Aladin Borioli: Hives

Before the box hive, there were 4,400 years of beautifully strange architecture for bees.

Before the standardized beehive narrowed the field, humans built an astonishing range of structures for living alongside bees. Aladin Borioli’s pocket-size visual archive gathers 375 images of hives dating from 2400 BCE to 1852, when the modern hive was patented.

Part artist’s book, part design history, Hives moves through photography, graphic design, and writing rather than a single linear account. It grows from Borioli’s ongoing Apian research into human–bee relationships and asks a quietly radical question: what possibilities disappeared when one form became the norm?

Read this if… you’re drawn to vernacular architecture, ecological design, visual anthropology, or compact books that open surprisingly large worlds.

Texts by Ellen Lapper and Aladin Borioli. Graphic design by Nicolas Polli. Published by The Ice Plant with RVB Books.