Architecture cannot be considered only as the built environment, but also the embodiment of ideas, values, relationships and ideologies. This strain of thought allows for the conception of a production of architecture through the production of images as an embodiment of ideas, values, relationships and ideologies — an architecture that is not built. Thus, the process of image production for the production/re-production of architecture becomes a radical alternative to the use of images simply as a medium of representation.

Drawing from the Mughal painting, utopia is no longer conceived as an unattainable projection onto the future but is interwoven with the present. A vision located in the present which seems to extend infinitely – juxtaposing alternate timeframes to represent a temporal dysfunction. Time, here is constructed not as a structured linear progression but one without a beginning and an end.

The medium and role of the painting are thus explored here, to question the ways in which architecture is represented and communicated. It is imagined as a manual and an evolving artefact within the reality of the project. As a manual, the painting acts as a medium for reading and interpreting architecture. The constant revision of the painting turns it into an evolving artefact, that evolves along with the project and the building over the course of its construction.

Architecture then is not separated from the image. It becomes a reality within the material reality of the image. The image not only embodies a temporal dysfunction and a construction of time through the juxtaposition of alternative realities but also becomes a medium for the ultimate realisation of the project within its material reality.

On the margins of utopia.