The Bradbury

While an unsuspecting J.F. Sebastian began leading Pris, the replicant, up the desolate stairways and down the halls of his apartment building, I began to notice a familiar set of ornamental ironwork. Complemented by brief shots of the atrium ceiling juxtaposed with blaring lights and illuminated billboards beyond, suggestive of fictitious and immense structures above, it began to occur to me that this might be shot in the famed Bradbury Building in Los Angeles--an 1890s commercial building famous for it’s warm and intricate Victorian atrium space, open cage elevators, marble stairs, and ornate iron railings. Later into the film, Deckard pulls up to the front of the building prior to the climactic rooftop scene, and the words Bradbury are visible above the main entrance to the nearly deserted building. Followed by a quick google search, the confirmation of this real-world filming location was a pleasant find for me to achieve some level of familiarity in this otherwise, disorienting setting.

The atrium glass ceiling and the dystopian world beyond portrayed  in Bladerunner

Glass ceiling of the atrium space in real life

The pleasant Bradbury atrium space

It’s commentary within the premise of the movie, however, was poignant (I guess?). The desecration of the beloved Bradbury and it’s portrayal as a mostly abandoned building (except in its role of harboring the freaky genetic experimenter J.F. Sebastian) speaks of the darkness of this alternative cyberpunk world and the devaluation of existing human culture and buildings of contemporary time. Meanwhile the city expands vertically and leaves all that exists closer to being in contact with the surface of the Earth at a level suggestive of the lowest possible classification--basically the “bottom of the barrel.” This is also apparent in the streetscape, depicting layers of garbage and filth, strange characters, and a hearty overlay of grunge. Again, the human departure from the “natural world” was highlighted at the end of the movie, as Deckard and Rachael drive into the seemingly untouched wilderness, at last in sunshine, bearing no hints of the dark world they left behind. The re-established human order seen in the movie is only subjective to the expansive metropolis, which seems to have been an all-encompassing microcosm of human existence, while the order of the natural world persisted somehow on the outside.


After seeing it’s cameo in Bladerunner, I think I gained a higher appreciation for this building, not from it’s screen time, but from the depth that it was able to provide to the set. The other-worldliness of the Bradbury in real life already transports someone to somewhat of an alternate reality, just having stepped into the building from the streets of L.A. Through its elemental manipulation of light and spindle-like iron and steel detail, I would argue, it presents some of the most satisfying interior spaces I have ever set foot in. The balance of natural light, heavy masonry tectonics+light airy steel, and intuitive vertical stacking are sensical in terms of structure and navigation, while integrating a fascinating sense of detail at almost every scale. I think this degree of preexisting other-worldliness makes it easy for the set to be transformed simply by controlling the light and atmosphere. In reality, the atrium’s level of welcome-ness through clarity and warmth of atmosphere is contrasted in cinema graphically by coolness and haziness to create the perfect place for some of the movie's darkest and most obscure scenes.