The Ennis House, as featured in Mid-Century Modern Architecture Travel Guide: West Coast USA

Will this LA house be in Blade Runner 2049?

This Frank Lloyd Wright building doubled as Deckard's apartment in the first film. Could it make the sequel?

The announcement that Ridley Scott will produce a Blade Runner sequel, entitled Blade Runner 2049, is welcome news for sci-fi fans and architecture lovers alike. The 1982 film managed to conjure up a suitably futuristic mise en scène that looked decrepit and antique.

The effect was achieved in part, by employing some of Los Angeles better-known architectural landmarks, including Frank Lloyd Wright’s Ennis House, which served as Rick Deckard’s apartment building.

Built between 1923-24, the Ennis was constructed from concrete blocks, though it was inspired by ancient Mayan architecture and manages to conjure up the jazz age, the stone age and beyond. Our new book Mid-Century Modern Architecture Travel Guide: West Coast USA features the building in its overview of must-see LA addresses.

Will it feature in Blade Runner 2049, due for release in October 2017? Well, the film will still feature Deckard; Harrison Ford will reprise the role. However, it’s unclear whether this landmark will make it in again, since at least some of the movie is currently being shot in Budapest.

We’ll have to wait eleven months to find out whether it makes the cut. In the meantime, why not plan a road trip to this beautiful house. Here's what Mid-Century Modern Architecture Travel Guide: West Coast USA has to say about the place.

 

Blade Runner Ennis House

 

"The last and most famous of Wright’s textile block houses, this structure, perched high in the hills near Griffith Observatory, is a dead ringer for a Mezo-American temple, except it’s in Los Feliz. It’s been in more movies than almost any home in the world – from House on Haunted Hill to Day of the Locust to Blade Runner – and for good reason. Designed by Wright and his son Lloyd for retailer Charles Ennis and his wife, Mabel, the structure, with its interlocking planes staggering and stepping in unfathomably dramatic fashion, was constructed of more than twenty-seven-thousand exotically patterned concrete blocks, rising up out of a massive base, which doubles as a retaining wall.

"The home and an adjacent chauffeur’s residence, wrap around a paved courtyard, with unimpeded views of the city below. Lush gardens make their way around the home’s exterior, while the interior consists of narrow hallways, colorful mosaics, dramatic double-height spaces and other cinematic spatial gestures. The residence was bought in 2011 by billionaire Ron Burkle, who is financing a thorough restoration."

To discover more about both this house and many others order a copy of Mid-Century Modern Architecture Travel Guide: West Coast USA here.