Blade Runner and the Bradbury

Science fiction futures and ancient Rome are two periods on the human timeline that seem to be on complete opposite ends of the spectrum. However, in Blade Runner, Ridley Scott and his filmmaking team found a way to blend these two periods in time to make a film that is both an homage to the past and a dreary prediction of the near future. To dive deeper, Scott’s production team found a clever way to use the architecture of the past and fabricated gadgets of the future to create a fictional world in which the layers of a building’s construction tell a story as strong as the dialogue coming out of the actor’s mouth. In this essay I will discuss the architectural details of the present-day Bradbury Building, the futuristic Bradbury building of Blade Runner, and where the building’s architectural elements are derived from.

A precious metals miner named Lewis L. Bradbury commissioned an architect named Sumner P. Hunt to design the Bradbury Building. The building exists at 304 Broadway, West 3rd Street in Los Angeles, California. However, after viewing Sumner’s designs, L. L. Bradbury decided to commission George Herbert Wyman, a young draftsman who worked for Sumner, to design the building instead. Built in 1893, the Bradbury Building would become a multistory structure that would be used as office, retail, and residential spaces (Duane). Due to the building’s very exotic interior, it would also be used by filmmakers in their films for years to come, including Ridley Scott’s 1982 Blade Runner.

When comparing the interior and exterior of the Bradbury Building in the present to the interior and exterior of the Bradbury Building in Blade Runner, the added height, added post and lintel pillars along with metal tubing covering the façade of the Bradbury Building are the major changes made to the futuristic version of the building. Originally constructed in the Romanesque revival architecture style, the Bradbury Building’s exterior façade features wide and round archways with pilasters on either end of the archway that act as decorative columns. The columns, acting as the piers of the arch, resemble the Corinthian style order that line roman archways with leaf-carved ornamental motifs called Acanthuses (Britannica). The archway itself is made up of long curved sections of brown brick as opposed to an array of vertical bricks, or voussoirs, of classical roman archways. The acting keystone of the Bradbury Building is more of a decorative depiction of an acanthus rather than an important structural element of the archway. Atop the archway, there is a post and lintel structure comprised of the decorative pilasters and an ornate lintel that reads “BRADBURY” (Nelson, figure 1). In Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, the front façade of the futuristic Bradbury Building is layered with structural and decorative elements that depict the passage of time over many years of renovation and repair. There is no archway, but there is a post and lintel structure that extends out over the sidewalk with a giant ornate lintel that reads “BRADBURY”, like the present-day Bradbury Building. Underneath the lintel are two pillars with wide swirl-fluted shafts on either end of the lintel and an exquisite array of pipes and tubes cover the once exposed brick walls of the Bradbury Building (Nanev figure 2).

The interior of the present-day Bradbury Building features walls that resemble the exterior façade of a building. Here, the Romanesque revival is evoked again with archways that surround some of the windows and doorways (Nelson). These arches, unlike the arches that decorate the Bradbury’s exterior entryways, are made up of an array of vertical voussoirs that point out from the center of the archway with its keystone being the most vertical. Again, we see that decorative brick pilasters line the will every few meters (Nelson, figure 3). Also, the interior of the Bradbury Building features stair railings with iron art nouveau decorations and wooden handrails. Even the elevators in the main lobby of the building are exposed iron cages. The exposed iron and façade-like walls of the interior of the building are meant to resemble an outside busy city street which clearly comes across with the aid of the rooftop atrium that allows sunlight to flood the lobby (Nelson, figure 4). In Blade Runner, much of the interior architecture is left as if untouched from the 1980’s, only filled with junk that relates to the story of the film. However, one key difference between the future depiction of the Bradbury Building and the present-day Bradbury is the number of floors that were built. Originally, the Bradbury Building was built with 5 stories, but in Blade Runner the filmmakers decided to fill the lobby with smoke to imply that there are more stories to the building (Nanev, figure 5a and 5b).  

I will also be comparing the present-day version of the Bradbury Building to two other buildings that were discussed in this course, which are the Arch of Constantine in Rome, and the Pantheon, also in Rome. When comparing the exterior façade of the Bradbury Building to the Arch of Constantine, there are both stark similarities and notable differences between the two structures. The similarities being that both structures feature a post and lintel decorative facing over an arch with piers and a decorative keystone. The major difference between the two structures is that the façade of Arch of Constantine is constructed in the classical (late) roman style with more detailed features such as the fluted shaft of the tapered columns compared to the symmetrical and rectangular shape of the Bradbury’s pilasters. The arch of Constantine is also decorated with more detailed carvings depicting specific scenes and text all over the wall as opposed to the Bradbury Building whose details are localized at the top of the columns and over its archway (Constantine, Arch, figure 6).  

When comparing the Bradbury Building the Pantheon in Rome, the initial inclination is that these two structures look nothing alike. However, there are as many similarities as differences between these two structures. For example, the interior architectural elements from the Pantheon, such as the decorative columns and rounded arches can be observed at the Bradbury building on its decorative interior façade. And although the Pantheon has a rounded dome – which is the opposite of the Bradbury Building’s overall cube shape structure and triangular prism-shaped atrium – it shares a similar architectural structure to the Bradbury Building: a rooftop hole to let in light. At the Pantheon, the hole at the top center of the dome is called an oculus. The oculus is surrounded by coffer which is a square or polygonal ornamental sunken panel used to decorate a ceiling (Agrippa). At the Bradbury Building, the rooftop light hole is called an atrium which is made up of glass panels and stretches across almost the entire ceiling, as opposed to the Pantheon which has only a hole at the top of its dome. The Bradbury Building, however, features a series of iron mixed with wood handrails, unlike the pantheon which is just an open marble floor space (Agrippa, Pantheon, figure 7).
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To conclude, the Bradbury Building of present day is clearly inspired from ancient roman architecture, but with key differences in construction and decoration due to the vastly different time periods of ancient Rome and our present-day culture.  It is understood that with the passage of time comes new building methods, new art styles, and new humans all with different perspectives that are imbedded into whatever building is created making that building a product of its time. Ridley Scott and his filmmaking team then found a creative way to speed up that process of rebuilding a building by using existing architectural elements and futuristic details to create a world that is curiously familiar and distantly foreign at the same time.
 

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​Figure 1, Nelson

​Figure 2, Nanev

​Figure 3, Nelson

Figure 4, Nelson

Figure 5a, Nanev

Figure 5b, Nanev

Figure 6, Constantine, Arch

Figure 7, Agrippa, Pantheon

​WORKS CITED
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Los Angeles Conservancy. Bradbury Building Overview, The Los Angeles Conservancy Copyright 2020 https://www.laconservancy.org/locations/bradbury-building. Accessed 7 April 2021. 

Curated by Duane, Erin. UC Davis Library. EXHIBITS – Bradbury Family Papers A Mexican-American Family’s Story, 1876-1965, previously on display Jul 1 – Sep 1, 2007 in Shields Library Lobby – Special Collections, https://www.library.ucdavis.edu/exhibit/bradbury-family-papers-mexican-american-familys-story-1876-1965/. Accessed 7 April 2021. 

Nelson, Joshua. Elevator Scene. The Bradbury Building | One of a Kind Filigree Elevator and Central Atrium, November 10, 2018, https://www.elevatorscenestudio.com/blog/2018/11/10/bradbury-building-elevator. Accessed 7 April 2021. 

The Editors of the Encyclopedia Britannica. Britannica. Order. July 20, 1998, https://www.britannica.com/technology/order-architecture. Accessed 9 April 2021. 

Commissioned by Agrippa, Marcus. Pantheon. 25 BC. Rome, Italy. https://www.askideas.com/media/39/Interior-Of-The-Pantheon-Picture.jpg. Accessed 9 April 2021. 

Commissioned by Roman Senate to Constantine. Arch of Constantine. 312 AD. Rome, Italy. https://colosseumrometickets.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Rome-Italy.-Arch-of-Constantine-ancient-construction-of-emperor-victory-over-Maxentius-in-312AD-Roman-Empire..jpg. Accessed 9 April 2021.

 Nanev, Svetlozar. “Blade Runner Bradbury Scene.” YouTube, uploaded by Scetlozar Nanev, 22 May 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8L_HCLHcv2E&t=25s