This link has been bookmarked by 14 people . It was first bookmarked on 07 Jun 2008, by beth gourley.
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15 Jan 10
ken .Roger Scruton on Léon Krier's anti-modernism - "Modernist forms have been imposed upon us by people in the grip of ideology" (pitgoats ;) - failure to provide a readable vocabulary, a pattern language, no dialogue - "Elsewhere, European cities are going t
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20 Aug 09
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26 Jun 09
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16 Jun 08
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“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.”
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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.
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Krier identifies the leading error of modernism as that introduced by Le Corbusier, Gropius, and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe: separating load-bearing and outward-facing parts. Once buildings become curtains hung on invisible frames, all of the understood ways of creating and conveying meanings lose out. Even if the curtain is shaped like a classical facade, it is a pretend facade, with only a blank expression.
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Moreover, such 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.
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There are no chords in modernist architecture, only lines—lines that may come to an end but that achieve no closure.
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The lack of vocabulary explains the alienating effect of a modern airport, such as Newark or Heathrow. Unlike the classical railway station, which guides the traveler securely and reassuringly to the ticket office, to the platform, and to the public concourse, the typical airport is a mass of written signs, all competing for attention, all amplifying the sense of urgency, yet nowhere offering a point of visual repose.
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Krier’s solution is to replace the “downtown plus suburbs” system with that of the polycentric settlement. If people move out, then let it be to new urban centers, with their own public spaces, public buildings, and places of work and leisure: let the new settlements grow, as Poundbury has grown next to Dorchester, not as suburbs but as towns. For then they will recapture the true goal of settlement, which is the human community in a place that is “ours” rather than individual plots scattered over a place that is no one’s.
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Where God is at home, so, too, are we; the real meaning of the modernist forms is that there is no God and that Big Brother is now in charge. Krier is inclined to agree with me; but the problem, he says, is to find ways of building that will enable people to rediscover truth for themselves. To try to impose a comprehensive vision against the instincts and the plans of ordinary people is simply to repeat the error of the modernists.
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12 Jun 08
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will quickly see that Paris is miraculous in no small measure because modern architects have not been able to get their hands on it. Elsewhere, European cities are going the way of cities in America: high-rise offices in the center, surrounded first by a ring of lawless dereliction, and then by the suburbs, to which those who work in the city flee at the end of the day.
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09 Jun 08
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08 Jun 08
beth gourleyRoger Scruton presents Leon Krier's premise of what a city shoud be--a place where residents should be able meet their communal needs within a ten minute alking distance of about 10,000 residents. Annotated link http://www.diigo.com/bookmark/http%3A%2F%2
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Paris is miraculous in no small measure because modern architects have not been able to get their hands on it.
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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.
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The nickname, in Krier’s view, is the correct term for a kitsch object—for a faked object that sits in its surroundings like a masked stranger at a family party.
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This failure to provide a readable vocabulary is not a trivial defect of modernist styles: it is the reason why modernist buildings fail to harmonize with their neighbors.
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all amplifying the sense of urgency, yet nowhere offering a point of visual repose
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let the new settlements grow, as Poundbury has grown
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rules governing such things as the shape of plots, the number of floors permitted in buildings (five
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At present, planners are attracted only to exceptional buildings, usually designed, like the monstrosities of Daniel Libeskind and Frank Gehry, to stand out rather than blend in—to focus attention on themselves, not on the ordinary solaces of human community.
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The plan should conform to 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.
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Paris, Rome, Florence, Madrid, London, and Edinburgh all conform to
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As Krier puts it: “All buildings, large or small, public or private, have a public face, a facade
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10,000 inhabitants—Krier argues that beyond that size, the need is not for further development around an existing center but for another center
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traditional settlements that he most admires began from the marking out of a sacred space, and from the building of a temple as a home for the gods. Where God is at home, so, too, are we;
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real meaning of the modernist forms is that there is no God and that Big Brother is now in charge.
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Krier’s words: “By creating cities, we create ourselves.
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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.”
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