Léon Krier's Poundbury
Krier conceived the town, still being built, as a single and continuous public space, organized around a town hall, each building contributing to the public vistas of which it is a part. Poundbury is a small settlement that will grow, in time, to 10,000 inhabitants—Krier argues that beyond that size, the need is not for further development around an existing center but for another center. And it is now a thriving community, in which people live, work, and shop, and where residents can walk to everything that they need. It has the feel of a medieval town, though with spaces more suited to our busy age, and a grocery store dealing in the environmentally friendly products for which the Prince of Wales is a tireless advocate. Poundbury contains factories, warehouses, offices, and civic buildings; the one thing it lacks is a church.
It is not for the architect to provide such a thing, says Krier, but for the residents to demand it. I suggest to him that the 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; 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.
5 months ago