An Architect Redesigned the Harry Potter Book Covers to Feature Modernist Designs
When the Italian publishing house Salani commissioned architect Michele De Lucchi and his AMDL CIRCLE studio to redesign the Italian versions of the iconic book covers of the “Harry Potter” series, De Lucchi did what he does best and focused his attention on reimagining the fantastical buildings of the wizarding world in a contemporary style.
Each of the seven newly-designed book covers features a building from “Harry Potter” lore, including Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Azkaban prison, the Weasley family home “the Burrow,” and even the Quidditch stadium, but viewed through a modernist lens.
“As architects, we inevitably approached the novel by having in mind the space, the objects and the atmosphere that these objects generate in space,” De Lucchi told Dezeen in April. “We took wizarding world locations and represented them as visionary architectures: an imagination without limits, free from the constraints imposed by the design and production of a product.”
De Lucchi said that redesigning the “Harry Potter” covers “[amplifies] the reader’s imagination and the iconography of the saga through scenarios never seen before, placing the fantasy genre in dialogue with contemporary architecture.”
Most of the building designs are based on real-life AMDL CIRCLE projects — both conceptual and physical. The monolithic structure of Azkaban is based on the Medea Hotel De Lucchi designed in Batumi, Georgia.
On the cover for “Goblet of Fire,” De Lucchi depicted the Quiddich World Cup stadium with tall sets of bleachers, similar to his conceptual design for the temporary and traveling Expo Icon.
“The concept refers to the possibility of handling architectural objects intended for events, which can be disassembled and reassembled in different contexts,” De Lucchi told Dezeen.
And the structure featured on the cover of “The Half-Blood Prince” is Hogwarts’ tallest tower — the astronomy pavilion — on which De Lucchi based the design off a wind pavilion he created for a project called “Art and Arch.”
“A tower of air has a magical quality with the wind that is created and rises by induction,” he said. “The effect is simple and suggests that one can enjoy the wonders of nature without imposing presumptuous and inefficient acts of force.”The full catalog of De Lucchi’s “Harry Potter” book covers can be viewed on Salani’s website.