Hello, I want to share a catch of mine while watching the 'Where No Man Has Gone Before' episode. Part of the building in the image of planet Delta Vega's lithium cracking plant looks exactly the same as the Palácio da Alvorada (Palace of Dawn), Brazil's official presidential residence, by famous Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer. The pictures shows it well.
The matte painting was by Albert Whitlock, whose career spanned 60 years. He did several paintings for TOS, and some of them show a similar architectural style. http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Albert_Whitlock
Very interesting, and not surprising. Niemeyer, who just died last month or so, specialized in 60s-style futuristic architecture. All of Brasilia is full of it.
Yes, his flowy curvy style definitely seems futuristic, specially back then. I like this quote of him: "I am not attracted to straight angles or to the straight line, hard and inflexible, created by man. I am attracted to free-flowing, sensual curves. The curves that I find in the mountains of my country, in the sinuousness of its rivers, in the waves of the ocean, and on the body of the beloved woman. Curves make up the entire Universe, the curved Universe of Einstein."
Very interesting--nice catch. I wouldn't be surprised if in the interest of saving time, matte background artists borrowed from available designs of the day. A rather peculiar placement for this particular architectural piece, but in the end it works. Reminds me a little of this inspiration that also took place, in The Cage:
Great observation! Now, I know why this structure in WNM looked so familiar. Niemeyer was a great architect, it's sad he is no longer among us. Bob
Those parabolic arches and curved star shapes are iconic of 1960s design, probably because they suggest flight or the trajectory of a rocket -- an emblem of the dawn of the Space Age. They showed up in furniture, wallpaper and tile patterns, and set design for TV shows. [yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ng2Ls4OA2k4[/yt]
Duh - bah - gak - I'm stunned. I . . . I . . . Great GooglieMooglies. I had to get the earphones on for Debbie doing that. Then, the quartet, the the the dancers. WOW. Thanks for the amazing awfulness. One of the best things I've seen on this board, frankly.
^ It's stuff like this that I hope makes us so kitschy for extraterrestrials that they'll be fascinated rather than revolted (because there's plenty of other stuff to make one run in fear of what's in our crazy primal minds).