Léon Krier, the "godfather" of New Urbanism, has died

Ola Kloc

20 of June '25

Léon Krier [1946-2025].

Photo credit: Rggv | Wikimedia Commons © CC BY-SA 4.0

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Léon Krier, world-renowned architect and urban planner, theorist, critic of modernism, considered one of the intellectual founders of the New Urbanism movement, died on June 17 this year at the age of 79. Commissioned by Charles III, King of Great Britain, he designed Poundbury, an English town considered an urban experiment.

I don't build because I'm an architect

Léon Krier was born in Luxembourg on April 7, 1946. His older brother, Rob Krier, was also an architect and a professor at the Technical University of Vienna.

He studied architecture at the University of Stuttgart, but dropped out after the first year to work in the London office of James Stirling. He also gained professional experience in Berlin with Josef Paul Kleihues.

Ciudad Cayalá, Guatemala

photo: Vicente Aguirre | Wikimedia Commons © CC BY-SA 4.0

Over the years, he has taught at the Architectural Association's private school of architecture, whose students have included David Chipperfield, Zaha Hadid, Richard Rogers and Rem Koolhaas, and at the Royal College of Art in London.

I don't build because I'm an architect. I can create real architecture because I don't build

- Krier said.

New Urbanism

He was a critic of both urbanism and the architecture of modernism, advocating a return to traditional solutions and archetypal patterns, which influenced the emergence in the 1980s of the New Urbanism movement (New Urbanism) attempting to grapple with postwar urban and suburban sprawl. He is also linked to New Classicism, which draws on historical architecture.

Many projects within the New Urbanism movement use traditional-style buildings, because that's what we prefer, at least for now. Modernist architecture is generally so bad and arbitrary that it is almost completely unsuitable for most typical uses and climates. [...] I personally oppose mixing traditional and modernist architecture for the time being, because I know from experience that one modernist building is enough to destroy the spirit even in most traditional buildings

- he said in an interview with Nikos Salingaros in 2001.

the king's dream

One of Krier's most iconic projects is the development of the English town of Poundbury, located in the county of Dorset. It was prompted by the vision of the then Prince of Wales, now King Charles III, who was already questioning post-war trends in urban development in the 1980s. The fruit of this collaboration became an urban experiment based on traditional architecture and the philosophy of New Urbanism, which began in 1993.

Poundburry

With a population of 6,000, Poundbury is to focus on pedestrian traffic, has several interconnected centers, and is characterized by a mix of functions. One-third of the housing was intended to be affordable, but today there is talk of a growing gentrification of the place, and the architecture itself has also been criticized:

A visit to Poundbury is like moving into the furniture department of a 1954 provincial department store, relegated to the world of architecture. The place is artificial, heartless, authoritarian and grimly charming. What can be said of an intelligence that requires central heating pipes to be masked by cast concrete gargoyles?

- wrote architecture critic Stephen Bayley.

like a movie set

Krier was the first director of the Skidmore, Owings & Merrill Architectural Institute in Chicago, the first recipient of the Driehaus Architecture Prize recognizing contributions to contemporary traditional and classical architecture. He was the author, among others, of the design of Paseo Cayalá in Guatemala, Cittá Nuova in Alessandria, Italy, or the building on the Seaside estate in Florida, designed in accordance with the principles of New Urbanism, which became the backdrop for the movie "The Truman Show." He was also the author of books, including: "Architecture of the Community," "Architecture - Choice or Destiny," and "Albert Speer: Architecture 1932-1942," a publication devoted to the work of Albert Speer, Hitler's favorite architect and one of the leaders of Nazi Germany declared a war criminal.