Illustrator and architect Federico Babina’s latest project, called ARCHITANGRAM, acts as an “architect’s alphabet” that helps break down the recognizable styles of famous designers. This visual series is designed as a creative game. By using a minimal set of building blocks, Babina is able to recreate some of the most iconic buildings by these architects in easily translatable ways.
Babina shared 37 unique illustrations that came from ARCHITANGRAM, each based on the work of an important designer. As you scroll through some of his work, you may recognize many of the designers and even some of the buildings that best describe their work. Ultimately, though, each creation is made from a number of set shapes—squares, rectangles, rhombuses, domes, and more.
If you want to play the game with architects not included on this list, Babina gave us the rules he used to make these designs. First, a square is split into 23 pieces, each piece representing a sort of “letter” of an architect's alphabet. You can then rotate and shift these pieces around the drawing board to create new diagrams of different buildings. And that's pretty much it! You can reorganize the shapes to your heart's content.
“ARCHITANGRAM explores the playful side of architecture where the main ingredients are mathematics, geometry, fantasy, and imagination,” Babina explains. “It is a playful experiment that uses the game to understand the problems of modulation of space using logic and invention to rediscover compositional rule.” Babina playfully describes this project as “a useless illustrated game” that cannot be won or lost. It is, in his words, “pure gymnastics for the imagination and fantasy.” He says it is simply an exercise in staying creative and continuing to explore new ideas.
Though the game is currently only a concept, it will be exciting to see if it comes to life in some other form for the masses to enjoy. For now, fans of the concept can emulate Babina's imagined shapes with their own materials and reorganize them to create imaginary architecture.
If you like this project, be sure to check out our earlier coverage of his work including Artists’ Styles as Architecture and Mental Illness as Architecture.
Illustrator and architect Federico Babina has designed a creative game perfect for architects and architecture lovers. It's called ARCHITANGRAM.
It starts with a black square cut into 23 different shapes.
Players can take those shapes and rearrange them into imaginary architecture inspired by famous architects and styles.
