During the rollout for Donda at Chicago’s Soldier Field in 2021, Kanye West name dropped Architectural Digest on a track from the highly-anticipated album. The live performance was accompanied by a nostalgic set designed to look like his childhood home. Within this setting, spatial design became a focal point in the storytelling of this work, serving as another vehicle for creative expression. The rapper isn’t the only artist to utilize art and design to tell their story. Quite a few music videos released on the backend of the pandemic—including recent releases from Harry Styles, Post Malone, and Kendrick Lamar—explore relationships with spaces, façades, and transformation.
In the Dave Free–directed music video for “N95,” Lamar mixes gritty and real-life environments with surreal architectural spaces including the Fort Worth Water Gardens. The architectural designer Anne Dereaux notes how the song is a cultural commentary on dropping façades and aesthetics in embrace of a more purposeful life. “In the shots of the water garden, you don’t see anything around it; the only thing that gives you a sense of scale is Kendrick,” she tells AD. “I think that those visuals coupled with the lyrics are saying, ‘What would you do for aesthetic?’ ‘Who’s the hypocrite?’ ‘Who considers themselves irrelevant?’”
Back in 2019, Solange Knowles filmed at the gardens for her “Almeda” music video in addition to Rothko Chapel and other historic places in Houston to pay tribute to her Texan roots. But it could also be argued that both artists are possibly reclaiming this specific space from architect Philip Johnson’s white supremacist ties, amplifying their message even louder.
Hidden messages using spatial design, a discipline that emphasizes the relationship between people, culture, and interior and exterior environments, have also appeared in other videos recently, like Post Malone’s “Cooped Up,” which is a modernist furniture fantasy come to life. In the video designed by Tyler Evans and directed by Andre Bato, Malone shows viewers the power of modernist furniture as a commentary on how even the elite feel cooped up with their demons too.
Playlab, Inc., a multidisciplinary studio that helped with the creative direction of the trippy set, shared that the visual treatment was inspired by Paul Shrader’s 1985 film Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters. “The film features surreal sets floating in black space, and it perfectly captures this idea of being cooped up both physically and mentally. The concept of being surrounded by infinite space allowed us to play with the idea of what hides within that space,” Playlab Inc. explained via email. “Roddy Rich has this iconic line on his verse: ‘Posted up with the demons,’ and we imagined the demons lurking in this space around the house. The modernist energy just felt right with the pace and tone of the track. It’s this sort of ’70s open floor plan energy, led by tones of reds, oranges, and yellows. It’s all meant to feel warm to further emphasize being cooped up, but alive.”
It reminds Dereaux of the ’70s “cocaine decor” aesthetic, a playful combination of absurdity and escapism. “I think the idea of cooped up and being in isolation is like you want an escape from that reality,” she says.
Then there’s the album cover for Harry’s House, which uses an upside down minimalist scene to symbolize transformation. In the music video for the lead single “As It Was,” Styles is spotted at the brutalist Barbican Estate in London—a site that has previously made cameos in videos for Dua Lipa, Niall Horan, and Skepta to name a few—before moving to Lindley Hall, and then a penguin enclosure at the London Zoo. “Him going through these spaces and sort of breaking free of this very rigid, regimented visual expression is super representative of the song—that acceptance of things will never be the same,” Dereaux adds.
Even though it all seems to be happening at once, this trend in referencing and using space and design to enhance music has been gaining momentum for a few years now. In FKA Twigs’s music video for “Don’t Judge Me,” the artist takes over Kara Walker’s Fons Americanus fountain in reference to racial injustices and power struggles. Last month, Twigs performed in the cavernous St. Matthias Church, located in London, for her NPR Tiny Desk Concert, reinvigorating her album Magdalene’s religious themes on the grounds of a site where ritualism protests took place in 1867.
“When I worked in music videos, there was a large emphasis on artistic expression. Like interior design, we were bringing a visual story to life. The videos almost acted as another instrument, bringing a layer to the song,” explains Tiffany Howell, founder of the interior design studio Night Palm. Before crossing over into the design lane, Howell worked with Herb Ritts on music videos for Britney Spears, Jennifer Lopez, Justin Timberlake, and more, with an approach that was never a one-size fits all—it was a personalized vision. “It’s an opportunity to let people into the interior world of these musicians,” she adds. “The design nuances would be either that it was highly stylized or a rebellious expression.”
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Dereaux references West’s obsession with architecture as an inflection point in bringing design into the cultural spotlight. She recalls a conversation from 2018 with colleagues about the rapper visiting SCI ARC in Los Angeles, the takeaway being how it was met with dismissiveness. “I was like, ‘You guys don’t even understand that just by his presence within an architectural space, he is activating an entire generation to be interested in spatial design and spatial awareness. That’s important,’” Dereaux says. “That moment was like a microcosm of how architecture is sort of this very hyper-intellectual space that can feel not very inclusive, like people are not invited to the party.”
The videos discussed here are just a few examples of what will soon be many design references within the modern world of music. Evidently, an eye for design only enhances the narrative of an artist’s medium. In the unforgettable words of Pusha T, “Look outside, the landscape ridiculous / Motion lights surrounded, meticulous / Architectural Digest, my premises.”
