Music often drives us to change the architecture of our bodies – if it wasn’t for Rod Stewart’s raw, animalistic beats or Barry Manilow’s thrashing guitar, I wonder if I’d ever move at all. But seriously, the idea of music itself being architectural isn’t too hard to fathom, whether in the way that it’s laid out in blueprint form before it’s actualized, in the way that a series of supporting sounds bolster one another and create a song, or in the 4’33” sense that silences create their own music, just as there’s architecture in empty space.
All that being said, I’ve never physically imagined a song as a building, which is why Federico Babina’s illustrations (depicting exactly that) stand out as strange yet strikingly familiar. It’s not hard to become so taken by a song that you feel like you’re inhabiting it; here, Babina (whose work was formerly featured on Flavorwire) exhibits the manifestations of songs as complex spaces through which listeners might wander. From the wind-powered toadstool of Björk’s “Joga” to Radiohead’s multicolored “No Surprises” shipping-container skyscraper, these “Archimusical” designs (spotted via Dezeen) run the gamut from literal to abstract, invoking musicians’ aesthetics as well as their songs’ “rhythm, proportion and harmony.”
Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit”
David Bowie’s “Space Oddity”
Radiohead’s “No Surprises”
Joy Division’s “Love Will Tear Us Apart”
The White Stripes’ “Seven Nation Army”
Philip Glass’ “Morning Passages”
Amy Winehouse’s “Rehab”
Paco de Lucia’s “Entre dos Aguas”
Nick Drake’s “River Man”
Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean”
Laurie Anderson’s “O Superman”
Björk’s “Joga”
The Beatles’ “Let It Be”
Archimusic City