Ivan Chtcheglov Quotes & Sayings

Architecture is the simplest means of articulating time and space, of modulating reality, of engendering dreams. — Ivan Chtcheglov

We are bored in the city. — Ivan Chtcheglov

We are bored in the city, there is no longer any Temple of the Sun. Between the legs of the women walking by, the dadaists imagined a monkey wrench and the surrealists a crystal cup. That's lost. We know how to read every promise in faces-the latest stage of morphology. The poetry of the billboards lasted twenty years. We are bored in the city, we really have to strain to still discover mysteries on the sidewalk billboards, the latest state of humor and poetry. — Ivan Chtcheglov

All cities are geological; you cannot take three steps without encountering ghosts bearing all the prestige of their legends. We move within a closed landscape whose landmarks constantly draw us toward the past. Certain shifting angles, certain receding perspectives, allow us to glimpse original conceptions of space, but this vision remains fragmentary. It must be sought in the magical locales of fairy tales and surrealist writings: castles, endless walls, little forgotten bars, mammoth caverns, casino mirrors. — Ivan Chtcheglov

Cities have a psychogeographical relief, with constant currents, fixed points and vortexes which strongly discourage entry into or exit from certain zones — Ivan Chtcheglov

A mental disease has swept the planet: banalization the state of affairs, arising out of a struggle against poverty, has overshot its ultimate goal-the liberation of man from material cares-and has become an obsessive image hanging over the present. Offered the choice of love or a garbage disposal, young people of all countries have chosen the garbage disposal. — Ivan Chtcheglov

We know that an object that is not consciously noticed at the time of a first visit can, by its absence during subsequent visits, provoke an indefinable impression: as a result of this sighting backward in time, the absence of the object becomes a presence one can feel. — Ivan Chtcheglov

All cities are geological and three steps cannot be taken without encountering ghosts. — Ivan Chtcheglov

You'll never see the hacienda. It doesn't exist. The hacienda must be built. — Ivan Chtcheglov

Everyone will live in his own cathedral. — Ivan Chtcheglov