Cities, Cultures, and Resistance: Beyond Leon Krier and the Postmodern Condition

Author(s): Thomas A. Dutton

Source: Journal of Architectural Education (1984-), Vol. 42, No. 2 (Winter, 1989), pp. 3-9
Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of the Association of Collegiate Schools of
Architecture, Inc.
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 Cities, Cultures, and
Resistance: Beyond Leon
Krier and the
Postmodern Condition
H
Thomas A. Dutton is an architect and consequences of industrialization, zoning,
as they are. This is the architecture of minds
associate professor at Miami University in at rest. Such compliance and directions and modernism as they affect the city in terms
of its spatiality, culture, and governance are
Oxford, Ohio. He is a graduate of California expose quite clearly the relationship between
Polytechnic State University in San Luis architecture and the forms of power that useful and on the mark.
Obispo and Washington University in St. structure it in the wider context of society.
Krier's self-proclaimed project is the recon-
Louis. Since 198 1 Dutton has worked closely Architecture is never capable of completely
with community groups of the Over-the-Rhine reproducing its own existence, for it struction
is a of the European City as a component
neighborhood of downtown Cincinnati, primary medium for dominant institutions of to
a global strategy of anti-industrial resis-
Ohio-one of the largest low/moderate manifest forms and images through which tance.4 He is quite specific and adamant
income areas of the city-where he has their power will be communicated and legiti-
about the spatial blueprint of this reconstruc-
helped formulate plans for physical and mated. tion, which forms the backbone of all his
social rejuvenation. work, both written and drawn.
Such a condition poses certain questions that,
though not popular, urgently need to be "A city can only be reconstructed in the forms
addressed. How can architects develop of streets, squares and quarters.
more fully theoretical positions which can,
when possible, direct architectural practice "These quarters must integrate all functions of
towards cultural-political change? In what urban life, in areas not to exceed 35 HA and
ways can architecture be theorized and 15,000 inhabitants.
mobilized as a weapon to resist an exploita-
This article situates the work of Leon Krier tive status quo? More specifically, what are "The streets and squares must present a famil-
within the contexts of postindustrialism and the avenues that must be forged which can iar pattern.
postmodernism. The author is critical of Krier, marry architecture to subordinate cultures in
and finds problematic his self-proclaimed their struggle for empowerment against a "Their dimensions and proportions must be
stance of idealism/purism, a position which dominant culture? In sum, what kind of those of the best and most beautiful pre-
devalues a possible practice of direct cultural cultural directions and politics are architects industrial cities.
and political action, and reduces his work to willing to support?
the level of hollow scenography. Dutton "Simplicity must be the goal of urban topogra-
argues that, especially in these times, archi- Motivated by these questions, the intent of this phy, however complex.
tects must strive to overcome their marginali- essay is to examine the interplay among
zation. He points to an instrumental role for architecture, cultural politics, space, and "The city must be articulated into public and
architecture in promoting transformative cul- resistance within the late twentieth-century domestic spaces, monuments and urban
tural directions, politics, and ways oflife. He city. My argument is that the city is the result fabric, squares and streets, classical architec-
argues that there is maneuverability to resist of oppositional forces and actors, where the ture and vernacular building.
dominant culture, a precondition of which is fight for space is the fundamental feature of
for architects to link with struggling cultures to cultural politics, and wherein there is maneu- "And in that hierarchy."5
help produce their vision and spatiality. verability for architectural intervention on
behalf of resistant cultures. Because architec- Krier contributes to this formula through the
INTRODUCTION ture unavoidably lies at the intersection of "mastery of draughtsmanship and the dedi-
To claim that "architecture is an instrumentculture
of and politics, it occupies a privileged cated stoicism of solitary work."6 Crusading
politics"1 is to state the obvious. Whetherposition
or with great potential for resistance. as a lone champion standing against the
not such a condition is at the core of architec-
Architecture is about the politics of space and world, Krier does not involve himself in direct
tural discourse does not dilute its general culture, and through particular combinations political or cultural action. Instead, through
acceptance. But to accept does notautomati- it is possible to promote alternative cultural his writings and drawings, he articulates
cally mean to be concerned, or at least directions, politics, and ways of life. In other values and aspirations which he thinks speak
compelled enough to think about and words, act politics can be an instrument of archi- of a better time, when cities and city life in
tecture.
upon this condition of architecture's complic- their pre-capitalist form were the supposed
ity to reproduce privileged forms of power in apotheosis of all that could be considered
physical terms. Trends and patterns in con-
The vehicle for this critical investigation will be human. "Forward Comrades, We Must Go
the work of Leon Krier. To many, Krier is "the
temporary architectural theory and practice Back"7 perhaps best indicates his direction.
today suggest this to be true. Caughtmost in curious, potent, and significant force in
aesthetic formalism and its postmodernarchitecture
ac- today."3 Though I will take Krier Krier marks an excellent starting point for
to task on the issues I just mentioned, I want
coutrements2 (historicism, graphism, esoter- assessing the importance of viewing architec-
ica, the desire to build "art,"etc.) the makers
to make it clear thatall is notwrongwith Krier. ture as integral to cultural politics. For what
of architecture seem to be right at home in Krier's
the contribution to architectural discourse must be at the center of any theory of cultural
condition of American society-with things is important. Many of his criticisms about the politics are exactly those concepts of culture,

Winter 1989 JAE 42/2

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 U
city, and resistance which Krier utilizes in his
discourse to interrogate architecture in its
connections to industrialism and capitalism.
But the praise ends there. Krier has exhausted
his own theoretical mileage. He has con-
structed a closed theoretical universe which
is: (1 )incapable of demystifying and explain-
ing the characteristics of post-industrialism
and its spatiality; (2) inadequate in affecting
the realm of culture because its premise is a
steadfast refusal to practice (unless com-
pletely on his own terms8); and (3) sympto-
matic of the postmodern condition, a condi-
tion which perversely rewards Krier's idealist
pursuits of detachment and hollow scenogra-
phy as avenues for meaningful work. This
paper will explore these points and re-
appropriate the central categories of Krier's
discourse (City, Culture, Resistance) so that
they may be more effective in directing archi-
tectural theory and practice towards the
production of alternative culture.
Cultural Politics and the Spatiality
of the Late Twentieth Century
Krier's model for the reconstruction of the city
is the pre-industrial city. But how does the
spatiality of pre-industrialism relate to the
spatiality of post-industrialism? Implicit in this
question, of course, is the assumption that in
order to succeed in transforming the spatiality
of post-industrialism, such an attempt must
meet post-industrialism on its own ground. If
we step back for a moment to see what is
actually happening to the city today, there is
clearly a wide gulf between Krier's urban per-
ceptions and prescriptions and their relation
to the real-world spatiality of the late twenti-
eth century.
The dynamics of our present political econ-
omy may be generally characterized by the
following: (1) an increasing concentration of
capital in the form of diversified conglomer-
ates facilitated by the global mobility of
capital; (2) de-industrialization marked by
industry shifts, plant closures, and capital
flight to those regions of less-unionized and
cheap labor; (3) selective re-industrialization
in primarily high-tech sectors; (4) a sharper
polarization of labor between high pay/high
skill and low pay/low skill workers (let alone
the unemployed) which further burdens the
state to meet its welfare and social service
obligations; and (5) a greater partnership
between private enterprise and the state so as
Winter 1989 JAE 42/2
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to ward off economic and political crises.9 If
these dynamics are the effects, the causes are
the "reorganization of capitalism on a world
scale, manifested in a changing international
division of labor, modifications in the role of
the state, accelerated regional economic
shifts within countries, and widespread
changes in the urbanization process, employ-
ment patterns and the internal structure of
cities."'0
The city, as the principal spatial canvas of
post-industrial economics, is experiencing
severe spatial and social transformations.
Caught in an intense rivalry and competition,
cities world wide are undergoing dramatic
restructuring to harbor new spatial and social
relations of production and consumption in
order to leverage capital and maximize it to
its highest profitability. As Edward Soja, etal,
have pointed out, "we are again experienc-
ing a phase of capitalist restructuring charac-
terized by attempts to restore greater
profitability.. .and to re-establish the effective
labor discipline and control necessary to
achieve expanding rates of accumulation."'1
Some by-products of this economic and
urban upheaval are already clear: suburbani-
zation, freeway construction and expansion,
migration to city centers, so-called slum re-
moval, and urban renewal. More recent
trends are gentrification, displacement,
multi-nuclear downtowns, and CBD "re-
births." In the bigger cities it probably comes
as no surprise that multi-block developments
are now the basic development parcel over
single building developments (however large
they may be). For example, developments
such as Battery Park City, the World Finan-
cial Center, and the projected Television City
in New York City, the Renaissance and
Millender Centers in Detroit, and the IDS
Center in Minneapolis, are becoming more
and more commonplace.2
This is obviously a time of big battalions and
big development, and the fall-out is equally
large. Thus, for example, as Los Angeles has
become the financial and corporate hub of
the Pacific Rim economy, this has occurred
"hand-in-hand with a precipitous deteriora-
tion of the general urban infrastructure and a
new-wave immigration that has brought an
estimated one million undocumented Asians,
Mexicans and Central Americans into the
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InnerCity...At least 1 00,000 apparel home-
workers toil within a few miles radius of the
Bonaventure and child labor is again a
shocking problem."13 On a more subtle yet
poignant note, Joseph Murphy reveals that in
New York City the two fastest growing things
sharing the streets these days are homeless
people and stretch limousines.14 The magni-
fied poliferation of the extremes, of wealth
and poverty, of massive development and
homelessness, can only be recognized as
different aspects of the same global process
of political, economic, and cultural transfor-
mation.
Though dominant cultures and politics today
continue to restructure the city in their interests
(greater capital accumulation, the suppres-
sion of labor and class conflict, etc.), we
should not assume that this transformation is
impervious to all contrary forms of culture and
politics. Given proper conditions, there is tre-
mendous potential for social change and for
the emergence of new urban cultures through
these contrary forms. This potential begins
with the more profound conception of
"space" and its role in the identity of culture. It
is only at this intersection of space and culture
that architects can effect a more critical
practice. It is to this connection among
space, culture, and practice that I now turn.
In one quick and simple phrase Manuel
Castells captures a very important concept
with which to apprehend the city and its
structural opposition: "Any theory of the city
must be, at its starting point, a theory of social
conflict."15 Castells continues:
"Therefore spatial forms, at leaston our planet,
will be produced by human action, as are all
other objects, and will express and perform
the interests of the dominant class according
to a given mode of production and to a
specific mode of development. They will
express and implement the power relation-
ships of the state in a historically defined
society. They will be realized and shaped by
gender domination and by state-enforced
family life. At the same time, spatial forms will
also be marked by resistance from exploited
classes, oppressed subjects, and abused
women. And the work of this contradictory
historical process on space will be accom-
plished on an already inherited spatial form,
the product of history and support of new in-

terests, projects, protests, and dreams. Fi-
nally, from time to time social movements will
arise, challenging the meaning of a spatial
structure and therefore attempting new func-
tions and new forms. Such are the urban
social movements, the agents of urban-spa-
tial transformation, the highest level of urban
social change."16
Thus the spatiality of any given historical
moment is always the result of struggle be-
tween dominant and resistant groups. To be
sure, this struggle is not symmetrical. It is
asymmetrical. Thus while the spatial blueprint
of post-industrialism steadily unfolds, it is
being challenged by alternative and resistant
groups-neighborhood organizations,
women's groups, special interests, labor
unions, cultures, and others.
Now what must be seen as pivotal and
central to this struggle, and an important
element of architecture, is the category of
space. By space I mean one of society's most
fundamental mechanisms through which
power is produced and organized to ani-
mate cultural traits and practices, social and
work relations, and general everyday experi-
ence. 17 In other words, space cannot be seen
as a simple, passive container within which
human activities take place. Nor can it be
construed as merely the reflection of society.
On the contrary, and as Frederic Jameson
puts it:
"Space is...to be understood as a transcen-
dental organizing category, rather than as an
empirical datum. The category of space can-
not be reduced to those concrete individual
spaces that you can see, such as this hall, this
campus, or your own private house, with its
various rooms: rather it is that overall cate-
gory in terms of which those individual spaces
are produced and experienced; space in that
sense is not.. .some mere container: it's what
produces the individual places you do see in
their formal logic."'8
Hence space is always culturally and politi-
cally charged. It is never neutral. Space
unavoidably produces and reinforces a web
of activities associated with the societal proc-
esses of owning, managing, maintaining,
and controlling. Space, by its very existence
and use, affirms certain institutions, organiza-
tions, classes, social relations; in short,
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cultural directions. Examples of this include
the spaces of the American suburb and
suburban house, which as Dolores Hayden
has shown, have been instrumental in secur-
ing the social reproduction of patriarchical
practices. Also, it can be argued that in May
1968 Paris became a very different city
spacewherefestivals, marches, protests, and
dialogue, imbued by new relations of behav-
ior and conduct, transcended, if only for a
short time, the traditional boundaries be-
tween public and private, right and privilege,
individual and organization. On a smaller
scale, but one that exhibits similar potential
for spatial change, is the incidence of squat-
ter settlements in both first- and third-world
countries. Here, the idea of shelter as a
commodity-one of the mainstays of capital-
ist economics-is confronted directly.
Through the action of squatters, shelter as a
space is transformed into an item of use rather
than existing as an item of exchange. Or put
another way, it becomes a "space of right" as
opposed to a "space of privilege," a move
that cuts through the dominant ideology of the
private property system and illuminates new
ways in which shelter can be produced,
owned, and distributed so as to benefit
alternative cultural directions and ways of life.
This re-conceptualization of space becomes
extremely useful because it situates the role of
space at the core of cultural identity and
direction. This means that new cultural and
political directions-based upon a politics of
everyday life-are not just simply played out
in space, but are "found in the crucial area of
space and of a revolutionary transformation
of space itself."19 Couple this with the fact that
the aforementioned urban restructuring proc-
ess is never completely determined by domi-
nant forms of power; there is then latitude for
an architectural resistance to flourish, to pro-
duce and manifest the space of alternative
groups resistant to dominant culture.
Such latitude allows us as architects to rely on
our abilities. Our strengths and skills lie in our
capacity to generate spatial form and archi-
tectural expression for institutions, peoples
and groups, but we tend to be one-sided:
we reproduce and manifest the practices and
spatial requirements of the dominant culture.
What we need to do more, is link with
struggling cultures already present to help
create spaces of cultural transformation:
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U
spaces of resistance that are linked to transfor-
mative cultural practices. It is at this intersec-
tion of space and culture that architects can
make significant contributions to urban social
change.
Such a propostition requires that we
become"rooted" (if only for a short time) in a
lace, in a specific locality, in a neighbor-
rood, in the embryonic and ongoing
struggles of "urban social movements."20 If
we want to transform everyday life we have
to come to know it. We have to become
immersed, and by positioning ourselves such,
the fight for a transformative cultural politics
can occur in ways beyond ideological
struggle (important though this is). Only by
merging with the everyday can the values,
traditions, and aspirations of those who have
been actively silenced become the central in-
gredients of our contribution to help produce
a subversive/transformative spatiality, coin-
cident with their efforts to construct a counter-
hegemonic worldview and a new integrated
culture. As architects we have to ground
ourselves in the cultural as a means to moving
toward the formal. To do otherwise is to put
the proverbial cart before the horse-it is cap-
turing the qualities of cultural space within the
framework of a pre-conceived formal pat-
tern.
In sum, the dynamics of post-industrialism
have significant spatial repercussions.
However, it we were to turn to Krier and to ex-
amine his discussion of the city, these dynam-
ics and their spatial/cultural repercussions
are hardly addressed, if at all. Krier's silence
on these issues does not speak well of his
quest for city reconstruction, which will never
take form in a vacuum, but must be forged on
the terrain of the present in order that it might
have useful meaning. Nor does his silence
speak well of his possible role as an intellec-
tual, which must be to demystify and break
through the ideological hegemony of the
dominant order, and to explain its spatial
matrix with its accompanying structural con-
tradictions.
Krier and the Postmodern
Condition
Yet, there is something intriguing about Krier's
work: it seems appealing to many. This is
certainly evidenced by the extensive cover-
age he has received in the architectural
Winter 1989 JAE 42/2
U
media. Within the schools of architecture
sizeable numbers of students are turning
towards his work as are many professors. I
accept at face value the widespread appeal
of Krier's work, but prefer to view it in a larger
political-cultural context. I want to argue that
while Krier's appeal perseveres, it is for rea-
sons that speak less to Krier's work itself than
the condition within which we find ourselves
at this historical time: namely the postmodern
condition.
Before I explain what I mean by postmodern-
ism, I wish to be clear in what I do not mean
by the term. My use of postmodernism cannot
be limited to a discussion about the manipu-
lation of styles or aesthetics. And while
postmodernism certainly has stylistic implica-
tions, I do not want to remain entrenched in
arguments about the efficacy or worthiness of
historical allusion, historical quotations, con-
textualism, semiotic codes, exaggeration,
layering, irony, or fragments. Further,
postmodernism is not about the superficial
effort to categorize architectural aesthetics
into "languages" of modernism, late-modern-
ism, abstract representation, ad-hocism,
postmodernism classicism, or free-style clas-
sicism-not to mention chipboard historicism,
.Rornographic pop, and penultimate
poche21-an effort which fails not only to
recognize similarities between these lan-
guages but more to realize that their prolifera-
tions are part and parcel of the postmodern
condition itself.
By postmodernism, then, I mean to consider
it historically rather than stylistically: as a
cultural period of history that certainly has
stylistic implications. To refer to postmodern-
ism historically is to say that it is the new stage
of history. The postmodern condition is the
declaration of a new world society, a begin-
ning that marks the wane of modernism as
well as other categories of experience that
pertained to the era just previous. Just as
modernism was about the machine, industri-
alization, standardization, fast motor cars,
planes, trains, radios, and X-rays, postmod-
ernism is about the world-"where no one
has gone before"-of television, mass me-
dia, information processing, DNA, SDI, ter-
rorism, and black holes.22 Postmodernism is
thus about new categories of experience,
new modes of representation, thought, and
politics that are historically specific, and just
a little bewildering
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It is hard to get a handle on this new society.
For some, this very fact is a prime illustration
of what lies at the center of the postmodern
condition-depending on who you read it is
an experience of aimlessness, depthlessness,
superficiality, spectacle, simulation. It is a
condition where stable categories of lived-
experiences are obtuse. Jameson posits that
postmodernism, especially in terms of its
spatial configurations-what he calls
"postmodern hyperspace"-"has finally suc-
ceeded in transcending the capacities of the
individual human body to locate itself, to
organize its immediate surroundings percep-
tually, and cognitively to map its position in a
mappable external world."23 Jameson con-
tinues, this time viewing everyday life
through contemporary literature: "the explo-
sion of modern literature into a host of distinct
private styles and mannerisms has been fol-
lowed by a linguistic fragmentation of social
life itself to the point where the norm itself is
eclipsed."24 In a similar vein, Douglas Kellner
states of Jean Baudrillard that he "projects a
vision of a universe where in the media and
consumer society, people are caught up in
the play of images, spectacles, simulacra,
etc. that have less and less relationship to an
outside, to an external 'reality,' to such an
extent that the very concepts of the social,
political, or even 'reality' no longer seem to
have any meaning."25
There are popular examples of this. In the TV
world, programs such as the People's Court
and Puttin'On The Hits simulate real life expe-
riences. People's Court reenacts the tribula-
tions of "everyday" people, whereas with
Puttin'On The Hits, we are offered simulations
of bands and vocal stars by everyday people
who dress the role, lip-sync the words, and
are judged on such things as originality,
appearance, and lip-sync.26 One of
Toyota's commercials shows us a theater in-
terior with people wearing 3-D glasses
watching an automobile on screen wind its
way along a country road, when it promptly
drives through the screen, up the main aisle,
and to the world outside. Perhaps the most
telling example is how TV commentators
reacted to Reagan's State of the Union
Speech and his short televised talk on the
Iran/Contra scandal. Commentators
seemed to dwell on Reaqan'3 imaqe and
form, and less with the substance of his re-
marks. Kellner states: "TV commentators
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were more concerned with whether Reagan
was still able to simulate being President than
with the substance of what he said. He got
good marks for both speeches by commenta-
tors because he continued to be able to
simulate the Presidency whereas no doubt
had he failed in the art of simulation, calls for
his resignation or impeachment would have
probably followed."27
The examples could go on but the point is
clear. The postmodern experience, spun as
it is around the play of the aesthetic and the
image, the spatial and the spectacle, the sign
and the simulacra, is a condition of simula-
tions and models. And by simulation and
model, I mean much more than merely illusion
or deception, for what is operating here is far
more frightening. The postmodern condition
is one where simulation and model displace
the real, they become inverted; they become
the real.
It is illuminating to situate Krier's work within
this discussion of the postmodern condition. I
will critique three interrelated aspects of his
work that I think are especially indicative of
and derive from postmodernism, and also
help to explain his appeal.
First, much of Krier's work centers around a
search for authenticity, but it is not a search
grounded in reality, but in a retreat from
reality, in the fantasy world of idealism,
where everything is rendered in the most
simplistic manner. In other words, now that
simulation and reality are inverted, the model
is what matters, and reality passes into sec-
ond place. Accompanying this transition, or
perhaps because of it, an ideology develops,
solidifies, and legitimates the simulacra over
the real by blurring the distinction. For
example, consider how Colin Rowe supports
Leon Krier's rise to stature:
'Now to attract the attention of even a small
public requires the exercise of a relentless sim-
plification. The message must be direct and
elementary. It should involve much reiteration
and a mimimum of fastidious reservation.
Indeed it should be little more than a carica-
ture of logical argument; and, correspond-
ingly, the message must also be quite a little
wild."28
Can it not be argued that "relentless simplifi-
cation" is precisely what a model is? Is not

simplification exemplary of the kind of think-
ing which constitutes one of our most formi-
dable problems-the tendency to take com-
plex issues, processes, and problems and
reduce them to simplistic fragments: fleeting
sketches and models of life as compared to
life itself. Then when we try to be constructive,
to be resistant, to direct theory and practice
toward a more humane society (if that is our
goal), we do it based upon the fragmer.ts, the
sketches-the irreality-which will only exac-
erbate and perpetuate the condition we al-
ready find ourselves in.
Is this not the face of idealism? Is there not a
search for the pure here? And is it not a search
that can only be interpreted as inevitable,
born of the malaise of disorientation, simula-
tion, and the neutralization of meaning that is
the postmodern condition? Krier's work can
very much be understood as a search for the
Pure; a search for the archimedean Point-
that supposed objectivist datum that estab-
lishes the paradigm of "rational certainty," of
"universality," or of the recognition of the
"absolute value" of the pre-industrial city.
Much of his writings prove this as they are
fraught with a strict Either/Or tonality. As ex-
amples, on the subject of industrialization,
Krier argues that it has brought "developed
countries to the brink of physical and cultural
exhaustion," has produced nothing of
value-in essence, it has been a "total fail-
"The precise planning of new urban spaces,
ure."29 Regarding education, it has become
a "tortuous necessity for all" and the "decisive
instrument" for social, cultural, and ideologi-
cal control without any hope of resistance.30
The world of purity and idealism has much too
high a price. Complexities are rendered too
simplistically and ideological positions be-
come too airtight. Protective measures are
established to ensure the ideal posture, and
the preservation of authenticity. Thus, with
regard to theory and practice, their associa-
tion is to be terminated. Practice is evidently
considered polluted: it will contaminate the
ideal. Is this not the meaning behind Krier's
comments, "a responsible architect cannot
possibly build today," and "I am an architect
because I don't build"?31 We need to move
beyond idealism; out of the world of models
and mental constucts and into the real world
of conflicts and frustrations. It will be then that
we can recognize that it is only through the
dialectic. of theory and practice (need it be
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said again), where each informs and modi-
fies the other, that there can be any genuine
practice or theory. To paraphrase Antonio
Gramsci, theory without practice results in
mere verbalism, and practice without theory
results in pragmatism.32 To put it more di-
rectly, "To know and not to act, is ultimately
not to know."33
Second, while Krier sincerely seeks a new
urban culture, he represents a tradition in
architectural practice that remains stubbornly
disengaged, and thus ends up articulating
principles that are mostly formal and too gen-
eral to be of use in genuine cultural struggle.
If his proposals were heeded in an attempt to
transform the capitalist city, it would likely be
a transformation of surface, leaving the city to
the reign of dominant institutions with business
as usual. Is it not conceivable to have a city
today with streets, squares, and quarters
along with sweat shops, unemployment, and
homelessness? So, consciously divorced as
he is from practice and socio-cultural
struggle, Krier mourns a disfigured world and
re-figures it in solitude. He thereby continues
the same tradition of throwing simplistic
physical solutions at complex societal proc-
esses and problems, which naively assumes
that the re-configuration of the physical realm
will lead to desired qualities in the cultural
realm. As he states:
their combination with existing types like
streets, piazzas, boulevards, etc., will even-
tually lead to the expression of a new urban
culture."34
Krier is like LeCorbusier in this regard. Both
advance arguments couched in the vocabu-
lary of form and embroidered with social and
political intentions. Furthermore, both believe
in the absolute ability of form to usher in the
culture that each envisions,35 though each
articulates a radically different conception of
urban form. (Moreover, in their respective
historical periods, each is committed to revo-
lution, with the primary vehicle for such a
change being the constitution of physical
space as the revolutionary act.36)
Third, despite Krier's justification that his work
represents an "intelligent use of history"
through the "adaptation of Building and Spa-
tial Types," his work can mostly be under-
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U
stood as hollow scenography, which actually
marks a misuse of history, let alone any
recovery of it. I say hollow because Krier's
images invoke an idealistic myth of some lost
time, which is, as Kenneth Frampton puts it, "a
chimeric illusion which, aside from being in-
strumentally untenable, tends toward the
kitsch policy of recapitulating the historic city
in the form of an empty scenography."37 It is
here, I believe, that we arrive at the source of
Krier's appeal. For who can argue that in
light of advanced capitalism, of opulence
and deprivation, of creative destruction,
megalomania, superblocks, and new down-
town centers, Krier's call for streets, squares
and quarters is not seductive? However, it is
an appeal Uameson would call it the nostal-
gia mode) that is reductive and ultimately
meaningless. Couched in a language of uni-
versality and supposedly applicable any-
where and everywhere, the program of
streets, squares and quarters is not a sufficient
answer to the spatial division of class, culture,
labor, race, and gender currently transpiring.
Ironically Krier's program ends up neutraliz-
ing itself, becoming merely an abstraction
that is rootless, without base, and in this way
it is especially correspondent, or congruent,
with the "world's rootless economy."38 In
other words, the call for streets and squares
speaks to everybody and nobody at the same
time. Krier's work is a postmodern exercise in
the simulation of the city as opposed to the city
itself.
Towards Resistance
Implied in my argument thus far has been a
call for a socio-spatial practice as a form of
resistance. It is a practice grounded in
counter-cultural struggle as a means to estab-
lishing a counter-spatiality. The need for
some kind of self-conscious resistance is
great. The spatial configuration of an ex-
panding global capitalism and a postmodern
cultural condition that confuses and simulates
both constitute formidable enterprises, seem-
ingly impervious to change. And when
capitalism and postmodernism are seen dia-
lectically, as mutual modifiers, as flip sides of
the same coin, the vision for change through
architecture becomes even cloudier. And, to
be sure, postmodernism and economics are
entwined. The postmodern condition is
where the mobilization of images and aes-
thetics has assumed primary importance in
commodity production. As Guy Debord
Winer 1989 JAE 42/2
states, "the image is the last stage ot commod-
ity production."39 Jameson elaborates:
"What has happened is that aesthetic produc-
tion today has become integrated into com-
modity production generaly: the frantic
economic urgency of producing fresh waves
of ever more novel-seeming goods (from
clothing to airplanes), at ever greater rates of
turnover, now assigns an increasingly essen-
tial structural function and position to aesthetic
innovation and experimentation... Architec-
ture is, however, of all the arts that closest
constitutively to the economic, with which, in
the forms of commissions and land values, it
has a virtually unmediated relationship: it will
therefore not be surprising to find the
extraordinary flowering of the new postmod-
ern architecture grounded in the patronage of
multinational business, whose expansion and
development is strictly contemporaneous with
it."40
Again, resistance. As I have tried to show,
there is maneuverability for architects to resist
dominant culture, a practice that is presup-
posed by architects recognizing that the
same material and ideological forces which
operate to reproduce the status quo also
produce its opposition. That is, through
societal contradictions, modes of social in-
quiry and practice can evolve to move from
what is to what could be.
I am not stating that resistance manifested in
a socio-spatial practice is the only form
possible, but it can link intellectuals and com-
munities, culture and politics, architecture
and change, theory and practice. It can also
recover history and culture as the agency of
human subjects, an achievement that is not
possible through idealism, cultural detach-
ment, or scenography. Resistance as socio-
spatial practice is a way of describing, by our
actions, a particular approach to the world,
and more specifically to culture, that allows
us, as architects, to connect our skills and
experiences and the experiences of cultural
groups to a larger critique of society.41 I
concur with Henri Lefebvre who proclaims
that "the transformation of our present society
into a humanist one can take place as an
urban revolution, that is, as a revolution of
spatial design."42 But, and this is the crucial
point, it is a spatial re-design that will have
greater impact and legitimacy because of our
Winter 1989 JAE 42/2
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grounding in transtormative cultural politics
and other ways of everyday life.
When not grounded, empty gestures result,
which inevitably get transposed in today's
postmodern condition into simulation and/or
purist pursuits that end up as perverse forms of
one-dimensionality. Such one-dimensional-
ity is especially damaging for any culture
trying to usurp dominant culture. One-dimen-
sionality can never recover history, because
it renders invisible, or worse misrepresents,
the actual interconnections between domi-
nant and oppressed cultures, power and
powerlessness, architecture and change. In
our rapidly changing world, one-dimension-
ality effectively checkmates any hope for
human agency, for social struggle and em-
powerment, and the architect's role within
them.
In formulating a more useful theory of the city
and its reconstruction in practice, we can
accomplish some things. As a first step, we
need to understand better the economic and
cultural dynamics of post-industrialism as the
latest period of capitalism proper, its corre-
sponding spatial structure, and the forms of re-
sistance it produces. Second, we can em-
brace a socio-spatial practice that can be so
strategic to the authentic development of
authentic culture. By becoming more aligned
and more "organic"43 with resistant groups,
the task before us is to make alternative
cultures real and manifest, and to provide
them with a spatial voice in their attempt to
define new visions and assemble new rela-
tions in all parts of life. Anything short of
making this connection is bound to take even
the best-intentioned work and reduce it to the
mumbling of mere prose.
By restructuring the theoretical propositions
that Krier has brought to us thus far, we can
move beyond canned formulas. Our contri-
bution can be much more vital and strategic.
As a precondition, architects can recognize
that they are not the ones who really create
space. Culture creates space. Thus any truly
architectural/cultural theory of the city and its
reconstruction rests not only on its intelligibil-
ity, but on its accessibility to oppressed and
subordinated cultures in order that they can
appropriate it in their struggle for empower-
ment and social change.
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Notes
See Leon Krier, 'Forward, Comrades, We Must Go Back,'
trans. by Christian Hubert, Oppositions 24 (Spring 1981), p.
37.
2 For more discussion of aesthetic formalism see Paul Walker
Clarke and Thomas A. Dutton, 'Notes Toward A Critical Theory
of Architecture,' in Patrick Quinn and Thomas Regan, eds., The
Discipline of Architecture: Inquiry Through Design (Proceedings
on the ACSA 73rd Annual Meeting), Association of Collegiate
Schools of Architecture (Washington D. C.), 1986; and Alex
Tzonis and Liane Lefaivre, 'The Narcissist Phase in Architecture,'
The Harvard Architecture Review, Vol. 1 (Spring 1980).
3 Jaquelin Robertson, 'The Empire Strikes Back,' in Demetri
Porphyrios, guest ed., Leon Krier: Houses, Palaces, Cities (Archi-
tectural Design Profile 54), Vol. 54, No. 7/8 (1984), p. 11.
4 See Leon Krier, 'The Reconstruction of the European City, Or
Anti-Industrial Resistance As A Global Project,' in Leon Krier and
Maurice Culot, eds., Counterprojects, Archives d'Architecture
Moderne (Brussels), 1980; also Leon Krier, 'The Reconstruction
of the City,' Rational Architecture 1978, Archives d'Architecture
Moderne (Brussels), 1978, pp. 38-42.
5 Leon Krier, 'The Reconstruction of the European City...' op. cit.
6
Robert Maxwell, 'Architecture, Language and Process,' in
Tafuri, Culot, Krier (Architectural Design Profile 3), March 1977,
p. 194.
7 See Leon Krier, 'Forward, Comrades, We Must Go Back,' op.
cit.
8 See lan Latham, 'Leon Krier: A Profile,' in Post-Modernism and
Discontinuity (Architectural Design Profile 65), Vol. 57,
No. 1/2 (1987).
9 See Edward Soia, Rebecca Morales, and Goetz Wolff, 'Urban
Restructuring: An Analysis of Social and Spatial Change in Los
Angeles,' Economic Geography, Voi. 59 (1983), pp. 195-
230.
10 Ibid., p. 200
11 Ibid., p. 199.
12 Mike Davis, 'Urban Renaissance and the Spirit of Postmoder-
nism,' New eft Review, Vol. 151 (May-June 1985), p. 109. 36 Ibid., p. 71.
13 Ibid., p. 110.
14 Joseph Murphy, column in the Village Voice (April 1986).
15 See Manuel Castells, The City and the Grassroots: A Cross-38 Manuel Castells, op. cit., p. 315.
Cultural Theory of Urban Social Movements, University of Cali-
fornia Press (Berkeley), 1983, p. 318.
16 Ibid., pp. 311-312.
17 For a greater discussion on the importance of space see ibid.,
p. 311; M. Gottdiener, The Socia Production of Urban Space, 40 FredericJameson, 'Postmodernism, Or the Cultural Logic of Late
University of Texas Press (Austin), 1985; and FredericJameson,
'The Ideological Analysis of Space,' in Steve Nimis, guest ed.,
Critical Exchange, No. 14 (Fall 1983), pp. 1-15.
18 FredericJameson, ibid., p. 8.
19 Ibid., p. 15.
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U
20 For more on the potential of urban social movements, see42 The quote is actually a paraphrase of Henri Lefebvre by M.
Manuel Castells, op. cit. Gottdiener, op. cit., p. 122.
21 1 am indebted to Hanno Weber and Paul Walker Clarke for 43 1 am referring to Gramsci's concept of the 'organic intellec-
these labels. tual;' see Boggs, op. cit., especially pp. 55-84.
22 Douglas Kellner, 'Boundaries and Borderlines: Critical Reflec-
tions on Jean Baudrillard and Critical Theory,' unpublished
paper delivered at Miami University, November 1987.
23 FredericJameson, 'Postmodernism, Or the Cultural Logic of Late
Capitalism,' Newleft Review, Vol. 146 (uly-August 1984), p.
83.
24 Ibid., p. 65.
25 Douglas Kellner, op. cit., p. 8.
26 The People's Courtexamples comes from Kellner (ibid.) and the
Puffin On the Hits example comes from a talk given by Michael
Sorkin at Miami University, February 1986.
27 Douglas Kellner, op. cit., p. 11.
28 Colin Rowe, 'The Revolt of the Senses,' in Demetri Porphyrios,
guest ed., op. cit., p. 7.
29 Leon Krier, 'Critique of Industrialization,' in Demetri Porphyrios,
guest ed., op. cit., pp. 36-37.
30 Leon Krier, 'The Consumption of Culture,' Oppositions 14 (Fall
1978), p. 59.
31 Leon Krier, 'The Reconstruction of the European City...' op. cit.;
and lan Latham, op. cit., p. 37.
32 See Boggs, Gramsci's Marxism, Pluto Press Limited (London),
1976, pp. 124-125.
33 The quote is attributed to the ancient Chinese philosopherWang
Yang-Ming.
34 Leon Krier, 'Critique of the Megastructural City,' in Demetri
Porphyrios, guest ed., op. cit., p. 21.
35 See Frederic Jameson, 'Architecture and the Critique of Ideol-
ogy,' in Joan Ockman, ed., Architecture, Criticism, Ideology,
Princeton Architectural Press (Princeton), 1985, p. 77.
37 Kenneth Frampton, 'O.M. Ungers and the Architecture of Coin-
cidence,' in O.M Ungers: Works in Progress (IAUS 6), Rizzoli
International Publications, Inc. (New York), 1981, p. 2.
39 Guy Debord, quoted by FredericJameson, 'Forward,' inJean-
Francois Lyotard, The Post Modern Condition: A Report On
Knowledge, trans. by Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi,
University of Minnesota Press (Minneapolis), 1984, p. xv.
Capitalism,' op. cit., pp. 56-57.
41 For more on the concept of resistance, especially as it can relate
to teachers and pedagogy, see Geoffrey W. Chase, 'Compo-
sition and Pedagogy: Toward a Theory of Resistance,' forthcom-
ing in College Composition and Communication.
Winter 1989 JAE 42/2
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