- I'm Richard Weiss,
and I've been an architect for over 20 years.
And today I'm gonna talk about the architecture
of some famous movie bars.
This is Gaston's tavern from "Beauty and the Beast."
[bar patrons singing a toast]
Here's what jumps out to me.
This is obviously a French provincial country style
and you can tell because all of the standards of that period
are represented, including wood sticking on the walls.
These are called half-beams
and you've got a wood chair rail.
And what's interesting about that,
there's a wainscot below it,
but this actually served a functional purpose,
which was to make sure if a chair hit the wall,
it would hit this rail
instead of damaging the wall surface itself.
Some characteristics of a tavern or pub are
they generally have low ceilings.
I can see these columns
which are supporting the wood truss with decorative inlays,
corbels that surround the liquor display.
Corbels are an architectural design feature
that were often used to support beams, and in this case,
it's got a scrolling detail that creates a way
to infill the angle to resist stresses.
Gaston is standing in front of a fireplace hearth,
which was the center of warmth in these taverns.
You can see kegs here
and just out of frame there's a liquor wall.
And this was really like a community center at the time
in France where people would gather.
These kegs are what are called
a direct alcohol delivery system.
Today we would do that with glycol,
which are refrigerated tubes
that would run through the building to taps.
You can see here that these kegs are directly tapped,
but nowadays, if you're a beer bar,
your taps would be front and center
because that's what you would want to highlight.
So let's draw the floor plan of Gaston's
to see if it would function well as an actual bar.
And this is actually a pretty great layout for a bar
because a bartender can stand here.
He's got a really long bar to allow for a lot of patrons,
but they can see every vantage point
from the center of the bar, which is very effective.
Now we're gonna look at the cantina in "Star Wars."
- We don't serve their kind here.
- What?
- You're a droid.
They'll have to wait outside.
We don't want them here.
- Why don't you wait out by the speeder.
We don't want any trouble.
- Mos Eisley Cantina is the quintessential dive bar.
Some of the elements that make this a dive bar,
the low slung ceilings
and how dimly lit the entire space is.
But the main element that makes this a dive bar
is the clientele.
And to quote Obi-Wan Kenobi:
- You will never find
a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.
- Here are the things that jump out to me.
You see a curved horseshoe bar.
It's a symmetrical building.
The bar itself runs almost the length of the building.
One of the really fun elements of this bar
are these tubes that run from the ceiling down
to these distribution systems,
which is probably an intergalactic glycol system.
This bar has been recreated in Disneyland and Disney World
but the ceilings are a little high.
Mos Eisley was inspired by the architecture of Tunisia
where these scenes were filmed,
and you can see as Luke and C-3PO entered the bar,
the predominant architectural material is sand.
There's very little architectural relief in the building
other than decorative stripes along the archway.
And there are booth nooks off to the side,
which allow for intimate conversations.
And this nook over here is where Han Solo shot Greedo.
I just made it clear who shot first.
Now it's canon.
And one of my favorite movie bars,
The Gold Room in "The Shining."
- Little slow tonight, isn't it? [laughs]
- It's in this scene where Jack ends his...
- Five miserable months on the wagon.
- So here's everything that jumps out to me in this bar.
You've got a tiered ceiling with light coffers
that all move in the direction of a central stage.
This material is actually small mirror tiles
which also run down the walls.
In the foreground, you can see the bar front,
which has a drink rail
and all of the setups needed to make cocktails.
One of the great things about this bar
is that The Shining was entirely movie sets.
At the time, it was the largest movie set ever built,
yet they went to great detail to make sure
that this bar was ergonomic, fancy, and beautiful.
This uplight is created by cutting a channel
into the wood bar, setting an acrylic, or glass piece
in this case, with a light strip underneath.
While there are some taps here,
you can see that the predominant is liquor,
which is typical of a cocktail bar or a hotel bar.
So one of the keys to this bar design
is that a bartender can stand in the center here,
make drinks, and if he needs alcohol from the back,
he can reach everything with just a pivot
as opposed to having to take a step.
- You set 'em up and I'll knock 'em back, Lloyd.
One by one.
- Next we're gonna talk about Hot Traxx
from the movie "Boogie Nights."
- [Maurice] Listen, don't you ever stay away from my club
that long again, okay? - You got it.
- The opening scene of Boogie Nights
is a three-minute-long tracking shot,
perhaps my favorite shot in movie history.
As we go through it
I'm gonna draw out the layout of this bar.
So Boogie Nights' Hot Traxx is a rectangular space
with a recessed entry vestibule,
and of course, the Hot Traxx sign at the corner.
Maurice takes Jack and Amber Waves
through the entry vestibule,
which faces the DJ booth and the dance floor,
which is the heart of any disco.
From there, he drops them off in the lounge area
and then transverses back to the bar.
We don't get a great shot of the bar
but we can tell where it's located
and we can tell that they're working hard back there.
From there, he goes back, points,
and then heads to the dance floor,
the center of the action.
The essential element of any nightclub that's a disco
is the dance floor.
Unlike many real discos that had no seating at all,
it was just a giant dance hall with the bar,
this also has lounge elements,
including wraparound seating on both sides,
flanking the central element.
This bar allows for a multitude of activities,
including sitting around with your friends,
dancing, and cocaine.
Now, the main thing that makes a disco a disco
is disco music.
So as you can see from this still, the dance floor is
reminiscent of the dance floor
in the movie "Saturday Night Fever starring" John Travolta,
and you can see the DJ booth behind,
which is the center point of any disco bar, and of course,
the dance floor with everyone dancing in sync.
Now, with the '70s disco movement
came discos throughout the country,
often inhabiting old, dilapidated spaces
where the exteriors would remain the same,
but inside would be a hidden treasure of lights and collars
and all of the elements that you needed to have a good time.
Next, we're gonna talk about Rick's Cafe
in the 1942 movie "Casablanca."
- Will I see you tonight?
- I never make plans that far ahead.
- Give me another.
- Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world,
we're gonna talk about this one.
The entire movie was filmed on a studio set.
So, Rick was an American expat,
and he created Rick's Cafe Americain in Casablanca.
But all of the details are Moroccan.
You can see here, though,
they replicated the Moorish architecture of Casablanca,
including these pointed arches,
metal lights with perforations to cast shadows on the wall.
Now, as far as bar layouts go,
Casablanca is not necessarily ideal.
You've got a front entry, there's a bandstand and a piano,
some decorative Moorish columns.
One of my pet peeves about this bar
is that the bar itself is so remote from the front entry
that you have to weave through the entire crowd
in order to get a drink.
It also faces a curved stairwell
that goes up to the second level.
This bar had poker tables, live music,
and apparently some papers
that could get people out or into anywhere.
And that's Rick's Cafe.
- [speaking Russian]
- Cheerio.
- Those are some of the architectural details
of some of my favorite movie bars.
There's a multitude of bars I'd like to talk about
like saloons, speakeasies, honky-tonks,
and so many others that we don't have time to cover.
Let me know what other movie architecture
you'd like me to talk about next in the comments.