The eponymous Azkaban prison highlights the cover of ‘Prisoner of Azkaban’ as a cold structure composed of cuboidal volumes with strong vertical striations, further adding to the imposition.
Harry Potter is the only person on the front of this cover (and of course, he doesn.
#Harry potter book covers series#
For Chamber of Secrets, the Burrow, the Weasley family residence is reinterpreted as a stacked, shingled structure in wood, unreally balancing a pitched roof on top of its narrowing profile, strongly evocative of a sense of “architectural” magic, apart from harbouring a feeling of home, nurturing and protective. The fifth book in the series is Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. The inspiration for this almost sculptural edifice comes from the gothic abbeys of Tuscany and central Italy. How then, do you “redefine” such an intergenerational, iconic sense of place? AMDL Circle and Michele De Lucchi propose going back to zero, and working with attributing a more symbolic value to our architecture, in a manner that allowed everyone to interpret it freely based on their own personal experiences.ĭrawing by Michele De Lucchi, Catasta 2017, pencil on paper Image: Michele De Lucchi, Courtesy of AMDL circleįor the first book in the decade defining saga, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, the cover reinterprets the Hogwarts castle as a solid and sturdy construction, anchored heavily to the ground, but reaching upwards through pointed spires in an act of increased momentum, pushing towards the sky. Obviously, the US version is the most cartoonish, but it parallels the UK childrens version most closely because both covers display Harry and Hermione riding Buckbeak. Within the books, the visual sense, a “style” of its architecture that prevailed was a cross between an English town and countryside castles, something that the immensely popular films too impressionably bolstered as a much more definitive visual image of these places. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is the only instance in which the US, UK childrens edition, and first edition UK adult covers all contain the same imagery: a hippogriff.
The sense of imagination invoked by these books is unparalleled, not just in the spells, the potions, and the conflicts, but also in a distinct sense of place in the expansive world it creates. In fact, it would be fair to say that a million strong fandom of “potterheads” swear by it, still awaiting their letters of acceptance from the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, having dissociated with their “muggle” lives, finding magic in JK Rowling’s fantastical saga of the boy who lived. An entire generation owes their fix of the childhood magic and their early fantasy trappings satiated to the Harry Potter saga.