About this talk

Running time: 23 minutes

Leon Krier was born in Luxembourg in 1946. He studied briefly at Stuttgart University, but his basic architectural education come from his older brother Rob Krier (see Redefining Urban Quality), and his practical experience was in the offices of James Stirling (see Oscillating) in London and Josef Paul Kleihues in Berlin. After 1974 he worked on his own in London and in close association with Maurice Culot (the Belgian architectural historian, teacher at La Cambre School and member of the ARAU research group). He has taught at the AA school and the Royal College of Art in London, and at Princeton University, and his published theories and designs have had great influence.

He says that "his projects are a series of polemical statements, reflections on the specific structure of the European city and opposing the global destruction of European culture through industrialisation". Briefly, he champions the "quarter" of the limited size as the basic of urban design - the "close-knit scene of community life and loyalties" - as opposed to the dogma of zoning, and the treatment of buildings as solutions to individual needs regardless of their relationship to their surroundings.

In this talk, he outlines simple design precepts and then demonstrates their application in his proposal for the redevelopment of a part of Stockholm, an area to the south of the historical centre.

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