«Architectural Fantasies»

1925-1933

Architectural Fantasies: 101 Compositions --101 compositions in color and 101 in black-and-white—is the last and, probably, the best book published during Chernikhov’s life and summarizing his search for the forms and images of new architecture. In the second half of the 20th century this book, in which Chernikhov’s compositional talent appeared with greatest brilliance, became mandatory for architects in Japan, Europe, and the United States.

“Architectural fantasy stimulates the architect’s activity, it arouses creative thought not only for the artist but it also educates and arouses all those who come in contact with him; it produces new directions, new quests, and opens new horizons. Architectural fantasy in all cases propels the culture of architectural problems, and with the freshness of new thoughts, with the transition to new phases of architectural creativity, it serves as the best aid in real design work. We also use the help of architectural fantasy in finding a form for presenting architectural representations, in finding images of architecture, in finding the basics with whose help architectural style of our epoch is crystallized.

With the passage of time, when the master-builder’s thought finds certain completely formed elements of the new architecture, it will then be possible for them to appear in contemporary style, very much as in the classical, their own established expressions of spatial disciplines… The architecture of our time in its oncoming motion will commit more than one mistake, more than one slip, but in the final analysis there will be created a powerful incarnation in volumetric-spatial forms of human conceptions.

An epoch of the greatest reconstructions of human relations must be reflected by its own unforgettable highly artistic monuments. It will create its own style not by rephrasing the old basics, but through creative quests for new forms with new content under the new requirements.”