Authors

Sandu Olga M.
THE MYTHOPOETICS OF 1980s VISIONARY ARCHITECTURE

Architecton: Proceedings of Higher Education №3 (71) September, 2020

The term “visionary architecture” (“paper architecture” in Russian) is used to characterize conceptual projects that cannot be implemented for a number of reasons. Although unrealized, the visionary architecture of the 1980s is a real treasury of ideas for modern architectural practice. The distinctive feature of visionary architecture projects is thematic diversity and abundance of “eternal archetypes” and metaphors rooted in mythological images of ancient art. As in mythological programs, the visionary architects of the 1980s created a virtual space – a model of the world preceding the creation of objects of the material world. Being inside this model, the viewer does not just see the imaginary world but becomes part of it. In their projects, the visionary architects reproduce the mythological image of the World Mountain using architectural metaphors: a tower house, a crystal (glass) tower, the Tower of Babel, the World Axis, a skyscraper. A study of this visionary architecture from the perspective of mythopoetics reveals its semantic value.