Glimpse Design's Imagined Future in 'Oblivion'
Postapocalyptic living spaces in the clouds take flight with midcentury modern influences in Tom Cruise's latest movie
The creators of the science fiction movie Oblivion have imagined a future where humans have left Earth for lunar colonies, and a few left behind hover above it in Skytower, a residence, command center and heliport 3,000 feet up.
"Skytower is sleek and futuristic, a gorgeous and clean environment up in the earth's atmosphere ... it had to serve as a strong contrast to the postapocalyptic polluted planet below," describes Oblivion production designer Darren Gilford. In designing such a futuristic place, he looked to the midcentury modern past.
The result is a sublime minimalist space in the clouds. The sets reference classic modern architecture but also tantalize us with their superclean futuristic style. Here's a peek at how Gilford and his production team built a future way of life for a character without a real home, and just for fun, how the architecture compares with real-life architecture on Earth today.
"Skytower is sleek and futuristic, a gorgeous and clean environment up in the earth's atmosphere ... it had to serve as a strong contrast to the postapocalyptic polluted planet below," describes Oblivion production designer Darren Gilford. In designing such a futuristic place, he looked to the midcentury modern past.
The result is a sublime minimalist space in the clouds. The sets reference classic modern architecture but also tantalize us with their superclean futuristic style. Here's a peek at how Gilford and his production team built a future way of life for a character without a real home, and just for fun, how the architecture compares with real-life architecture on Earth today.
The color inspiration for Skytower comes from the sky and clouds; whites, light grays and blues make up the main color palette inside and out.
Tom Cruise stars as Jack Harper, a blue-collar guy of the future, part of a mop-up crew that still makes regular visits to the uninhabitable Earth to fix drones that seek out alien scavengers.
On his visits down to Earth, Jack becomes fascinated with objects from the past, like LPs and Sports Illustrated magazines. He uses them to create a homey campsite oasis beside a lake on Earth, where he dreams of living out the rest of his days. It's a stark change from his digs at Skytower.
On his visits down to Earth, Jack becomes fascinated with objects from the past, like LPs and Sports Illustrated magazines. He uses them to create a homey campsite oasis beside a lake on Earth, where he dreams of living out the rest of his days. It's a stark change from his digs at Skytower.
Harper's main ride, the Bubbleship, is a hybrid inspired by the iconic Bell 47 helicopter (see it hanging in the Museum of Modern Art) and a jet fighter plane. Here we see it on its pad at Skytower.
In Skytower reflective surfaces paired with large windows also make the most of the surrounding clouds and sky.
"Strong juxtapositions and contrast were very important; postapocalyptic events have polluted the planet; up above in the atmosphere, everything needed to be pure and gorgeous," Gilford says.
"Strong juxtapositions and contrast were very important; postapocalyptic events have polluted the planet; up above in the atmosphere, everything needed to be pure and gorgeous," Gilford says.
Gilford also took note of the overhangs commonly seen in midcentury modern architecture. Long horizontal cantilevers are an interesting counterbalance to the 3,000-foot-long vertical line connecting Skytower to Earth. These strong lines, common in midcentury modern architecture, also play off the endless horizontal lines of the clouds.
The production designers were tasked with creating the futuristic evolution of architecture, imagining what would be built 60 years from now. Several strong, curved lines come into play, grounded by all of the strong horizontal planes.
The lines of this futuristic look are clean yet curvaceous; curved corners, circles and spheres connect the look of many of the elements, from a spiral staircase to a countertop, from the detailing on the windows to the spheres of the Bubbleship.
The imagined live-work interiors of the future are incredibly efficient, functional, uncluttered and sterile. "The living quarters are clean, stark, comfortable and utilitarian," Gilford says.
The strong form of the spiral staircase connects the levels through circles in the floor and creates a strong focal point in the open plan.
The strong form of the spiral staircase connects the levels through circles in the floor and creates a strong focal point in the open plan.
"The sets are simple and not complicated; they are based in simple geometric forms with simple, beautiful details," Gilford says. "You see core shapes and intricacies in the details."
Sharp visual contrast tells a huge part of the story; Harper travels between Skytower and this colony of survivors at Raven Rock, filmed in an abandoned power plant in Louisiana. The dark, rusty and decaying sets of Raven Rock have the opposite look of the clean, light-filled home in the clouds.
Visual Acoustics: The Modernism of Julius Shulman
Director Joseph Kosinski is also an architect, and he suggested that the production team look to Julius Shulman's iconic photography for inspiration. "Shulman's work is so anamorphic; all of the vertical lines stay truly vertical," Gilford says. "We also looked to the Case Study Homes of the 1950s and studied how the clean, vertical lines run through the compositions."
When looking at Skytower, one can't help but think of the way Mies van der Rohe's Edith Farnsworth House floats above the ground and has strong horizontal lines with clean, vertical ones running through them.
The thought of clear views out to the sky also makes one think of the work of John Lautner, whose Southern California architecture is often a go-to for location scouts. Incidentally, Julius Shulman shot photos of Lautner's work for decades.
This contemporary house by Mark Dziewulski dramatically hovers over the water the same way Skytower hovers over the clouds.
Futuristic when it was first designed in 1963 and today, the strong spheres used in the movie recall Eero Aarnio's iconic Bubble Chair.
Architects have been using spiral staircases as sculptural focal points during modern times, but they were originally built in towers during the Middle Ages and used defensively, making them an apt choice for the film as well.
Gerrit Rietveld Zig Zag Chair
Skytower's gravity-defying dining set is reminiscent of Gerrit Rietveld's 1943 Zigzag Chair.
Of course, some prefer a more industrial look to gleaming white and futuristic. If I had to pick a firm to build me a postapocalyptic home out of whatever materials were left on Earth, I'd hope that Jenson Architects was still around. Jensen created the Scraphouse demo home out of recycled items like phonebooks and traffic signs.
As for whether or not imagining this sleek vision of the future affected the production designer's style at home, Gilford says, "I'm very cognizant of my wife!" For himself, Gilford is a big fan of midcentury modern style, particularly early Herman Miller furniture designs.