Barbie’s house, how would the most famous architects of the world design it? Artificial intelligence tells us

A Barbie house inspired by the aesthetic codes of some of history’s most famous creatives: a chimera made real by artificial intelligence.

Born in 1959 as Barbara Millicent Roberts in the small fictional town of Willows, Wisconsin (USA), and after graduating from Willows High School, one of the greatest pop icons of all time was on her way to independence in 1962. At that time, a very young blonde doll (created by the American company Mattel), doomed to eternal existence at the age of 19, received her first apartment. Thus, the House of Barbie was born.

In the book Barbie Dream House: Architectural ReviewMattel Creations, you can see a snapshot of this a house entirely made of cardboard, with yellow walls, a single bed and college pennants as a decoration. It is said that from the very beginning, Barbie was born with a clear vocation to live independently, and that this house already then reflected this desire for freedom, underlined by the historical context.

After this first introduction to the world of interior design, where the color pink was the protagonist, a series of increasingly refined apartments and villas followed. V 1974 Mattel launches Barbie townhouse, inspired by Le Corbusier’s Maison Dom-Hino (modular open-plan building model). It wasn’t until 1990 that the recurring image we all have in mind is the image of a pompous design all pink and fuchsia – including furniture – becomes a reality with magic mansion. Now if Le Corbusier could design the house of this iconic doll himselfHow would he imagine it? And this task fell to Calatrava? Or Lina Bo Bardi? Lucky for us AI software stable diffusion it allows us to have fun making impossible dreams come truewhich would otherwise be just a fantasy.

Here’s what Barbie’s house could look like according to…

Oscar Niemeyer and Le Corbusier

From his office on the Champs Elysées, where the Brazilian architect went into exile after the military coup in his home country, Oscar Niemeyer applied his tropical version of rationalism in Europewith which he shares the use of concrete and glass and is softened by the mastery of his organic forms. This will be the house that Barbara Millicent Roberts would order him and that we could perfectly imagine on the prairies of Wisconsin: a modern, bright and sinuous building in which furniture plays a fundamental role. Almost as much as in a sentence that would come from Le Corbusier – which was already an inspiration for the royal model – in which you can appreciate her fetish colors and her love of right angles.

Santiago Calatrava and Frank Gehry

“For me, the rigid division between art and architecture is only a consequence of the 20th century and the functionalism that prevailed after the Second World War, which gave rise to the doctrine of “form follows function”. But there is much more. And naturally there is a close relationship between sculpture and architecture“, commented Santiago Calatrava when asked about the relationship between art and architecture. In his work, the architect plays to highlight the sources of his inspiration. As with the City of Arts and Sciences in Valencia, Barbie’s home will be something like a ship’s cabin, mixed with nautical shapes and corners. Frank Gehry will use curves differently, facade cladding with metal plates of a soft purple hue. Indeed, the AI ​​proposal reminds us of the Marqués de Riscal hotel in La Rioja.

Mies van der Rohe and Louis Barragan

The maximum German representative of architectural rationalism and the last director of the Bauhaus school, Mies van der Rohe he was the son of a stonemason, a profession which taught him respect for noble materials such as stone and for the most refined visual perfection. So it’s not surprising that in artificial intelligence fiction, he designed a house for Barbie with multiple heights, but with a few, albeit very well-chosen, ingredients, eschewing the use of pink and favoring restraint in natural tones. In the project of Louis Barraganon the other hand, it is impossible not to see those Mediterranean colors – through nature, water and low, horizontal volumes – that permeate his work, in which he mixes modernity and tradition and in which there is room for a slight chromatic contrast.

Tadao Ando and Lina Bo Bardi

He is considered by many to be the architect of modern simplicity. Tadao Ando combines concrete, water, light and natural forms. Strongly influenced by Le Corbusier,japanese architect allocated to the desire to generate calmness and emotion with their spaces. Thus, in his buildings one can enjoy a minimalism that is reflected only visually, evoking a sense of amazement due to the atmosphere it creates. As for Mies van der Rohe, the Barbie house that he would design according to artificial intelligence is very far from the aesthetic references we associate with a toy. In its turn, Lina Bo Bardi continues to amaze with intelligence this is at the heart of every decision of his project, in which we also see a powerful combination of colors that inevitably reminds us of the São Paulo Art Museum.

Zaha Hadid and Frank Lloyd Wright

architecture queen Zaha Hadid, born and raised in Iraq, had one of those minds for which nothing is impossible. “I don’t have a style, I try to always be at the forefront of innovation, trying to invent everything. It took me a long time to revisit and rethink typology, archeology and styles and then learn to reach a level of complexity and then build on that particular variety,” he once said. AD Spain from his home in London. This is a sculptural structure in which the curve is always at the limit of visual balance.is one of the main characters. According to the AI, the Barbie house that Hadid will build will follow this unmistakable imprint, accompanied by clean lines interrupted only by subtle touches of pink – at the request of the client, of course.

Frank Lloyd Wright he was a foundational figure in the history of architecture. He despised the plagiarism of European architecture and there was only one god: Nature, who always wrote with a capital N. With these premises and great satisfaction – “every person who believes in himself will be accused of arrogance,” he said – he invented horizontal residences, low ceilings, organic, integrated into the environment and with changeable interiors. In this case, according to the AI, Fallingwater House would be the basis – as a source of inspiration – for the construction of Barbie’s villa. With vegetation and the environment as part of the project, the residence combines materials such as brick with the interplay of superimposed volumes.

Article published on AD Spainadapted by Paola Corazza.