TIMELINE : 1893 1982 2019
A cult classic, Blade Runner has been hailed for its production design, depicting a "retrofitted" future. It remains a leading example of the neo-noir genre. It brought the work of author Philip K. Dic, "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sleep" on which the movie is based, to the attention of Hollywood, and several more films have since been based on his work. Ridley Scott regards the work as "probably" his most complete and personal film. In 1993, Blade Runner was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". In 2007, the American Film Institute named it the 97th greatest American film of all time in the 10th Anniversary edition of its 100 years... 100 Movies list.
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When Sebastian brought Pris to his apartment, this eerie interior scene left an imprint on my mind that I will never forget. I could not have imagined it was filmed in a Victorian era building! The futuristic decay, the eternal rain and especially the architecture protrayed in the Los Angeles of the future, really intrigued me.
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The Bradbury Building ,constructed in 1893, is one of the few places I would insist on searching out if I ever visit Los Angeles again. That enthusiasm dates from first seeing the building’s interior in Blade Runner where Ridley Scott turned its carefully-preserved atrium into J.F. Sebastian’s run-down apartment building. All that wrought-iron and polished terracotta and those elevators! would be compelling enough on their own but their history as a setting for a several film and TV productions only adds to their enchantment.
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That a building from the 1890s should be known primarily for its role in a science fiction film perhaps isn’t so surprising when it transpires that the Bradbury’s architect, George Wyman, had been inspired by a passage in a contemporary novel of futurist fantasy, Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward: From 2000 to 1887.
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Wyman’s exterior is fairly nondescript even beside the younger buildings which now surround it, a fairly ordinary office building of the period. It’s the Bellamy-inspired atrium which captures the imagination and one can only wonder what the result might have been had Bellamy been a bit more liberal with his descriptions of America in the year 2000.
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