The final War Room set from Stanley Kubrick’s “Dr. Strangelove” (1964), seen today as an icon of Cold War design in film. Towards Ken Adam, Steven Spielberg stated that he believes it is the best set ever designed for a film.
Illustrated proposal for the final version of the War Room set from “Dr. Strangelove” (1964), after Stanley Kubrick had rejected the initial design (which he had agreed on earlier).
Ken Adam (born on the 5th of February 1921 as Klaus Hugo Adam in Berlin, Germany), is a production designer famous for his set designs for the early James Bond films. In 1934 his family moved to England, where he later became the first and only German pilot in the wartime Royal Air Force, fighting against Germany. He later studied Architecture at University College London and Bartlett School of Architecture before entering the film industry in the 1950s. He later designed the sets of ”Dr. No” (1962), “Goldfinger” (1964), “Thunderball” (1965), “You Only Live Twice” (1967) and “Diamonds Are Forever” (1971). The supertanker set for “The Spy Who Loved Me” (1977) was the largest sound stage in the world at the time it was built. His last Bond film was Moonraker (1979). Still, his most regarded work remains the War Room set for Stanley Kubrick’s film “Dr. Strangelove” (1964). He received the Art Directors Guild Lifetime Achievement Award in 2002.
