The architect is at all times also an artist. How otherwise would he be able to tame the three-dimensionality of space and subdue the urges of physics and structural mechanics with the
creations of his fantasy? This creativity is however mostly restricted purely to its own field.
In this respect, Rob Krier, born in 1938 in Grevenmacher, Luxembourg, is indeed the proverbial exception that proves the rule. Besides his actual profession, which demands his daily attention,
Krier has for years also made a vocation of his love of art, one which he nurtures parallel to his work. Fine art could stand in dialogue with architecture and it is Krier's ambition to have
iconographic themes brought into the latter, so that they might speak equally to both the occupants of a building and to bystanders and move them to thoughtful reflection.
In the works of Mies van der Rohe it is not rare that one finds naturalistic figures from, for example, Aristide Maillol or Wilhelm Lehmbruck - as an anthropomorphic contrast to the strict
geometry of the architecture, notes Rob Krier in the comments on his journal.
Krier's artistic skills are in no way inferior to his architectural work such as Potsdam-Kirchsteigfeld, De Resident in The Hague, Noorderhof in Amsterdam, Veste Brandevoort near Helmond.
Citadel Broekpolder near Beverwijk, or the CitT Judiciaire in Luxembourg. As a sculptor and illustrator, too, Krier brings together extraordinarily musical qualities and incorporates them into
his work, as exemplified by "The Jumper" in Montpellier, the "Cowering Woman" on Berlin's Friedrichstra簪e, or the four metre-high duo "Bosch i Alsina" and "Papasseit" on the Moll de la Fusta in
Barcelona.
