Emil Adamec - Interview with Professor James Stevens Curl 2023

INTERVIEW

STAVBA DETAIL 3/2023

Dear Professor, thank you for accepting the

interview for the Czech magazine Stavba.

With the passing of time, we can talk

again

about your book Making Dystopia and

context. Could you please tell us the story

of how your book came about and what ma-

de you write it?

It is also very nice to see you again.

It's great to be here on this occasion and

thank you for making this interview hap-

pen, which I look forward to. As for the ori-

gins and inspiration of my book Making Dys-

topia, it was linked to writing the Ox-

ford Dictionary of Architecture. When I was

working on that book with my colleague Su-

san Wilson for Oxford University Press,

she told me: You know, in all biographies of

20th-century architects, and in the various

movements linked to Modernism, there's re-

ference to various issues of these people and

movements. She implied there might be

another book in there somewhere. I thought

about it and suggested it to the commissio-

ning editor at Oxford University Press. He

felt it was a very good idea, so I took it on and

started writing the book in 2014. It came out

in 2018 and I think it really helped to consoli-

date all my thoughts about what was wro-

ng. Making Dystopia was actually Susan

Wilson's idea.

How are you satisfy with Czech version of

book we have in front of us?

I am very grateful to my Czech colleagues

for their kind work and for putting this toge-

ther. It's really quite a faithful translation, alt-

hough obviously I'm not very familiar with

Czech, so I can't comment on the quality of

the prose!

What was your most surprising response after

the book's release?

The truth is, I was not surprised at all,

because Modernists and their critics didn't

answer any of my questions. They simply

insulted me. It was an ad hominem insult,

pure and simple, without trying to refu-

te any of my arguments or anything like

that, it's just insulting. That's what totalita-

rians do: they don't engage in a proper argu-

ment. They just stick to their entrenched at-

titudes, regardless of how unsustainable it is.

And that I’m afraid that's what happened. But

of course there were others, more perceptive,

who saw the importance of the book, saw

that it would provoke debate, and many ot-

hers praised what they called as my courage

to attack what was essentially a position of

establishment, indeed establishment, which

I think has no right to be there.

Could you please explain the title of your

book Making Dystopia?

The book is also subtitled The Strange Rise

and Survival of Architectural Barbarism.

I mean that architects (with honest excepti-

ons) decided to ruin environment. In other

words, they creating a dystopia. And I ﬁnd

it very weird, very strange, very sinister that

this cult of ugliness is gaining more and mo-

re followers, that it is now seen as normal, it

has survived all the criticism, and yet it goes

on and gets worse and worse and more and

more expensive, yet buildings last only a ve-

ry short time and then have to be demolis-

hed. Buildings that don't work, that leak and

that nobody wants to live in are imposed on

the rest of us by dogmatic architects who

think in abstractions and don't actually

care about humanity at all. And I suppo-

se the explanation is, again, very strange,

because I think that what it is is actually

a kind of quasi-religious fundamentalist

cult which brooks no opposition, that is

self-referential. In other words, architects cri-

ticizing and pat each other on the back, award

prizes to those most obscure projects, call

themselves "starchitect" - "star architect", scra-

tch each other's backs when nobody likes the-

ir stuff. For example, there are high level wa-

lkways that are used by thieves, vandals and

criminals, and there is always litter around.

Who should most certainly read this book?

I think one of the problems is that schools

of architecture are not educational instituti-

ons, they're indoctrination centers. People

are indoctrinated. If they don't follow the

latest fashion line approved by Modernists,

they are not eligible. In fact, it is not an edu-

cational facility at all. I think this book should

be read by everyone involved in decision-ma-

king about the built environment: politicians,

urban planners, architects. The trouble is that

they are all so brainwashed to believe the

opposite of what I point out in the book: that

whatever I would consider to be destructive

is actually a kind of mandatory perfection

that should be followed. And it clearly isn't.

But it will continue as before until we com-

pletely change architectural education. And

that means that I really think we have to

set up alternative educational institutions

and get the political support to recognize

that. Modernists are unable to use materials.

They are unable to think, as an example, about

how to put bricks together to make a pattern.

What obstacles were encountered in writing

this book? Did you encounter any difficulties?

I mean, I had some trouble. Unfortuna-

tely, the editor of Oxford University Press,

with whom I got on so well, had a severe stro-

ke, and though he was a young man, he was

quite incapacitated. Some of the people I had

to deal with in the ﬁnal stages of writing

the book and submitting the pictures and

text to Oxford were not friendly to me or the

book. In fact, it was stuck in the system for

quite some time before it was ﬁnally published.

Fortunately, my original editor returned after

a very long time, and although he was physica-

lly quite damaged, mentally he was fine. And fi-

nally he solved things and book was printed.

I think a published book went very well.

What challenges will face next generati-

on of architects if they start collaborate

and learn from your book?

EMIL ADAMEC

Beauty and Ugliness

in Architecture

Interview with Professor James Stevens Curl took place on 15 May this year in Oslo, where we

met on the occasion of a conference "Beauty and Ugliness in Architecture".

STAVBA DETAIL 3/2023

Well, I hope that it will help them to be co-

mmitted to their own decision and to see that

there is an alternative kind of contempora-

ry architecture which may not at all be para-

metricism, deconstructivism or any of these

isms, but may in fact be truly rational and

based on reasonable planning, on the use of

materials that are applied with intelligence

and sensitivity.

Someone in a YouTube video piled ordinary

binders on top of each other or just casually

crumpled paper and "created" a final model

of architecture.

And all you have to do is get a computer

to build it. And these are things are built.

It's always a lot more expensive than the

estimates.

If Modernists claim that traditionalists' cla-

ssical architecture is more costly beca-

use it contains art and ornaments, com pa-

red to unsustainable materials and buildings

of Modernists, aren't these more expensive?

How can buildings that fail as architecture,

that leak, that don't work and that have to

be demolished soon after completion be che-

aper than architecture that lasts and works

in all aspects, and especially as architecture?

Much of of what is being imposed at present

is absolutely not architecture at all.

All these technologies, new appli-

ances new ideas, where will this all go

into the future?

It gets worse: it's madness. It's absolute mad-

ness! So there you have it. I mean, I've foren-

sically dissected the matter. I tried to ex-

plain what happened. I think the whole

mechanism of how buildings are promoted

and the way some architects are made into

deities has gone mad. I think all these things

need to be reviewed and changed. We cannot

continue the way we are doing it.

JAMES STEVENS CURL (* 1937)

Prof., Dr., DiplArch, DipTP, PhD.

is a highly respected British architect, ar-

chitectural historian, painter and desig-

ner who published dozens of books and

hundreds of articles on architecture, land-

scape architecture, urbanism and classical

tradition. He studied architecture at Ox-

ford, was for a time editor of architec-

tural journal Survey of London, and has

worked in both the private and public

sectors. He served the Scottish Commi-

ttee for European Architectural Heri-

tage Year (EAHY) in 1975 and worked

full-time in academia from 1978-1998.

He is a Fellow of the Royal Irish Aca-

demy (MRIA), the Royal Incorporation of

Architects in Scotland (FRIAS), Society of An-

tiquaries of London (FSA) and received nu-

merous awards and honours, including the

British Academy President's Medal for “dis-

tinguished services to humanities“, which

recognised his “contribution to wider study

of architectural history in the UK and Ire-

land“, and the Arthur Ross Award for Excel-

lence in Classical Tradition (History and Wri-

ting), awarded by the Institute of Classical

Architecture and Art (ICAA) in the USA. In

1991–1992 and 2001-2002 he was twice

Visiting Fellow at Peterhouse, University

of Cambridge. His pioneering book, The

Art and Architecture of Freemasonry

(1991), won the 1992 Sir Banister Fletcher

Cenu Sira Banistera Fletchera jako nejlepší

Prize for the best book of the year on

architecture and visual arts. He has publis-

hed extensively on classical, Gothic, Geor-

gian, Victorian and funerary architectu-

re, and has written a comprehensive study,

The Egyptian Revival (2005). He is co-aut-

hor of the Oxford Dictionary of Architecture

and a passionate critic of modernism, as cle-

arly expressed in his book Making Dysto-

pia: The Strange Rise and Survival of

Architectural Barbarism. He has lectured in

many places including Antwerp, Arma-

gh, Belfast, Birmingham, Brighton, Dublin,

Bologna, Boston MA, Bristol, Cambridge,

Chesterfield, Coimbra, Coleraine, Denver CO,

Edinburgh, Ghent, Glasgow, Den Haag,

Halifax NS Canada, Leicester, London, Lon-

derry, Manchester, Monaghan, Montreal,

New Orleans, New York, Norwich, Oxford,

Paris, (Louvre), St Andrews, Schwetzingen,

Seville, Shefeld, Southampton, Stamford,

Washington DC and York. His most

recently published books include The Art

and Architecture of Freemasonry: Ar-

chitecture, Symbols and Influences and

English Victorian Churches: Architecture,

Faith and Revival, both 2022. He is cu-

rrently working on a major book on

classical architecture.

www.jamesstevenscurl.com

James Stevens Curl, portrait oil painting from 2020,

autor: Jeffrey Morgan

INTERVIEW

STAVBA DETAIL 3/2023

Schools of architecture are subsidised by

public funds. In reality, however, the re

sults fall far short of expectations.

I mean the so-called "star architects" of

the original deities of modernism, Le Cor-

busier, Gropius, Miës van der Rohe

. I think

it would be correct to call them all full Hub-

ris, but in the end after Hubris there is the

Nemesis, the goddess of revenge. And I

think we will see revenge because these buil-

dings will fail.

Blobism is in fashion today.

Yes. Of course. That is correct. It's terrible.

It is absolutely horrible! I think it gets

even worse. You can imagine that back in ﬁfti-

es, sixties and seventies the buildings were

pretty bad, but Oh, my God!, I think it's go-

ne mad now.

So would you support the idea that

there might be an alternative in schools

of architecture?

Unfortunately, I think that most architectu-

re schools are currently unable to educate

their students to think. Because the techni-

ques are all based on terror, bullying and

brainwashing. That's not education.

How about splitting these schools in half?

Most of them have cancelled history classes.

Personally, I think the people who run archi-

tecture schools are intellectually very weak.

And they simply follow party lines. They are

like gauleiters or commissars. No profession

is as politicized as architecture.

What about sculpture and arts and crafts

that come with architecture?

Not coming. It's no longer coming.

Can you please explain how adopting me-

tric system led to the dehumanization of

architecture?

Metric system is based on dividing distance

from the North Pole to the equator into milli-

ons of meters. Now, instead of being ba-

sed on a foot divided by twelve, with sub-

divisions of each twelve, which by the way

can be divided by three as well as by two,

a more rigid abstraction of the metric sys-

tem cannot be divided exactly by three. You

can split any size, even a fairly small size,

into three in the imperial system, but you

can't do it in metric system, not exactly,

without having repeating decimals. Met-

ric system is another manifestation of dehu-

manization and abstraction. And Modernism

is full of these abstract ideas that never

have anything to do with humans.

Can you describe a relation between small

volume Norwegian wooden column church

outside and large interior?

Well, I think it's because when you look

at the exterior, it's a mixture of very small

things, like porches, sort of a cloister around

them, bits of decoration with dragons and

things like that. It's very complicated, whe-

reas the space inside is quite simple. So I

think it's the amount of geometric shapes

and pieces that are sticking out all over the

place that makes a church feel strangely

small, and then you walk in and it's a

really majestic space inside.

We also visited the Oslo City Cemetery toge-

ther. What was interesting for you?

It was another example of what we call a ga-

rden cemetery, which evolved from an 18

century English garden with several buildi-

ngs. The French then began to create gardens

punctuated by eye-pleasing buildings, often

concerned with memorising.There are, of course,

extensive gardens with mausoleums in England.

And then in the early 19th century, the French

decided to acquire very large plots in suburbs

because of the disastrous state of the cemeteries

in Paris, which were horrendously overcrowded.

And there they created a huge garden ceme-

tery, which they then decorated with monu-

ments for people to

to admire, so that the Père-

Lachaise Cemetery,

actually the father of gar-

den cemetery, was created. The result was that

in the 19

century no metropolis anywhere in

in Europe or America could function without

a new cemetery. And they were often com-

bined with gardens, this being an example.

Oslo's model cemetery is relatively modest: it

is not as grand as, for example, Glasgow's

Necropolis, London's Kensal Green or great

Italian Cimitero Monumentale, such as those in

Milan and Rome. Of course, the Certosa in Bolo-

gna and Staglieno in Genoa.

Could you explain the relations between Eng-

lish Gothic Revival churches and Central Euro-

pean Baroque churches?

I think both need to be seen in the light of the

Counter-Reformation. After the devastation

caused by the Thirty Years' War, there was

an extensive programme of church building

and restoration, particularly in Germany and

central Europe, where whole families of

architects, sculptors, fresco painters, cabi-

netmakers and so on created magniﬁcent mas-

terpieces of Baroque and Rococo churches. And

that included training people to work with

plaster, frescoes, complex geometry of ellipses

and linked ellipses and such. So you had whole

families like Zimmermanns, Dientzenhofers,

Assams, etc. As for the Gothic Revival in Eng-

land, Gothic had to be relearned by architects

and craftsmen after centuries of Classicism.

And there was also a religious revival to

emphasize Catholic traditions within the

Church of England. Almost overnight, people

had to re-train in Gothic ornament, Gothic

colour, Gothic joinery, Gothic sculpture, etc.

Under extreme Protestantism, and after three

centuries of Puritan iconoclasm, few people

knew the purpose of things like sedilia, seats

for the clergy, the piscina where the holy

Hulme Crescents, Manchester, by modernist rm Wilson & Womersley, once the most dysfunctional

housing estate in Europe, demolished.

Photo from 1995, MEN (Manchester Evening News) Media Archive

STAVBA DETAIL 3/2023

vessels were washed after Mass, the lectiona-

ry, etc. It was therefore necessary to explain

their meaning as well, through what called

ecclesiology.

What are you doing now? Is it a planned book

on classical architecture? What should your

fans look forward to?

Yes, this is a forthcoming new book on classical

architecture. And I should have it ready by

the end of the year. I published a book on

classical architecture in 1992. A second edi-

tion came out in early 2000, published in Lon-

don and New York. Norton Publishing did it,

went out of print for a while, and all the

rights came back to me, so I ﬁgured this

book was too good to let it sit. Unfortuna-

tely, the original book wasn't stored on the

computer, but Nicola Willmott Noller, who

has worked with me on some of my other

projects, scanned it, so I'm now working

on those scans, updating the book, adding

scans, updating the book, adding illustra-

tions and other things, and it's turning

out a very comprehensive volume indeed.

So what is your message to today's world

of modernist architecture in terms of the

the princi ples of classical tradition, Gothic

revival, Egyptian revival, Freemasonry, etc.?

I would advise all architects to get an edu-

cation and read up on history and study

precedents. Because if you don't understand

the precedents, and language that you learn

does not express anything, it is meaning-

less. In other words, it is very abstract, it

doesn't mean anything. How can you create

an architecture that has sytnax, has cohe-

rence, or anything else? And I think without

education and without knowledge, we will get

what we deserve. Waste.

Do you think that some of the Modernists

may convert to your side?

Like I said previously, you are now dealing

with this fundamentalist, humorless, quasi-

religious cult. People who have been brain-

washed by extremist, fundamentalist cults

can not be converted easily. And the damage

has already been done.

How did your book fare in Britain and in ot-

her countries and in different social classes?

Too many skilled and semi-skilled British

workers were put on the scrap heap instead

of being retrained in other ﬁelds. I think

you're in a potentially dangerous situation,

especially if you're forced to live in places

like dystopic hell holes where unfortunate

inhabitants retaliate by demolishing the

environment they've been thrown into. Pro-

Professions and media are largely contro-

lled by Modernists, so my work has been

doomed by so-called special interest groups

intent on giving us all "more of the same"

or worse, and of course desensitized po-

pulations, affected ted by the accepting

of unacceptable, will hear nothing of my

work, but will simply demolish the suppo-

sed paradise they have been declassed into

in protest. The commentators who have se-

en the point of my book were thinkers, con-

cerned historians and writers who were not

afraid of being ostracized by blishment.

It has been very interesting how several

English writers had no courage, hesitan-

tly opted for neutrality and didn't want to

engage, so afraid were they of rocking vi-

ews of my work were expressed largely out-

side British Isles or by a few independent-

minded people who were not scared off by si

lence, „received opinion“ and „party line of to-

talitarianism“.

You've had a good review to Making Dystopia

in America, and you also took an adventu-

rous trip there.

After my American marathon, I was com-

pletely exhausted. First I had a long

ﬂight from New York, then a horrible train

ride down to Philadelphia. Terrible. That

scary Pennsylvania Station, which is like

a horrible hell of a rat underground (the

great terminal by McKim, Meade and Whi-

te was destroyed, an act of cultural vanda-

lism, encouraged of course by Gropius, who

was a nobody compared to the great ar-

chitects of the American Beaux-Arts cla-

ssical tradition). From Philadelphia to Wa-

shington, D.C. Then from from Washington,

D.C. to New Orleans. Through ﬂoods and

humidity. Then Denver Colorado. Then a

huge cross-country ﬂight from completely

empty landscape. I had a layover in Det-

roit, "which is bad news". Then Boston. And

And then I ﬂew back from Boston air-

port. I spent the day with my dear Czech

friends in the New England countryside,

who of course are perfectly happy the-

re. In America I was received very politely

and warmly everywhere I went, it was really

warm and cordial.

In a moment we will move to conference

venue, where you will make your second

lecture, now on Gothic Revival in England.

I would explain the Gothic Revival from the

from the perspective that it started in the

1930s. In fact, however, it began a little ear-

lier, because the Gothic was already manifest

in the 18th century and even in the 17th cen-

century. Gothic in some places such as Ox-

ford never really died out. It just continued

through the 17th into the 18th century.

I wish you all the best in your tireless work and

thank you so much for giving me this interview.

It was great to meet you. I do hope this con-

versation has been useful.

FULL VERSION OF INTERVIEW:

WWW.STAVBAWEB.CZ

Thamesmead, London, GKC architects' department, used by Kubrick as a backdrop for his lm

A Clockwork Orange, a district now also largely demolished.

Photograph from 2017, Geoff Brandwood