The megatall tower in new action movie Skyscraper was never expected to be a hit with architects, admits production designer Jim Bissell, but he wanted the building to be a "hero" nonetheless.
The task of designing The Pearl ? an imaginary 240-storey tower in Hong Kong that catches on fire ? fell to Bissell and his team, who were required to create a skyscraper that was both believable and that satisfied all the requirements of the plot.
But the Oscar-nominated production designer said that marrying a beautiful building and the storyline of the movie, which stars actor Dwayne Johnson, was an impossible task.
"No matter what we did, we were doomed for failure in the eyes of the architectural community," Bissell told Dezeen. "I had no delusions about the fact that it was going to incite the ire of many of my architectural peers." The action movie Skyscraper centres around The Pearl ? a 240-storey tower in Hong Kong
The script called for a colossal skyscraper that Johnson's character could access in a dramatic fashion, in order to put out the fire and save his family trapped inside, as well as provide a vertigo-inducing setting for the action.
"All of the criteria that good architecture needs to meet to be beautiful, wonderful and celebrated, are not the criteria I had before me to design this building," said Bissell. "As a designer who also wants to make the building look appropriate as a piece of architecture, that was a real chal...