Asteroid City is a movie by Wes Anderson, it is not just a movie but rather a stage play inside the movie set in 1950s mid-century America. There are layers, a film within a film, set within a set all where architecture is the key narrative. We experience a town constructed from the fragments of America’s Past, during the cold war and the lingering fear of the future. The play in the movie is mainly set in a fictional desert town where every set, prop, and building has been meticulously crafted to create a dialogue between society and the tension that arises with technological progress and communal identity.
Architectural Style and Cultural Identity
Asteroid City has a calm, minimal palette reflecting the mid-century desert modernism, preferring functionality over form in post-war America. Built around a meteorite crater in the desert, the town is relatively small but functional and acts more as a tourist spot in between places. The desert void beyond acts as a negative space, and is a backbone to give narrative to the building structures. The town has been laid out in symmetry, a single street splitting the desert in half, with a diner, a gas station, a small observatory, and a motel around it.
Asteroid City’s architecture is a fusion that mirrors the 1950s fascination with space exploration and the atomic age during the Cold War, where the local scientific endeavors. Identity was rooted in celestial wonder and government-driven. There is also a strong sense of prefabrication and modularity visible in the identical cabins in the lodges, laid out uniformly. This might reflect the post-war American Drive for mass production and readily available housing and infrastructure even in the most remote corners.
Culturally, Asteroid City’s architecture serves as a basic ground for junior stargazers with an opportunity to visit the observatory and witness the eclipse. The buildings all provide distinct zones for interaction and introspection, with minimal ornamentation and rather the spaces dictated by function. This aligns with the film’s broader themes of a society grappling with existential threats and a need for practical solutions.
Social & Political Dynamics
The architecture of Asteroid City is deeply intertwined with its social and political undercurrents. Socially, the buildings aren’t just structures but rather act as tools of control, they create controlled environments designed to contain and regulate activity. The town has been laid out in perfect symmetry, and everything is placed along an ideal axis, making it easier to track and keep a perpetual eye. The town’s quarantine further proves how the town can easily be isolated and turned into a gilded cage.
Another visible thing about the structures in the movie is their temporary nature, which reflects the fear of the society living under the threat of constant nuclear war or maybe alien encounters, all looming in the background.
Politically, the visible military presence, uniformed personnel, and defined roles signify state control. Even in Architecture, the contrast is visible in the sleek glass-paneled facility of the laboratory, the only structure not rooted to the ground and looking upwards, proof of scientific progress funded by the government. In the later half of the movie, the quarantine regulations, perimeter fencing, and regulated movement within the town speak about a centralized authority and state control as mentioned earlier. Through this set of political dynamics, we can draw a comparison that in the 1950s there were some Cold War anxieties in the government which further reflected in the movie and the way the structure embodies Cold War aesthetics.
The environment is constructed to help maintain and give some sense of normalcy despite the extraordinary events, which creates an illusion of stability in a rather chaotic state of the world.
Demographics & Modernization
The town in Asteroid City can barely be called a town but rather a collection of essential services. It rather acts more like a gathering space for a specific event and not a social fabric where the society exists. The town is populated by a very specific demographic, especially in the case of events, otherwise it just works as a pitstop in the way of going further down the road. Children attending a stargazing convention, their parents, and a few essential service providers are a part of that demographic. The vending machines in the lodge represented a kind of technological advancement that was quaint. The observatory acts as a symbol of scientific endeavor and embodies technological optimism. However, the film also critiques the limits of optimism when an alien encounter disrupts the balance. It shows the struggle to balance growth and the hesitation under unforeseen circumstances. The architecture, while facilitating scientific pursuits, ultimately cannot fully contain or explain the truly extraordinary.
Asteroid City by Wes Anderson is a meticulously crafted film that uses Architecture as a narrative to reflect the anxieties of a specific era. The entire movie has been shot on Kodak 35mm and presents a rich tapestry of themes, the tension between order and chaos, the illusion of control, and the pursuit of knowledge. Architecture in the movie is not just a mere backdrop but rather a character with a statement, which is shaped by the cultural pride of America, political forces in play, and the relentless move towards modernization. The film beautifully presents how the environment shapes experience, every wall, every window, and every dusty road has a story to tell. ‘Asteroid City’ is a reflection on how society perceived the Cold War anxieties and technological advances as alien.
References:
Dorn, L. (2023). Wes Anderson Explains How He Built ‘Asteroid City’. [online] Laughing Squid. Available at: https://laughingsquid.com/wes-anderson-building-asteroid-city/ [Accessed 25 May 2025].
Dargis, M. (2023). ‘Asteroid City’ Review: Our Town and Country. NY Times. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/15/movies/asteroid-city-review-wes-anderson.html.
Wikipedia. (2023). Asteroid City. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_City.
