How to describe Wes Anderson’s visual aesthetic? Fast Company has often used the same term over the years, and that term is immaculate composition. Anderson’s pristine interiors, meticulously arranged and often symmetrical, have crystallized into a genre of production design unto itself. When Anderson designed a bar in Milan recently, we knew exactly what to expect before laying eyes on it: pastels, formica, and a Tetris wizard’s economic use of space. So, of course, when the existence of a Subreddit called Accidental Wes Anderson came to Fast Company’s attention yesterday, courtesy of Tim Donnelly, we strapped right in. It was no disappointment either.
Accidental Wes Anderson is an online hub for finding a little bit of Wes out in the wild. It could be an abandoned classroom where the tile style and arrangement of desks appears to be perhaps where Chaz Tenenbaum went to school, or the Ben Tre Hotel in Vietnam, which looks like a surplus set from Grand Budapest Hotel. It’s a phenomenon this writer is familiar with, having spotted such a building during a February expedition to Norway.
It may be surprising that such places exist, looking as if they were conjured into reality from the storyboards of the beloved auteur’s latest. On the other hand, this subreddit also gives a hint of how Anderson may have absorbed his signature style in the first place.
Have a look at more Accidental Wes Anderson in the slides above.
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