If 30 Iconic Artists Were Architects, As Imagined By Federico Babina

Babina thinks that art, architecture, and sculpture are historically linked by an unbreakable thread. "We find examples of paintings and sculptures having a direct influence on architectural design," he told Bored Panda. "It is easy to find the art hidden behind an architectural shape or see reflected the geometry of a building painted on a canvas. It is impossible to conceive of the history of art in exclusion from that of architecture."

"Painting, sculpture, and architecture have always been complementary disciplines that influence each other and grow and develop along common paths. A sculpture is like a micro-architecture, a facade can become like a painted canvas, and a building can be shaped like in the hands of a skilled sculptor," the architect explained.

Babina likes finding the hidden architecture in parallel universes. In this sense, creating these illustrations helps him to explore alternative artistic languages. "I tried to imagine how a house designed by Dalí would be or a museum designed by Miró," he explained the origins of the project.

"These images represent an imaginary world of shapes that uses the brush."

When he's working on these images, Babina's choices are guided by different reasons. "There is not a common rule. There must be something that stimulates my imagination, some element that represents the starting point for a trip using my imagination," he said.

"I do not necessarily admire all these artists, but this is not the important thing. The subjects I choose should provoke in me a feeling, positive or negative. Something that kindles a spark to give birth to an idea."

The idea was to carefully study the expressive language of an artist and read between the lines the hidden architecture in it, probable and improbable connections between forms of expression and aesthetic languages.

"When I make a series, I think that every image is important to express the general concept. I find it impossible to pick one because they all represent a piece of the composition. I have always in mind a general design that contains all of them."

"William Morris said: 'My concept of architecture is in union and collaboration of the arts, so that all things be subordinate to the other and in harmony with them.' There is a symbiotic relationship, an implicit partnership between architecture and art. Different art branches meet in many fields," Babina said.

According to him, art and architecture are disciplines that speak and lightly touch each other, so the definition and function of architecture is changing constantly with the development of contemporary art.