Visionary Architecture

Visionary architecture describes designs that exist only on paper or otherwise display idealistic or impractical qualities, a term that originated from a 1960 exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art. Visionary architects are also called paper architects because their improbable works exist only as drawings, collages, or models, showing unique and creative concepts that are unrealistic or impossible except in the design environment. The label carries a somewhat pejorative history, since visionary traditionally described a person seeing things that do not exist in the real world, and it has been used to marginalize paper architects from the mainstream. Prominent visionary architects named include Etienne-Louis Boullee, Peter Eisenman, Zaha Hadid, Rem Koolhaas, Daniel Libeskind, Antonio Sant Elia, and Lebbeus Woods.