Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1546606
Behind a panel in the wall lived "The Bubble," a glowing, floating room where you could be sure the secrets you spilled were safe. The SCIF (Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility) while designed by Americans, would have been built by the Soviets, so I blended materials and forms from both cultures. I wanted to create a room that was a hidden world, pure in form, where things could make sense. The ubiquitous channel glass seen on scouts of period Soviet-constructed buildings captured me, but to make our form evoke "The Bubble" moniker, we had to create them out of custom curved plexiglass, skinned with a tinted film to capture the tone and texture of vintage ferrous glass. It was also hundreds of pounds lighter, and much safer, for the wilding needed for camera and crew. To decorate all these spaces, the team was working against our Hungarian resources. Soviet goods were ubiquitous, but we shipped American items from the States or rented from the UK. It wasn't enough, though. Set decorator Panni Lutter turned to her talented fabrication team to build every desk and table, to custom create many of the light fixtures—including plugs and switches, and bring vintage materials back to life. The embassy housing extended the language of the public-facing American office experience. Open, fresh, welcoming, though with a hidden compartment or two. The classic open plan mid-century architecture was the same in all apartments—indeed we turned over Bea's and Twila's apartments into Ray and Cheryl's and Dale's, which required tremendous choreography from the art and set dec departments. A. & B. THE "YELLOW SUBMARINE" BULLPEN. SET PHOTOS BY DÁVID LUKÁCS. C. US EMBASSY CIA OFFICE. "THE BUBBLE." CONCEPT ART BY FERENC NOTHOF. B A C D E