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Farewell to Sir Ken Adam, the First 007 Designer

The iconic and award-winning production designer and art director Ken Adam has passed away at the age of 95. Though his work spanned many genres, he is most fondly remembered for his contributions to engaging futurism, badass bad guys’ lairs, and dark science fiction environments. His creativity and elegant touch produced some of the most striking sets of the ‘60s and '70s.

Ken Adam (née Klaus Hugo Adam) was born to a well-off Jewish family in 1921 Berlin. His early life was a tumultuous mix of elite education and a very troubled political climate, which eventually forced his family to relocate to England. As soon as he was legally able, he applied to join the Royal Air Force in the war against Hitler and served with double distinction, as a German national found assisting the British would have caught an automatic death sentence. 

Adam began his career in film auspiciously if humbly, working behind the scenes on projects like Around the World In 80 Days and Ben Hur within a few years of starting out. Adam’s first major credit as a production designer was on the 1956 British noir Soho Incident, and in 1962 he signed on with Dr. No, the first ever Bond film. Despite his relative rookie status and the film’s small budget (and that no one imagined 007 would be a decades-long franchise), Adam worked magic with the studio sets and Dr. No’s futuristic lair. 

His vision in Dr. No is credited with setting the distinctive style of the whole Bond franchise and spy movies at large, and it paved the way for his own wild work in future Bond capers. One of the most prolific production designers to work within the franchise, he continued to contribute grand environments, hyper-modern flair, and fun elements of science fiction from Goldfinger though his work on Moonraker. 

Many quintessential pieces of the secret agents’ technology and prop engineering were drawn from Adam’s own experiences as a pilot. Other dastardly devices (like the high powered laser famously aimed at Sean Connery’s groin in Goldfinger) were based on technology so new or nascent at the time that Adam’s cinematic illustrations of them steered subsequent development. 

Other cinema-shifting highlights from his bonkers Bond work include ejecting seats and rocket shoes, the introduction of the Aston Martin, a fantastic fictionalized Fort Knox, the volcano lair in You Only Live Twice, and a mind-bogglingly large soundstage for the tanker in The Spy Who Loved Me. But really, anywhere you look in a Bond film you’ll find traces of Adam’s innovation, drama, and fun.

If you don’t want a volcano base of your own I don’t know what to tell you.

Shortly after the release of Goldfinger, he was approached to work on another visual and cultural groundbreaker: Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 cult classic Doctor Strangelove. Adam’s version of the War Room in the film has influenced generations of audiences, artists and directors, and impacted the way the Cold War was seen around the world. There’s even a story that Ronald Reagan (Cold War noteworthy and cinephile that he was) wondered aloud where the War Room was located during his first elected tour of the White House.

In a gesture that illustrates both his ability and clear vision, Adams turned down the chance to take on 2001: A Space Odyssey. After learning how closely Kubrick had been working with NASA scientists to understand space travel, he doubted his ability to balance Kubrick’s critical technical mind with his own interest in creative and immersive environments. While realism was something he appreciated, he preferred to work with less technical stricture and more invention.

Looking through his numerous projects, it’s clear that his style was influenced by an appreciation for early German expressionism and the morally ambiguous possibility of technology. His use of these themes is visible in projects as different as the design of the car in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and the storyboards and set design for the never-realized Star Trek movie Planet of the Titans. 

In a year already studded with sad and famous passings, this one feels a little less bitter and a little more sweet. Sir Adam’s art and film legacy has been a boon for decades of set designers, practical effects lovers, interior designers and more, and it’s given us very high standards for our supervillians.