The Taproot Podcast - 🏯Interview with Urban Planner, Architect, and Founder of New Urbanism, Leon Krier

Episode Date: June 22, 2022

Read the article on Mr. Krier's work here: https://gettherapybirmingham.medium.c... Leon Krier is uncompromising in his philosophy of design and philosophy of architecture. His vision of the past and future make him a controversial figure. He is one of the key figures in the founding of the new urbanism movement. Krier's architectural theory is fixated on designing permanent construction that will endure both physically and stylistically. His theoretical orientation is highly informed by the peak oil movement of the 1970's, but the implications are important for an urban and architectural future that is sustainable. Website: https://gettherapybirmingham.com/ Check out the youtube: https://youtube.com/@GetTherapyBirminghamPodcast Website: https://gettherapybirmingham.podbean.com/ Podcast Feed: https://feed.podbean.com/GetTherapyBirmingham/feed.xml Taproot Therapy Collective 2025 Shady Crest Drive | Hoover, Alabama 35216 Phone: [phone] Fax: [phone] Email: [e-mail] The resources, videos and podcasts on our site and social media are no substitute for mental health treatment. Please find a qualified mental health provider and contact emergency services in your area in the event of an emergency to a provider in your area. Our number and email are only for scheduling at Taproot Therapy Collective are not monitored consistently and not a reliable resource for emergency services.

I recently sat down with the architect, philosopher, and urban planner Leon Creer to talk about his theories about design, culture, economics, and society as they relate to architecture and psychology. Not all of Mr. Creer's views are my views. However, he is an enormously influential and a very intelligent person. I hope you enjoy the interview. Unfortunately, it did not fit into a traditional interview flow, so I edited some of the most interesting parts of our conversation

by topic and those follow now. These are Mr. Krier's thoughts on craft and skilled labor. I come from my parents, my father was, my mother was a musician and my father was a tailor working for the clergy and the bishop and so on so they were craftsmen and he employed five to ten people depending on the work and they were fantastic people i mean the people he employed they loved to work there and my father was a kind of artist who who never showed off but when somebody asked him we're just looking at him how he he how he showed what how to to do a detail known i mean he was a real artist like and that is the point of craftsmanship is an incredibly productive and incredibly interesting mode of production,

which is never boring because the craftsman always produces an individual. Whereas the industrial worker is always alienated from his work. He just does something, he can't be replaced tomorrow by anyone. And William Morris wrote... But there's no skill. It's a way of keeping people unskilled. No skill.

No skill. And the only people... Which is a kind of control to keep a workforce unskilled, you know, because then they're replaceable and then you don't have to pay them. Totally. Yeah. Because then they're replaceable, and then you don't have to pay them. Totally, yeah. But if you have a pianist, if he has a heart attack, to replace him, the concert hall is not full of them, maybe by chance. So individual talent, every individual has a talent.

And Aristotle writes in politics about this, I always quote that, I mean, it's virtually the only thing I quote of Aristotle, but that the economy must be defined by individual talent, not the reverse. That the economy, the form of production, influences what people should do. Economy has to be shaped by what people are good at doing. How do you rationalize that? How do you organize it that you have a functioning society? Is a mystery because the only reason I don't see much hope, at least not in my lifetime. Well, we went from a country that made things.

We were manufacturing and now we have an economy that's totally removed from anything real. You know, like all the manufacturing is overseas. You can't go get a job anymore. Everybody that's younger than me, they can drive a car for Uber or Amazon delivering packages, tearing their car up and causing problems for a pittance and they're immediately replaceable or they can work food service. But food service is also during a pandemic or during a recession going to be something that people don't have money to afford. So that's your whole economy. And then everything else is gambling. I mean, you look at the stock market, it's gambling. It's not Tesla's valued at four billion or something and they don't sell any cars because people know the stock stock will go up and if I put my money in it, I can catch this wave and then, but it's not a company that someone's investing in because it's profitable, you know, and that's the entire thing. That was the side that at least where Trump was not wrong on everything, but at

least he said we should get back production to America. That was the right idea. I wish that it wasn't couched in the racist language, but I mean, American manufacturing is something that should come back. If you want to have a state that doesn't fail. And that, you know, not only industrial work, but also craftsmen. Well, at least in America, there is still, and that was an interesting thing in CESA, there was a lot of good craftsmen. Well, at least in America, there is still, and that was interesting thing in CISA, there was a lot of good craftsmen. It was easy to find, it was not in Germany,

these reconstructions of historic buildings now in Berlin, Potsdam, Frankfurt, Nuremberg, everywhere there are reconstructions. I was involved in some of these. And you are never, the problem is never a shortage of craftsmen. If you have the right drawings, the right instructions, you get the right builders. So that can be revived very easily and it's very, very efficient. For instance, in Brussels was destroyed, was the first city which had been entirely destroyed by the French artillery in 1689, I forget, but end of 18th century 17th century, that entire city was rebuilt, including the main square, the grand plus the famous belfry, Flemish houses with incredible amounts of glass. All that was rebuilt within two years by craftsmen.

And there's another interesting quote from an economist, Mill, Mill's famous English economist from 19th century. He said that we understand, we think that cities are inanimate objects. Instead, if you would accelerate, observe the city and accelerate what happens to buildings within a lifetime, they would be like bodies moving, changing things. Even if they remain the same, they would be moving because everything is constantly being redone. Even buildings which look like they are built for permanence constantly change in color, materials of the base

or the roof or the chimneys. Things move. And that is, all this is he says the activity which is there anyway is then deployed if a town burns down traditional towns burn down many times and then were rebuilt often very quickly stone took a bit longer, but, and with very little bureaucracy in Luxembourg, the best quarter in Luxembourg was built 1900 to 1910. Stone palaces like you have not seen anywhere, even in Rome doesn't have better. Done by architects from Cologne and Paris and Brussels. And you know, this was done by craftsmen who had come from Italy, about eight to 10,000

craftsmen who were living in tents in impermanent wood shacks to build the city. During that construction, which built the most beautiful stone bridge in the world, 60 meters diameter. Ouch. Unbelievable. During that was planned by one person, one person in Cologne. And one town architect who had not even an office in the town hall, he worked from home and he had no employees. So the whole thing, when you have a working culture, you don't need all the norms which tell you how high a table should be and so on, because that is the culture. And they don't need, when you say a sentence to talk correctly, you don't need

some professor of grammar to tell you all the time how you should speak and articulate and how long it should take and so on. And once the culture is dead, then it becomes really difficult to do and to build that Poundbri or Kaila. It's an institutional wisdom and you get rid of that wisdom you can't just go back and snap your fingers and train it because no one knows and that's what happened to the psychotherapy profession you know it's like the the things that i'm writing you know you you you go back and you read a psychoanalytic journal from like the the 1970s and before before reagan and thatcher and the subjective you know, turn everything into a

number stuff. And there's ideas about what you could actually do with a patient in therapy. You could sit there and say this stuff. And you open academic journals now. And it's just like, we extrapolated 10 studies and then put the information into a spreadsheet controlled for a different variable. And the only reason that they exist is because your phd is based on you know like your academic standing is based on how many people cite your article so if you cite a ton of articles then a lot of people will cite you and it's not written for a human it's written for a search engine. Right, yeah. So you have a lot of work. I mean, we're trying.

On recent classical architecture and building projects. Because my problem is that at least we have lots of colleagues who do now the right thing. When I started, I tried to find people and it was almost impossible. There was one in Belgium, one in America, one here and there. Well, now you're being emissated without being attacked. I mean, there's something like Alice Beach. What do you think of something like that? That definitely is. Yeah.

But it's very inspired by your work. Well, but it's really, it's traditional architecture. And that is, I grew up in a totally traditional town, which was almost undamaged. And most of the people who are involved, like Andres Duany, who was the chief planner of Seaside and Alice. He grew up first as a child in Cuba and then in Barcelona. And then his family returned

to America. But most people who are involved in that, they had that experience, often as children or by traveling. There is a lot of people, but the question is really, and there is now even in the Congress of New Urbanism, it's a lot of people practicing this. And one can say, if America or even worldwide, this would be applied, this very simple theory, because it's not personal. It's what towns had to be like in order to function before the fossil fuel. And then in the 19th century or late 19th century, there were theories evolved. There was a German, there was an Austrian, and particularly a Finnish guy who wrote about polycentric cities.

They didn't use the terms, but they had understood, often based on Paris, which had been reformed into urban quarters by the, which allowedis to function till today because many people who live in in narondissement almost never leave it there are people who are never i mean that's the the kind of extreme but that you can't actually live in a quarter in northern quarter without um and i i picked up these different theories and because they were self-evident and and particularly people like andres duany and james kunstler they they promote it they help promote it and and get me out of isolation get me all the work i did in america was always because of understwarning this is My first job now in America, in Virginia,

is the only one where he was not involved. On the theory and philosophy of design. I was curious, like your theory of design, you have a quote at some point about nature, like the design does not come from nature, but it is inspired by it in analogy or something. And I mean, you have like someone like Franklin Wright, who is trying to deconstruct the natural space and make the thing blend in, you know, and he would make the students like go pick a wildflower on the scene of where you're going to build the building and then deconstruct it and turn it into a pattern and then put the pattern somewhere in the house. But your work, it seems to consider the setting a lot, but the work doesn't look like the setting, you know, like things like career tower, you know, like the sketches that you have with the metal gates hanging or a giant sheet blowing in the wind on the Italian countryside. It doesn't look like the sketches that you have with the metal gates hanging or a giant sheet blowing in the wind on the Italian countryside.

It doesn't look like the countryside, but it talks to it. I mean, do you... It's really the... Hannah Arendt spoke very... Hannah Arendt, you know the philosopher. Fantastic. The human condition. And she says that architecture is an artifice.

And it is the artificiality which makes it properly human. Because man is in the natural environment, is not the space for man. He needs to construct his own space to become properly human. Because animals have that direct relationship to nature, but we don't. And we are, you know, we look

for shelter, which is not just a grotto. So it's interesting. It's an artifice, but yet which is properly human. Whereas the industrial artifice, but yet which is probably human. Whereas the the industrial artifice is no longer human. That's the strange thing.

It wants to turn humanity into something else. Well, it's okay for cars, which you know, because they move and they're never but if you build buildings, which are completely cloned, like, if you see now the destruction of mario paul have you seen the i mean the the the buildings nobody will ever regret of losing those buildings no it's just disgusting it's just human lives which are being slaughtered but the the you know that architecture will not create any nostalgia for something which was worth having. So I don't know what will be replaced by it.

The primal forms of architecture that your work is trying to dig up that will last a thousand years, they're not a trend. There's something inborn in humanity. I mean, do you have an idea of where that comes from? Like what the painter is channeling? Is that something in our evolution? Is it something in our, it seems like almost mystical kind of architecture, a spiritual kind of quest. What is called timeless architecture,

Christopher Alexander wrote the book called Timeless Architecture. And the title is is really what's count the book is full of uh christopher alexander himself i mean i find terribly boring and pompous and i had the short experience with him teaching it was just impossible i mean he's the most arrogant false modest person i've ever encountered. But the title is really what counts. Timeless architecture does not mean that it's timeless as long in relation to human lifespan,

that you can actually live in something which is not just. And that is where Hannah Arendt is also interesting, because she says that architecture has to, or in order to create the public space, it has to transcend the lifespan of human. It has to be much longer than a single human, but it has to outlive the society in order to become a society. And that goes back to... That would be an enemy of hyper-consumption, consumerist disposability. It's not against consumption, but against consuming architecture.

Because we are consumers anyway. We eat and reject and transform chemically, but architecture shouldn't be. And that is what actually industrial thinking has done, that it has industrialized, it has transferred the spirit of industrial consumption even into the environment and now the planet. Now they want to save the planet, but look at the schemes. On the Atlantis project. With the Atlantis project, when that broke up,

what was it, an ideological difference between you and the people trying to build it? Or was it a lack of funding of lack of funding what is it that made that they were they were very famous gallery owners they had an enormous of modern art he started a German political party or something didn't they do no no no they didn't no not at all no they were art collectors modern modernist art collectors, and that's why I didn't understand why do they come to me? I mean, for their collection, which is, I don't know, Joseph Beuys, I don't know whether you know, or like Andy Warhol, that kind of rubbish, I think.

It's interesting graphically, but that's about it. It's not really great art. But particularly Hans-Jürgen Müller, he wanted that. And we had big exhibitions, big promotion. He had a lot of contacts because the modern art world is a kind of mafia which you probably know about and often very powerful because they have to do with banks and you know with politicians and so on and because when you go to modern parliaments in europe you only see rubbish in on the wall this no i mean except westminster and the Parliament, but most modern parliaments are just junkyards of modern art, twisted metal.

I don't know. But anyway, they wanted it and they promoted it. And then they got attacked like they couldn't. They didn't expect this at all, that they would be attacked for promoting this. And but they went even up to the then chancellor who wanted to promote the project. And the chief of the then German bank, the Deutsche Bank. And he wanted to help promote it despite the bad publicity. But he was murdered. And briefly after.

I mean, nothing to do with the project for other reasons. Because he was critical of the early conceptions of the Euro, I think. He thought it was a planned disaster. And then, particularly there was like a breaking point where they had a big exhibition of the project in the Documenta in Kassel, which is the most famous modern art show. It's like Miami, Basel, the design show, which Tom Wolfe wrote about. Have you seen that book? It's very funny. It's about modern Have you seen that? Book. It's very funny. It's about modern art.

Okay. Or before the man in full. Yeah. It's about somebody obsessed with pornography, so obsessed with pornography that he can't get free of it. And it's hilarious. But he's also a modern art collector. And he has all these advisors of modern art to tell him what something a nail on the wall why that is now a

great piece of art. But so document that the project was attacked by arson. Thanks God the model survived, but and the drawings on the wall were just photocopies, so there was no great damage. But they were then so shocked that they started to think otherwise and they used them. They went to a German famous architect called Fragiotto who invented light tensile structures. You probably know he was responsible for the roofs of the Olympic stadium in Munich. You know this? Yeah. But he was not, you know, he planned something which is more like in kindergarten. I don't like it at all. And so

but now the project is funny, the project is being dug out. And this Frenchman did the rendering painstakingly for eight months, he worked on this and because it's a lot of work to do. And when you i did the drawings at a very small scale so once you blow that up in in rendering it has to be you have virtually two it's many more levels of work than than a model which is the size of a big table. But the idea is really what you said, it's something which people appeal. It appeals to people without explanation or justification or doctoring them and pushing them around. Because that's what they are looking for when they travel.

On the architect Albert Speer and Nazi architecture and culture. Well, it's still, you know, whatever the regime was, and criminal and genocidal and motivated a lot by hatred. But on the other hand, it was the last wave of classical culture, particularly also in urban planning, because after that there was no more urban planning. And Hitler, who was a gifted artist, I mean, whether one likes him or not, I mean, whether one likes him or not. I mean, he was certainly a gifted rhetorician, rhetorician and orator. But, you know... He articulated a pain, you know. I think he was able to intuitively see suffering

and then get people, explain that to people in a way that activated something. Unfortunately, the cure was meant a lot of slaughter, but then also the interpretations of how Hitler came about. There's now a very interesting book called Hitler's American Teachers, the American Genetics Society, and the people who articulated this well before him. Henry Ford was a huge donor and a lot of notable Americans. I don't remember exactly, I don't want to start accusing people, but there are big names

that were in the genetic society saying, and then you've got people in the Reich that are citing that and being like, look, the American scientists, this is based on science, but it's American science. it wasn't german science well there's now a lot of literature on on the intrication of uh i forget now the name but um there's an american historian he died like 20 years ago but who wrote about it's called wall street and uh nazi germany wall street and soviet r Street and Soviet Russia and Wall Street. And there are three books really showing the interconnection of capitalism with totalitarian regimes. Yeah.

And I mean, without American industry, the Soviet could not have built their factories or German engineering. Sure. The most advanced. Well, and it's Walmart that industrialized China. They built these URLs and infrastructure to get people from rice paddies into factories to build American stuff. And then all of a sudden we want to compete with this country after we built it.

Exactly. You built your own nemesis. Well, that's built into the system, I think. You have to have a nemesis. That is what we always say in the people around the CNU. If our theory would be applied by good and bad regimes, whoever, I don't care who it is, if he does this kind of planning, it will be better for Russia. If Biden would adopt this as national policy, it would certainly do a lot of good.

But where is now the counter project to what is happening? The post-Soviet or the post-communist uh well there's no more at least before the people had the kind of hope or maybe socialism would be better than capitalism but now there's no more model there's not not even any opposition anymore to the there's no curiosity and there's no imagination i mean even and i keep taking you know what you're saying about design and making it about all you you know, aspects of culture. But I do think there's a relationship. I mean, you look at these movies, I don't go see them, but you look at the stuff that's coming out and it isn't new ideas.

It's not somebody who has a right, who has a vision and sat down and wrote a script. It's just, oh, you remember this from 1970? We dusted it off. Okay, it's reboot. I mean, it's just this cultural or a burros of garbage that's being recycled but any vision that is new or creative or challenging or people attack that much like when you design atlantis you know and and it's it's there's a gut reaction where people know that this is it's a threat to this existing order that I'm entrenched in the hierarchy of, and I've got to get it.

And it's a design. You know, it's a drawing of a city. You know, there's a very, for me, the most important, because I worked, I left university to work for the then most famous English architect called James Sterling. He is now forgotten, but he did one brilliant building, very interesting, but then most of it was rubbish and really horrible. And then I went to this guy because I left university. You learn nothing at the university,

but I thought this guy is really genius. I mean, he did one building, which is really formidable. I never found out how this happened. He refused any theoretical debate. And I realized the then most famous architect had absolutely no clue what he was doing. I worked for three months on the project for over 2,000 houses, housing units.

And after three months, I said, I can't sleep anymore, this will be a slum. And he got really, he said you are wrong, you know, this is the way it must be and so on, it has to be. So this one, long story short, the thing was built and was demolished after 10 years. Over 2000... Was it Pruitt-Igoe? and it was demolished after 10 years over to the fruit i go no no no it was it was like pre-it i go not that bad but but really rough i mean really rough and it was called the rank on town center housing by jim sterling and um so he came we live in the same i live in this old house we both lived in old houses in London.

I always said, why can't we design like this where you live? Oh, but you don't understand. This is not modernity. It's serial production and repetition and so on. There's a kind of crass American expression, you don't show what you eat. Exactly. The design is for the client

not for where I want to live and my family. You can't flush it down. No, this was destroyed. Now, the buildings were built by a loan of the Runcorn Development Corporation. That loan matures in 2025, the loan to the city of London. So the English development company which was government sponsored is paying for buildings which disappeared 40 years ago. Well, I mean, and that is the economic system. It's extremely short-sighted. Like the German war that finished, for the First World War, finished in 2010, I think. And how can a society survive such real, they are mental disasters. I mean

now also in America in the crisis with mass murdering and so on. I mean you will have more on your hands than you can manage. On the architect Quindlan Terry and Christianity. Raymond Erith, but he was like an old man. And he was particularly considered as a fantastic draftsman but as an architect wouldn't count even though it was him who had rebuilt number 10 downing street if he had not done 10 downing street it would just be a modernist slum like they have everywhere and so when i asked around do you know couldn't terry i, it's interesting. Who's this weird? And people said, Oh, that's ridiculous. I mean, he's

a Christian. So I said, since when? I mean, I'm not a practicing Christian, but I grew up that way. Since when is Christian being Christian? Is that outlawed? That's exactly what it is, in a way. I wish I would be closer to Christians, but they are deconstructing now even what was something which stood on good feet. We opened an enormous cathedral in my project in Guatemala just the other day. And see that camera.

No, it's called Kayla. Okay. My Spanish is not good. You know, read it. But I don't have many people that I can verse about this with that they still feel feel in 1000 people in for a church like this like this with why it doesn't happen there. I mean, like, like, yeah, well, seaside and the seaside chapel is pretty full. Yeah. Yes. Well, in United States is much more is much more practice. Practice than Europe, churches are dead. I grew up as a Catholic and I noticed that actually a lot of my clients are or would like to be or come from that background. So there is something mysterious that the scale between private life and the scale you meet

in a church, in the grand hall, is like a physical, also a scale experience, which is obviously impressive something. Well, I mean, if you don't have an elaborate inner world or inner rich the richness vastness to develop self how do you build externally you know how do you have the vision for that you're just chasing trends and fads and what you're told to do and a pack mentality of you know where did you grow up because often the people I I relate to they grew up generally or they experienced a very nice urban or rural landscape and then they feel they lived something real which is not fantasy where did you grow up in in Birmingham Alabama so I mean a lot of the architecture of the older city is interesting and historic.

It's rare in that it's a southern city, but it was built by kind of northern industrialists, so it has a kind of mixture of texture. Some stuff's nice, some isn't. Obviously, as a kid, you spend all of your time in

these middle schools, high schools that are just cinder blocks with no windows. It's a prison. Vinyl tile, drop ceiling. I mean, who could have decided such a thing? The children would be distracted if they could see trees and light. It's slavery. I heard the story in Florida, but it was so that people couldn't see in, so that the pedophiles wouldn't be excited. They're not window shopping. I think you've got different problems when there's enough pedophiles to be waiting outside in school.

What's it have such people at command with such distorted minds. In the project in England, I did a master plan for a large school next to our project and to integrate that in so people can walk towards the school and so on. And I remember the chief architect of the district became a real friend and without him the project wouldn't have even started because you need somebody in authority to push this without too many explanations and just saying this is all right. And so we presented this master plan and went to the board meeting. And as we approached the head of planning of educational planning, of the educational authority of Dorset, approached, came from the same parking and there were young, there were girls and boys streaming towards the school. And the responsible for the school. And the

responsible for the school for the education authority in Dorset said, showing the towards the children saying, all material for rape. I thought, who is this guy? I mean, this the guy was responsible for, because they were fencing in the schools. And I said, we need schools open. I mean, so they are in town, not not with fences and around, because they were fencing in the schools and i said we need schools open i mean so they are in town not not with fences and and around because they are part of public space then we presented the plan and after the uh the the head was a shriveled lady i, really very unpleasant and arrogant. She said, you want to plan a piazza in front of the school. But, you know, this is a space where boys and girls could meet. I said, yes, that's exactly the idea. She just got off angry. They're threatened by something that's very human and

important to our humanity. What is... I mean, that's what humanity is about, is about meeting. On sustainability in ancient and traditional architecture. So do you see things like LEED design or whatever, is that kind of a distraction from a real project of a real sustainable architecture? The what? The LEED? Do you see things like, here they have LEED certification?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's industrial bullshit. I mean, because it seems like you're checking all these boxes to make your building green, but you're not preparing for a future without oil. You can't walk. It's not pedestrian. It isn't built out of material that will last. So you're going to have to replace it. No, it's consumption.

It's another wave of consuming environment and um because you know if you have natural materials stone or brick or or wood you know you cannot build unless you use that is that was strangely the you know nail production 19th century was one of the first giant industries which changed architecture and by having cutting lumber into very small formats whereas before you had trees you built carpentry out of heavy lumber. Now that they had this industrial source where you produce a standard piece of wood which you could nail together and that is strangely the nail was actually the first synthetic product which destroyed architecture because you can nail it into any nonsense and still stands up

it's like an error like an airplane. You can't turn it upside down. You can't fly through there. Whereas a traditional carpentry, which is just pegged. Yeah. Is it the Estonian houses? Wasn't he using pegs to do this? Well, all traditional building assemblage

is always, I forgot what it's called, isostatic. So that if you don't assemble it correctly, it will collapse. You can't build an arch which is not a real arch, whether it's a jack arch or flat arch or a full centered arch or mixed linear arch, whatever they are called. They need to be constructed correctly, otherwise they don't stand up. Whereas you can make the most idiotic, useless shape, senseless shape casted in concrete or built in steel or with nailed lumber and it stands up for

a while. But on the other hand, in the long term, it's subjected to so much stress that in the end they are eroded. When you look at, when you analyze close by modern concrete construction, post-war construction, it's rotting from the inside. I always quote, because people say you can't use arches, it's not modern. Arches are modern all the time because modern means of our time. When you build an arch today, it's modern. It's not, it's just like scissors are not a question of modernity. It's not the problem. It's whether they cut or not.

But I always quote quite famous example the nazis built 8 000 concrete bridges flatbed you know pillars and flatbed like this all these concrete bridges which were german high-tech of the 30s had to be replaced in the 70s and 80s because of vibration creating micro fissures which led in and rocked the the inner steel you get those stalactites that grow as the water drips through the concrete and leaches out the country yeah very modern but the only nazi bridges which still work uh uh steel steel bridges there's one in in cologne but above all many on the motorways are the stone other the the arch bridges, concrete arches. They are cast in concrete, but they are arches. They look like traditional viaducts from afar.

And so that even the arched form, the arch is more materially solid know all the modern inventions after so it's not just and it's interesting that the that the arch has not only an uh for us an emotional thing but also particularly structurally absolutely unreplaceable element because the sagging makes it actually more solid or any cracks compress the you know if something opens it's compressed by the by the pressure anyway yeah the weight is kind of like water you want to channel it down to the ground like the arch on the gothic cathedrals and yeah and you don't need the reinforcement steel reinforcement which you need when you have flat you know so it only compresses that's why roman roman concrete you know the actually the pantheon in rome is the biggest concrete dome in the world. It's 2000 years old.

You could actually roll that because it's a solid piece which becomes more and more solid in time. And I saw a similar thing in Greece. Once in a ruin which was not an official ruin, but there was a Roman theatre in northern Greece. And because of an earthquake part of the amphitheater had broken away and lay on the ground like this with arches going sideways with the legs with the pillars and it laid there like for hundreds of

years and was absolutely intact. The construction is very interesting. And also because people, that's something I didn't understand why people love ruins. That's one of the things that Robert O. Garrison says in the book is it's reminding us of this kind of existential reality that even the greatest monuments and to our own ego and will crumble and they evoke this really uncomfortable stirring in us to look at ruins and so anything that you know when you're kind of contemplating grandeur in life and you're in your classical painting you have to put you know modern people on these fallen columns to remind you that the modern people will one day be the ancient column covered in ivy. Yeah but there's a counter example in in Japan the the Ise shrine the Imperial shrine in Ise is they rebuild every 20 years in wood the

same form you know that you know it and houses is that that's the one that houses the Imperial katana the things given by the Sun Empress and the mythology of the Empire yeah it's no one's seen them that's wild that the construction workers everyone looks away when they wake in a park to rebuild i traveled there and you can't see it it's in a beautiful forest and the craftsmen they are dressed like angels in white cloth with wings i mean almost like with high shoulders spectacular but you can see smaller buildings which are done in the same thing and it's always fresh wood so the building is never there's one in

construction one which stands once the 20 years is finished the one finished is being burned destroyed ritually i think they take it apart and then the new one shines and so you have always like gigantic, full wooden trusses, you know, and it's actually, you can't speak of sexy building. If ever there was a sexy building, it's these temples. I will send you images. It's unbelievable. And because, and that is the interesting thing too, that in order to have permanence, every generation has to rebuild it, like human beings. 20 years, like generations.

Yeah. Interesting. Psychological also. And that is, I always compare that to, you know, this building is 1,000 years old, but in fact the material is only less than 20 next to the parthenon which was destroyed 200 years ago by an explosion it would probably still stand there i know the archaeologists who who now they repair it you know they like like denture ridiculous just rebuild it. Ah, but that would be faking history. The marble is still there in the same quarry.

They built one in Nashville, I think, or not Athens, in Athens, yeah. Not bad. Well, it's concrete, but at least you get the impression of the full building. It's the classicists who would complain if you rebuilt it and you painted the statues, you know, in the original colors, they were gaudy and very bright. And everyone would complain, that's supposed to be white. That's what classicism is, you know? Well, I think now there are enough classes to support it. Unfortunately, the government is paying, you know, they have like a budget like for national defense to turn that ruin, to restore it, not as a building, but as a ruin.

It was the most high tech building I ever thought of. When you have the column and the man, I forget now his name, but anyway, he showed me through the building site. And when you have the fluted columns, you have the columns with the fluting, the riddles which are outside, and they have sharp edges. So he said he had the looking glass with point counter, very strong looking glass. So follow that, you see, follow that joint, which is the different drums standing. Follow that line. And then there was one of the ridges, one of the areas is the vertical sharp edges had

been broken away by a recent earthquake, but just small damage. So follow and the joint went through that damage. So follow that line and you don't see the joint in the damaged surface. It's so precise that the only thing which announces the joint is micro mushrooms, some growth. the in the water because you know because they take these drums apart in order to restore and and do the feelings of marble computer you need a computer to calculate the surfaces but those surfaces were so precise of the drums, a tearing, that it takes 48 hours for air, when they lift it, for air to get into these joints, which are joints without mortar or without any material. So it was like a perfect fit. So can you imagine the technological precision of tools and techniques to create such a thing?

I mean, aeroplanes are primitive compared, technically. Just the raw technique to be able to do that. Every drum weighs, I don't know, 20 tons. On technocracy. I have to look it up. Well, that, because, you know, the technocracy is in, whether you are in Iran

or in the United States or Russia the same spirit of technocracy yeah well it's I think it's a people have a disbelief that we've been trust we've been told to distrust our our, our intuition, our felt sense that that isn't rational or that that isn't reasonable or that that is too utopian. Because if people felt that, they would know that this is wrong, that it doesn't feel good, that it's not benefiting anyone. And you're kind of shamed if you have any imagination or any creativity,'re shamed into you know you don't try and have any faith that there could be a better world you know yeah whereas the better world is already there if you look around that's i i always say you know it's like having to teach

people to fall in love they forbid people to fall in love. Edward Edinger is another Jungian. Do you remember him? He's dead now. Edward Edinger. He wrote the book Psyche and Archetype. No. I'm not...

He... One of the things I thought was really interesting in Psyche and Archetype is Edinger. Edinger. Yeah. ED. He says that, you know, the circle or the sun disc, Jung was kind of obsessed with these sun discs if you read the Red Book or something. It's like the earliest conception of the self and that

before children have an ego when they're still two whatever they're kind of one with the universe they don't really know that they're a separate creature yet the earliest versions of what they draw when they draw themselves as a circle and so he has a study where he follows how kids draw what they are all the way up as they age and it's like hundreds of different kids drawings and it always starts with a round object and then the round object splits into four parts it has that quadrant it's circle and then they'll add legs and arms and eyes and things later but he says that that circle that's bisected by that cross is kind of one of those that quaternity is this old archetypal image and that that's something that the earliest depictions of the garden of eden and the descriptions of it was

that it was a circle with four rivers flowing through it and four gates you know and it's the beginning of that polycentric city you know that it isn't a grid that's the center and periphery how interesting i i'll find it. So we build these external things based on an internal map, you know, that requires intuition and a felt sense and a creativity that you have to trust. If you're not doing that, if it's all your ego, you're just chasing a trend and a competition and a community, and it's consumerism and, you know, planned obsolescence.

Unhappy consumers. On children and hope. You have children? I have two children, yeah. How old are they? How old are they? Violet is four and Wyn is one. Oh, gosh. Are you not scared for them? Because it's what you... I mean, the world they are facing, it's...

You won't sleep anymore it's very scary I think that you have to you have to be willing to have faith and if you teach your children not to be afraid of themselves they'll see through these things they you know I think one of the things I tell patients a lot is that the same way that you control your children is the way that you're setting them up to be controlled by the world so if you teach them to hold their own authority to feel their own intuition to cross to create a vision you're empowering them but if you teach them authority is important the priest or the

president or that you have to daddy you know then they're just going to go out and join a cult or a political movement or, you know, or if you teach them, oh, your relationship to the world is vulnerability, you have to be a victim or whatever it is, you're just setting that up, them up to be controlled by an abusive spouse or a politician or religious leader or whatever. And if you trust, teach them to have authority to hold their own autonomy, then that's the best thing you can do. But that's scary. Parents don't want to do that.

So you are an optimist. I don't know that. There's an Austrian child psychologist, it's called Michelle Hutter, who wrote a book called Six, Seven. What happens to children between the age of six and seven? Because when children grow up, they start talk. As soon as they talk, they ask questions. You probably experience that every day. 300 questions per day.

What is this? What is that? Why here? Why there? When they are six, when they go to school, they are told, shut up and answer only what you are asked. I never listened to that. I remember being angry at it. And I didn't fight. I didn't make a scene. But I just shut down. And I'm still angry about it. You know,

that you have these people who are telling children not to trust creativity and intuition just because they have all this unlived life. They're afraid of themselves and they're getting in the way of a better world. You know, the Jungian conceptualization describes that pretty well with the shadow. The unlived life of the parent is the biggest force in the child's life because it's these things our parents never master. It's all these places where they're kind of afraid to go. And then kids react to that same fear and learn that these places are forbidden. But if you really know yourself, you're comfortable with everybody and it's the people who are the most violent and the most angry and the most uncomfortable with themselves that cause

all the problems that you're describing yeah well we were lucky to have good parents well thank you so much for your time and your life's work i appreciate it it's inspiring you know those ideas ripple it's like you put this stuff out there, you don't know who sees it or who it inspires. So I appreciate it. Your video is a bomb. Sorry? Your video on the Atlantis thing is a bomb.

It's fantastic because it's really done for a large public. Yeah, I hope so um i i um do you mind if i take segments from the interview and then put them out you know as a as like a video oh no no i have no problem with that well thank you i appreciate it and i will i'll talk to you soon nice to meet you have a nice evening bye-bye