#32 - Léon Krier: His Life & Education, Traditional Urbanism & The Threat of Bureaucracy

[Music] Welcome to the ascetic city podcast. In this show we aim to discover how to go forward and create a more livable, beautiful and healthy built environment. I'm Ruben Hansen, your host and founder of the ascetic city. Today we have a very special guest who has been incredibly important for the world of urbanism. He has inspired many others to enter this field of traditional architecture and urbanism and shown that tradition is still incredibly valid in our age. His theories, which he has been formulating since the 70s, challenged modernist ideas directly. At first, he chose not to build, as building would mean that the Arctic's ideas would be corrupted. But yet, he did eventually build. They're not just something. Pompary, for example, a new town next to Dorchester and a project by King Charles, is by his hand. And so is Kaya-la, the new settlement in Guatemala. His book, The Arctic Show of Community, is a must-have and can be found on many bookshelves. It contains his typical characters and drawings that illustrate his ideas. Before letting you wait any longer, I just want to say that my voice during the recording was a bit hoarse due to a cold. Please forgive me for that. When I started this podcast project, around two years ago, it was my dream to have this guest on eventually. And now we are here. So without further ado, please welcome Leon Krier. Thank you very, very much. Leon Krier for being here and being on the show. Thank you very much for inviting me. You do a great work. Thank you so much. Yeah, I've been looking forward to this episode a long time. So I'm very excited to dive right into the question. So maybe first of all, I want to go a little bit into your history. Because you back in the day did not finish an architectural degree. But you have formed unique visions on urban design. You worked at the firm and, yeah, what has been the strongest influence on your ideas? Back when you were starting out, I think. I think the definitive inference on my work was where I grew up. I've been in Luxembourg City and my grandparents. Very nice grandparents lived in Estonach. Estonach was destroyed under the Rundstadt offensive. And it was built in the years when we went down holiday. And so building for the family was, well, my parents took us to see beautiful, beautiful cities and beautiful places in Italy. And there was an agreement of what was attractive. And what was being done for in Sinternach, the reconstruction of the of the Abbey and the particularly the Basilica and the main square in Estonach, which is very famous in Holland. Because it's a lot of touch tourism there. Was done entirely traditionally. And when I tried to interview the architects who had done this to publish it in the 70s, they were ashamed of their own work. Ah, don't talk about this because I do now modern work go to see the German embassy. I built all in concrete in Luxembourg and so on. Hard work. So it is a generation which was torn by the fact of having built traditionally. And because traditional building was then associated with the Nazis, which is an extreme oversimplification. Because Nazis, German national socialism was also a modernist movement, the futurist movement. It was not about reviving traditional architecture. I mean, the used traditional architecture. But most buildings done in the raw, were modernists. They were factories and barracks and so on. It was that experience of rebuilding, which when I then went to study, where we didn't learn anything in Stuttgart, that the technical eyes and the polytechnic of Stuttgart. And after, because I was already tending to do more traditional design, I was absolutely, my projects were cancelled by the professors. So I saw no chance in the only, you know, to get proper credits, because they would mark me plus mine in Syria, which is not a credit. So I left because it was a waste. And my brother had already studied five years in Munich. And he said, yes, just leave, because there's nothing more to learn. And then I went to work for a famous architect in England, James Sturling. And I then started very quickly. I worked for him three, three and two, four years on and off. But even this master of modernism, he knew nothing about real traditional architecture, nor about urbanism. So, and in the meanwhile, I saw that I get, I always got the newspaper from Luxembourg, and they called Let's Way Along, which is Luxembourg land. Always on the front page, there was once a week, a picture of a nice building, a nice wall, a nice tree, a nice lamp post, a nice kiosk. I think really nice, everybody agrees, it was nice. Unfortunately, this beautiful thing had to be lost to progress, because we can't go back and so on. And one day, I lived in Berlin, I got this Luxembourg paper saying, park or parking, photograph of the park, and that the town administration wanted to cut down the park in Luxembourg and replace it by parking. So, I got really alarmed, and then I started really working in these themes and reading and traveling. And so, I self-educated, because there was nobody I, for a master, and the one who was then very famous, Aldo Rossi, I found out he has absolutely no clue about urbanism, because he was my old ideal master, was totally against the urbanism. And so, I felt it like I have to do this, because even my best friends, they said, "But you can't criticize zoning, because said is now law." I said, "But what if the law is faulty, because it's into a disaster?" "Oh, but that is, you know, that's now, you're nostalgic, you can't go back." But then, well, I started then, I was invited to teach, before I wanted to in London to do a deployment at the architectural association, which was very open school, but I was invited to teach, before I could do deployment, and through teaching, that I then formulated my first notions of a real coherent theory, for building urbanism, and which hasn't changed, because that was, I had lived this as a child, and another lesson. You probably too. I think all the people are interested in this, had somewhere an important event in their life, in their childhood, or in their holidays, where they discovered bloody hell, there's something, there's something which is really resolved as far as action, and urbanism goes. And then study that and make it into a body of work, and publish it, I published then a lot, and that then became curiously in America, was very much promoted by Peter Eisenman, who was my real, the most radical opponent. He was against it, but he invited me to 10 lectures around the United States, and it is then, on these 10 lectures, that I met people who are still now, and others to run, and people like that, we are still allies now, because we had been on the same search, and last one, yet the same experience he grew up, partially in Cuba, and partially in Barcelona. That is states discovering that there was another world out there. Yeah, so a couple of things, so you mentioned you, you self-advocated, and you formed your own idea, so what works, do you read, that really shaped you, and this self-advocation, these ideas that they form in a vacuum, or together with other people, like did you grow a network, or how did that happen? My brother was, of course, he was an educate before me, he's eight years older, and he introduced me to Corbusier, and to all these modernist ideas. But he was also searching, but very much in the modernist line, he worked even for Friota, and the most high-tech man. But for me, when I worked for Sterling, he asked me to do competition for Derby, Derby City Centre, and at the same time, I was working privately on the project for the town where my grandparents lived in Estonia. And so I knew I don't have the material to work with this body. It's like a surgeon, a hard surgeon, being asked to operate on the liver, I don't know. You have to quickly learn, and it's really by doing that I learn, because it's not in a void. We live in thousands years of culture where you have the traces of architecture and good space forming everywhere. But while I was working on these two projects, the book which really changed my life and my perception was the reading of Camilo Zita, town planning, according to artistic print, it's a work of genius, who is still today, when you read it, it's philosophical, but also extremely practical. Talking about public space, not as some leftover between buildings, but as a formative void. No, it's a positive void, it's a void which is a space which creates actually a civic society. And without that public space, public realm, whether it's squares or streets and the mixture of these things, that community forms. It's not enough to have markets out in the field and then dissolve, but you need some structure which represents more than just commerce or religion or private or public interest. It's something which is really a place which is a space for the community and for the society, where society is formed. And without that, humans need an artificial space to form society because it's not a natural thing. Hannah Arrant was also important, Hannah Arrant, the philosopher, she spoke about that in order for public rent to exist, it needs to outlive the model span of private life, something like that, and it needs to be, have a dimension of the eternal, even if it's eternal in relationship to humankind, not to eternity as such. That's something which transcends the model man. Yeah, yeah, avoid because this was always done in country discussion also with Sterling, I wanted Sterling to get more into this and he said, I can't do this, I can't go that far, I would never dare do that, what I did, when I showed him my drawings, he said, I would never dare do that. I said, but you did it when you were young, you did one project where you had traditional buildings, well, but that was, yeah, yeah, but you were still at that time surrounded by, well, the rollercoals of art, the architectural association, probably diehard modernists, so how did that relate that change to? Well, in the 70s, Sterling was considered like the best generally. You can was very well known, but what I heard of can I, I wanted to work for him at one time, but he's like a mystic physicist, mythology building around himself and so on, which I didn't like at all. There was always debates. I had no fees next to, I was invited by Iliad Zangelis, who was the master of Ramm Kolas, but Iliad Zangelis was authentically mad. I mean, charming buildings, which were completely mad, but we were friends. Well, not true, he was not yet, he had not yet formulated his position in architecture, he was more like structuralist French theory and so on. There was also communist Brian Ensign, who he wrote on my door, Grand Bourgeois, you know, because I dressed in three pieces, my father was Taylor, so I would dress, he has everybody dressed disgustingly with horrible, not yet tattoos, but I dressed like a banker, which was a shock. Why does he wear a tie? Well, because he don't like, speaks to you. So I would on their door, Petit Bourgeois, things like that, but it was always in good faith, it was very nice atmosphere and my first exhibition in England was organized by Peter Cook, who was one of the founding members of Archigram, who were high-tech war friends. And that is what is now, what is lost, that the oppositions have now gone into fanatic positions which denounce each other, which I find absurdly terribly sad, because it's against the luxury of democracy is that you can be best friends with the person you don't agree with. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the idea that we are all to agree about health and safety and is an absolute, is to take over a very small clique of totalitarians, who pretend that they hold truth, you know, that they know what truth is, and that is, people who pretend that want to tell you what this information is, they are totalitarians. Yeah, but it must have been an interesting time. Yeah, so much must have been changing, also in the 70s is when entire neighborhoods that were perfectly fine were torn down and replaced by horrific new projects. And you were also, by the way, part of the Skipper Owings and Merrill Institute in Chicago. So how do you end up in these little clicks, if you were, yeah, because you only worked at an architect, so you probably already made the name for yourself in those times, or how did that work out? Well, what I learned that sterling was publishing. Okay, when I didn't do projects, I worked on publishing work. I edited his first major book. And so he was what was very important that for publishing a building, he was very careful to design the documents, the drawings which would really strike. Yeah. Because from my experience, my brother was a genius of an artist in probably wealthy in productions. He would do projects, enormous projects with thousands of drawings and send them boxes of material to magazines, which were never published. The only drawings he ever published were drawings I had redone of a church of his in order to publish it in Arsliek to the Jordan, reduced three drawings we sent and to us published. Wow, yeah, yeah, because sterling, I understood you have to be very careful what you choose. So I redrew all my while at sterling, I redrew all my projects three drawings, the text which was just 10 lines. I sent it to, I think about 12 magazines and 12 magazines published eight to 20 pages. Wow. Within three months, I had suddenly a name on the architectural scene, 1972, 1971. I got invited. Yeah. So was that already with your signature style of hand-drawn pictures, or was it a different type of drawings? No, it was projects. There's cartoons. I did them. I wanted to do a book. I added it in the series with Maurice Cure called Reconstruction. Reconstruction La Vienne, and we would publish a lot of ancient texts like Camille Luzita or Cargouba, so texts which were very important for us. Cargouba was very important, first of all for me. Also archaeologists like Christian and so on. And I wanted particularly to republish a book by a German architect who was very famous as reintroducing after the Victorian excesses of reducing vernacular wisdom, vernacular craft, vernacular modes, kind of bidamaya, a spirit of simple, truthful and beautiful objects, whether it's a architect or plan. And his book on the small town and craftsmanship is a formidable text, philosophically but also practically. And I introduced that, but then I found also things I didn't agree with, and I worked on it for over a year. And I found, because I don't want to rewrite, I have to do my own, I don't want to republish, just to do my own book. And I found then the writing and writing and writing and presenting these ideas was I was met by question marks. What does it mean? So within once after conference in Barcelona, I was so alone by people that get it, that I did in 14 days, I did like a summary of like 100 of these raw, almost ponder drawings, which was like outbursts, which was a summary of all the ideas I ever had. And I noticed that which were very much influenced by Sampi, you know, the French, he was in the famous caricatories, Sampi, who published always in Paris much, or I get now the names, or you know, you had, and there was one drawing. It was from the mental where he drew a road, a big road with lots of cars. On the right, you have a skyscraper, glass skyscraper. On the left, on the glass skyscraper. And down at the entrance, there's a restaurant with half timbre entrance called Alte Bayan, Albevaria. The other side of the street, there's a traditional town, the corner block. And the cafe on the corner is called Cafe Modern. I mean, that single drawing really inspired me to do my own characters. Often characters is something also they really flourish in dictatorships because it's only humor is the only way you can still communicate when everything is blocked, when the normal discolors block. I do agree, humor is very necessary, but also I think with, especially with modernism, also with a profession that takes itself so serious, and where there are dogmas which need to be broken, I think these type of drawings can really help to break open the discussion. And I have your book here with me. And I think it's, it's a must have book because of the drawings, because I mean, it's not only the humor that explains things very profoundly, but also a cartoonist of course, also just a simple line drawing, it simplifies concepts to the core. Some years ago I wanted to publish all these cartoons in one book and I wrote to all my publishers and nobody wanted to touch it. It was published by MIT, you know why? Because Peter Eisenman's wife Davidson published those drawings, because Peter Eisenman also wanted them to be published, even though we don't agree about anything. Or even called me an antisemite when I published which he knew was just insult, I mean, ridiculous net. But it's important to maintain the country debate because most modernism or most fanatics, they're also monumentally hypocrites. Remcom has lives in a Victorian townhouse and the list goes on and on, like most modernist firms work in traditional buildings, but what their design is completely different. So yeah, it's just one aspect. Yeah. I published with Maurice Gilor, five articles called private virtue and public vice, where the big architects live and what they plan in Paris, in Rome, in Berlin, in Luxembourg, in London, and it was everywhere the same story. And that is why I do think I'm critical of no, I compliment them where they live, where they go on holiday, where they retire, where they take their children to visit. That chose their nice, their human side. But and that is why I think studying what happened in architecture 60 years ago is so important because it's now happening with politics. You can't have disagreements anymore about climate change or climate change, climate change. Who knows anything about those matters? Science certainly doesn't. And that is the problem that our conception of science has been very brave in exploring the microcosm and the macrocosm. But to study the real, the earth science doesn't really exist. Otherwise, you couldn't, you couldn't have such idiotic policies becoming dominating the politics. As they are now. Yeah. I want to park this subject for the end of the video where I want or of the podcast where I want to discuss all these topics more integrally, like society and, yeah, freedom, tyranny, because I think it's, it is an interesting topic to discuss. But first I want to maybe go back to just a question about some of your work. So you said, I'm an architect and I choose not to build early on in your career. So could you explain that phrase and how you, why you decided to not build? Because when I was working at Stirlings, I noticed how much effort it was to do buildings which were very uncessed factory. Even the effort to do buildings between the ends are not worth the efforts. And yeah, I got the conclusion, particularly Maurice Couloux and my friend Massimo Sclery, they said, you, you cannot build. Because the society is now on a rail which is not going to that destination. You are on a different rail track. And, and I then I exaggerated this and I said that I do architecture because I'm not an architect. And no, because I'm doing architecture because I do not build. And because architects who build are compromised. And the situation is so corrupt that you become corrupted. And I think not only I was right then, but I am still right now because I noticed that whenever I'm involved in building many of the ideas, even if the principles get corrupted and even now in Kerala, we have these problems with skyscrapers, no? The only way to save the density of walkable heights for the next quarter was to allow three skyscrapers to fulfill the program, which is publicly allowed by the plan, there is nothing. Which is in my mind, the criminal instrument. It promotes criminal speculation on land. But then once you do that, and I couldn't sleep for a while because I did this because I, all my life, I've been militating the skyscrapers because they are toxic for towns. And I noticed now that even the ruin, the prospect of future of of that project, because instead of building them at the end to fulfill their, they are going to start with the skyscrapers. Yeah. Yeah. So how could you give a short run out of how skyscrapers are toxic for towns? Because I think it's nowadays also in Netherlands, we are building towers everywhere. And while not only is the skyline of Amsterdam, for example, is ruined by blocky, well, blocks. And also entire places are made, well, are killed. The on the street level, you just get huge blank facades with only one entry with a hundred letter boxes. And yet they see this as something necessary and even as something as progress in a way. But yeah, how would you summarize your views on skyscrapers? Well, skyscrapers, utilitarian skyscrapers, are an excessive use of urban land, of urban building plots. And by multiplying the flaws, you increase necessarily, if there's good markets, you increase income. But I found out that whatever you build above the walkable heights, money becomes so important that architecture goes out of the window. Also, skyscrapers are a huge concentration of building programs. They need large corporations, large finance. They need zoning, which actually does no longer is anti-urban in the sense that instead of growing in walkable distances and tights, you start building buildings which are only possible with cheap fossil fuel, no, with cheap energy. And also, as we now know, I mean, now it becomes general part of the general discourse that we are over the oil peak and that sooner or later we have to cut down on the use of fossil fuels. And when we have a crisis, like now with Russia and so on, lack of gas and the oil crisis with the Middle East, that's only these buildings. The prospect of their short sightedness becomes suddenly scandalously evident to everyone. What if you don't have cheap energy? What if you can't air condition the glass buildings in Doha? What if the Neum, Neum, Neum, Neum, if Neum, which relies entirely on horizontal streams of very fast traffic? What if they run out of oil or if they're oil gets stolen by more powerful countries? And what if they can't clean their glass 500 meter and 150 kilometers long mirror glass in a storm, after a storm? I mean, it's such insane ideas where the traditional towns always rely on walk on comfortable walk on what the human can walk comfortably every day. And that is the traditional urban quarters, which is about 10 minutes across maximum, walking, and three, four floor heights, which you can walk comfortably. We live briefly in Madrid on the eighth floor. And we walk once a day for exercise, but it's not using the lift too much. And so three floors is the walkable height. And then when we have panthouses, it's very, I don't know what you saw Antigua in Guatemala. I didn't have the time to go there, but it's very interesting. It's two-story high-town. But every two-story high-building hesitant house for the rich people. And when you are on the two-story house, it's the same feeling than being on the 60-story penthouse. You are above the world. The town is your landscape. So you can have that luxury. You don't need skyscrapers to have panthouses up in the air. No, on the other hand, the skyscraper is purely from a circulation point of view, isn't cul-de-sac. It's a vertical cul-de-sac. It's a social divider, because once you have, have you ever talked to anyone in the lift? No, it's embarrassing. You are too close for comfort because it's not a socialized experience where the street is. And once you plug these enormous cul-de-sacs, horizontal or vertical suburbs are horizontal cul-de-sacs. Once you plug onto the national grid of traffic or of energy streams and communication streams, they necessarily become the points of crisis because they have such a load on the network that you need to very carefully police that. And it's something also, imagine a very beautiful town becomes a magnet for also for money. And then, of course, because it's a magnet for making money, there's the tendency to build higher, to make more money. But then once you build above that certain limit, money is the only thing which counts, and that means that you are going to destroy the tram for which you have been attracted to. But then, also, it has no future because if you imagine, if you build one skyscraper, the principle of three-story walkable heights is destroyed. And therefore, every single lot of neighboring lot has the right to constitution a right to do the same thing. But then, imagine, I say that even if we had no limit of fossil fuel, we should still build according to traditional principle because, imagine, we have no problem with fossil fuel. So, every single lot builds its skyscraper. Then you have Hong Kong. You want to know how to be like the center of Hong Kong, it's like that. And then what? Now, once these buildings need the renovation, and usually they are built for money, so they are very cheaply built only the steel and concrete. They will deduct and the rest is garbage, that the installation of the services need to be renovated every 30 years. And then, you have to build higher in order to pay for the renovation. And so, it's an unthinking concept. And meanwhile, there is an alternative, instead of capitalizing off the beauty of these towns and being a parasite to them with skyscrapers, you can also just build more smaller, beautiful settlements. And we know it works because Kayela is the example. We were in Bruges recently, and we talked to the mayor, to the system mayor. And she tries to oppose the skyscrapers, which is being built outside just another skyscrapers. What arguments? So, I send her once for the work, and so on. But that's the point. The charm of Bruges is to have two or three story high buildings. But with a lot of high buildings, you know, the Bafroir and the different churches, the enormous skyscraper of Peter and Paul Church. I think it's 140 meters high out of brick. That's the reconstruction. And they are the true skyscrapers because vertical buildings in a horizontal fabric are very important to mark the central location, central squares, important commit buildings like churches or town halls or even schools and universities. To mark their location not only in plan, but also in silhouettes. So, actually, you read the importance, it's like a language, you read the silhouettes of Bruges from a far where the important stuff isn't and where the last thing called, where the economy, the economic fabric and where the symbolic fabric are. And this is being destroyed by skyscrapers. They have already built an ugly one outside Bruges. Instead of building a new Bruges. But the problem is that with functional zoning, which was brought in by large corporations, pushing for very land use, which is monofunctional because the modern industrial market has educated finance and industry and retail to work in very large envelopes, in ever larger envelopes. And they don't want to be bothered by architecture because it's considered to be an useless decoration. And therefore, these vast, when you have large scale geographic zoning, you cannot build towns because if your job as an architect is to build to design 7,000 houses in one location, what can you do? Yeah, 7,000 houses. So, you get bored. It's pre-planned boredom. And also, it's pre-planned social division because usually these stones become not only architecturally monotonous, but also socially monotonous, like the communities in the United States or even South America, but they become really class oriented. Yeah. And it's against the formation of civil society. We are going to pay the price for that very soon. Yeah, I fully believe that too. One interesting thing I have to think of was, well, one of the ideas, one of the reasons I think that we, that people don't choose to build a new Kaila or a new Bruce, for example. And I see this everywhere, is a lack of confidence by architects and planners and society in general to create beauty. They don't believe that they are able to, even though there are examples of where it happens and that it is possible. So, this lack of confidence, they have started believing that the world's just as it is and, well, let's just do something to get some houses somewhere. It's kind of a, yeah, they're already defeated. What's your view on this? Well, it is that actually architects are no longer able to do it, most architects. When you go five years to architecture school, except Notre Dame, and maybe one or two professors in Miami, and there are isolated cases in every country, or even in Germany, in Potsdam, you have, well, no, two professors. Architects don't know how to do traditional architecture. But modernism is not architecture. It's to do with volume building, wrapping in, in rather cheap materials. But it has nothing to do with the art of architecture, which is more than just naked building. And zoning, zoning is the main instrument which destroys that possibility of building towns. For instance, I mean, the town I built for Prince of Wales in England, which is now finishing the last part of Poundbury. That was in narrow, which was purely seen for employment. And then in order to build a real town was endless arguments that we said, but we want to integrate the workplaces with the, with the different town quarters and so on. And this was only because there were three or four people who agreed with this. No one in the Prince Council won the Chief Architect of the West also District Council, the politician, liberal politician. And of course, the Prince and myself, without us, this would not have happened. Because bureaucracy, which is the kind of parasite, which is killing democracy, and govern the notion of civic government, of police, is being destroyed by the ever-growing bureaucracy, bureaucracy is there to administer zoning. And zoning is this extreme simplification of the future, which is then administered by endless amounts of ridiculous prescriptions of the width of streets, of parking, of how many trees you are allowed, how much light you have to project at night of density and so on. And bureaucracy is a parasite, which is not only incompetent in designing towns, but it's also not allowed to think. Because if you work as an important figure in a bureaucracy, and you think, you become an enemy, the most important person in Luxembourg, in the point you say, my conference is, and I said, why do you come to my conferences? I said, I totally agree with you. He said, how come, point you say, they are the worst, they destroyed. He was then so, he was very active for three years, having trees replanted on the country roads, and even trying to get back, we did projects with Lucien Styl for different villages, but he became so desperate that after four years, in his post, he suicide it. Oh my goodness, terrible, and this was 1982, because once you begin to think within a bureaucracy, you cannot, you cannot stay there, you just have to struggle to get up in the hierarchy. And this is not only the case in architecture, it's the same in planning, it's the same in the military. Listen to Douglas McRanger talking about the American army now, and why we are losing against the Russians. Because his bureaucratization is toxic. When I always said this example, when Luxembourg built its best extension, the Bulva Royale, the park, and the Avnudla Liberté and the whole portal, which is fantastic, fantastic architecture, an incredible stone bridge, it's still now the best, the modernists have destroyed the Bulva Royale, but the Avnudla Liberté is still there, but now they destroyed it with a terrible tramway. When that quarter was built and the bridges, Luxembourg had no building administration. They had one architect called Luja, and Mr. Luja was friends with the prime minister and with Bergemeister. And he decided to invite the best German planner, Joseph Stübern, and the best architects in Cologne and in Paris, and wherever they invite it. And they built spectacular buildings, in 10 years, a quarter, a number of quarter like I wouldn't be able to do that because we lost that kind of capacity. There was no bureaucracy, there was one architect who commissioned this, who supervised for the government and for the town hall, and he had no office in the town hall, he worked from home, and he had no assistance, which proves that, you know, for instance in Poundbury, the last quarter of Poundbury, we worked with Ben Pantry, fantastic architect and George Summersmith. They do most of the buildings, I do the massing and the street layout and the accents, whatever it's public spaces and the planting. But then they hand in drawings to me, I look at them, these drawings are perfect. I used to have to correct always the chimneys and the entrances and the columns, and now they're perfect, there's nothing to say for me. And I'm a master architect, 50 years of practice. These drawings get now in a formidable portfolio, get handed to the local administration, who employ, I don't know how many people looking at these drawings for two years before we get the permit, and they're nothing to say, but trivia. And that is what wide science, why economy, why our intellectuals have to face the reality, how much democracy can, how much bureaucracy can, democracy afford in what field, in health, in planning, in safety, in commerce. We don't have that. There's a wonderful book about how small skill works better in almost every case. As things grow, they become more inefficient and just worse overall. I think the book is called "small as beautiful", but it might be different. Yeah, he was right. He visited the, yeah, when I thought that, but I was not yet quite aware of this, but it was important and it was what he meant is human scale. Yeah. That there is also human scale intelligence. Lots of things get complex, nobody can control it. Yeah. And then you lose. No. But we know that at least we know the traditional town, traditional agriculture, traditional operations, traditional locking, parceling of lots in towns, allowing small families or small developers to build a town rather than mega, mega conglomerates corporations with colossal investments. And then we can rebuild a human scale society, but because for the moment we are on a way out of humanity. And it's going to be extreme. The trends are going, the other way, it's not going towards human scale. But because human scale also in violence, human scale, one of the great problems of human societies is to control violence, which is controlled by by laws, but also by mythology. And because rivalries between individuals and groups needs a certain scale, not to be, and the certain discipline, not to become self-destructive, like Vandata, René Girard is the most important philosopher of violence and the sacred from the blue book. His last book is about Ashevi Klausovich. He says we are now in such a scale, a super human scale of violence, that it is now uncontrollable. And you know, we are not speculating whether Putin is going to throw a bomb, but we are the ones who are provoking. He says that we are now so beyond human scale violence that it's going to be apocalyptic and for modern, we so far safe, but we feel that for me, the book entropy by Jeremy, Jeremy, what's his name? I forget his name, entropy, which would publish in 2000. It's very important. The large scale operations, they are extremely anthropic. Where small scale, the chaos, can manage itself by negation. Whereas when you have very large scale confrontations, gigantic confrontations, like Russia against, or banks collapsing. They say too big to fail, too big to survive. Yeah, but yeah, maybe the idea of progress. Why is the idea of progress so attractive and why are so many politicians, developers, et cetera, blinds to the obvious qualities of places that support community and blinds to the promises that solutions that have already worked. The belief in progress is of course linked to the idea of that humankind is not a creation, but is something which is under evolution. With the idea that as we involve humankind will also become more intelligent. And I think that is a formidable, terrible systemic mistake, because we are now so not only number wise, but also in fact now in my lifetime humankind has doubled. I'm now part of humanity, I'm causing the tumbling of humankind from 4 to 8 billion. And if we were more intelligent, it would be very clear that with so much intelligence, intelligence, mass around, I mean the future would be bright. And yet we see that virtually all major, I mean the development of architecture is a case in point because from having in a craft an art which had resolved all problems of building in different climates, in different seismic conditions, in different soils and different altitudes, creating incredibly rich language of diverse language of environment, of artificial human environment, whether it's in the Himalayas or South America or in central Europe or in the United States. And that has all been lost in the last 60 years, 70 years, to a completely inferior system which is not even a language which is kind of stutter, which is unmatched to distinguish between a house and a castle. It's just building mass and wrapping or building mass in rather fragile materials. So how if we have become more intelligent, how can we bear to have our hospitals being the worst buildings in Italy or hospitals in Italy? I mean they're disgusting, you wouldn't want animals to be housed there. And ugly buildings make you sick when you have to stand there. And I wonder, I always asked doctors how can you stand it, working in such a horrible space where hospitals built in 19th century, around 10th of century, in every country, used to be charming charming ensembles. Beautifully resolved often with separate civilians, separate with the outer hotels. Yeah, and now they're like, whoosh in the air, but the biggest hospital, teaching hospital in the United States, it's like a mile long, a dominating hill, and every piece is ugly, inside and outside. And that affects the mind and people who work in it. And so that people who work in this environment become also like impoverished, they become like part of the corporate machine which is, and which is then able to impose policies which are criminal, coming out of WHO. And so, small scale is not really small scale, but which needs to be defined, but human scale. Human scale is not a sentimental affair, but is what we can manage, by matricity or by intelligence. And there are problems which we can no longer resolve. I mean, the idea of pollution, which we have not resolved the problem of pollution from atomic power stations. Yet we are building this, and even the greens now, the little greens who now finally turn, that there's no future in fossil fuel, nothing want to be. But the basic problem of how to make this sustainable over a very long period of time is not solved. And also, how if we live in societies which are violent and the one Ukraine, this just a little demonstration, that war is still a possibility in every country, and not just far away in the East. And the earlier we wanted, how would it look if we had again a war in central Europe, where we have all these atomic power stations? If you have madmen, just with a good device and a good rocket, they can cause major. Yeah, so many deaths. Destroy, destroy the entire landscape. Therefore, there are problems which are beyond the human human solution. And therefore, it needs to be. I was involved with clients, German clients, to build a logical client, and I thought they were a utopian. They were two utopian, where you would have like an international academy to bring together residents of all the different branches of human and other of culture and politics and science and economy, so that you would have a small group of people who are really the leaders, intellectual leaders, but working at a practical solution for the future, as an alternative to the corporate, corporate socialist monster, because socialism and corporate capitalism is ending the same thing. Marx said it. But what would be the alternative? We have a counter-project in town planning and architecture, but I can't see anywhere such an counter-project which could actually be an alternative to China or to corporate America or to fascist Europe, which is now dominating Europe. Corporate, the collusion of cooperation and stake is what Ayn Rand defined as the form of fascism, not just neatly but everywhere, and that we didn't have really. Ayn Rand was the kind of a Trump-list capitalist, but she said we don't have capitalism, because if we had real capitalism, somebody who cooks an excellent hamburger can actually go into competition with and destroy McDonald's. But if you try in a McDonald's Imperium to establish a hamburger place which makes real good hamburgers, which is not that difficult, they are going to destroy you, politically, or even in southern France, they will eliminate you physically. And that is why we need the counter-project, a political and economic counter-project. And that is, I thought, you know, when I was the director of this institute, you mentioned in Skidmines and Merrill Institute, I drafted a paper which they paid for, and I was chosen for that paper amongst 35 contestants to actually create documents, like primers, not only about planning, but also how planning relates to industry, and you would have different experts in economy and politics, constitutional thinkers, to have more than just an architectural and urban project. And that, unfortunately, so far, is missing. I left because it was impossible to it was dominated by the dictator, Gordon Bunch after was the dictator then of Skidmines. And Merrill was large corporation of thousands of employees and they treated me like I was director, but they treated me like they wanted me in office, and I said in London I have fantastic office, why should I come to Chicago, sitting in the basement of your family house? Because corporations by definitions are not democratic. If you look inside bank corporations or industrial corporations, it's absolutely dictatorship, probably if you don't behave, you're out. And that together with state power is what is going to be the new form of fascism which is now being established and deconstructing traditional societies by destroying language, destroying sex, destroying cities, destroying agriculture, having us eat, what are they planning? Controlling climate, I mean, with trained kind of toxic materials in the sky. So we need separation of the government of states and economy, but yeah, total separation. And the public-private partnership, because that is the big thing, public-private, but the counter-project, how that looks, and I try to meet the people, I wish there were people coming forward. What would be, what would be the future of democracy without a bureaucracy? How much does a parliament have to sit to maintain democracy? Does it have to sit every year? Why does it sit all six or eight months, making laws which need to be administered by armies of bureaucrats? I mean, Biden employed 75,000 more bureaucrats to bring in American tax. They just bring in tax to pay for themselves. That's what they are, therefore. And pay for almonds which are no longer on their longer top of the art. Yeah, we need a political counter-project, which yeah, because and Europe would be, you know, the European Union would be in a way a structure which would lead, could lead in those matters. And then you have corrupt entity like von der Leyen promotes a new Bauhaus instead. All buildings of Europe in the last 70 years were disgusting. And people want to leave the European Union because they have no image of what Europe could be attractive. I mean, if you think of of your parliament, you think of the hey, you know, of America, you think of the capital building of buildings which are attractive. But what if you have to think of ugly buildings where you have, they become not only the symbol, they are actually the machine of anti-human scale. Yeah, maybe what ties into this is one of the final questions is how do we overcome modernism? Yeah, and from the ground up, what is needed now? And I believe it will tie into education, but what's your opinion? How do we get to the, how do we get past modernism? How do we either break it down or skip it or? Well, I think the test to start with yourself, you have to in order to lead a happy life, to be really a fulfilled and nice person. You can't be modest because they all become frustrated and humiliated and they know that they are in a criminal project, which is anti-human. So it's to build alternative models, but to build alternative small cities like Kaelar, like Poundbury, or others, we have enormous failures, and as Duane always says, urbanism has a very high mortality rates of projects, because in the system does not really allow them. Its only individuals who are strong enough to know that this is the right thing, and then maybe we are partially able to do it, and I'm not completely happy with Poundbury. People always say, "You must be proud of Poundbury." I say, "Yeah, but it's nice. It's much better than everything else, but it's not really what we planned." Because we reintroduced mixed use, we introduced traditional architecture, we introduced local crafts and so on, and local materials, but we could have had, if we were really free, if it was a free market, we would have the high street going through every single water. Now we have only shops on the squares, because the council didn't allow shops on the high streets, because we live in a planned economy, planned by state bureaucrats who are corrupted by corporations, and to defend corporate interests, and they are to bid large shopping malls and large single-use zones, you know, 10,000 houses without anything else, because that's what they are good at. But they cannot plan, nor do they want to build traditional towns, because it goes against them. And you need strong individuals within the administration, to be strong enough to know that this is the right thing to do. In Poundbury, thanks God, we had five or six people who were strong enough to bring this through, but without this individual, the administration was against it. In dress, the administration has been against the reconstructions of the, not only of the church, I was of nine experts, international experts in 1919, the only one supporting the citizens to build the front kitchen. All the others, Fajotto and Spear and all the names I forgot them, they were against, they said, "You cannot do this." And I said, "Yes, you can do this, you should do it." And then when Kulka started the initiative to rebuild the square, the administration was against it, but only because he had this trick with getting 65,000 notes for election good, that they started rebuilding. He, Kulka was able to have competition organized with public participation for the Neustadt, for the new town, the 18th century new town, which is ruined in the center by a horrible GDR socialist garbage. He had the competition organized to rebuild the part, the main square there, with the agreement of the of the burgers, and that administration had to agree to it. Now, in the last two years, the administration have done everything to stop this, and now they have listed the GDR buildings, which are terrible buildings, which actually need to be rebuilt, the concrete panels, no cracking everywhere, and the joints leaking. They listed these as public monuments. And it shows the Pavastia public. We have enormous administration to conserve buildings, to plan buildings, to manage buildings, and they do the opposite. Planning and architecture, and all these things are not in good hands as far as state or the local administration's curve. So it needs now a private initiative to build alternatives, and then when the public then finally sees what is good then, maybe there could become a change in the. But I don't see a solution coming from political pressure because now the public is so manipulated by cheap propaganda, vulgar, and perverse, and pornographic propaganda, that it's very difficult to see in a position growing which could become really articulate about the larger issues. And so the internet perhaps, because there are more and more, you have to architecture uprisings in Sweden, which are having effects. But you will see, when this becomes very important, there will be censors, because censorship, misinformation, disinformation, all these new propaganda institutions are being installed in England, in France, everywhere, in Europe. And they are going to check whatever is threatening the system. And we have to. From the line, for instance, his personality was unbelievably corrupt. She had to leave Germany because she was corrupt. Now she's corrupted through the COVID corruption, and her husband gets from the line, the president of Europe, and who she punches, who she is in Germany. She was corrupt. She had her family paid enormous sums for consulting about tanks, so I don't know what things they had no idea about. And now in Europe, she is in this contract with Pfizer, and there are no documents. And so we have to accept that these people are corrupt, and they need to be replaced, but they won't go by themselves. Yeah. What is your biggest hope at this moment? And yeah, what's positive things do you see going in the right direction? Well, I think, for instance, what you do is a sign that you have a way to talk of truth, which are universally shared, that beauty is important. And even if our buildings don't compare to the beauty of real tradition towns, but they are nearly as good. And we can do, if we didn't have the bureaucracy and the corrupt corporations, we would do much better now. There are some developments, which are absolutely fantastic, which you should look at, like Lomas de Marbella Club. I don't know what you know it by Donald Gray. We published a book in Madrid about it. Well, one more, one more time. From us, double LOMAS de Marbella Club. Iran has done a film about it because he got the prize, the Manzano prize. When you look at Manzano, premier Manzano, you see videos, see, Iran is videos. And that is the best new traditional ensemble, which was built in the '60s and '70s. And Donald Gray is not an architect. He died now, but he was, he was a teacher of English and the writer and the painter. But he was not an architect, because he had a friend who had all this produced his bricks and they planned this town to impeccable perfection. Yeah. And it was not an area for the rich, it was built very cheaply. So there are alternatives, or Paul Grimoïn France. Paul Grimoïn France is by Spéry, who planned his partner plant with the Bitements, the Pleasant Robinson. Yeah. But have you been to Paul Grimoire? Paul Grimoire, I have heard of it, I've read about it, but I haven't been there. Fantastic. I mean, it's built, it was built to the cost of the then habitation, alloyé modere of social housing, of French social housing. If you imagine French social housing would have been built like that, France would be paradise. Having the city, which are places. So it was incredibly cheap, cheaply built, and still it is a very popular place. And yeah. How very rich. Yeah. Now rich. But there is a one by Louis Mert-Noschabreau, le biche, where Trantignan is the architect of Paul Grimoire, and he presents the building site to Stefan Nordrand, who is the main actress in le biche. Fantastic. Yeah. Yeah. Fantastic. So maybe a little bit in France. Sorry. Yeah, in France, it's very well known. Yeah. And yet it was done in the 60s, and this we were a moriscule, always used it as the counter-example. This is the model that we can do it. You don't need that much money to do traditional building. You need just the right plan and the right craftsman. And the consequences of this are enormous. And that is why the Prince of Wales was so important, because he was the only public figure who actually saw that there was something happening, which was very important and then sustained it, supported it. And where are there other public figures who have that courage to go against the extreme. Mondayson will die by its own death. It's a sterile, a dead language, and there's no, I'm now doing a book about Le Corbusier trying to prove that communism is doubly corrupt because actually with Corbusier's talent, he could have done a really beautiful town, and we are demonstrating this now in 3D. And so, but it is really the zoning, this kind of deconstruction of a human field in large geographic zones, which has destroyed also architecture because it's pre-plant monotony and industrial cloning, and which comes with it. In the end, you have pure economy going actually to its own self-destruction. Because that is what the corporate takeover is, that takes over, takes over until it can't swallow anymore, and then it's going to die. It was very good, for example, in I thought that Yale, and the town, you are, what's called, I forget now. But the town where Yale was taken over in the 1946 by enormous mountaineer coming from the administration, to build highways through the town, it was a beautiful town, and then they destroyed a black neighborhood which was very beautiful, and took rid of the blacks near the university, and then they built these supermarkets and skyscrapers, and all this stuff, when I started in the '80s, was rotten already. They had their operations left these buildings to rot. I was in a skyscraper then, I had to move my table away and bring because the boat would come in on the 15th floor. It's really architecture rot, so it's not has no future. So once they then they move out and have even bigger shopping malls, and then what? Yeah, poisoning the population and the lands people. Yeah, there's no future in it, and there's a very important, understood here has written a very important book about this called Agricultural Urbanism, I think, was published by the Princess Foundation, with drawings, beautiful illustrations, how you can take down the mega scale of agriculture in that states, build small towns with small scale agricultural enterprise farms, around it, which can again nourish the place rather than export it to China. Yeah, I think it's important to recognize how architecture and the system in which we live are linked, and not, yeah, and cannot really be seen separate, but still sometimes you need to prove a project, yeah, by doing it yourself. And I think, like you said, with the private initiatives, like Kyla and perhaps Pembery, where there was a private instigator, sometimes you need to do an example project, yeah, disconnected from government to show it that there is an alternative. The thing, I mean, Prince Strauss, when he was, he would always come with very powerful people. We're large companies of land or even ambassadors, and a lot of these people are now actually who own privately, a lot of land, are now trying to do this. So it's still in the planning stage, but people like Ben Patrith are brilliant in short, they are a lot engaged in these projects. So there's a lot coming, I work on other projects, but always for private, never public authority. I had the important job I have had for public authority was for Florence City Council to replan the novel, which was the Axe Fiat area, where they built aeroplanes. But when the mayor, and I was invited by Janutzo Pucci, was the founder of the Green movement in Tuscany in the 60s and 70s, and he was authentic green. He was really interested in gardening and small-scale architecture and also traditional architecture. We did the project for the administration, but then the administration changed after seven months, and my plan was condemned in the papers as in Piano Crier Fasquifor, the Crier plan is in a four-letter word. They printed it, but they printed it. And now it's built, but it's terrible, because they maintain the plan, but the whole, the paving, and the tree planting, and the architecture is just disgusting. And so it's worthless. You need not only the nice streetscape and the parks and the traditional quarters, you need the architects, you need the mixed use, you need the mixed ink so that they are not only rich, but also that the lesser is allowed to live there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe a final, final question. Yeah, do we have any advice for young designers, architects, or anyone involved in the world of architecture and planning, what they should do, or know, or how they should hold themselves in this modern world? Well, we get a lot of respondents from young people at schools who are bored. And actually, the table-orant architecture, they have many people who come from architecture schools, from Barcelona, wherever, from Kiev, up from Washington, who are bored, because you don't learn anything in architecture school. I really strongly recommend people not to spend time and money to study in the normal architecture schools, because all they learn is not to do the right thing. And usually, when you get out five years later, you are not only incapable of doing real architects, but also depressed, and that's the worst enemy of making a good life in them. But go to work for an architect who, no, they are now in every country, we have a long list of architects who do the right thing in many different countries, even in Thailand and in China, and in all its political systems. Now people who are really doing the right thing, and the Notre Dame, also the Manzana Prize Group in Madrid, they publish enormous publications every six months, five, six hundred pages full of projects from all around the world. We can't publish them all, because we get now so much stuff. And so it's to learn, to learn from people who know, but also you can learn a lot by yourself. And one, for my most radical way of learning, traditional architecture, is not only to sit there and draw beautiful buildings, but also to sit in ugly places and draw everything, to learn how ugly the world is now. And then, no, record what is nice about the town, and then try to improve. I can send you, I did the example with students like that, how to study ugly places and how to improve them, because sometimes ugly places are still in the right skillful, and in Italy, a lot of suburbs, they are very ugly, but they are still sort of not unpleasant to live in. And we positioned, Maurice and Maurice Kulu and I, we positioned our students in the worst places, and then people who come to the house and say, "Oh, don't draw this ugly, go into the building, but then how to learn how to improve ugly places." And sometimes, it's not that difficult, but it's very important. One technique is to study a building, not draw, standing for the building which talks to you, because buildings, they're like personalities, you like them or you don't, when you find the building you like, and display of them around, then you look at them and you learn by heart, like you learn a poem or text, you learn every part by heart and you try to name every part and then go home and redroy it. And then, when you go back and then compare what you did out of it, what it was, and then you can explore not only the forms, but also the language, the names, because every part of traditional architecture has a name, and that is what allows you to communicate with craftsmen, not only about the profile, but also a part where it's part of a capital column. And it is that language which is missing, even the vocabulary is missing for modernism. I would like to have this kind of thing, you know, can't deliver, something, you know, like this, you know. It's a beam, what for? A beam is supposed to passing something. And it's by learning also from the mistakes, because it's very pinchful. I had students, they took like a day to learn really the nice parts of a town, the chimneys, the doors, the window frames, and I'll send you one of the exercises which was fantastic, I did with more school or anything. But then to draw the ugly places would take three or four days, because there's an inner resistance to draw everything ugly. Because you feel you are wasting your time, no, you learn something. But then talk to people, and you know, the good architects know everywhere, we have lists of even craftsmen. So important for instance, in Germany until 1965, everyone who wanted to study architecture had to do a craft. The apprentice should be in some craft, either in the woodworking or ironwork or cluster. There are 39 crafts in traditional architecture. So you had to do an apprenticeship for six months and note what I learned. You need seven years to learn it, but at least to know about it. But it was important to know about craft. And it is there where the pleasure is, because it's in these traditional crafts that you have an enormous choice for different talents to find what they are good at. And the people who work iron and are at a very different characters, even physically, from those who work are fresco. And to wood, no. I worked a lot in the wood industry with furniture and was then invited to do some metal work for a company in Italy. And the woman who introduced me that you have to understand that working for wood in the wood industry is very different from working in the metal industry, because people in the industry are very cold. They didn't invite you to take you to the airport, that's all. But so it's an enormous challenge. And talent is still born. So it's such a waste to have these young people who are often very talented and you saw it in in Britain, well, how these young people in New Zealand did drawings like architects are not there to do. Yeah. Yeah. What's the reason for being taught by a good hand? In Utrecht, we had also very gifted students. Yeah. Yeah. So it's, but I think it's a wonderful, wonderful knowledge to share. And also something I might pick up myself. Yeah. Sorry for my horse voice all the time. Yeah. I think this is a good place, maybe to and to interview. I'll just stop recording after this. But we can talk a bit longer. But thank you so much for for making all the time. And I think it has been one of the interviews so far. And I think people will get a lot of help from it. So yeah. You have a lot of talent. Maybe you have also talent for planning or for architecture. Well, I did study urbanism, but in the worst place in Britain, for example, in Delft. Yeah. But I can try. I mean, I might go to not for name, perhaps. But I'll have to decide on that. But yeah. No, they are fantastic people in Notre Dame. But there's also very good architects. Yeah. You were there with Martin Van Schijk. Martin Van Schijk in Delft. I'm not sure I'm Martin Van Schijk. He lives in Antfab now. He does his doctorate about my. I'm not sure if I know him, but I did buy this when I was studying in Delft. So I studied urban planning at the University of Amsterdam, but it was very much based on policy. And it was a bit sad that I didn't learn anything creative. So then I thought, I want to, yeah, I want to learn how to design something beautiful. So then I switched to Delft and I had to do a whole year two semesters of architecture at the architecture of faculty of Delft. And of course, while I had to design. You know what I'm used to things. You know from the inside. Yeah, I know it from the inside. And it was, well, I designed things I'm not proud of. And then I could finally do my urbanism master. And then I discovered that the master was useless. There was, I learned almost nothing that I wanted to learn. And I'm actually a bit jealous of the summer school students in Belamin also in Utrecht, which where I now help guide the students because they learn everything I wanted to learn when I was university. So it's a waste of money and your youth when you're best at things. Yeah, it's a waste. And now I'm trying to self-advocate and read books. And I hope, yeah, where to start as a planner, I just hope to learn. I think it would be, I mean, it would be great if you could work. And I think if you would work for a year with Maria and Pedro, people like that would learn in his school. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. It's not only about architecture but also about publicity and because he involved everything nowadays. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Have you been to Brandevort? Yeah, yes, I've been. My brother, my brother designed the, yeah, but not the new part, which was it's an achievement. Yeah, it's a nice place. Only it's a bit too much of a, it's not really connected. Well, so it's very much autonomous. And because of that, it's not as lively, perhaps it would have been nice to have some road through it. That's a problem that it's always, we are supposed to do sub-ups and do something different. It's very, very difficult. But that's still nice. Yeah, there's a new extension of the horrible. Yeah, they actually wanted another Brandevort like and then they cancelled it and now they're going to make the the brain port smart district and it's absolutely horrible. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Of course, they had planned everything. Yeah, it did the very interesting in the Harlem. He had a small settlement. Yeah. So it's very cheaply built, but for people who can buy a house for 50,000 kilters, I don't know what. Yeah. But then they had to replace the windows, which were fake windows and they had to go to some do it yourself, shop to buy the right type of windows. And I met the developer on the spot where done, he had done a supermarket of 2,000 square meters on the roof, no people so, and this small town like a village with 100,000 or 200,000. And I said, "But it's remarkable that you did this." And he said, "Well, I'm not interested in it. I just did this because I have to do it. I can only build my supermarkets if I build the old people so on top of it. He's a obliged law." Well, there are some some tricks in the Holland, which allows to do more than does suburb. Yeah. Yeah. Make out the locations and that is very tiresome. Because it's very educated in urbanism to become a bureaucrat, not a plantar. Well, yeah, to create places that conform to the status quo, to create, I don't know, new brainports, smart districts with funky blocks, but it's not planning. It's too random to be planning. You don't create streets, you don't create urban places. And then you go there to study them, but then the next part is, there was nothing of value. Substruction. Yeah, completely abstract. Everything was about complex cities or very theoretical things, conceptual architecture. And I guess you could, if you would really hammer on it, I think you can place your own path, but you need to be very strong-willed and aware of what is going on to be able to do that. And I wasn't very aware yet at that time, but I digress. Thank you so much for this wonderful interview. I was really happy to have you on. Well, the owner is mine and I think you do a formidable work to get these ideas out, because I think we have an enormous amount of public waiting. Yeah, I think so too. Yeah. And most people seem to agree, so that's nice as well. We didn't impose. We just offer another choice. We say, this is a possibility. It's not, no, no. Yeah, try it. Yeah, wonderful. Then thank you and see you next time. Thank you for listening to another episode of the aesthetic city podcast. You can find more information about Leon Krier, well, by simply googling his name. A lot of lectures will come up, his books, and much more. But for your convenience, I've added a number of links to these lectures, and to his book in the podcast description. If you're like our content and what to support what we do, you can support us in various ways. The easiest way is to give this podcast a favorable review. Another way to support this podcast is to share it with colleagues and friends. You can also follow us on X, subscribe to our YouTube channel, or our substag newsletter. And finally, the ultimate way to support the aesthetic city is to become a patron. Find a patron link in the description. For more information about this platform, visit theaceticcity.com. Thank you, until next time.