Fictional Blueprints

October 15, 2009 6:50 PM

Artist Mark Bennett's real blueprints for fake placesare fascinating. The home of socialite Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson is, not surprisingly, much more intricate than that of Mr. and Mrs. Flintstone. (via CurbedLA)
posted by GatorDavid (18 comments total)

Cool stuff, but, based on the footage we've all seen of Fred Flintstone walking in his house, that the Flintstone house is six or seven miles long.
posted by Joey Michaels at 7:05 PM on October 15 [6 favorites has favorites]

I read "The home for socialists Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson..." and my world turned upside down.
posted by robtf3 at 7:07 PM on October 15

I always loved it when Fantastic Four showed a cutaway illustration of Reed's lab in the middle of the skyscraper - so this is just my kind of thing.

But there was actually more artistic frisson here than I was expecting. Something about the diagram of Jeanie's bottle made me feel strangely sad.
posted by Joe Beese at 7:14 PM on October 15

Ha! I was going to say, "Oh-ho-ho, Mr. Bennett; so you've seen this book too!" but then I looked at the author's name and felt kinda silly
posted by Madamina at 7:19 PM on October 15 [1 favorite has favorites]

"The home of socialite Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson is, not surprisingly, much more intricate than that of Mr. and Mrs. Flintstone."

At least it was until Captain Caveman moved in.
posted by Effigy2000 at 7:19 PM on October 15

I'd like to see Bug's Bunny's tunnel. Also, Fred Roger's house and his entire magical kingdom.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 7:22 PM on October 15 [1 favorite has favorites]

This is way cool, but I want them bigger. Am I missing something? I feel like I am getting thumbnails only.
posted by cjorgensen at 7:26 PM on October 15 [1 favorite has favorites]

I want to see one of the Venture Compound.
posted by dunkadunc at 7:28 PM on October 15 [6 favorites has favorites]

I'd hope for a discount on the $12,000 price, since he got Shirley's name wrong.
posted by chococat at 7:45 PM on October 15

Interesting idea. Poor implementation.
posted by ...possums at 7:51 PM on October 15

Yeah, friends of mine have a framed version of his plans for the Addam's Family house.

In a lot of ways, it's quite normal and conventional ... must be in the decorating.
posted by Relay at 8:33 PM on October 15

This reminds me a little of Last Exit to Nowhere where you can get T-shirts for fictional products and places (Little Lebowski Urban Achievers, HAL9000, Amityville, etc)
posted by secretseasons at 8:40 PM on October 15 [3 favorites has favorites]

The blueprint for the home of Rob & Laura Petrie specifies an ottoman positioned at potentially dangerous location.
posted by twoleftfeet at 9:34 PM on October 15 [6 favorites has favorites]

I loved his book. It's one of my favorites to crack open every once and a while and remember, "Oh yeah, that's where Buffy's room was in Uncle Bill's apartment..."
posted by CarlRossi at 9:40 PM on October 15

(off-topic) Thanks, secretseasons, for that Last Exit to Nowhere link... hadn't heard of them before; there's a couple of interesting things there.

My personal favorite for this kind of stuff is Found Item Clothing; they make insanely fastidious replicas of T-shirts worn in movies and on TV... mostly cult favorites, and particularly the kind of dorky 1980s comedies I grew up with and still love today. (I've got three of the various Real Genius shirts, all fabulous.)

Not trying to shill; just a satisfied customer, and your link made me think of them.
posted by rodeoclown at 11:13 PM on October 15 [1 favorite has favorites]

Nice..reminds me of these for some reason.
posted by Not Supplied at 5:18 AM on October 16

Vladimir Nabokov did something similar back in the 1950s, sketching the floor plans of dwellings described in Tolstoy's "Anna Karenina" and Kafka's "Metamorphosis" -- you can find the drawings in his "Lectures on Literature." I'm sure he enjoyed Batman, too, but probably didn't want to pit his limited drawing skills against the extent visualizations of Wayne manor by Bob Kane.
posted by Faze at 6:23 AM on October 16

In the late 70s, my father worked at a company where there were a lot of draftsmen. They would sometimes goof off by drawing detailed blueprints or engineering drafts or maps of fictional locations. I still have their map of the 4077th M*A*S*H* unit, and a 6-sheet map of Middle Earth, both of which they produced. There were many others, but I don't remember them all since they went to other households.

If only they had known they were artists. They were just engineery geeks having fun.
posted by Miko at 6:56 AM on October 16