Visionary architecture

Visionary architecture is the name given to architecture which exists only on paper or which has visionary qualities. While the term ‘visionary’ suggests the idea of an idealistic, impractical or Utopian notion, it also depicts a mental picture produced by the imagination. These architectural drawings on paper allow insight of the unusual perception of the worlds that are impossible to visit everyday, except through the visual dramatization of the designed, imaginative environment. There are also two meanings that are derived from both terms ‘imagination’ and ‘imaginary,’ meaning unrealistic and impossible, and the other the ability to deal creatively with an unseen reality. A significant precedent that adheres to the concept of visionary architecture is the 18th century architect Giovanni Piranesi, who also had to think twice about the difference in meaning of the two terms. The titles of his well-known prison etching works had two versions. The first was ‘imaginary prisons,’ and the final as ‘prisons of the imagination.’

Conditions of occurrence
In complicated or critical periods of the development of the architecture of distribution are theoretical searches and the so-called “paper architecture”. On the one hand, their development causes a significant reduction in real construction, on the other – the presence of active architects, deprived of the possibilities of practical construction. Such a difficult period was the 15th century in Italy, which contributed to the theoretical work of such well-known theoreticians of architecture as Alberti Leon-Battista or Filaret . Leonardo da Vinci , who was not lucky to carry out any of his own architectural designs, made his attempts at the stone building in level 2. In a minority, he realized his own architectural potentials and Raphael Santi , best known as the author of the murals in the Vatican and easel paintings with idealized Madonnas. Quite a few practically built buildings in the creative work of Michelangelo Buonarroti , although the finds of the master in the field of architectural design were interesting both for contemporaries and for the creative descendants of the artist, because they were studied for centuries upon the death of the artist.

The state of affairs in Italy and France of the 18th century
Crisis phenomena are characteristic of the Western European architecture of the 18th century, especially in Italy and France , recognized art centers.

The accelerated, extremely fruitful way of developing arts in Italy over the previous five hundred years has been changing in the 18th century to a slowdown, and is characterized by the transition of artistic initiative to new artistic centers in England , France, Austria, even in the Russian Empire . Especially acute, crisis phenomena have gained in Italian architecture, where the former buildings are slowly being completed ( Caserta Palace , Archipelago Luigi Vanquitelli , Spanish stairs and the new facade of the Palazzo Trevi in Rome), and a number of Italian architects have so little architectural practice that either emigrates to other countries ( Giovanni Maria Fontana , Domenico Trezzini , Nicola Michetti , Giacomo Quarenghi , Filippo Juvarra Alessandro Galilee , Giuseppe Yappelli , Francesco Kamporezi , nyzna minor architects), or spending efforts on paper architecture ( Pi anezi ).

The situation in France’s architectural practice was rather difficult as compared with the fruitful development of French painting , theater , arts and crafts, or graphic arts . The decline in construction in the territory of France was facilitated by both the crisis phenomena in the socio-political life and the tragic trials of French national culture during the French Revolution of 1789 – 1793 and during Napoleonic military adventures. In the section of paper architecture involuntarily passed projects of various structures (private or state), when their implementation was suspended for various reasons and never recovered.

The completion of the transition from baroque to classicism , the presence of an army of talented architects and relevant institutions (the Royal Academy of Architecture, the Rome Prize of Architects for internships in Rome), while reducing real construction, led to the unprecedented development of paper architecture in France.

The French Academy of Architecture has consistently encouraged its own students to create conditional fantasy projects of some private palaces , Colleges of All Sciences, Triumphal Gates, and others like that. The exact idea of them is given by the projects of Colleges of All Sciences, which at one time created the students of the Academy – the Frenchman M.-J. Peir and Russian I. I. Starov. It’s amazingly beautiful ground plans of gigantic buildings with a number of rounded or oval halls, arched facades , spectacular steps and porticoes . Buildings are unjustifiably decorated with domes , long colonnades , sculptural monuments such as ancient Roman and decorative sculptures on parapet colonnades, as in the Vatican colonades Lorenzo Bernini . Neither half, nor a quarter of the implementation of such a building would not be enough money, so they are labor-houses and long in construction. These were luxurious architectural chemists, architectural utopias , workshops, professional, frankly beautiful and unreal. The real master of such architectural utopias was the talented student of the Royal Academy of Architecture – Russian Vasily Ivanovich Bazhenov . For years, the splendor and utopia in their own projects were deprived, and the second pupil of the Royal Academy of Architecture – Russian Ivan Ivanovich Starov , whose talent did not have the inflammatory fantasy of Bazhenov.

A number of French architects apply both to paper architecture and to architectural theory. The fantastic combination of elements of the Greek archaic and the era of ancient Roman architecture with high French roofs is inherent in the designs and real constructions of Claude-Nicolas Ledu , who equally stubbornly sought to create both ceremonial and industrial, and non-prestigious buildings (urban bailiffs and customs , a theater in Besançon , Prison , Royal Solomon in Ark-e-Senan). Visionary projects of Ledu in the late period of creativity reach the level of abstractions, followed by and inspired by the work of the architects empire and even postmodernism . An elegant and professional composition was created by architect Charles de Vaya , cautious in decor and not subject to the cold abstractions of Claude-Nicolas Ledu.

The state of affairs in Germany
Crisis also occurred in Germany’s architectural practice. A conglomerate of different cultural development and religious beliefs of the principalities (lands), Germany had a number of local artistic centers – quite developed (as in Bavaria) or frankly backward (Mecklenburg).

To the forgotten architects of the German and Czech baroque of the first wave belongs to Abraham Leitner (cf. 1639-1701). German of origin, he is one of the first non-Italians on the construction sites of Prague. It was Leitner who worked with the Italian Francesco Karatti on the construction of the Cherninsky Palace . But Abraham Leitner was also an interesting designer. Preserved samples of his design decisions of the late 17th century , where he presented a series of projects of small buildings surrounded by baroque gardens or Baroque frames. Accompanied or unusual form of the Leitner building, organically linked to the park environment, will become the predecessors of the park pavilions of Rococo . Italian-Russian architect Antonio Rinaldi (1710? -1794), one of the best masters of the rococo era, enjoyed and planted such contemplation repeatedly.

All the signs of the Italian Baroque (monumentality, majesty, scale, and skillful use of the natural environment) preserved the sacred buildings of the lands of Germany that did not break in touch with the papal Rome and the Catholic faith (monastery Ettal, Bavaria, Monastery Banz, Upper Franconia, Basilica Waldassassen, monastery in Ottoboiren). In the 18th century they were accompanied by magnificent residences of the princes of the church and secular rulers – Zwinger in Dresden, the palace of the Archbishop in Würzburg , the palace of the Markraf Carl Wilhelm in Karlsruhe , the ensemble of buildings of Wilhelmshoe, Kassel . These are the real ensembles of the main, representative and master buildings, created in a single style, ensembles resembling some small towns.

Among the well-known artists of the German land architecture were Johann David Steingrupber ( 1702-1787 ), who worked on the construction of palaces in Mannheim and Rasthat , in the Principality of Ansbach. He was forced to finish the already started construction and his own experience of the architect described in the theoretical works “Architectture Civile” (printed approximately 1748 ) and the book “Practical course of civil architecture” ( 1763 ) Contention between architects and the search for a new (ideological and formal) expressiveness of buildings led the artists to converge plans of architectural structures and Latin letters . So Anton Glonner, a contemporary of Johann David Steingrüber, proposed a draft of a new College and church for the Jesuits in the form of the monogram of Christ – “IHS”. Talented, with advanced erudition, Steingrück went further and created a series of projects of the princely palaces, whose underground plans are several Latin letters , the inner empty field of which is designed as a series of halls, living spaces, corridors, and spiral steps. Outline of the letters – the outer walls of the palace buildings, designed and decorated as the usual then-built buildings – with windows , portals , intercity cornices , parapets, decorated with sculptures, rzalites . Projects published in 1773 are nothing more than an interesting paper architecture. Thus, the letter “E” is a three-storey residential complex, where the middle letter “E” is designed as a chapel with a dome. Letters are so successful that some could be fully realized – for example, the letters “N” or “X”, the plan of the latter somewhat resembled the plan of the hunting palace of Stupinigi Filippo Yuvari. Even the letter “S”, masterfully presented by Steingrüber as an unexpected prince’s palace with two domes, was masterfully overcome. Of course, the fraction of letter-structures aroused surprise as an exotic , like a curse and a game of content, an essay worthy of a cabinet of curiosities , and not a real reproduction. The projects of the buildings in the form of the letters of Johann David Steingrüber (with details elaborated facades) – the subject of the study of contemporary students – architects, art historians and collectors .

Paper archivist Vasyl Bazhenov
The tendency to unusual planning decisions, fantasy decor and high decorative character was the paper architecture of Bazhenov. Particularly strong these features of talent and creative manner of the artist appeared in the initial and middle period of the work of the architect (the so-called Smolny Institute project, the project of the fountain with the colonnade, the project of the palace of M.I. Vorontsov for Moscow, the project of the palace in the village Bulatnikovo). Quite justified in the fake (fairy-tale, masquerade type) temporary structures of the Khodynskoy field, these properties of Bazhenov’s projects became a hindrance to their implementation, demanding realistic simplifications and revisions. Extremely was the estimate of its structures, which greatly limited their implementation, and the circle of customers of the architect (former Chancellor M. Vorontsov, rich P. A. Demidov, Empress Catherine II ). Not surprisingly, after Bazhenov there remained so few real buildings, while his less gifted contemporaries made successful architectural careers ( Ivanov Starov , Karl Ivan Blagn , Matvey Fyodorovich Kazakov , Giacomo Quarenghi .)

In the 20th century
The history of the 20th century is rich in events that have shaped the modern world. These include two world wars , the emergence of communist and fascist totalitarian regimes , the division of the world into two camps and the cold war between them, the collapse of colonial empires and the formation of new independent states.

The green revolution in the 40’s and 70’s of the 20th century, together with the success of medicine, has led to a rapid increase in the population of the Earth and the life expectancy of people .

The 20th century is the era of the technological revolution and a number of breakthrough inventions , in particular: aeronautics , rocket science , nuclear energy , atomic weapons , space technology , radio and television , mobile phones , computers , Internet , antibiotics , nanotechnologies , cryotechnics , and the like. In addition, the 20th century is rich in fateful scientific discoveries in various fields: genetic engineering , the theory of relativity , cloning , superconductivity , cosmogony , cosmology, and others.

The end of the century is the period of the information society and globalization and, at the same time, the aggravation of the global problems of mankind, to decide what humanity should be in the next XXI century : overpopulation, exhaustion of resources, global warming , degradation of the environment and others.

The situation in architecture was also complicated.Two world wars led to the destruction of some outstanding architectural monuments, as well as the disappearance of entire cities ( Murmansk , Guernica , Warsaw , Stalingrad , Königsberg , Minsk , Dresden ), thousands of villages and towns. Perhaps in no way the tendencies in the construction industry, as in paper architecture, were so badly reflected. Architects, lacking real possibilities of construction during the years of war, in the interwar period created a series of dizzying projects as unique individual structures, as well as entire cities. In 1920 , architect Noah Abramovich Troitsky designed an indoor stadium for 15,000 spectators, using the terms of the term from engravings …Giovanni Battista Piranesi . Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava builds in the late 20th century a complex of recreational facilities (Towns of Arts and Sciences) in Valencia resembling spaceships of aliens (beginning of construction in 1996 ) and not related to any national tradition.

Between these dates – a number of futurological projects of new cities in the field of paper architecture, which became the whole stage of the development of architecture of the 20th century.

Le Corbusier proposed to destroy the medieval Paris and to build the liberated area with the same skyscrapers (Plan Vuazen, 1925 )
Architect Bunhem created a sketch of the city in the form of a giant aqueduct ( 1926 )
Japanese N. Kurokava – gave the project “Spiral city” with skyscrapers in the form of spirals ( 1962 )
Frenchman Friedman – project of the city over the water surface of Gibraltar to Africa ( 1963 )
U. Katawolos, an architect from the United States, proposed to use the latest chemical technologies: to make a gigantic chemical block, in the middle of which the inhabitants themselves cut their own premises at their own discretion (!). The project ignored the existing traditions of construction, and the delineation of capitalist societies by state, and private ownership of land, resources, water, energy (not yet privatized air).
In the 20th century. The projects of underground, above ground and air cities, cities under a single roof in the harsh conditions of the Arctic or the Sahara , walking bridge mechanisms, cities over the sea channels and artificial cities in orbit of the Earth are created.
Paper architecture today is capable of switching to new (electronic) media and extending its existence in the new environment.

Criticism of the ‘Irrational’ design
There are two differing perceptions in relation to the work of the imagination, and visionary architecture. One position is that there are no unbuildable buildings, only unbuilt ones, and the other is the belief that some visionary architectural drawings are impossible to be inhabited by the human. In the absence of a clear grasp of a controlling idea, as an individual, each design is found to be highly arbitrary, and it is this aspect, which results in the designs to seem and look impossible. Conceptual architecture, or architecture based on the act of imagination and vision, dissociates the physical nature of architectural design. However, it is the idea and belief that these drawings and images are able to portray the true meaning of architecture and design that connotes the significance of the works of visionary architecture. The complete history of architecture must include both the built and the unbuilt environment.

Tool of Scaling
Architects are able to imagine, see and define a distant object that is in fact a building through the process of fabricating models, scaling them up and down, ascending from the abstract to the concrete. Instead of physically creating the design of a building into its complete scale and form, multiple up and down transitions in scale size of models allow the building design that is on paper to emerge, become visible, representing the material as being real, bringing the building into existence. The visionary nature of the eighteenth-century movement did not reside so much in this radical formalism as in the bizarre conceptions in which the architects indulged, and their delight in projects of vast size. These scaled models were considered to be utopian and fantastic in design, where the sense of fantasy is enhanced by symbolic meanings that are achieved by making the whole form of the building speak.

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