Some movies just feel like home. Often, that’s because the homes in movies are so brilliantly designed. Some imitate reality (the humble, lived-in home in Lady Bird), others manifest imagination (the glowing Hometree branches in Avatar). But in every case, well-designed movie spaces work because they’re packed with emotion and insight.
Artist and film fan Boryana Ilieva has the keenest eye for such spaces. For her Floor Plan Croissant project, she studies and then gorgeously renders detailed floor plans of the homes in her favorite movies. Since she spends so much time mulling over beloved film interiors, we asked her: What are the five movie spaces you wish you could live in? Here is her imaginative survey of the world of movie architecture.
Learn more about Boryana’s unique perspective on cinematic interior design—and see some of her most impressive work—here.
I will spend my early years in the childhood village of Pedro Almodóvar. I will live in a home under the ground with sunlight (and rain?) coming from a huge hole in the ceiling. The walls will be uneven and white with colorful tiles on them. I will be doing some painting or reading or simply daydreaming.
Later, when I am a young grown-up, I will settle in the hotel room of Bill Murray in Groundhog Day to upgrade myself. I will wake up in this room every morning for several thousand days, and I will live over and over the same day. I will rob banks first, eat sweets to my fill, also try different types of suicides, but then I will start to learn a musical instrument, create art, know the story of every person in town, and eventually become God.
After I become God, I will humbly get а compartment in the Wes Anderson train and travel the world with it.
When I get older and tired from trespassing distances with my train, I will move to Howl’s castle, and by rotating a four-colored wheel, I will change locations for a second. I can switch to Europe, then rotate the wheel and appear in Japan, then switch to the mountains, or the fourth option—enter my dark conscience, childhood memories, traumas and stuff.
Eventually, I will become very old, and this is when I will settle my weak self into the young 50-year-old body of John Malkovich, and rest there and observe the world through his eyes. I am not even going to try to control his arms, legs and speech.