Federico Babina, the creative talent behind the Archicine and Archipixel illustrations had added to his repertoire of movie and modern architecture mashups with his latest series of 17 prints which place familiar cinematic stars into the interiors of famous architectural structures.
“I have never liked the lack of life in the architectural representations that are often aseptic, clean and neutral. I enjoy imagining what life would be like in these static images. they are comparable to still life paintings.” says Babina. ‘In these pictures I try to exalt the ‘banality of everyday life’ of famous performers employed in simple actions that interact with the space that hosts them.”
The illustrated details are terrific. Each interior features familiar classic modern furnishings by several of the same architects who designed the homes in which they are shown as well as in some of the others (e.g. Prouve chairs, Frank Lloyd Wright chairs, Mies van Der Rohe’s Barcelona Chairs and Day Bed, Gerrit Reitveld Chair and table, Rudolph Schindler chairs, Alvar Aalto chairs, table and tea cart, Eames chairs and Elephant and so on). Those of you who know your mid-century modern iconic furnishings may also recognize George Nelson’s Bubble lamps in the Eames case study house and the classic Butterfly chairs by Jorge Ferrari-Hardoy in the Bonet home and Williams home.
A closer look at some the classic modern furniture within the posters:
And, some of you eagle-eyes may have noticed that Steve McQueen is watching his own movie on tv as represented by the classic poster design for Bullitt:
Another wonderful detail is that within each illustration is a framed miniature version of Babina’s previous illustrated series, Archiportraits.
Archilife by Federico Babina
Below are all the prints in the series. In case you don’t recognize the actors or the architects, I’ve given you the full names of each above the posters:
Brigitte Bardot in Jean Prouvé:
Alfred Hitchcock in Le Corbusier (aka Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris):
Charlie Chaplin in Paul Revere Williams:
Woody Allen in Rudolph Schindler:
James Dean in Garrit Reitveld:
Jack Nicholson in Alvar Aalto:
Jean Paul Belmodno in Pierre Chareau:
Marcello Mastroianni in Jordi Bonet:
Paul Newman in Phillip Johnson:
Michael Caine in Louis Kahn:
Jimmy Stewart in Luis Barragan:
Peter Sellers in Richard Neutra:
Steve McQueen in John Lautner:
Cary Grant in Oscar Niemeyer:
Marlon Brando in Frank Lloyd Wright:
Audrey Hepburn in Charles and Ray Eames:
Marilyn Monroe in Ludwig Meis van der Rohe:
Shop the entire collection here
all images courtesy of federico babina