Rebuilding an Empire

The work of AI artist Qasim Iqbal remixes the past to create the future.

By Ellen Himelfarb

Mohammad Qasim Iqbal’s spaces are like no building designed by man in no material created by the universe, and yet they seem familiar and lived in, like centuries-old masterpieces: They are neither architecture nor fine art but digital worlds inspired by both.

An architecture student at the University of Nottingham, Iqbal might also be described as a Renaissance man. His passions extend from ancient history, nature and Roman ruins to modernism and technology.

Earlier in his academic career, he was influenced by the esteemed Yale lecturer Peter Eisenman’s approach to Palladio and the brilliant composition of heritage architecture by Francesco Borromini, Giulio Romano and Le Corbusier.

“I used to think architecture was about skyscrapers,” he says. “I did a 180. Everyone goes on his own journey and comes out di erent. With me, it was discovering Palladio’s Villa Barbaro. Eisenman has this double [meaning] going on—the physical and the presence of the metaphysical. You just have to find it.” Iqbal reserves particular admiration for the purposefully imperfect triglyphs in Romano’s Palazzo del Te, whose witty manipulations play on the building’s classical style. “What excites me is there’s always a deeper meaning in the work,” he says. “I like being a detective and finding the original thoughts of the architect.”

More recently, Iqbal began experimenting with an AI-equipped text-to-image creator called Midjourney. Combining this with his foundation in classical architecture, he embarked on a series of visual works—what he calls “my own little in-between”—by typing in screen prompts, similar to searching for an image on Google. Each piece starts with a search term: “house floating on water,” for instance.

Drawing from an endless cache of digital references, Midjourney translates that set of keywords into picture form. “I was a bit taken aback at the simplicity, to be honest.”

Once he’s established a structure on the page, Iqbal will refine the terms with more specific and nuanced detail until the screen becomes a complex and dynamic world. He then posts the works on social media under the name Studio MQI.

The work has an organic, almost primitive quality to it that Iqbal credits less to the limitations of the technology than to his own design intentions. “In the very beginning, the images were less developed, from a much more basic model, but now I’d say I aim for those ambiguous, organic shapes. The prompts I go for are stu to do with textiles and the Renaissance. They’ve got a weathered quality because I’ve always been influenced by ruins.”

He combines fabric and stone to intentionally blur the distinctions between materials. Stone will appear to take on draping qualities, and vice versa. “I’m communicating the architect’s value of ‘seeing’ by inviting viewers to look closely, to question.”

If Iqbal’s work has its own deeper meaning, it lies in the evolution of architecture itself. The masters knew their techniques well enough to ri on the conventions of their time. Palladio, for example studied for two decades, learning masonry and studying ancient cultures and the visual arts.

“And we complain about our seven-year program,” says Iqbal. “There’s no comparison. Everything is a lot more predictable now. Architecture is becoming a product.” He believes a lot of the sameness comes down to red tape, committees and dealing with clients. “It’s di cult to deliver a visionary result when you’re trying to create capital-A ‘Architecture’.”

Still, he trusts there’s space for his generation to become architects of Renaissance-era ambition and success—even with AI’s spectacular potential to take over the drafting board. “It’s a tool, and it’s not going to replace me,” he says, like a mantra.

“I think to understand the importance of an architect, you’ve got to go back to tradition. You have to understand the human aspect as well as the unseen aspect of architecture. I like to think you can never program that. And if you can understand that, you’ll always have value.” 