Ivan Chtcheglov

Ivan Chtcheglov (born January 16, 1933 in Paris , † April 21, 1998 ) was a French artist, activist and poet .

Ivan Chtcheglov was the son of a Ukrainian emigrant and a French woman. He published the formula for a new urbanism in 1953 at the age of 19 under the pseudonym Gilles Ivain . This text provided inspiration for the artistic movements of Lettrism and the Situationist International , of which he was a member, for the development of their theory, psychogeography .

After he once blew up the Eiffel Tower with an artist colleague , other sources say: wanted to deconstruct it, allegedly because he blocked his view, his wife had him admitted to a psychiatric clinic where he was treated with electroshock therapy and for five years spent.

Inspired by his text, in 1982 the famous early techno club in Manchester was called " Haçienda ".

plant

Chtcheglov's plans for a new urbanism in 1953 paint a pessimistic picture of the city of today: the city is boring, everyone is bored, humor is disappearing, as is the poetry of the city . Former secrets, myths and stories would be replaced by socio-economic guidelines, city life would freeze in formal structures.

Chtcheglov pleaded for an architecture that creates poetic situations , he imagined an experimental, variable city, street districts of happiness , streets of tragedy , historical quarters, a district of the dead, eerie alleys, the city as a great adventure playground . Neighborhoods with a positive and negative aura should alternate, all the senses of the city dwellers would be activated in this way, and they would learn how they want to live, think, feel and design. The city would become a center for discovery and adventure; life would be pleasant, sexy, interesting and exciting.

Quotes

• We have to support the spread of distrust of these airy and colored kindergartens, which are creating new sleeping quarters in both the West and the East . Only those who are awake ask the question of a conscious construction of the urban milieu ... We will build passionate houses ... Everyone will live in his own cathedral. There will be rooms that will awaken livelier dreams than any drug. There will be houses in which it will be impossible not to fall in love. Others will be invincible to travelers ...

• The economic obstacles are only apparent. We know that the more a place is left to free play , the more it influences people's behavior and the greater its attraction. This can be seen in the immense prestige of places like Monaco and Las Vegas - and Reno , the caricature of free love - although they are no more than places of gambling. Our first experimental city could for the most part live on controlled and tolerated tourism . Future avant-garde activities and productions would of course be concentrated there. In a few years it would become the intellectual capital of the world, universally recognized.

Web links

• Formulary for a New Urbanism (English)
• Archives Ivan Chtcheglov (French)