When Italian-Spanish illustrator Federico Babina draws architecture, he does not simply draw architecture. His illustrations radically reimagine his subjects, leaving us with new visions of what the architecture means. Drawing can be productive as a method to arrive at a design, but it can also help us re-interpret built work after it is completed.
All Images © Federico Babina.
Babina has produced several series of illustrations, from the playful ARCHIQUOTE to the surreal ARCHIWINDOW to the reductively analytical ARCHISHAPE. These works all draw upon iconic works of architecture to invent new worlds and ways of seeing familiar designs.
His latest work, ARCHIZOO is a zoo of architectures, each drawn as the animal Babina imagines it to look like. There are some obvious ones, like the Corbusier’s Ronchamp Cathedral as a duck, or the Eiffel Tower as a giraffe.
But there are some unexpected remixes, too. Zaha Hadid Architects’ A+Award-winning Heydar Aliyev Center in Baku, Azerbaijan, is likened to a walrus, while Shigeru Ban’s Centre Pompidou-Metz is drawn as a stingray. Foster+Partners’ infamous “gherkin, ever open to interpretation, becomes a seal. The prints are available for purchase on Babina’s e-shop.