Krier himself may not be fascist. Nor are most of the people involved in reconstructing the Garrison church or the new Old Town. But the defence of the political neutrality of architecture is wearing thin. — the guardian
In 1991 Max Klaar, a retired German lieutenant-colonel, presented the municipality of Potsdam with a replica of a famous carillon, which from 1797 to 1945 had played themes by Bach and Mozart (Papageno’s Ein Mädchen oder Weibchen from The Magic Flute) from the tower of the city’s Garrison church. Both the tower and bells had been wrecked in an air raid – the ruins finally being removed by the East German government in 1968. The carillon, paid for by private donors, was a step in the hoped-for reconstruction of the church.
How very charming, you might think, except that Klaar had an agenda: he was a Nazi apologist. If you look on the internet (but please don’t), you will find him, for example, endorsing the thoroughly debunked lie that General Eisenhower had a million German prisoners of war killed in death camps."
According to Stephan Trüby, a professor of architecture at the University of Stuttgart, the Garrison church plan is an example of what he claims is now a disturbing pattern. “We can currently witness a cultural tendency of using seemingly harmless terms like identity’, ‘tradition’ and ‘beauty’ to establish an idea of ethnic purity protected by a fortress Europe,” he says. Elsewhere, writers wield terms such as heimat (home) and boden (soil/earth), which have both a long tradition in German thought and specific far-right meanings.
An added attraction of many reconstruction projects, Trüby argues, is that the damage being repaired was inflicted by Allied bombing, which reinforces the far-right narrative that Nazi Germany was as much a victim as a perpetrator of war crimes. In a newspaper article earlier this year, Trüby pointed to both the Potsdam project and the “new Old Town” in Frankfurt, the reconstruction of part of the city centre that was formally inaugurated a week ago.
Since Trüby’s article, Sarah Manavis has written in the New Statesman about a related tendency, and one not confined to Germany – social media accounts that promote messages of white supremacy through the “seemingly wholesome” beauties of European architecture. “Everything is indirect,” says Trüby, “and that is the point. In contrast to the old right, the new right learned to speak in euphemisms, in disguise.” The hate that dare not speak its name, you could call it.
Trüby names Léon Krier – born in Luxembourg, and the master planner of Prince Charles’s traditionalist development of Poundbury in Dorset – among those associated with these endeavours. He points to a drawing of “pluralism” published in Krier’s 1998 book Architecture: Choice or Fate(which is dedicated “A mon prince”) and recently republished in the German magazine Cato. Above the label on “true” pluralism he shows three male faces – one white, one black and one east Asian, each separated from the other. Above “false” pluralism he shows a cubistic mashup of races. Trüby calls it “racist”; Krier says it is not."
10 Comments
That cartoon makes no sense, even if you avoid the racist connotation. Stylistic mixing has been a part of architecture since the beginning and especially since the birth of the modern world in the 19th century. In that sense modernist ideologues have something in common with classicists, wanting to dictate aesthetics to a pluralistic world.
Well, Le Corbusier WAS a Nazi, Philip Johnson WAS a Nazi sympathizer, and Adolf Loos WAS a convicted pedophile, so the author might think twice about implying those who advocate restoring a carillon also advocate white supremacy.
On the other hand, who gives a fuck about German architecture?
Well, the Bauhaus did start in Germany. There is that.
"Since Trüby’s article, Sarah Manavis has written in the New Statesman about a related tendency, and one not confined to Germany"
This is a complex issue.
It sure does appear that there architecture-focused social media accounts that, at the best, are being frequented by white supremicists, and perhaps have been hijacked by them. At worst, the owners of the accounts might be far-right crazies themselves. This should be called out and denounced by all fair minded people.
It’s another thing entirely to try to link this to good people like Leon Krier and Roger Scruton (which Ms. Manavis does in her article). That’s beyond unfair, and the way Ms. Manavis does that is misleading and wrong. She calls Krier “a disciple of Albert Speer”! That’s so stupid, I almost stopped reading right there. It shows that she’s either: a) completely uninformed about Krier’s book and his body of work, or, b) she is maliciously misrepresenting his point of view. Not good, either way.
Almost worse is her description of Scruton as a man who I has “made a career out of his prejudice”, and then links to a review of his documentary film, “Why Beauty Matters”. If you never bothered to click the link, you’d be led to believe he was some kind of rabid racist, when I can assure you, there is nothing of the kind in that film.
Late to this, but to be fair Rowan Moore is the one who writes "Krier himself may not be fascist. Nor are most of the people involved in reconstructing the Garrison church or the new Old Town...In these dangerous times, it’s important to show which side you are on, not to assist in the blurring of boundaries between the reasonable and the extreme."
So while Manavis might take it too far, those (like Rowan) with direct/topical knowledge do not.
It is complicated indeed. Identity is as subjective as beauty and just as fluid in some cases, yet it forms an essential element of our emotional well being. There are tendencies or patterns that speak to our common hard wiring, transcending politics and even culture at times.
Subjective issues are by nature important to us as individuals, so while we might disagree on aesthetics, we seem to be able to agree on quality, regardless of style.
Krier is more an urbanist or architectural polemicist than an architect, which might explain all the attention he gives to the deplorable and mediocre Speer. That and the reflexive accusations of fascism for his appreciation of traditional architecture and urbanism as tourists continue to flock there.
Quintili Vare, legiones redde!
Allied treatment of prisoners is documented in The Forgotten War. While that book focuses more on mistreatment of the Japanese - there weren't any POWs because the GIs killed everyone - in Europe there was mass slaughter as well, often of civilians. Pretty much every city in Germany (and Japan) was firebombed to the ground with extensive civilian casualties.
The German retreat from the Battle of the Bulge was intentionally turned into a slaughter. Annihilation was the order of the day. Payback, bitches. Just like Gulf War I when Iraq's retreating army (clearly beaten) were bombed, strafed, and shelled into oblivion. These were not battles, they were turkey shoots.
In fact there were a number of things that Germany could not be charged with at the Nuremberg Trials (bombing London, for example) because the Allies had done the same things, often on far greater scale.
The bottom line: war is dirty business, without humanitarian and ethical considerations. The victors write the history books, which is why the US "defeated" Germany when in reality it was the Soviet Union. The US faced 10-20 German divisions in Europe. The Soviet faced 300 German divisions that invaded over 1,000 miles into their homeland.
History lesson posted as a frame of reference for this topic.
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