The angst of backwardness and its consequences: Reflecting on the huge changes that have occurred in London over his long career, Leon Krier argues in this essay that it is traditional urbanism − not dense Modernism − that offers the solutions to the planet’s ecological problems

For the publication of their centennial anniversary celebration book, the Royal Town Planning Institute had invited me to write about the events that followed the Prince of Wales’ famous Hampton Court ‘carbuncle’ speech in 1984 and culminated in his Mansion House ‘Luftwaffe’ speech in 1987. A lot of repositioning in the Modernism versus tradition controversy happened between those two royal pronouncements, not only within professional and academic circles, but within the body politic itself. The divisions are felt to this day. Even though Prince Charles is the Patron of the RTPI, the centennial book editorial board would only consent to publish the article they commissioned in a severely censored form. Ironically this rather un-civil about-face is a flagrant display of the special form of intellectual corruption that this article attempts to describe.

Very few people who are now firmly opposed to Prince Charles’ architectural and urban agenda are willing to remember how strong and generally favourable reactions to his RIBA speech had been in 1984, particularly among architects. In its wake, Foster Associates announced that their company would move away from the industrial aesthetics towards a more civic architecture. In his submission for the Covent Garden Opera extension competition, Richard Rogers proposed to reconstruct Inigo Jones’ famous Piazza, facade, arcade and interiors. Denys Lasdun made self-critical reflections in private circles. Only when Prince Charles expanded beyond his criticism to articulate a ‘Vision of Britain’ in 1989, with a programmatic exhibition at the V&A, did the fronts become clearly drawn. Modernists, with broad media support, re-established their ideological dominance. The non-aligned were blackballed and deprived the ‘oxygen of publicity’ (the term Foster employed about the necessity to silence Prince Charles).

Krier’s vision of The True City

In the limbo before that fatal secession there existed a period of ideological fluctuation and soul-searching during which I was appointed by Jacob Rothschild to draft a masterplan for the extension of the National Gallery and the pedestrianisation of Trafalgar Square. After my presentation to the trustees, Stuart Lipton asked me ‘Leon, what would you ideally like to design for London?’ ‘Plan a new urban quarter,’ I responded, ‘with mixed use, a three-to-five floors height limit, a central piazza and a public building on it.’ He and Simon Sainsbury helped carry my boards to a taxi. ‘I will be back to you within a year with just that brief,’ Stuart said as I was driven away.

Exactly 12 months later Lipton asked me to draft a masterplan for the Spitalfields Markets to compete with the project by London and Edinburgh. My plan was based on the prescribed density and mixed-use brief while the competing MacCormac Jamieson megastructure exceeded the permissible floor area by some 200 per cent.

The chief planning officer of Tower Hamlets, looking at my drawings with unconcealed lack of interest, stated to my surprise that not the adherence to the brief, but architectural quality would be the deciding factor between the two competing masterplans. To my question whether the competitors were summoned to comply to the official brief, the good officer repeated with a slight irritation: ‘Architectural quality will outweigh all other considerations.’ From then on Stuart Lipton chauffeured consultants almost daily to my place in Belsize Park, leaning on me to up the density. ‘Rather stay friends,’ I told Stuart after a few sessions of this; ‘ask Quinlan Terry to do the job.’ He had no objection to go up to seven floors...Continue Reading

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