Infinity According to Florian review - mission to save Ukraine’s extraordinary modernist masterpiece

The extraordinary mind of Florian Yuriev, a visionary Ukrainian architect and artist, visualises an astonishingly holistic view of the world. His abstract paintings brim with geometric colourful shapes and patterns that also carry a sonic component, as each shade has their own tonality. On his piano, whose keys are marked with their designated colours, Yuriev played out his painterly compositions, breaking down the barrier between sound and vision. Shot towards the end of Yuriev’s life, Oleksiy Radynski’s passionate documentary follows the architect’s tireless efforts to save one of his modernist masterpieces from destruction.

Once deemed impossible to build, his design for a cultural centre that later became Kyiv’s Institute of Information reflects the utopian optimism of the space age. Nicknamed the “Flying Saucer” building for its futuristic look, the structure features a disc-shaped theatre perched on a horizontal glass-and-steel hall. With their high ceilings and cavernous curves, the interior of the auditorium evokes a sense of calm and openness. The equilibrium, however, is interrupted by construction noises coming from outside: an intrusive shopping mall might soon merge into Yuriev’s design.

Given only weeks to live after a cancer diagnosis, Yuriev waged a heroic battle against indifferent government officials as well as real estate tycoons. Having grown up in the Gulag in Siberia, where his parents were banished under Stalin, Yuriev was no stranger to destructive dogmas. Once imprisoned for punching a communist official, Yuriev mused on how ideologies were far from absent in post-Soviet Ukraine. For him, commerce became a kind of totalitarianism as well. Yuriev’s colour-light theory, which advocates for a synthesis of the arts, is more than just an academic principle. It represents a way of life that resists barriers and binaries.

• Infinity According to Florian is on True Story from 3 May.