Léon Krier 1946-2025
As a teenager in postwar Europe, Léon Krier dreamed of “blasting the cities I saw around me and building skyscrapers”. But by his 20s, the architect, who has died aged 79, had started to undergo a profound shift. Modernism, he would write, was “totalitarian”, “immoral”, soulless, “sordid”, and responsible for ugly urban sprawl. City planners should instead look backwards, and take their inspiration from medieval and Renaissance cities such as Siena, where mixed-used neighbourhoods built on a human scale have roads leading to central squares, and everything is so arranged that residents can walk everywhere. His writing, often accompanied by witty cartoon-style drawings, inspired the movement known as New Urbanism. But most of Krier’s designs remained on paper, said The New York Times, owing to his refusal…
