“Let’s design a world; an imaginary world,” Bruno Taut once said to his secret society of architects back in 1917. Known as The Crystal Chain, Taut and his followers aimed to create fantastical landmarks never intended for actual construction. Many of their ideas consisted of impossible structures, which while unfit for human habitation, exuded a sense of beauty and sleekness associated with modernist aesthetic.

This modern style is embodied today through the work of artist Josiah McElheny, whose typically reflective works echo Modernist notions of both literal and mental reflection. In this film, McElheny describes the historical influence of Taut’s utopian glass designs, as well as the role they’ve played within his own practice. McElheny’s The Alpine Cathedral and the City-Crown (2007) exists as an architectural model of Taut’s vision, epitomizing the sleek and crystalline structures Taut and his followers dreamed of in the wake of World War I’s senseless carnage.