Remembering Professor James Stevens Curl (1937–2025): A Champion of Classical Architecture

The worlds of architectural history and traditional practice have lost a redoubtable figure in Professor James Stevens Curl.

A formidable scholar, Curl was a peerless authority on classical architecture. His vast body of work combined uncommon erudition with a meticulous attention to evidence and detail—qualities equally evident in his textbooks, articles, and in his justifiably polemical Making Dystopia.

While many architectural historians chose to remain aloof from contemporary debates, Curl—like David Watkin—felt compelled to engage. He possessed both the conviction and courage to confront the ills afflicting the modern built environment, often rooted in dogma mistaken for architectural theory.

Many students and young architects have drawn inspiration from Curl’s defence of enduring truths. At the Beauty and Ugliness in Architecture conference in Oslo earlier this year, his name and work were rightly on the lips of many attendees.

Having long battled the “uglifiers,” and not always been heeded, Curl’s work is now being embraced as never before. The tide is turning: summer schools in traditional architecture, craft, and urbanism are flourishing as young people seek genuine sustainability—not its image—too often betrayed by materials and methods that demand premature demolition and rebuilding.

Curl’s legacy will endure, carrying value far beyond what scholarly prowess alone could have achieved.