Léon Krier has died

On June 17, 2025, architect Léon Krier of Luxembourg origin passed away in Palma de Mallorca at the age of 79, presumably by his own decision due to cancer.

Krier was one of the key figures in architectural discourse during the last third of the twentieth century and our age. He left behind a few not very large buildings, many famous unrealized designs, and several implemented plans for small-town character settlements in Europe and America. His contribution to theory and criticism was fundamental: he had great insight, incredible personal charm, and a sharp tongue. He ridiculed dull, monstrous, and bizarre buildings and their apostles, criticized the inhumanity and confusion of Le Corbusier's cities, and provoked pseudoliberals with his friendships with aristocrats and by drawing politically incorrect cartoons.

He lectured at many prestigious universities, received numerous awards, and was regarded as an icon of traditionalism in architecture and co-founder of the so-called New Urbanism. In the Czech Republic, there is no need to introduce Léon Krier: especially in the 1980s and 1990s, he was closely followed by architects, and in 2001 his book Architecture – Choice or Fate was published in Czech, translated by Jaroslav Huti, which was popular among educators and students in architectural schools and very welcoming to lay readers as well.

Krier's older brother Rob, also an architect and urban planner, passed away on November 20, 2023, in Berlin.

For more on Léon Krier here: www.archiweb.cz/n/domaci/leon-krier 

Unmissable Léon Krier (in the middle with a hat) at the construction site of the town Siewierz Jeziorna near Katowice on May 7, 2014. To his right, developer Robert Moritz and architect Maciej Mycielski, to the left the author of the text and Italian architect Mario Gallarati. Photo from M. Horáček's archive.