His work has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He was the first winner of the Driehaus Prize. He is known as the father of New Urbanism and has currently applied his ideas (polycentric cities, which allow maximum routes of ten minutes on foot and with a mix of uses that make them self-sufficient for the needs of everyday life) in various cities . The most famous is Poundbury, an extension of Dorchester, whose construction began in 1989 and which already has a population of 3,000 people. The city is expected to end in 2025. In addition, in Latin America it is developing Paseo Cayala, an extension to Guatemala City, El Socorro and Herencia de Allende, 7 kilometers from San Miguel de Allende.
Luxembourgish architect Leon Krier visited Madrid this week, at an event organized by the Driehaus Foundation, to discuss sustainable buildings and the future of urban planning, among other topics.
What is sustainable architecture?
Nothing that appears in the Architecture magazines, in which you can see buildings with innovative designs, most of them made of reinforced concrete. We know how to build sustainable cities, that is only possible with the techniques of traditional architecture, but the problem is that these techniques are not taught in architecture schools. There is only one center teaching these teachings, which is the University of Notre Dame. Modernist architecture has been imposed globally, and this way of building only leads us to a dead end road.
But there is a lot of talk about green architecture …
Yes, green architects all they do is pretend to be … Traditional architecture, which is not new, has always been green: natural elements, proximity are used … What is now is a false green.
How to build sustainable cities in large cities where, for example, the problem of gentrification is taking place, which drives many people out of the center for not being able to continue living in it?
Yes, that is one of the great current challenges. It is not possible to transform a city into something else, it is much easier to create a new one. I believe in open cities, in which ghettos are not created for the rich and poor, in which the different social classes coexist on the same street. Today’s big cities are a problem because suburbs, the so-called French banlieues, have been created around it, and there is a large influx of population that has to go to the city center where the administrative nucleus remains. And that also means transportation and a great environmental cost. This is no longer feasible. Because, in addition, in a parallel way, you have already said that there is the phenomenon that populations that cannot afford to live in them are being expelled from the center of these cities.
But, is it possible to transform our cities into sustainable cities?
No, it is much easier to build new cities than to try to transform the ones we have. I defend creating a model of small European capitals, creating a sovereign city model, this type of city model has been abandoned. It is a city with streets and public squares, like the historical centers of the cities, with small neighborhoods.
In other words, everything happens to create new cities …
Yes, transforming the existing ones is very complicated. It is easier to create small new cities, they work very well, because trying to transform what exists with the public administrations we have, riddled with bureaucracy and so slow, is not possible.
What challenges does urban planning have today?
Posing countermodels, alternatives to what exists, but at the political level it is very difficult to change things, I see it in the politicians in Brussels.
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