The Burnside Blog
The architecture is Bond. James Bond.
With the new Bond film opening today, I couldn’t resist this excellent article from Wired that a friend forwarded my way. It profiles some of the famous and memorable James Bond real-world architectural points of interest from the stately Forbes Museum in Tangier to the otherworldly Centro Ceremonial Otomi in central Mexico. It’s a great piece to get you all fired up for the latest 007 adventure.
What it doesn’t have, however, is any of the fictional iconic Bond designs from years past. One of the fascinating elements of many of the Bond films is not just that the style is superb, but that there is an architectural language that is singularly unique to a particular character and his world. When you see the old Bond films, you can tell by the look of many of the buildings that this is clearly the world of 007.
That vocabulary was created by the very architecturally influenced Oscar-winning production designer Ken Adam. Adam designed seven of 007’s adventures and set the standard for all of the films’ common massive geometrically futuristic compounds—the Victoria and Albert Museum calls it Cold War Modern.
Adam was prolific—never stuck in one particular style or another—as he also designed Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Sleuth, The Freshman, The Madness of King George and perhaps most recognizably, Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove.
Watch this excellent video that came out on the eve of Casino Royale’s release to learn more about his work on Bond as well as his relationship with Kubrick:
