Architecture of Star Wars
Encyclopedia
The Architecture of Star Wars includes the cities, buildings, ships, and other structures of the fictional Star Wars
Star Wars
Star Wars is an American epic space opera film series created by George Lucas. The first film in the series was originally released on May 25, 1977, under the title Star Wars, by 20th Century Fox, and became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon, followed by two sequels, released at three-year...

 universe
Fictional universe
A fictional universe is a self-consistent fictional setting with elements that differ from the real world. It may also be called an imagined, constructed or fictional realm ....

 as described and depicted in books, movies, comics, and cartoons. Architects' Journal ranked the top 10, including the Death Star
Death Star
The Death Star is a fictional moon-sized space station and superweapon appearing in the Star Wars movies and expanded universe. It is capable of destroying a planet with a single destructive super charged energy beam.-Origin and design:...

 and the Jedi Temple.

Comparing the urban and natural environments pictured in Star Wars, Mark Lamster wrote that the cities are places of danger and corruption, while the forces of good find sanctuary in the natural world. He also describes the "retro-futurist" cities in the series as being in between those extremes and places of "great beauty but dubious moral character." He attributes the ambivalence towards urbanity to series creator George Lucas
George Lucas
George Walton Lucas, Jr. is an American film producer, screenwriter, and director, and entrepreneur. He is the founder, chairman and chief executive of Lucasfilm. He is best known as the creator of the space opera franchise Star Wars and the archaeologist-adventurer character Indiana Jones...

' own feelings about cities and urban environments.

The settings of the movie have generally been praised, but one author took exception to the "anachronistic period architecture and statuary" of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace is a 1999 American epic space opera film written and directed by George Lucas. It is the fourth film to be released in the Star Wars saga, as the first of a three-part prequel to the original Star Wars trilogy, as well as the first film in the saga in terms...

, saying it improperly associated third world
Third World
The term Third World arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either capitalism and NATO , or communism and the Soviet Union...

 buildings with conceptions of innocence and the primitive in a way that was discriminatory and demeaning.

Planet settings

Luke Skywalker
Luke Skywalker
Luke Skywalker is a fictional character and the main protagonist of the original film trilogy of the Star Wars franchise, where he is portrayed by Mark Hamill. He is introduced in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, in which he is forced to leave home, and finds himself apprenticed to the Jedi master...

 is first seen in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, originally released as Star Wars, is a 1977 American epic space opera film, written and directed by George Lucas. It is the first of six films released in the Star Wars saga: two subsequent films complete the original trilogy, while a prequel trilogy completes the...

 living with his adoptive parents in a "complex of caves and domed structures" on Tatooine
Tatooine
Tatooine is a fictional planet and setting for many key scenes in the Star Wars saga, appearing in every Star Wars film except The Empire Strikes Back, although it is mentioned at the end of the movie...

, filmed in the Tunisia
Tunisia
Tunisia , officially the Tunisian RepublicThe long name of Tunisia in other languages used in the country is: , is the northernmost country in Africa. It is a Maghreb country and is bordered by Algeria to the west, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Its area...

n desert town of Matmata
Matmâta
Matmata is a small Berber speaking town in southern Tunisia. Some of the local Berber residents live in traditional underground "troglodyte" structures. In 2004 it had a population of 2,116....

. The end of the first movie was shot in the Guatemala
Guatemala
Guatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize to the northeast, the Caribbean to the east, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast...

n rain forest where a celebration with rebel allies takes place in a caved area (a scene said to be borrowed from Leni Riefenstahl
Leni Riefenstahl
Helene Bertha Amalie "Leni" Riefenstahl was a German film director, actress and dancer widely noted for her aesthetics and innovations as a filmmaker. Her most famous film was Triumph des Willens , a propaganda film made at the 1934 Nuremberg congress of the Nazi Party...

's 1934 Nazi propaganda
Propaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....

 film Triumph of the Will
Triumph of the Will
Triumph of the Will is a propaganda film made by Leni Riefenstahl. It chronicles the 1934 Nazi Party Congress in Nuremberg, which was attended by more than 700,000 Nazi supporters. The film contains excerpts from speeches given by various Nazi leaders at the Congress, including portions of...

). The exotic locales provide scenery that is unfamiliar to "all but a few experts in non-western architecture", providing the films with fantastic settings that could still be believable.

Urban planning

Three architecture and planning students noted that the "latest" (1999) Star Wars movie [The Phantom Menace] offered "a variety of urban development options" in a San Diego Tribune story headlined "How would you like to live on a Star Wars' world." The article included illustrations of Coruscant
Coruscant
Coruscant is a planet in the fictional Star Wars universe. It first appeared onscreen in the 1997 Special Edition of Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, but was first mentioned in Timothy Zahn's 1991 novel Heir to the Empire...

 ("completely covered by development" and "surrounded by mile-high skyscrapers"), including views from the Jedi
Jedi
The Jedi are characters in the Star Wars universe and the series's main protagonists. The Jedi use a power called the Force and weapons called lightsabers, which emit a controlled energy flow in the shape of a sword, in order to serve and protect the Republic and the galaxy at large from conflict...

 Council building, and the city of Theed (inspired by an 18th century palace near Naples, Italy). On Coruscant
Coruscant
Coruscant is a planet in the fictional Star Wars universe. It first appeared onscreen in the 1997 Special Edition of Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, but was first mentioned in Timothy Zahn's 1991 novel Heir to the Empire...

, "development extends miles below the surface of the city and up into the clouds."

The "urban future" has also been depicted in Blade Runner
Blade Runner
Blade Runner is a 1982 American science fiction film directed by Ridley Scott and starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, and Sean Young. The screenplay, written by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples, is loosely based on the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K...

 where "the setting is a grimy, crime-ridden Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

 in the 21st century". The architecture of Star Wars may also have been influenced by Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick was an American film director, writer, producer, and photographer who lived in England during most of the last four decades of his career...

's 2001: A Space Odyssey
2001: A Space Odyssey (film)
2001: A Space Odyssey is a 1968 epic science fiction film produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick, and co-written by Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke, partially inspired by Clarke's short story The Sentinel...

. The designs continued Lucas' work from his first feature film, THX 1138
THX 1138
THX 1138 is a 1971 science fiction film directed by George Lucas in his directorial debut. The film is based on a screenplay by Lucas and Walter Murch...

, which featured a claustrophobic
Claustrophobia
Claustrophobia is the fear of having no escape and being closed in small spaces or rooms...

, Orwellian
George Orwell
Eric Arthur Blair , better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist...

 "subteranean world of black-and-white spaces" where the population is subdued with drugs and kept under constant surveillance.

Ships

The battle cruisers featured in Star Wars have been described as examples of "Suprematist architecture".

Real world buildings that mirror Star Wars

The San Francisco Federal Building
San Francisco Federal Building
The San Francisco Federal Building is a building designed by the architectural firm Morphosis. It is located at 90 7th Street on the corner of Mission and 7th Streets in South of Market, San Francisco, as a replacement for the previous building at 450 Golden Gate Avenue...

 designed by Thom Mayne
Thom Mayne
Thom Mayne is a Los Angeles-based architect. Educated at University of Southern California and the Harvard University Graduate School of Design in 1978, Mayne helped found the Southern California Institute of Architecture in 1972, where he is a trustee...

 has been compared to the Jawa Sandcrawler featured in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, originally released as Star Wars, is a 1977 American epic space opera film, written and directed by George Lucas. It is the first of six films released in the Star Wars saga: two subsequent films complete the original trilogy, while a prequel trilogy completes the...

. The ING headquarters
ING House
ING House is the headquarters of ING Group at the business district Zuidas of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. It is nicknamed the shoe or the dustbuster . The postmodern design is by Amsterdam based architects Meyer and Van Schooten...

 building (in Amsterdam
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...

, Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

) has been described as looking like something out of Star Wars that could "move forward on its legs".

Further reading

  • Kippins, Jeffrey Star Wars III: The Battle at the Center of the Universe; Investigations in Architecture Eisenman Studios at the GSD 1983-1985 Ed. 1986
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