Design & Desire in the Twentieth Century

At first you might assume that Cathy Whitlock’s book, Designs on Film: A Century of Hollywood Art Direction is another sumptuous Hollywood-inspired coffee table book, brimming with oodles of stunning movie stills and illustrations of iconic movie scenes.  Designs on Film, however, is so much more. A well-researched overview of the profession of film art directoion, the book profiles the top professionals who have worked in the field over the past hundred years.

Ms. Whitlock organized her work into two parts. Part one, “Architect of Dreams,” explains what it is that an art director does and how the profession has evolved over the course of film history. Ms. Whitlock also does a fine job of describing the responsibilities of the production designer and set decorator in relationship to the art director. The second part, the real heart of the book, recognizes the work of major art directors from the silent era through the early 2000s.

Designs on Film finally gives credit to the brilliant  talents whose on-screen work is so distinctly memorable, but whose names and faces are barely known. Several photos feature great art directors at work in the studio: Hans Dreier (“Sunset Boulevard”), Edward Carrere (“The Fountainhead”), Carroll Clark (“Top Hat”) and RKO’s supervising art director Van Nest Polglase.

Designs on Film, one gains a greater understanding and appreciation of the work of the innovative designers responsible for Hollywood’s most iconic backdrops, those folks who were part-architect, part-artist, part-military leader and part-dreamer.

Thanks to Kevin Lee Allen Design for sharing this amazing article and the accompanying illustrations of the Playboy Club in Space. While the concept of the club is totally Twenty-first Century, illustrator Thomas Tenery’s work was undoubtedly influenced by Twentieth Century art directors: Sir Ken Adam and Norman Reynolds; production designers John Barry, Harry Lange, Ernest Archer and Anthony Masters; as well as architect John Lautner.

Read the article and view the rest of the illustrations on playboy.com.

Thomas Tenery, Playboy Club in Space: Game Room (2012).
Source: http://pictures.playboy.com/assets/articles/ab065abb-697b-4408-87a2-c7d851b6890f/d642add5-2494-42b1-b851-49d5cce71cfe.jpg

Sir Ken Adam, the most influential film production designer of the last half of the twentieth century, is hardly a household name, yet it’s likely that his work is ingrained in your memory. While Adam designed sets for seven James Bond films, the War Room in Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove is by far his most memorable creation. Real life for Adam is almost as adventurous and glamorous as Mr. Bond’s.

Ken Adam on the War Room set of Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove (1964)
Source: http://www.socialstereotype.com/_/Features/Entries/2008/9/22_KEN_ADAM_files/Picture%2054.jpg

Born in Germany, Klaus Hugo Adam settled in Britain with his family after fleeing the Nazis in 1934.  As a boy Adam knew he wanted to be a set designer after seeing The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1). Adam’s mother ran a boarding house in London where the young man met the brother of director Alexander Korda, Vincent, an art director himself. It was Korda “who encouraged Adam’s cinematic aspirations and advised him to study architecture”(2).  

During World War II Adam served as a “pilot in the RAF, earning the distinction of being the only German national to fight for the allied force”(1). After leaving the military, Adam was employed at Riverside Studios as a draftsman and “later worked alongside Gone With the Wind production designer William Cameron Menzies, who encouraged Ken to use bold colors and stylized sets”(1). Prior to The Bond Films Adam’s projects included Sodom & Gomorrah, Around the World in 80 Days, and The Trials of Oscar Wilde (1).

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