0 Tempora, 0 Mores! : on the work of Leon Krier

• Brace yourself: what do Cicero and Cato, Albert Speer and Paul Ludwig Troost, William Morris and John Ruskin, Quinlan Terry and Rod Hackney, Adam Smith and Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Hobbes and Edmund Burke, Burberry's and Laura Ashley, Camillo Sitte and Hendrik Petrus Berlage (with apologies to any we may have missed), all have to do with Luxemburger/Briton Leon Krier? It is personal - they all crop up somewhere in the chain of associations we have with the work of Krier the architect and anti-revolutionary visionary. In some cases you might think they really do have a direct influence on Krier's words and thinking, and that he would not exist at all without their historie work. But then you realise that this view of Krier isn't fair, and !hat the associations continue where Krier himself leaves off. His project touches on themes to which the Western world has become ultra-sensitive and whose diabolical colouring makes them strictly taboo. The question is thus whether Krier can be blamed for the fact that we tremble for the implications of his approach, while he himself restricts his role as prophet of doom to the area of architectural discourse and is primarily con­cerned with the design. He opts for art where a less creative spirit might have chosen a risky political course. Therefore Krier can not be dismissed with the usual liberal right­mindedness that is the common reflex reaction to conservatism. On the contrary, it is Krier's artistic skill that forces us to listen to his proposals, makes his work unignorable and tricks us into letting ourselves be seduced by what places him head and shoulders above the modern politician: quality. That is to say, his penetrating eye, his critical spir­it, his biting words, his graphic skill, his organisational strength and his talent for mobil­ising his sympathisers into a Party with a Cause.One of those sympathisers is the crown prince of what was once the world's mightiest royal house. Now both the nation and the Windsor dynasty are showing signs of decay. But Krier no doubt eagerly agrees with the uncompromising words that HRH Prince Charles addressed to the architectural profession, whom he accused of succumbing to the arbitrary aesthetics of the profit motive. And although it now appears that the sharper edges of the debate that occupied UK architects in the late eighties have been dulled, and that the fieriest of opponents have sunk back in exhaustion, Britain remains the theatre of the endless, titanic struggle between the nostalgics and the rest - the punks of progress, the Modernist marauders.British die-hards traditionally refuse to reconcile themselves to the purportedly inevitable. For example, conservatives of all colours blench at the idea of a united Europe and even the supposedly pre-European government keeps ils foot close to the brakes. Similarly, there are countless British architects who will simply refuse lo have anything to do with the modernisation of town and country. This recalcitrance even goes so far as to produce an inversion of the usual conception of what is inevitable. It may now be 1993, but the Modernists still feel they have to justify their adherence to Modernism. The traditionalists have history on their side and are all too pleased to shift the burden of proof on to the other side. It is the reciprocal sense of superiority, for the Anciens on grounds of the rule book, for the Modernes on grounds of empiricism, that gives the discussion such an emotional charge for those involved, while it leaves out­siders wondering what it is all about. 

Ämnesord

HUMANIORA  -- Konst -- Arkitektur (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- Arts -- Architecture (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

The Invisible in Architecture

Leon Krier

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