In recent years, on social networks and on numerous visual dissemination sites, the story of alleged anthropomorphic electric pylons built in Iceland, described as gigantic human figures walking between lava fields and volcanic plains, has begun to circulate insistently. A fascinating story, full of poetic suggestions and references to Nordic mythology, which however does not correspond to reality.
Those images, often accompanied by emotional texts, do not show infrastructure actually existing in Icelandic territory. Instead, it is a very specific conceptual project, known as The land of giants, which has nothing to do with works actually created.
An artistic project born as an architectural concept
At the basis of the viral narrative is an experimental architectural concept created by the Choi+Shine Architects studio. The project was born in 2008 as an artistic and speculative proposal to rethink the visual impact of electricity transmission lines.
The architects’ idea was to transform traditional high voltage pylons into monumental humanoid figures, capable of evoking the giants of Nordic mythology and, at the same time, symbolically communicating with the natural landscape. Each structure, in the original renderings, takes on different postures: some appear to be walking, others holding the cables as if they were a physical weight, still others leaning under the force of the wind.
It is essential to underline one point: The land of giants was never built. The project was presented as a conceptual study, published in architecture and design magazines and often cited as an example of an imagined poetic infrastructure, not as a real intervention on the territory.
Because the project is often mistaken for a completed work
The confusion arises from a combination of factors. The digital renderings created by the studio are extremely realistic and are often shared without context. Added to this is a social narrative that emphasizes the link between Iceland, uncontaminated nature and the folklore of the giants, making the story credible in the eyes of the beholder.
Many posts deliberately or superficially omit the term concepttransforming a design idea into a presumed architectural reality. However, no Icelandic authority, no energy body and no official documentation confirms the existence of these pylons on the territory.
International fact-checking platforms have also clarified that there are no operational anthropomorphic power lines in Iceland and that the images disseminated online derive exclusively from the conceptual design of the American study.
Read correctly, The land of giants still remains a project of great cultural value. It was not created to be immediately built, but to stimulate reflection on the relationship between functionality, landscape and symbolism. It is an example of how even the most invasive infrastructures can be rethought in a narrative and artistic key.
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