14 June 2008

Modern Architects Ruin Cities

An article about Leon Krier in the City Journal:

Krier (says): “Humanity lives by trial and error, sometimes committing errors of a monumental scale. Architectural and urbanist modernism belong—like communism—to a class of errors from which there is little or nothing to learn or gain. . . . Modernism’s fundamental error, however, is to propose itself as a universal (i.e., unavoidable and necessary) phenomenon, legitimately replacing and excluding traditional solutions.”
....
You must, Krier says, “build in such a way that you and those dear to you will use your buildings, look at them, work in them, spend their holidays in them, and grow old in them with pleasure.” Krier suggests that modernists themselves follow this dictum—in private. Modernist vandals like Richard Rogers and Norman Foster—between them, responsible for some of the worst acts of destruction in our European cities—live in elegant old houses in charming locations, where artisanal styles, traditional materials, and humane scales dictate the architectural ambience.
...
such (modern) buildings use no architectural vocabulary, so that one cannot “read” them as one does classical buildings. The passerby experiences this as a kind of rudeness. Modernist buildings exclude dialogue, and the void that they create around themselves is not a public space but a desertification.

...Krier’s “ten-minute rule,” meaning that it should be possible for any resident to walk within ten minutes to the places that are the real reason for his living among strangers. The rule is not as demanding as Americans might think: Paris, Rome, Florence, Madrid, London, and Edinburgh all conform to it, as would the American suburbs if they grew as Krier suggests—as separate centers in a “polypolis,” so that people could work, shop, relax, and worship in places close to home. Good urban planning does not mean creating distance between people in the manner of Frank Lloyd Wright’s ocean-to-ocean suburbs, but bringing people together in ways that enhance their enjoyment of the place where they communally are.
...
... “By creating cities, we create ourselves. When we despoil our cities, we despoil ourselves. Our most cherished memories will henceforth generate the poison of regret, of irretrievable loss, even of hatred of what we prized most. We then flee from the world and from ourselves. A beautiful village, a beautiful house, a beautiful city can become a home for all, a universal home. But if we lose this aim we build our own exile here on earth.”

3 comments:

Jimmy_James said...

"Our most cherished memories will henceforth generate the poison of regret, of irretrievable loss, even of hatred of what we prized most."

Wow, was this guy writing specifically about OTR???

VisuaLingual said...

"such (modern) buildings use no architectural vocabulary, so that one cannot “read” them as one does classical buildings [...] Modernist buildings exclude dialogue."

I actually agree with some of the spirit of what you posted, but the above quote seems unnecessarily broad. Really, there's no example of Modern architecture that uses any architectural vocabulary worthy of mention? Does it really all exclude dialogue? There are examples of colossal failure in Modern architecture, as there have been failures throughout history, but surely something of value has been built in the last 70 years, which has managed to do more than merely copy classical architecture.

CityKin said...

Well, if you think of the cherished buildings in Cincinnati for example, it is hard to come up with one that was built after say Union Terminal or Carew Tower. Some that are built with a lot of attention to the pedestrian (for example the Contemporary Arts Center) are relatively successful. But look at a building like the Terrace Plaza, which is more typical of modern buildings. This was hailed as one of the best buildings of the century when it was completed in 1948 but in reality it is a detriment to that street.

That said, it is easier for me to accept his critique of modern planning than it is to accept his critique of modern buildings.

I just got some photos of a town Krier just built in the Netherlands that I will try to post here. It is very impressive.

He is not advocating that we "copy classical architecture" today, but that we should work in that tradition, and expand it.