The article discusses the problem of developing and visualizing the integral image of the future university in the utopian projects of higher education in 1918 - early 1930s. Revealing the semantic boundaries of the concept use of the future image, the authors dwell on the utopian design of the first decades of Soviet power. To determine the initial theoretical and methodological foundations for reconstructing the integral image of the future, the various scientific approaches are analyzed. The article substantiates the construction of the image of the future university in post-revolutionary utopian projects of Soviet higher education by identifying the main categories of the university’s idealized image at one of the turning points in Russian history. The following categories can serve as a kind of foundation that unifies disparate and heterogeneous materials of utopian projects for the renovation of Soviet higher education: materialism, collectivism, anthropologism, mobilizationism, functionalism, collectivism, industrial pragmatism, proletarian utilitarianism, technicism and etatism. At the same time, these categories act as guidelines for the utopian design of higher education in the first decades of Soviet power and set the key parameters for the visualization of the general image of the Soviet university of the future, designed to reflect the ideals of socialist construction and the formation of the “new man”. The formats, methods and tools of visualization are specified in light of specific tasks and appropriate environment.