ETHICAL ASPECTS OF THE 20th CENTURY UTOPIAS IN ARCHITECTURE

Utopias are often looked upon as a positive phenomenon stimulating human thinking and imagination. This could not be denied. Although when morality is treated just as a tool to achieve generous intentions, realization of utopias is usually followed by different social repressions. A good deal of research has been done on utopian societies. But most often such works are merely focussed on the subjects of innovation, imagination and tangibility. In research works by western as well as soviet authors certain idealization of the research object can be felt, and the issues of social utopias are rarely discussed. These questions are worth reviewing on a broader scale. The present work focusses on the aspects of communist (socialist) utopian ethics and its links with modernism. It is important to compare ethical differences of architectural utopias that existed in West European and soviet spaces. The present text is a part of a wider research on structuralistic ideas in contemporary Lithuanian architecture. The author thinks such a review may help to develop more precise understanding of the development peculiarities of humanistic ideas in architecture of the 20th century in our country.