The Fairy Tale Architecture series, curated by author Kate Bernheimer and architect Andrew Bernheimer, treats classic stories as frameworks for reimagining spatial experience. Rather than illustrating narratives, the project uses them as charged atmospheres—structures of desire, fear, and transformation—that push architecture into speculative territory. By pairing architects with specific tales, the series reveals how fiction can surface new logics for enclosure, sequence, and materiality.

ABA’s interpretation of the Russian fairy tale Snowflake—featured in Places Journal and a subsequent book and traveling exhibition—is a “low-resolution” investigation into narrative architecture. Using paper-folding techniques and calibrated light, the project magnifies elemental moments: a child made of snow, a foreboding forest, and the eventual transformation of form into vapor.

By creating these effects in reality—without the use of digital manipulation—the installation demonstrates how subtle architectural edits can transform a literary atmosphere into a tangible, emotionally-charged site of research.

Read more in Kate Bernheimer’s writeup of the story itself and our illustrative model photography.