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Hardcover $50.00 ISBN: 9781597265782 Published May 2009
Paperback $37.00 ISBN: 9781597265799 Published May 2011

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The Architecture of Community

The Architecture of Community
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Leon Krier

496 pages | 6.25 x 10
Leon Krier is one of the best-known—and most provocative—architects and urban theoreticians in the world. Until now, however, his ideas have circulated mostly among a professional audience of architects, city planners, and academics. In The Architecture of Community, Krier has reconsidered and expanded writing from his 1998 book Architecture: Choice or Fate. Here he refines and updates his thinking on the making of sustainable, humane, and attractive villages, towns, and cities. The book includes drawings, diagrams, and photographs of his built works, which have not been widely seen until now. 
 
With three new chapters, The Architecture of Community provides a contemporary road map for designing or completing today’s fragmented communities. Illustrated throughout with Krier’s original drawings, The Architecture of Community explains his theories on classical and vernacular urbanism and architecture, while providing practical design guidelines for creating livable towns. 
 
The book contains descriptions and images of the author’s built and unbuilt projects, including the Krier House and Tower in Seaside, Florida, as well as the town of Poundbury in England. Commissioned by the Prince of Wales in 1988, Krier’s design for Poundbury in Dorset has become a reference model for ecological planning and building that can meet contemporary needs.

“More than ever Krier has every right to claim our attention. We need him, in fact, as never before. He presents us with the lessons, if we would but take them, that come out of rediscovery. He celebrates the values that are knowable.”

Robert A.M. Stern, from the book's foreword


“This book is Mr. Krier's gift to the coming generations-who, otherwise, have been left saddled by us with little more than extravagant debts in every way you could imagine.  They are going to have to inhabit what remains of this planet, along with whatever remains of its resources, when we are gone, and Mr. Krier's heroic, often lonely labors, have produced this indispensable beacon of principle and methodology to light their way home.”
James Howard Kunstler, from the book's afterword


 “This is the compendium of common sense that has flowed from Leo's pen for over forty years. From first to last, none of it has aged; and none of it will age. It is the one indispensable book on urbanism.”
Andres Duany, co-founder of the Congress for the New Urbanism


“Long the inspiration of new urbanists, Léon Krier's work, now comprehensively gathered in this book, is still the best guide for designing buildings and communities.”
Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, co-founder of the Congress for the New Urbanism


 "Leon Krier's The Architecture of Community is a primer on the fundamentals of the language of architecture and urbanism...Krier's childlike drawings, distilled captions and hornbook like aphorisms make this the perfect textbook with which to begin reclaiming our lost literacy."

Traditional Building


"One of the most influential architects and urban theoreticians of the modern age, Krier has a clear idea of what's wrong with many of our urban development patterns -- and he has a similarly clear idea about how those problems can be avoided in the future. His book is a collection of suggestions and proposals that make up a general theory for how to create traditional cities, towns and communities that are attractive, livable, and (hopefully) truly loved."

Planetizen


"This book provides detailed drawings and images to illustrate the author's theories on classical urbanism and architecture, while providing practical guidelines for creating attractive, livable towns.  The book also outlines a diagnosis and a cure, a critique and a project, and presents a common-sense approach to urban planning."

Abstracts of Public Administration


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You may purchase this title at fine bookstores across the United States. Outside the USA, see our international sales information.