In Valencia, Spain, an apartment outfitted with neoclassical details like large windows and decorative moldings has been fictitiously overridden by a UFO. Manned by artificial intelligence (AI), it crash landed in the residence and began repairing and renovating the spaces. This out-of-this-world concept is the brainchild of architect Mario Montesinos Marco for client (and artist) Carlos Sáez.
According to the story, a UFO touches down in the apartment, wiping the kitchen and bathroom off the face of earth and taking down walls and furnishings in its path. As described by the design team in a project description (generated with the help of AI), the otherworldly spacecraft was operated by AI and “designed to explore space and find new ways of life.” Following its landing, the technology is said to have made updates to fixtures and other design aspects of the apartment, including modernizing lights and installing new appliances.
After the fictitious crash and its subsequent renovation, the apartment maintains several of its neoclassical elements, including its mosaic tiled flooring and ornate plasterwork. The apartment walls were painted a stark white and include feigned markings that reveal gray concrete underneath, indicating where walls were taken down or removed.
The areas with the largest departures from the original styling are the kitchen and bathroom, where new metal fixtures and appliances add a modern element to the apartment’s existing historical, and otherwise white, features. Lighting staged throughout the apartment takes on a contemporary, industrial form with linear fixtures attached to metal grates. In the living room, in the place of a chandelier, a curved chandelier made of a rippling fabric sheet hangs from the historic ceiling plate. Throughout, the electric fittings and wiring are visible on the walls and ceiling, and exposed structural and mechanical elements are continued in all of the living spaces. A curtain conceals the bedroom from the main living area.
“The new way of living left an indelible mark on the architecture of the apartment, interweaving past and future, neoclassicism and posthumanism, traditional elements and advanced technology to create a new space-time, a new inclusive and non-binary architecture that celebrated diversity,” Marco and Sáez (and AI) said in a press release.