Published 20 September 2021 at 11.12
Architecture. Anyone who wants to build beautifully in the Western world is often attacked with accusations of wanting to incite conservatism and fascism. But in Guatemala, the subject is less sensitive. For ten years, the classically inspired architect Leon Krier has had a new city built there – in the old European style.
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Leon Krier in front of a small project in Dorset, England.
& copy; & nbsp; Estudio Urbano
Inspiration has been taken from Spanish Valencia, among other places. However, this picture shows Cayala in Guatemala.
The city is called Cayala and is a suburb within the metropolitan area of Guatemala City. Urban planning was started in 2003 and the first sod was taken in 2010.
Behind it all is the Luxembourgish architect Leon Krier.
Krier is an architect and urban planner who dropped out of his studies in the 1960s after to have opposed modernism and its urban planning.
At the beginning of his studies he was a progressive architect who worshiped modernists such as the French town planner Le Corbusier and the German Mies van der Rohe. But over time, he began to reevaluate his modernist views, finding that most of them lacked deeper grounding.
Krier became interested in classical and traditional architecture, and in 1968 he dropped out of Stuttgart University to work. for the architectural firm James Stirling in the United Kingdom. Namely, they worked there with turn-of-the-century architecture & shy; architecture already in the 1960s.
Later, Krier became a strong supporter of the centuries-old European city. In 1978, he made a utopian city plan for his hometown of Luxembourg, which he transformed into a small-scale medieval city with city walls and irregular neighborhoods.
Krier has made conceptual fantasy projects with city plans for Rome, Berlin, Bremen and Stockholm, among others. none of these proposals have been implemented. He has had very few projects realized, but he is still known for his historically oriented approach.
When the Guatemalan government actually commissioned him to plan a completely new city, it is therefore something of an exception. Work on Cayala began in 2003, the first sod was taken in 2010 and in 2012 Cayala was officially inaugurated.
Today, Leon Krier, just turned 75, can see how a tour of his biggest project so far is actually starting to feel like walking around the city center in a genuinely European city. The architecture is such that aging itself improves it. The trees that have been planted are those that grow tall and leafy over time, and along the house facades, ivy, vines and other slowly growing greenery begin to find their way.
Of course, Krier was never allowed to rebuild Stockholm according to his traditional proposal, but the fact is that in recent years the Swedish capital has probably taken the lead in the interest in classic building styles in Western Europe. These are political initiatives, especially in surrounding municipalities such as Nacka and Lidingö, where the ruling Moderates have chosen to build beautifully and refrain from allowing the construction of new modernist boxes.
On Lidingö, the Moderates, who Free Times told earlier, simply started forcing architects to build classically – otherwise the housing developers and builders that the architects work for will not get any land allocated by the municipalities. In Upplands Väsby north of Stockholm, the party runs the same line with good results, which Fria Tider also reported on before.
Even in the city of Stockholm itself, the Moderates are trying to ride on the successes of the surrounding municipalities and win votes by portraying themselves as opponents of modernism's zeal and unaccustomed to building boxes where they fit the worst.
“It was the Moderates who were first out It is the Moderates who fought against the demolition of the Astoria wing on Nybrogatan, and it is the Moderates who are now fighting against the demolition of large parts of the Stureplan district. fight for every day and we also want to build new houses in classical architecture “, promises the Moderates on their website.
Whether the City of Stockholm's moderates keep their promise is, however, debated. Both the criticized new Slussen and the scandalous construction of the new Liljevalchs on Djurgården (below) were let through by the Moderates in the city of Stockholm.
& copy; & nbsp; City of Stockholm