Harry Potter Covers

Since the first edition, fans of Harry Potter have been enchanted by the representations of the magical world of the saga. This visual carousel, rich and enticing, has known how to crystallise the appearance of the landscapes and characters in readers’ minds, making any other imagining implausible.

For the covers of the new Italian edition of Harry Potter, published by Salani in 2021, the CIRCLE has taken a step back, interpreting the locations of the saga as archetypes of dwellings, to then represent them with fantasy-filled structures that draw from the studio’s project imagination, particularly the buildings that have symbolic connections with the locations of the saga.

The CIRCLE thus moves away from the classic iconography of Harry Potter and pays homage to this great phenomenon of literary imagination with the creation of unprecedented scenarios: an operation that is not intended to limit readers’ imaginative capabilities but to prompt each of them to reinvent the spaces, forms and characters of the saga based on their own personal experiences.

On the cover of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone the Hogwartis  school is inspired by the Abbezie conceptual project: solid and strong constructions, strongly anchored to the ground but stretching upwards thanks to the impetus of the steeples that push the gaze in the direction of the sky and, metaphorically, the future.

For Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets the “lair” is imagined as one of the Cataste, sculptures composed of many small pieces of wood that seem to be balanced as if by magic. If for Harry the “lair” refers to the idea of house and family, in the collective imagination the piles of wood have value for what they evoke: gathering up, preserving, taking care of, ordering according to an ancient way of building.

The prison in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is never described in the books: we only know that it is located on a small, frozen island out at sea. The CIRCLE has conceived it as an imposing monolith, a mythological construction that is similar to the profile of the Hotel Medea in Batumi: a tall tower of overlapping and offset volumes that potentially seem to be generated by each other as in an endless epic.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is set of the arena of the tournament of Quidditch, the most practised sport in the world of Harry Potter, which is played astride flying broomsticks. We have imagined this location as a travelling stadium, the terraces of which have the form of the Expo Icona installation. The concept refers to the possibility of moving the architectural objects used in events, which can be dismantled and reassembled in different contexts.

In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Hagrid’s hut is referable to the series of Pagliai [Haystacks], which evoke the constructions of the same name with essential shapes achieved by placing materials on top of materials. The Haystacks are a celebration of man’s work and are grafted onto the landscape beautifully and with discretion.

The astronomy tower described in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is the tallest place in Hogwarts, from where the stars are observed during lessons. The CIRCLE has imagined it as the Torre Cucchi-De Lucchi, built within the sphere of the Arch&Art project inside the gardens of the Triennale in Milan. It is a tower of air, where wind is generated and emerges by induction: the concept is simple and makes us think that the wonders of nature can be enjoyed without imposing, domineering and, in the long term, harmful actions. The verticality prompts us to raise our gaze to the sky, in search of the meaning of existence.

For the final confrontation at Hogwarts, narrated in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the covered bridge assumes the bow-shaped profile of the Bridge of Peace in Tbilisi: a pedestrian walkway with a filigree roof that seems suspended in the air. The bridge is by definition a symbolic architecture, a place of union between two points; in times of war, unfortunately, many bridges are blown up, as happens in the battle of Hogwarts.