Dua Lipa & the Modern Architecture

Dual Lipa is my guilty pleasure. And her second album, 'Future Nostalgia' is definitely not another catchy and silly pop album. Instead, it's an intelligent album in which we can see how Dua Lipa tries to define her universe going far beyond the music itself using elements like modern architecture.

‘Future Nostalgia’ is also a great title. We usually associate nostalgia with the past, so the name is a paradox that nevertheless makes sense in an album whose sound remembers the past while still being modern. The first song is precisely the one that gives its name to an album that is a labyrinth of references. And it is precisely in the lyrics of the video where we find the first surprises. The music video is entirely shot in the 'Skywood House' designed by Norman Foster, something that is just not a coincidence. This house reduces to its minimum expression the concept of a house, inspired by the minimalist work of Mies Van Der Rohe (Farnsworth House and Barcelona Pavilion). An architecture that at the time changed the way in which architecture is conceived, something that in her own way, Dua Lipa tries to do with her songs and imaginary.

But as if this weren't enough, in the lyrics of the song Dua literally says: "You want a timeless song, I wanna change the game, Like modern architecture, John Lautner coming your way." And precisely John Lautner was an American architect, disciple of Frank Lloyd Wright and known for developing what we know as Googie style (Chemosphere, the Sheats-Goldstein residence and Silvertop). His risky and futuristic work from the 60s and 70s has been featured in many films and videos and inspired many others, including the retro futuristic video of ‘Break My Heart’ where the architecture that we see reminds us of a lot of his designs. Check also how the video of ‘Break My Heart’ plays with the concept of scale, something that as a matter of fact is a totally architectural element!

‘Physical’ is simply a very good video. Simple, deliberately inclusive, and very theatrical. And although at first it may seem like a random colorful video, it is way more than just that. Produced by Catalan studio Canada, it was filmed in the central space of the ‘Fira de Barcelona’. The concept of the video is based on the conceptual diagram 'Order and Cleanliness' by Peter Fischli and David Weiss, two Swiss artists who during the 80s developed a diagram that includes four main universal concepts that make up the world.

In this way we see these four main concepts (human, matter, emotions and animal), whose intersections generate another four concepts (technology, culture, skin and loyalty), whose intersections generate (spirit, flesh feelings and instinct). And in the center of the diagram, as a final consequence of all the intersections, the orgasm. Dua Lipa represents each concept with a color, and in each color a different scene happens. With the final idea that all the colors (concepts) break their chromatic group obedience and meet together in a purely human celebration of lust and freedom and eclecticism.

Find out more about Dua Lipa by visiting her official website

Cover photograph by Hugo Comte courtesy of press Dua Lipa