The Architectural Fantasies of Iakov Chernikhov

Architectural Fantasies -  Iakov Chernikhov Architectural Fantasies – Iakov Chernikhov

“The new art of Suprematism, which has produced new forms and form relationships by giving external expression to pictorial feeling, will become a new architecture: it will transfer these forms from the surface of canvas to space.” – Kazimir Malevich, 1927

Architectural Fantasies -  Iakov Chernikhov Architectural Fantasies – Iakov Chernikhov

Architectural Fantasies -  Iakov Chernikhov Architectural Fantasies – Iakov Chernikhov

Architectural Fantasies -  Iakov Chernikhov Architectural Fantasies – Iakov Chernikhov

Charnel House, an excellent blog devoted ‘dreamwords of modernity’ and leaning heavily towards utopian Soviet architectural speculation recently posted links to Iakov Chernikhov’s published works. Although the many of Chernikhov’s visionary architectural sketches have been available for viewing at the ICIF for some time, viewing them within the context of his books, alongside more pedagogical sketches and exploratory diagrams [even without understanding Russian] gives a greater impression of the evolution of his ideas and aesthetics. Perhaps even more important than this – the sketches contained in these PDFs are much larger than the ones online at the ICIF.

Architectural Fantasies -  Iakov Chernikhov Architectural Fantasies – Iakov Chernikhov

Architectural Fantasies -  Iakov Chernikhov Architectural Fantasies – Iakov Chernikhov

Architectural Fantasies -  Iakov Chernikhov Architectural Fantasies – Iakov Chernikhov

For immediate Suprematist and Constructivist epiphanies head straight to Chernikhov’s masterpiece 101 Architectural Fantasies where you’ll find stunning examples of work composed between 1925-1933. Complex structures, which appear to be untouched by time, alternate between wire-frames and bold solid stencil to induce fantastic and intense perspectives. We are immersed in a world of hieroglyphic dioramas, exuberant futuristic space-aged colonies and unrelenting vorticist elegies to the machine.

Architectural Fantasies - Iakov Chernikhov Architectural Fantasies – Iakov Chernikhov

In another PDF we find Chernikhov in a proto-bitmapping patternist mode – there are hints of iterative procedure, fractal tessellation and experiments in symmetry. Some of these jagged and self-reflexive checkerboard diagrams might have been pulled from a textbook on the taxonomy of Cellular Automata or a guidebook to minerals and crystals – all point to the possibility a of strict modular process and rule-based geometric exploration.

Architectural Fantasies -  Iakov Chernikhov Model of Chernikhov’s Architectural Fantasies – University of Western Australia’s Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Visual Arts.

Architectural Fantasies -  Iakov Chernikhov Model of Chernikhov’s Architectural Fantasies – University of Western Australia’s Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Visual Arts.

Socks Studio [also by way of Charnel House] points to some well conceived models of Soviet Constructivist architecture made by Australian students of the University Of Western Australia’s Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Visual Arts. Included among the models are notable renditions of some of Chernikhov’s original sketches from his Architectural Fantasies book.

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