Thursday, May 21, 2015

Star Trek Architecture

For "Star Trek" fans (once and perhaps still called "Trekkers"), this will be a hoot. Somewhere in China near the sea (I don't think we could call it a lake), there is a building that upon first glance looks like a pretty cool, modern piece of architecture. But when you pull away and get aerial footage of it (as apparently the folks at Yahoo! News did from drones), the building looks for all the world like the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC 1701. Turns out, that's by design.

This building is the headquarters of a Chinese gaming and internet company called Net Dragon. According to Yahoo! Movies editor Kevin Polowy, the CEO of Net Dragon, Liu DiJian is a mad Trek fan (they say "mad" here in MA to denote orders of magnitude, unlike the common usage which just means...insane; or angry), and was willing to part with $160 MILLION (that's six zeroes after the 160) to build their new futuristic space based on the fictional starship. He also had to cut a deal with Paramount Pictures and CBS which co-own the licensing rights to all the "Star Trek" properties. Apparently no price was too small, and the result is what we have here.

As a fan, I tend to think the design borrows from nearly all the versions of the Enterprise, but more closely calls to mind the Enterprise "E" (below) from "First Contact", "Insurrection", and "Nemesis". At least the saucer section does.  The nacelles are more reminiscent of the Enterprise "D"(also below), the galaxy class ship from "ST:TNG" (that's "Star Trek: The Next Generation" for the non-Trekked), which was destroyed and the crew of which migrated to the "E".

All right. I've geeked out enough here. Artistically and architecturally, this is an amazing piece of design, engineering, and construction. I now turn you over to the visuals and the ambient soundtrack.











In order: USS Enterprise NCC 1701 E,  USS Enterprise NCC 1701 D, Net Dragon HQ in China.
So there you are. Make it so.

More Later

KCD
Visit www.theworkofart.net






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