding and abetting its creation.
A cult figure on the world's architectural scene for almost decade, Krier has recently assumed a far more substantial presence in Britain through his role as an advisor to the Prince of Wales - now, beyond dispute, Britain's most influential architectural critic.
Prince Charles' interest in architecture is not simply aesthetic in origin, though he deplores the unrelieved concrete, steel, and glass elevations of the 1960s and 1970s and years for a revival of Classicism. London's St. Paul's Cathedral has become for him a symbol of civilized design. Prince Charles - a committed churchman - deplores the fact that the Cathedral is now eclipsed by a ring of faceless office towers, all built since World War II. This he sees as a symbol of spiritual, as much aesthetic, blindness: God giving way to Mammon.
Architecture is just one of the many subjects on which Prince Charles has made controversial pronouncements. But if there is one theme which seems to recur constantly it is that of man's relationship with the natural world. Modern architecture, he believes, is, on the whole, a symptom of our lack of respect for nature.
This is exactly Krier's view and, though Prince Charles is an independent thinker, there can be no doubt that Krier
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