Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/679317
P E R S P E C T I V E | M AY / J U N E 2 0 1 6 67 During World War II, he enlisted in the Royal Air Force's elite 609 Squadron, flying Hawker Typhoons, famously fast and dangerous planes, in support of British and Canadian troops after D-Day and advancing with them through France to Germany. He was one of the very few RAF fighter pilots with a German passport. Ken Adam's exploits before joining the film industry were—as Roger Moore once wisely observed—just as exciting and thought-provoking as the best of his films. After the war, Mr. Adam began as an in-house junior draftsman at Hammersmith and Twickenham Studios in South London, soon becoming an Associate Art Director. In 1956, he wrote an article in which he argued that for him the point of Art Direction was to create an idea of place rather than a real place; he noted that he preferred a more theatrical approach that was closer to drama and storytelling than architecture, though it depended on an understanding of architecture. Much more interesting than merely imitating reality was creating a different kind of reality. He was to hone and develop this style in collaboration with such movie directors as Robert Wise, Jacques Tourneur, Robert Aldrich, John Ford, Robert Siodmak, Stanley Kubrick, Lewis Gilbert, Joseph L. Mankiewicz and Herbert Ross. One of Mr. Adam's specialties, from Dr. No onward, was giving audiences a glimpse of worlds they would never otherwise see, such as the war room beneath the Pentagon that Steven Spielberg once called the finest set ever built. Mr. Adam liked to call his profession architecture without planning permission, and he didn't seem to mind that his best sets tended to get blown up in the last reel. I knew him well for thirty years, as a close friend, a good-humored raconteur in the German accent he never lost; as a working Production Designer; and as the collaborator on three books. I enjoyed arguing with him about whether there was a connection between the horrors of his early life and his trademark Führerbunkers in which megalomaniacs planned world domination. Was he exorcising the demons of his youth? He always said no—at least not at a conscious level. I still think he was. I used to describe him as the greatest living Production Designer. I can't get used to the idea that those words are now out of date.