Leon Krier: The end of hypocrisy. On the reconstruction of the Frankfurt Old Town houses

vamos a tener una serie de conferencia dónde van intervenor antes que teníamos a quien Rafael Nunez agitators que tenemos en Espana haben interval tamiya algunos de lo mejor es Agitos your Bannister's que tenemos en el mundo y no estoy a Sacher ando or rica minotaurs que busca a todo lo capo Dei sobre la bradley on career day stephanos Dantonio man yeah Brad Alberto Castro Nunez porque son todos al ghettos muy interesante es de los que por Oh al meant a no se Pais mucho porque hacen un tipo algate Erick a no es a la que está de moda pepper okay Sindhu dasa padre seguro aprender muchísimo de de todos ellos or dejó : career thank you good morning the theme of reconstruction is one which is not just to do with buildings but above all with the theory of traditional architecture and urbanism because modernism has been a war against traditional urbanism and architecture declaration of war which was expressed theoretically in the charter of Athens for deconstructing urbanism and the chart of Venice for destroying reconstruction and restoration of historic buildings because they themselves they called traditional architecture historic and I think that's a crime against the reason because traditional architecture is not historic it happened in history but it's not historic and by doing now traditional architecture we are not history ceased as they kind of slammed us as if we were not living with our time now there are several aspects you know that the love of ruins goes very well together with the rings of love you love of ruins has to do with the destruction of judgement the cult of ruins is against architecture the ancients never wanted to show foundations as historic monuments it's ridiculous to expose foundations and say this is history you have to admire this it's boring foundations are not to be looked at they are meant for buildings to stand on them synapses scandal and I think that either you should cover ruins or rebuild buildings now I was asked by James backhoe is a famous archaeologist who did fantastic reconstructions also digital reconstruction of the fora in in Rome for a trainee and forum Republican and because I said that these are not only reconstruction digital reconstruction but they are Mendes projects for the future and one should reconstruct the Roman Forum or just put back the the ground cover the ruins and because of that my introduction was never published because Cambridge University Press refused the board refused to publish this so it was published not leeteuk Aviva which is amusing in Spain and I think in Latvia somewhere Lithuania sorry so but if we do not reconstruct and restore and radically reform so-called historic buildings they wouldn't be there they would just disappear tomorrow and all buildings which we see which are of any import are permanently restored and reconstructed as we are actually ourselves all our material which makes about what the every six month changes radically so there is a project of a permanent reconstruction restoration renovation and of course aging now there is very interesting very interesting you will see you probably know it building which is the shrine of the Imperial cult in Japan in easy that shrine is rebuilt every 20 years now for over a thousand years which means that it's always when you see it it's an over thousand year old building but is always young fresh wood like a baby and it actually feels like a baby no soft flesh beautiful radiance absolutely incredibly sexy I mean I'm not saying that babies are sexy that will be probably dangerous nowadays but it is alive it's incredible lesson in permanence that there is no permanence on this on this planet other than permanent restoration reconstruction according to a plan now you all know these images when you see correspondent in Washington what do you see you see this incredible dome and that is the start of a Netflix film called survivor president who survived the disaster the dome in of the the Rotunda was destroyed by some terrible bomb and then a year later the present is here with his bodyguard and secretary touching the sculpture there and saying do you think it was worth it it was worth spending seven billion dollars on this the assistant says the bodyguard says it's worth much more why bill why is it so important he steps down into the Rotunda and bill answers because mr. president is a symbol Wow after one year and then the people on the talk shows discusses you know this presently spend seven billion terrible I mean you know had nothing else to do should build housing I don't know what so what if it had been reconstructed like this that mean for the American spirit for the of this more contemporary no more masculine less sentimental or like that more contemporary no because that's the right thing to do because we live with symbols and one of the reasons why Europe is in such a terrible state is that all the buildings except one all the buildings built for the european community and then for european union's our trash our real buildings to throw away not one of them is of any architectural quality they are pure and naked displays of economic power and corruption there's nothing in it there is no symbol it's just material building material Brussels in Luxembourg and in Strasbourg and we have to learn from that because why is now that France I will talk mainly about Germany because it's very interesting my friend Melissa law said if the Germans begin to follow run run run Leone but Germany is a very important country you have to buy the book by Taschen called German in 1900 it was a fantastic country incredibly beautiful the cult of beauty was was extreme like as the cult of beauty has been for all power all political power over thousands of years beauty is the most important thing in matters of political exercise because beauty unifies zoom kind religion divides humankind languages divide run kind social traditions divide humankind the human family but beauty unifies the whole human family in one admiring being a single entity because we admire we when were grown up Catholic or Protestant we admire Islamic mosques because they are beautiful not because they are must but because they are beautiful and Islamic people they come to Europe photograph our cathedrals who cares about what is being cultivated there the main cult is a color beautifu Clive worth living now that was the truth for for thousands of years and Hitler and Stalin bruised world a bit were still cultivating that that value now what happens if power no longer cultivates that value for instance is very important in political matters in diplomats know of enemy countries talking to each other they are polite they say hello sir how are you today manners good manners are very important hypocritical man's you meet somebody you hate his guts and you say hello sir hello lady how well you look today and then you talk about matters of concern so it's fundamental hypocrisy is fundamental in the exchange of maintaining daily peace between humans between families between regions countries and so on and when it breaks down it becomes really bad this is now happening in Catalan catalunya we're menos didn't count and the president says that Castilians are beasts or I don't know I I mean unbelievable assembly like that can stay present so good manners are there very important hypocrisy but hypocrisy in matters of architecture and art absolutely toxic a catastrophe and is exactly what has been operating now on the world of aesthetics and of architecture in the last let's say since the war when that thousands of years old regime of aesthetic judgment which was shared by poor and rich by all colors and all races and all religions when that broke down yet everybody all the time you all the time everyday everywhere you go you judge aesthetically simply by liking or not liking something you can't help it your conscience talks to you and tells you this beautiful and I love it I want to be here or when exactly you want to run and that is a judgement everyone is imparted on has has gone this unless you are being manipulated but even if you are manipulated your judgment doesn't really change it changes only what you dare say and then you see all these people well educated go to all the great schools and they say I'm sorry I don't like the pyramid in the Louvre but I'm not no expert and the Guggenheim is not really up to my taste but I am NOT an expert No so you have to be expert now to know what you love or what you don't and that is really whether there's been expropriation of judgment of common judgment which I think finally is now in certain places breaking down this the dictatorship of modernism against individual judgment that you are not allowed and when you don't like something which you are told you should like then you are wrong and you should learn that means that you are a barbarian you have not been cultivated enough go to school go back to school idiot no and then maybe you will of Guggenheim okay now you see here the palace of the Republic Palace the Republic which was for top East German Communist bureaucrats which was built instead of the Berlin castle the berlin castle which still stood the war was dynamit it with over 90 array 90 tons of dynamite and the dome of the palace blew off and landed on the ground like a parachute there was such a solid building 90 tons of dynamite then there was a void and then the palace of the republic you know top left was built it had to come down because it was infested with dangerous materials had to be taken apart and then modernist architects were together professors left right and center trying to save this building that this was a monument of our time had the certain beauty of course was ridiculous there was instead there was an initiative of which I'm was part which was founded by man called fund Bodine who made his money with agricultural machinery and for free up sigler was publishing invited architects to do proposals what to do with the palace I I propose to reconstruct it and the debated on open forum and you are him fast to his famous now now that famous historian German he said the originality of this building does not lie in the material four has not disappeared the originality of this castle of the berlin schloss lies in the design and therefore if we rebuild it today or rebuild it 30 years ago 100 years ago doesn't really matter now this initiative was torpedoed and the minister of construction for Chevette saw which means how bla bla and the dipsh and the then Burgermeister berlin they definitely cancelled the reconstruction this cannot happen then from Bodeen got so active that over years and years and yes he finally he he paid for this canvas you know what you see down the right is canvas painted architecture on canvas which was exactly the size of the castle and stood there for a year painted by French painter Morel painter and this so brought back the castle as a desirable object that finally it was became political issue and the money was released and now it's nearly nearly done you when dips in and phatso when they cancelled the construction I wrote not good because I was involved in writing lots of articles about this but in developers they're like the pies saying that yes the minister and the da Gama's that they were absolutely right to cancel this reconstruction because in a single operation all the reconstruction philosophy the modernism philosophy would have been destroyed and so complementing these officials and then saying because the German people have sinned collectively therefore they have to continue do penance also architectural II you know sense of humor does not always work even the sinister sense of humor but now as a result of this refusal many things and the first reconstructions coming up in Germany there is now a very large movement of reconstruction because Germany was so badly damaged not not so much by the bombs but particularly by reconstruction and this was the state of German cities 1977 of the 1939 traditional fabric of German cities in 1977 only 15% survived that is that more was destroyed after the war than during the war because the German cities were marshal plant which was which had to do also with the revision of the whole aesthetic culture which Germany montecore we at the end so in face of this destruction we start in the 70s to publish with molesky law we published text about the reconstruction of the European city how important that is from point of view of of theory more important from the point of view in theory than even a material reconstruction because I grew up in Luxembourg in places where like this ash turnip which was totally destroyed by American artillery and German artillery exchanges and reconstructed what you see was all 1950 architecture I grew up in that I went to school there my brother and I in 1980 we gave a prize in Brussels for vernacular and classical architecture and gave this to the first reconstruction in Frankfurt of this row of historic buildings and then the year after we had no more candidates so we we wrote to Robert Suppan with an German historian who reconstructed this very beautiful array of perseus in clinic and she refused she said you know reconstruction we didn't talk about like in this country reconstruction the term itself is outlawed you cannot reconstruct yet this movement of reconstruction I was 1990 I was in the committee in in Dresden and I was of nine international exper nine German experts I was only foreigner I was the only one to support the reconstruction of this of this church the burghers wanted to reconstruct all Architects try Otto Benesch all famous architects said you come to this and they did it heroic and now the the reconstruction of the square is continuing is nearly completing in 1996 I think it was we had an 92 where than work Sam enough with students of the Prince of Wales School in in Potsdam reconstructing the castle the this Gandhi's own sketcher and and many buildings around the famous wrinkled church he's done digitally and it's now happening in reality now against these reconstructions all the people involved in construction are now being the know in the cross of attacks of being extreme right that we are neo-fascists wanting to deny history and so on and this becomes very public and so we respond of course and the cause was basically this dis frankfurt centre frankfurt wiped out over thousand historic houses destroyed and replaced on your left by the technical rat house the technical rat house again had to come down because of this fire protection material is highly can scan sera janice and on the right is a picture of what happened now this was an initiative which went was started by three people against the local government because the local government had on the competition on the right was a winning scheme and now it's it's this and all these all these initiatives in Germany are done purely by private initiative against officialdom against the official architects and now the same thing difficulties are to reconstruct this beautiful theater in in Frankfurt charge bill house by famous architect sitting on the left is student projects how this should be replaced you know from document University because they don't learn to the architecture in architecture school anymore so the Germans had to live with this ghastly kind of nonsensical architecture for 60 years and anything would go this is called the famous the army museum in dresden supposed to be avant-garde nonsense you know you can reconstruct the historic buildings when they are modernist but you impeccably like the Barcelona pavilion or the Meister house in Dessau but the competition for the ROG tagging in Berlin was to reconstruct the dome of value that was imposed by the competition not one Calatrava foster nobody respected this so they went against the the saying of what actually the Bundestag had decided if restoration and reconstruction in in art would have would be done according to the same spirit you know if you restore the gods or is in in san gimignano you it would turn out to be like this you know so anything is possible according to that modernist ideology but to do the reasonable thing and architecture schools most architectural schools didn't teach architecture anymore the museums are full of this junk it's fraudulent it's non art which fills most museums and the most extraordinary thing I've seen here in this country in the museum Maria Sophia was a room which was an exhibition exhibition without object very long explanation why this was important in art historical terms so museums are full of fraudulent art and the only place where this feeling natural feeling or beauty still survives is with engineers when they design a machine the machine doesn't tell you how it should look or a boat doesn't tell you how it should look it's a feeling for the beauty of form which interestingly survives with designers and of airplanes and machinery unfortunately these are instruments of destruction so we have to find back to the classical categories of architecture painting sculpture because they have been destroyed and they have to be reconstructed frequently how much time finished well this is what this you get an a quick shot this is what I presented in my first yet attract school in in Stuttgart I left after two terms because it was impossible the professor said you can't do this and I said yes I can I said why can't I do this she said we did this kind of thing in Third Reich so I thought okay and tell us about how interesting sounds more interesting than I thought and this all this led me to study the work of nazi architecture and and what had survived in the regime of good architecture and then i was brand marked this beautiful book which was reprinted recently in america introduced by robert stone who was my dean at yale when I asked Bob to reintroduce the book he said of course Leo to something being Jewish must be good and it worked now nobody dares called me anymore anti-semite or because this special number of on the right degausser spear fired ously unclear or the classic simple common meaning from classicism to genocide as if classicism was responsible for the destruction of the Jews they didn't burn Jews in classical buildings they were industrial buildings very modern no so it is this kind of reaction that because Hitler at some quality certainly about architecture and urbanism knew something about it but it was criminal no but because of that class is not criminalize why not the technology and the techniques which led to destruction I don't have time but so that the book which was republished very beautiful cost very little fifty six dollars and this is architecture done by the Nazis granion book hanky vodka you know for building Bombers miss Wanda Oh hasn't done anything better in that style is that forbidden because of that or this is a house there zabba kite building of cleanliness bike or Becca who was a great engineer 1937 who also designed this Factory the Volkswagen factory high tech enormous one square kilometer of high-tech a material design was that outlawed because they built bombs and Panthers and the dangerous stuff they're much more dangerous than classical columns because one of the problems with Nazis is that we are still in it we are still in the same modes of production this was a machine designed under spare to build industrially housing and that was the last project Hitler was involved a five kilometer long building with one single window I mean Aldo Rossi go home one square window repeated 20,000 times over five kilometers and repair was against this project he wanted tests enough to build this yet Hitler no because the war had been a terrible master getting rid of this aesthetic culture and the rebuilding of Germany would have been modernist just as the Soviet reconstructions after the war became modernist no Stalin still had the promoted classical architecture so the one of the victims of the Nuremberg Tribunal was classical architecture not technology why not industrial technology which was much more responsible for genocide now interestingly the very same people who attack us as being right-wing recuperating it's called reconstruction watch you should watch out all over Germany where there is reconstruction you should denounce it as fascist as right-wing now the same person professor tribute from Stuttgart he loves Brutalism he says he had the real kick with Brutalism and he said that Brutalism does not come from brutal but from baton with cosy baton booth where does coffee this baton boot come from from mr. spear spear who was not only great architect but he was also he became the head of the organization top tockman's also deaf but that was the engineer who ran this enormous organization which was slave labor to build fortifications along the Atlantic coast and that is the style and the method which influenced baton with Kaposi's baton birth so it's directly a product of war industry which became which defined Brutalism after the war new Brutalism so that's something to think about so we have really to do that people now generally for the reconstructions of Frankfurt they were so popular that on the opening day there were 100,000 people looking at 20 historic houses the whole of Frankfurt was because people love beautiful things and they are fed up with the bottom of modernism Caribbean his companions they create initiative called against hostility to modernism and against architectural populism like we are we're populist therefore we are bad now people love our things therefore they are guilty and they should learn to love the tough things the Brutalism ugly things now because traditional architecture and urbanism are a superior category they have been developed over thousands of years and the city model which now worldwide is desired as a model city of the future by all cultures and all countries and all races is the city which is the inheritor of the Greek Roman and Christian city which is the modern open city and that is what we are bringing back what we are reconstructing theoretically and also now on the ground and its enormous success and then in Germany lots of classical architecture are able to do that so we hope to soon start an initiative to do that thank you very much [Applause]

Channel: Premio Rafael Manzano

Views: 5,276

Rating: 4.9466667 out of 5

Keywords: Reconstruction Frankfurt, Seminario Internacional, conferencias, reconstrucción, restauración, patrimonio, conservación, arquitectura tradicional, ETSAM, INTBAU España Seminar, traditional architectura, reconstruction, heritage, Premio Rafael Manzano, ​Arquitectura española, arquitectos no famosos​, Léon Krier, Planeamiento urbano, Poundbury, New Urbanism

Id: CF7PkzgkaLE

Length: 31min 11sec (1871 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 11 2018