room in Dr Strangelove, so perfectly
conceived that the US president Ronald
Reagan was disappointed not to find its real
counterpart in the Pentagon. Other design
highlights come from 2001: A Space Odyssey,
such as the special effects that finally won
Kubrick an Oscar, notably the ‘star gate’
sequence, shot using the slit-scan
photography adapted by a young Douglas
Trumbull (who would later create special
effects for Blade Runner); the centrifuge set by
British engineers Vickers-Armstrong, which
was based on a 1950s space station concept,
cost $750,000 and took six months to make;
and Harry Lange’s space vehicles, stations and
spacesuits, which were informed by his work
for NASA at the time.
But Kubrick did not make life easy: he
frequently castigated the experts he called in,
never satisfied with their work, while a fear of
flying was behind the decision to film Full
Metal Jacket, Eyes Wide Shut and Dr
Strangelove in the UK. This meant real feats
of set design, as extraordinary efforts were
made to transform London into far away
worlds. To create the war-ravaged Vietnamese
city of Huê in Full Metal Jacket he employed
architecture-trained RCA graduate Anton
Furst to transform a derelict 1930s gasworks in
Beckton, east London, a process that involved
the strategic demolition of a huge number of
buildings, and flying in 100,000 plastic plants
from Hong Kong and 200 living palm trees
from Spain.STANLEY KUBRICK 039The Stanley Kubrick Archive was donated
by Kubrick’s family to the University of the
Arts London Archives and Special Collections
Centre in 2007, having previously been stored
in the director’s Hertfordshire home,
Childwickbury Manor, where he lived until
his death in 1999. I’d heard how expansive
the archive was, measuring 853 linear metres,
but did not yet know how Kubrick’s obsessive
nature extended to requiring custom boxes for
the archiving – ‘Lid to be not too tight, not too
loose, just perfect’, are the instructions to
stationary supplier G.Ryder – or the nature of
some of the items: as impressive as his films
are, the extent of his obsession seems
excessive on seeing the exhibition; for his
unrealised Napoleon biopic he collected 276Left The exhibition positions
the director at the centre of
the worlds he created
Right, top Kubrick (left) and
actor George C. Scott play
chess in the war room
during a break in the
filming of Dr. Strangelove
Right Kubrick with the actor
Jack Nicholson on the set of
The Shining‘We designed
2001 as a
period. We
designed a way
to live, right
down to the last
knife and fork’
Tony MastersLEFT & RIGHT: WARNER BROS. ENTERTAINMENT INC. RIGHT, TOP: SONY/COLUMBIA PICTURES INDUSTRIES INC.