Archibet

Federico Babina's "Archibet" is the latest in an obscure but relatively long history of illustrations portraying architecture in alphabet form. Earliest is Johann Steingruber's "Architectonisches Alphabeth" of 1773, in which each letter is the floor plan of a hypothetical neoclassical building. Recent examples include Steven Holl's analytical "The Alphabetical City" of 1980, Lisa Rienermann's "Type the Sky" font from 2007, and Andrea Stinga and Federico Gonzalez's short film "The ABC of Architects," which we featured last year. Both the last example and Babina's contribution share the fact each letter is associated with a particular architect; A is for Aalto, in both cases, but it's more interesting to see how they differ (S is for Scarpa in one case and Siza in the other).