{{short description|2009 book by Léon Krier}} {{Infobox book | name = Drawing for Architecture | image = File:Drawing_for_Architecture.jpg | image_size = | border = | alt = | caption = | author = | orig_lang_code = en | illustrator = Léon Krier | cover_artist = | country = United States | language = English | series = ''Writing Architecture'' | subject = urban planning | genre = polemical drawing | publisher = MIT Press | pub_date = 10 July 2009 | media_type = | pages = 248 | isbn = 9780262512930 | oclc = 253635261 }} '''''Drawing for Architecture''''' is a collection of drawings by the Luxembourgish architectural theorist Léon Krier. MIT Press published it in 2009 as part of its ''Writing Architecture'' series.
==Summary== The book consists of both previously published and new drawings, made during a period of 35 years. Krier's images are often polemical and present his thoughts and visions regarding urban planning, which are associated with New Urbanism. According to Krier's author's note, he made his drawings in "angry bursts" and the purpose was "not to console or please but to reveal scandalous elements of architectural practices and ideology".<ref name=":0" />
==Reception== Susan Salter Reynolds of the ''Los Angeles Times'' wrote that the playful and witty impression the drawings give at a first glance soon is diminished by a sense of anger and disaster, as they portray deformed bodies, stupidity and shapelessness. She wrote that the pictures "speak (I should say shout) volumes about hubris", although "some are pure fun".<ref name=":0">{{cite news |last=Reynolds |first=Susan Salter |date=23 August 2009 |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-aug-23-ca-discoveries23-story.html |title=Book Review: Drawing for Architecture |newspaper=Los Angeles Times |access-date=18 October 2025}}</ref>
David van der Leer of ''Bomb'' also wrote that a first impression quickly changes, writing that the book recalls the drawings of Camillo Sitte from the late 19th century. He wrote that ''Drawing for Architecture'' presents a programme for spatial experiences that affirm the human body and thereby nature, and that when Krier is not merely promoting traditional architectural styles, he is a "smart cultural observer" who may inspire younger designers to develop approaches that are neither traditionalist nor modernist.<ref>{{cite news |last=David van der |first=Leer |date=1 April 2010 |url=https://bombmagazine.org/articles/2010/04/01/l%C3%A9on-kriers-drawing-for-architecture/ |title=Léon Krier's Drawing for Architecture |newspaper=Bomb |access-date=18 October 2025 }}</ref>
Ned Cramer of ''Architect Magazine'' wrote that new drawings on environmental themes and a foreword by the "peak oil agitator" James Howard Kunstler make the book more than "a mere greatest-hits collection". Cramer described the content as "scathingly funny swipes at the architectural avant-garde, passion pleas for human-scale urbanism, and alarming attempts to restore the reputation of Nazi classicist Albert Speer".<ref>{{cite news |last=Cramer |first=Ned |date=6 October 2009 |url=https://www.architectmagazine.com/technology/leon-krier-goes-green_o |title=Leon Krier Goes Green |newspaper=Architect Magazine |access-date=18 October 2025 }}</ref>
==See also== * ''Architecture's Desire''
==References== {{reflist}}
==Further reading== * {{cite web |last=Krier |first=Léon |date=11 May 2020 |url=https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/polemical-doodles-of-leon-krier/ |title=The Polemical Doodles of Léon Krier, the Intellectual Godfather of New Urbanism |publisher=MIT Press |access-date=18 October 2025 }}
==External links== * [https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262512930/ MIT Press]
Category:2009 non-fiction books Category:Drawings Category:New Urbanism Category:Architectural theory Category:Books about urbanism Category:Polemic Category:Works by Luxembourgian people Category:MIT Press books