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Illustrations: The Latest Architecture and News

ARCHIQUOTE: 13 Billboards Advertising Architecture’s Most Influential Concepts

Federico Babina is at it again, this time creating a series of 13 Las Vegas-inspired billboards that advertise architectural concepts of the profession’s most prolific contributors. The idea behind ARCHIQUOTE, as Babina describes, was to put words into manifest examples of architectural concepts and aesthetics from Mies van der Rohe to Rem Koolhaas.

“The words can be considered as architecture,” says Babina. “Simple concepts with deep meanings and complex thoughts explained with simplicity…Billboards that evoke a Las vegas of architecture where the phrases guide us to understand a little more the idea hidden behind the work done with volumes and space… In these 13 illustrations are mixed, intersect and integrate aphorisms and shapes in a communicative game.”

The complete series, after the break.

Cybertopia: The Digital Future of Analog Architectural Space

"Cyberspace, filled with bugs and glitches – the components of its natural habitat – will form a completely new and previously unknown location when released into a real city – Cybertopia," says Egor Orlov, a current student at the Strelka Institute in Moscow. According to Orlov, the physical world is on the brink of a major technological breakthrough that will revolutionize the way architects conceive of space – closing the gap between analog and digital.

Cybertopia - completed while he was a student at the Kazan State University of Architecture and Engineering under tutors Akhtiamov I.I. and Akhtiamova R.H. and nominated for the Archiprix Madrid 2015 - exists as another dimension for Orlov, where fairy tales come to life and science harmonizes with engineering and architectural design. "Future of an Architecture Space. Cybertopia. Death of Analogous Cities," delves into a fantasy world where the "possibility to fly or walk from one planet to another" becomes an illustrated reality using a combination of drafting-based techniques and a wild imagination.

Enter the hybrid technological-analog world of Cybertopia after the break

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Gastro-Architecture: Nicholas Blechman Illustrates Architecture as Food

Have you ever had the urge to squeeze a lemon on the dome of St. Peters Basilica? Or perhaps, crack a beer with Kohn Pedersen Fox’s “bottle opener”? New York-based designer Nicholas Blechman has put into illustration what we’ve all been thinking, landmark architecture as the food-related items they resemble. Check out Blechman’s “Gastro-Architecture” series here on the New York Times and preview a couple of our favorites, after the break.

90 of Mankind’s Greatest Architectural Achievements

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Hagia Sophia, Guggenheim Bilbao, and Burj Khalifa are amongst 90 structural feats in which Pop Chart Lab has deemed to be “mankind’s greatest architectural achievements since prehistory.” Each are hand-drafted and presented on this blueprint-style infographic to commemorate great architecture.

Artist Mark Lascelles Thornton On His Completed Masterwork: "The Happiness Machine"

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Over a year ago, we shared a work-in-progress drawing project that captured our imagination with its combination of huge size and meticulously small details. Now, "The Happiness Machine," Mark Lascelles Thornton's 8-foot by 5-foot, three year long drawing project is complete, after over 10,000 hours of painstaking work.

Lascelles Thornton, a self-taught London-based artist who describes himself as "one of those kids that was drawing before I was talking," created the artwork as a response to the global financial crisis, focusing on themes of socio-economics, consumerism, globalism, resource shortages, urbanism and architecture. We spoke to Lascelles Thornton about his artwork, discussing the themes of the piece and the commitment - or, as he describes it, "emotional engineering" - required for such a colossal undertaking.

For the full interview - and detailed images of the drawing - read on after the break

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ARCHIZOOM: Close-Ups of Architectural Favorites

Federico Babina is back with his latest illustration! This time, he explores 23 works of architecture through the lens of one interesting or intense detail that speaks to the character of the work as a whole. Seeing these illustrations as movie posters, which use visual imagery to suggest, insinuate, and convey "the essence" of the film, each illustration reflects the work and the architect's aesthetic overall. See all 23 after the break!

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The World Cup Stadiums of Brazil, In Awesome Illustrations

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In celebration of the Brazil World Cup, architect and illustrator André Chiote has created a series of illustrations featuring the tournament's most iconic stadiums. Comparing the social importance of these stadiums to cathedrals, Chiote believes that "the new architectural objects are landmarks in the cities that will perpetuate in the future as a cultural and social legacy," and there are few better ways to envision this legacy than to treat the structures with his abstracted, colorful aesthetic - in Brazilian green and yellow, of course. Check out the full illustration set after the break.

ARCHIMUSIC: Illustrations Turn Music Into Architecture

Federico Babina's released his latest series of illustrations: Archimusic, architectural representations of 27 songs, from Miles Davis to Michael Jackson to Amy Winehouse. See all 27 after the break!

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CASA: Architecture’s Most Famous Houses Confined to a Cube

French-born, Colombian-based architect Yannick Martin of WHAT has shared with us his latest series of illustrations that reimagines some of architecture’s most famous confined within a box.

“The idea,” describes Martin, “was to deform and stretch houses made by some of the most known architects, put them inside a cube, and reveal what makes them so singular, starting with the decisions the architects made concerning the proportion of their houses and the defining elements that makes them so unique and famous.”

The complete collection, including Casa Vanna Venturi and the Farnsworth House, after the break...

Artist Fills Paris' Negative Space with Whimsical Illustrations

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When you're surrounded by buildings on all sides, what do you see? In his SkyArt series, French artist Lamadieu Thomas gives us his answer. He takes claustrophobia-inducing photographs of urban landscapes through a fish-eye lens, framing the sky with rooftops and filling the negative space with playful illustrations. Thomas describes his whimsical approach to art as an attempt to show "what we can construct with a boundless imagination" and "a different perception of urban architecture and the everyday environment around us." To see more from the collection, continue after the break.

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ARCHIMACHINE: 17 Countries Illustrated as Architectural Machines

ARCHIMACHINE: 17 Countries Illustrated as Architectural Machines - Featured Image
Courtesy of Federico Babina

Federico Babina, the illustrator behind the extremely popular ARCHIPORTRAIT (portraits of architects done in that architect's particular style), ARCHIST (fictional works of architecture in the styles of particular artists) and ARCHICINE (illustrations of architecture in famous films), has just released his latest: ARCHIMACHINE.

The Latest Illustration from Federico Babina: ARCHIPORTRAIT

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Federico Babina, the illustrator behind the extremely popular ARCHIST and ARCHICINE, has just released his latest project: ARCHIPORTRAIT, "an artistic representation of 33 architects, in which the faces and the expressions are made of their architecture." As Babina says, "The intent is to display the likeness, personality, and even the mood of the protagonist through his aesthetic."

See all the portraits - from Corbu to Foster to Gehry and more - after the break.

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The Happiness Machine: The Detailed Drawings of Mark Lascelles Thornton

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With just a Rotring Isograph pen on arches paper, artist Mark Lascelles Thornton completed this scrupulously detailed architectural drawing project titled "The Happiness Machine". Each sheet represents a city - such as Chicago, Shanghai, London and New York - and is stylized in red and gray ink.

In addition to the meticulous detail of the buildings, the work is even more amazing considering the scale: the final piece will spread across eight panels measuring 8 by 5 feet.

Continue for more images...