Utopia in Contemporary Architecture

Text: Zsófia Szántay
Photos: Budapest Galéria

What is utopia and what makes it good? What do literary utopias teach us? How does utopia affect architecture and can it be found in the contemporary design community here in Hungary? The exhibition titled “House or Writing?” in the exhibition hall of the Budapest Gallery in Lajos Street summarises the research carried out by Zsófia Szántay DLA, who explores the relationship between utopia and architecture. Literary utopia thus starts from humans and is about man-made space. If we look at the phenomenon of utopia from the perspective of literary utopias, architectural utopias do not exist ab ovo per se. Or, conversely, if there is an architectural utopia, it is not based on architecture or form, but on utopian social and communal operation. The recurrent keys to the ideal world of utopia are the concepts of God, Knowledge, Freedom, Eden. It is through these that the author of utopia offers a solution or a goal in response to the problem of the current period. Utopia is always an ontology, it raises questions of our human existence. Questions linked to key concepts are still relevant today. Can order through organization give us freedom? Can total freedom lead us back to Eden? Can a human being who has become a creator create an artificial Eden? We interview Zsófia Szántay apropos of her exhibition.