Leon Krier: The Architectural Tuning of Settlements

Architecture which does not fetishize the engineering aesthetic, which is mindful of its impact on the public realm, and which does not consider the building-proper as an artistic expression in and of itself. Basically, anything before modernism, before WW1 is generally good. Or really, anything before cars. The rise of car culture and the decline of architecture are directly correlated. I personally had a hard time articulating why I found contemporary architecture so revolting, it was just a feeling. Then I found videos by Leon Krier (▶ this video), or Nathan Lewis's blog series on the topic (link), and everything suddenly just clicked.

I basically just parroted Nathan Lewis, who has a great blog series on the topic: link It's virtually the same message from Andres Duany. His talk from 30 years ago is still so eerily precise and comprehensive: link When I feel presumptuous, I email this to people (deaf ears, mostly). Leon Krier bangs the same drum, and adds a more sophisticated, architectural perspective: ▶ this video

Léon Krier is worth mentioning here. He's an architect associated with New Urbanism who also creates illustrations which demonstrate his points well. For height limits you have the architectural stutter link San Francisco vs Japan seems very much like monocentric vs polycentric development link -- and organic expansion through duplication link In this talk here he talks about the classical vs vernacular layout styles ▶ this video