Ivan Chtcheglov

Ivan Chtcheglov, January 16th 1933-April 21st 1998, was a French political theorist, activist and poet, born in Paris from Russian parents.

He wrote "Formulary for a New Urbanism" in 1953, at age nineteen under the name Gilles Ivain, which was an inspiration to the Lettrist International and Situationist International. It develops some of the ideas of Charles Fourier.

He tried to deconstruct the Eiffel Tower and was arrested in Paris and committed to a mental hospital by his wife, where he was subdued with insulin and shock therapy, and remained for 5 years.

His plans for the new urbanism were formulated in 1953. The city is boring, everybody is bored, humor has died, city-poëtry is going down, stories and sages are being pushed away by socio-economical policy reports and citylive is making room for repeating protocols. Chtcheglov pleaded for an architecture of ambience. He visualised neighborhoods of luck, streets of tragedy, historical blocks, a city block of the dead, a neighborhood of misery, a scary alley, and so on. City blocks with positive or negative radiation should follow each other up so that every sense of urbanites would be activated, and they would be able to learn how they would want to live, think, feel and create. The city would become a center of discoveries and adventures- it would make life pleasurable, sexy, interesting and exciting.

He was influenced in this by the Picatrix.

"Formulary for a New Urbanism" http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/Chtcheglov.htm

Site français sur Ivan Chtcheglov (fr)

- Formulaire pour un urbanisme nouveau - version integrale. (fr) - Lettre de loin – publié dans i.s. numéro 9, août 64. (fr) - Introduction au continent contrescarpe – Janvier 54. (fr)