{"id":62871,"date":"2020-07-23T08:45:19","date_gmt":"2020-07-23T12:45:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/architizer.com\/blog\/?p=62871"},"modified":"2020-07-30T13:18:46","modified_gmt":"2020-07-30T17:18:46","slug":"the-architecture-of-wes-anderson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/architizer.com\/blog\/practice\/details\/the-architecture-of-wes-anderson\/","title":{"rendered":"The Uncanny Architecture of Wes Anderson"},"content":{"rendered":"

Architects: Showcase your next project through\u00a0Architizer<\/a>\u00a0and sign up for our\u00a0inspirational newsletter<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

This autumn will see the release of a new film by Wes Anderson. The French Dispatch<\/em> has been described as “a love letter to journalists set at an outpost of an American newspaper in a fictional 20th-century French city.”<\/p>\n

Fans of Anderson know what to expect: a cinematic world that feels much more put-together than the one we inhabit everyday. As a child, Anderson admired the \u201cslightly heightened reality\u201d of Roald Dahl\u2019s children\u2019s stories and has spent his career bringing a similar sensibility to the big screen.<\/p>\n

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Not everyone finds Anderson’s distinctive aesthetic delightful. New York Magazine critic David Amsden once complained the director had become “pickled in a world of his own creation.” Image: Tony Revolori and Saoirsie Ronan in ‘The Grand Budapest Hotel’ (2014)<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

With meticulously decorated sets, droll dialogue, and perfectly symmetrical shot composition, Anderson\u2019s movies are catnip for perfectionists. One gets the sense that his greatest pleasure, as an artist, is making sure everything fits together just so.<\/p>\n

Architecture plays a central role in this decidedly un-naturalistic approach to cinema. Nearly all of Anderson\u2019s films feature a central structure around which the action revolves. In The Royal Tenenbaums<\/em>, it was a family home in Manhattan, while in The Darjeeling Limited<\/em> it was a train that carried American tourists across India. In The French Dispatch<\/em>, judging by the promotional poster, it will be the newspaper\u2019s offices.<\/p>\n

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Promotional poster for ‘The French Dispatch’ (2020). The poster was designed by illustrator Javi Aznarez.<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

In each of these cases, Anderson uses various techniques to ensure that the viewer gets a complete picture of the structure. He doesn’t just provide an impressionistic sense of place, but actually lays out how the spaces fit together, sometimes using architectural models and cutaways.<\/p>\n

This impulse toward diagramming and contextualization cuts strongly against the grain of most Hollywood directors, who like to throw viewers in the midst of the action to encourage direct absorption in the plot. In contrast, Anderson treats his viewers like an architect treats their clients, leading them step by step through the world he has lovingly created \u2014 whether they are interested or not.<\/p>\n

The following structures have played starring roles in Anderson’s films.<\/p>\n

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The Harlem brownstone where The Royal Tenenbaums was filmed has become a popular photo op for cinephiles. Image via movie-locations.com<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)<\/h2>\n

\u201cRoyal Tenenbaum purchased the house on Archer Avenue in the winter of his 35th year.\u201d So begins one of the most iconic films of the aughts, a work that is as much about place as it is about character or plot.<\/p>\n

The Royal Tenenbaums<\/em> is set in a storybook version of New York that was inspired by how Anderson imagined the city while growing up in Texas as an avid reader of the New Yorker<\/em>. The addresses and place names in the film are all invented, yet the shooting locations are all real and located either inside the city or in nearby New Jersey.<\/p>\n

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Kumar Pallana blocks the Statue of Liberty in one scene shot in Battery Park. Wes Anderson did not want any recognizable landmarks to appear in his storybook version of New York. Image: Movie Mezzanine.<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

Landmarks, however, are decidedly absent from Anderson\u2019s New York. In one scene filmed in Battery Park, Anderson carefully positioned actor Kumar Pallana in front of the Statue of Liberty so the monument wouldn’t show up in the shot. Gene Hackman, who plays the charmingly roguish title character, was confused by this, according to Anderson\u2019s former assistant Will Sweeney, asking why they were even there if not to film the Statue of Liberty. Anderson responded that he wanted to clearly invoke New York without the viewer, at any point, knowing exactly where they were. An idiosyncratic priority, for sure, but one that makes the movie uniquely evocative.<\/p>\n

Most scenes in The Royal Tenenbaums<\/em> were shot in or around the \u201chouse on Archer Avenue,\u201d a magnificent Victorian Brownstone that is really located near Convent Avenue and 144th Street in Harlem.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the time I was very adamant that this would be a real place and that we have to make it a real place,\u201d Wes Anderson explained to Matt Zoller Seitz in Seitz’s magnificent coffee table book, The Wes Anderson Collection<\/em>. \u201cIt was also quite practical, I think. The roof was the real roof. It was all one place. The only cheat was with their kitchen, which was in the house next door, because this place had no windows \u2014 it was not going to work. But the rest of it\u2019s all there.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Each of the Tenenbaum children inhabits a room that reflects their passions. For Chaz Tenenbaum, that passion is entrepreneurship. Note the on-screen text identifying the room \u2014 a truly architectural touch. Image: WordPress.<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

The film crew rented the house for the duration of shooting and made careful renovations in order to capture the spirit of space, a family home that is stuffed with artifacts from childhood. The film tracks the lives of the Tenenbaum children, three former child prodigies who have grown into unhappy adults. Growing up, each Tenenbaum child was given their own floor of the house, and decades later these spaces are still decorated to reflect their childhood passions.<\/p>\n

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The director on the set of ‘The Life Aquatic.’ Image: Smith Gee Studio<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004)<\/h2>\n

Wes Anderson followed The Royal Tenenbaums<\/em> with The Life Aquatic<\/em>, a film that is similarly invested in themes of memory and regret. The Life Aquatic<\/em> follows Steve Zissou, an eccentric oceanographer and documentarian played by Bill Murray, as he attempts to exact revenge on the \u201cjaguar shark\u201d that killed his friend and partner. He\u2019s brought a film crew along for the adventure, hoping that a documentary about this Ahabian quest will revive his floundering career.<\/p>\n

The Life Aquatic<\/em> is a bit less grounded in reality than The Royal Tenenbaums<\/em>. It is not just stylized but actually fantastical. It\u2019s fitting that, for this movie, Anderson made use of constructed sets. He utilizes the cutaway \u201cdollhouse\u201d effect for the first time in this film to introduce Zissou\u2019s boat, The Belafonte.<\/p>\n