This house “may not look like much, kid, but she’s got it where it counts.” (No, we love this house.)
Full disclosure: We’ll take about any excuse to talk about Star Wars. But this time we’ve got a legitimate reason: May 4 is international Star Wars Day! This Saturday, let your geek flag fly high, and have no shame in putting that old Boba Fett Halloween costume to use. We thought we’d start the festivities a little early (we don’t work on Saturday!) with this list of buildings that were clearly inspired by (or that influenced) the look and feel of the Bearded One’s timeless space opera.
Who knows want the architecture of Episode VII will look like, but if it’s anything like these structures, we’d approve. Click through to see them all.
P.S. May the fourth be with you!
Daniel Libeskind’s spiky Denver Art Museum takes a nod from Darth Vader’s razor-sharp Super Star Destroyer.
Santiago Calatrava’s troubled City of Arts and Science complex in Valencia, Spain, includes this structure, El Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía, whose animistic features evoke the samurai gas mask design of Darth Vader’s helmet.
OMA Casa de Musica in Porto, Portugal, looks exactly like a Jawa Sandcrawler, as seen in Episode IV.
Sandcrawler
Zaha Hadid’s Capital Hill House, which was designed for fashion icon Naomi Campbell, features a periscope-like design that more than a little resembles General Grievous’s flagship the Invisible Hand, from Episode III.
Photo: flickr user enemigo_80
Oscar Niemeyer employed the squat dome in several of his now-canonical projects. The latest can be found at the now-shuttered Niemeyer Center in Avilés, Asturias, Spain, which looks more than a little like the Republic Executive Building on Coruscant, only a lot smaller.
The Republic Executive Building
Those remembering the first (and only) viewing of Episode I may have thought to themselves why Naboo’s stately architecture looked so familiar. That’s because George Lucas and his art direction team were inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright’s design for the Marin County Civic Center, which sports a dazzling blue-greenish roof and dome that pops from its forested surroundings.
Festivities in Naboo
Photo: Patrick Bingham Hall
The Stamp House by Charles Wright Architects is a surprisingly sprightly concrete home that hovers above a lake. The house’s concrete form and structure looks suspiciously like the Millennium Falcon, Han Solo’s trusty smuggling-turned-Rebellion-saving cruiser.
