Léon Krier, Our Teacher

Abstract

Léon Krier (1946–2025) was an outstanding architect and urbanist who voiced a scathing critique of modernist architecture and planning over more than a half century. His ideas are central to the New Urbanism movement in the United States, and he served as designer for such projects as Poundbury in Dorchester, UK, and Ciudad Cayalá in Guatemala, among numerous other commissions. He published prolifically and is famed for his trenchant cartoons. Krier was also an accomplished educator, having taught at architecture schools in universities such as Princeton, Virginia, Cornell, Notre Dame, and Yale. “Léon Krier, Our Teacher” describes his pedagogical method over four, semester-long advanced design studios taught with George Knight at Yale.