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In science fiction cinema, hallways take a leading role. It is within these interstitial spaces that the action and beauty unfold, from intense moments of danger to the panorama of backlit walls configured to appear infinite in scale. Each possible future has its own design. There are the hexagonal passageways of the Death Star in star wars around 1977, and the octagonal ones in Alien: Romulus. The corridor is a science fiction theme, and the extreme nature of these spaces gives interior designers something to draw inspiration from.
Set designer Gary Card created the original and recently renovated interior of the LN-CC store in London, with its much-photographed octagonal hallway. “It’s definitely retro-futuristic,” Card says of the bright orange wooden tunnel. “I liked the idea of making something futuristic from a simple, inexpensive material and seeing how far we could take it. When we saw its parallels with 2001: A Space Odysseywe lean more towards that feeling. Something I have learned with hallways is that they are a good way to involve the public as well as anchor a space.”
The hallways of the future take disparate visual paths. Some look like an intergalactic version of Gaudí, as in David Lynch’s version of Dune; others are chillingly reductionist, like the labyrinth of whitewashed underground corridors in western worldwhere Yul Brynner’s rogue cowboy android pursues the theme park’s last surviving guest.
Norma Kamali’s New York penthouse in the Herzog and de Meuron The 160 Leroy building in New York is all white, including the bare internal hallways, where the shadows cast by the doors change during the day. It is a bold and deliberate choice. “I want things to be as simple as possible,” Kamali says of the design. “For me it works creatively, so I still feel like tomorrow there will be another idea. “I hate looking back.”
The influence of science fiction design on the psyche has become an obsession for many. Between 2012 and 2015, the artist Serafín Álvarez put together an online archive – scificorridorarchive.com – collect still images from hundreds of scenes set in connected rooms in a movie. The process itself was the work of art, as Álvarez brought together several worlds on the blog, inviting you to imagine connections between them. But you can also enjoy the graphical arrangements.
Nerds of all kinds are obsessed with sci-fi sets, from the obsessives who can tell you that Clara in the era of Matt Smith doctor who walks through the same distorted, honeycomb-shaped hallways in “The Name of the Doctor” as he does in “Journey to the Center of the Tardis,” to the architects who have made it their professional goal to turn fiction into reality. Zaha Hadid’s signature is science fiction: the hallways and staircases of the 520 West 28th building in Manhattan that she designed shortly before her death have amorphous openings, windows, and curves, and her studio still creates similar silhouettes.
Mark Newson has created numerous projects with poured floors, perfect curves and a spectacular shine that is a universe away from traditional tongue and groove in architecture. What could be more attractive than a reflective floor made of a material you can’t identify? Think of Darth Vader’s menacing walk as he paces across those shiny black imperial surfaces. Likewise, the backlighting of the walls in the sci-fi hallways adds a heavenly glamour. Some science fiction is deliberately dirty: Andrei Tarkovsky’s art direction was the work of a genius, but it has a dank, dripping atmosphere. TRUE. But most science fiction is pure brilliance. The tube-shaped hallways in Gattaca They look like a series of rings of lights around a runway and feel very Prada.
“I’ve always been obsessed with hallways and giving them a sense of ‘gravity’ or an illusion of the information age,” says the New York designer. Karim Rashidwho has created numerous projects with hyper-realistic graphics on carpets and walls, including the Magic Hotels in Norway and the Prizeotel chain. “I want to transport people from the public to the private. Create a mood change. I grew up on science fiction, watching 2001, Logan’s career, Solaris and sword hunter. sturgeon law [90 per cent of everything is crap] This also applies to corridors: 90 percent are poorly designed. But lighting and technology now allow us tron-type spaces with long rows of LEDs. For example, the corridors of the Nobu hotel in Warsaw and the Belgian hotel Nhow.”
The intertwined fabric of the Nubes de la Bouroullec brothers could easily be used to create an amazing fractal tunnel, while recent designs of Rice pike – who quotes the movie ex machina for inspiration, they include polished steel portals and the striped rugs from his Cresco Collection, which he has shown installed as arches to move from one room to another, like a kind of 1970s trompe-l’œil starship corridor. “My recent focus has been on doors,” he says. “I’m drawn to creating pieces that dominate a room, offering a sense of transformation as you move through the space.”
Many public and private spaces are inspired by science fiction hallways. Most of Tadao AndoThe buildings of Naoshima, on Japan’s art island, feature concrete hallways reminiscent of the work of set designer Ken Adam (especially the beautiful but abysmal Lunaraker). Australian design studio Wood Marsh has created fabulous curving concrete spaces that are also wonderfully Ken Adam. Along the same lines is the concrete-walled gallery and private penthouse of the Boros Bunker in Berlin, which was also the home of Cate Blanchett’s eponymous character in Tar. Talking to him FOOT in 2017Owner Christian Boros spoke of his fascination with 007, which helped shape the penthouse.
when the architects George Yabu and Glenn Pushelberg When they moved into their Richard Meier-designed apartment overlooking the Hudson River, they left most of the walls and columns blank, but paneled a hallway with smooth, single-log wood from India. It is backlit at each corner with a disorienting Anish Kapoor lacquer concave dish that hangs at the end of the hallway, where the axis of each line of light lies. The effect is totally science fiction but also discreetly sensual. To counteract this, in the middle of the hallway there is a Napoleonic French chair.
Next May, Tate Modern opens a review of Do Ho Suh’s work titled The Genesis Expositionincluding facilities with colored translucent hallways. The artist is not the first to explore internal spaces. In 1959, utopian architect Frederick Kiesler created “Model for the Endless House,” a cement sculpture in the Whitney’s permanent collection. Each space meets another in an endless loop, like the corridors that science fiction characters travel over and over again.
Elongated transitional spaces can be emotional and dramatic. In 1987, Foster + Partners created a store for Katharine Hamnett on Brompton Road that was revolutionary: a white tunnel leading from the street to the industrial warehouse incorporating a 35m glass bridge, illuminated from below, with a gentle arch. It created a sense of wonder and mystery. Its most recent reincarnation was a now-closed restaurant, decked out in faux foliage and Chesterfield sofas and serving bottomless brunch. The world will change again. The only way is forward, whichever corridor you choose.