What’s happened to the Bond Villains’ lair?
So with the launch of Spectre last week, everyone’s talking about its lack of a ‘Bond Villain’s Lair’ – the archetypal feat of modernist imagination – the Crab Key of Dr No, the half-boat-half Spaceship on ‘the spy who loved me’ or the rocky outcrop hideaway in Thailand for the ‘man with the golden gun’.It’s all been gone and replaced with more ‘real’ architecture of the rooftops of Mexico city and the shadowy streets of London, plus the new intelligence HQ being a tower on the banks of the Thames.
So what does this mean? – have Bond’s villains lost their love of architecturally jaw dropping locations – or are the production team just trying to make it more real and less ‘pantomime’?
Whatever the reason that Pinewood Studios decided against more of a traditional Bond Villain’s Lair, it does leave me with a problem – a serious gap in the topic for this week’s blog!
Our well planned content calendar for the past few months has had my name against writing a construction blog and we thought that a focus on the latest Bond Villain’s Lair would be exciting. As anyone who has seen the film will know, that has left me with an issue – do we drop the idea completely or do we just change the angle on a theme I’d have more scope in writing about?
As any blogger knows, there is always an angle for a blog- you just sometimes have to be that little bit more creative. So I thought, why don’t we look back at some of the iconic buildings that we’ve written about for our clients in the last 10 years and pick out the top three which would have made great Bond Villains’ Lairs!
First one that brings to mind is the Wave House – the remote Cliffside retreat that we featured for a heat pump client. The property literally clings to the Cliffside overlooking a beach near Cornwall, is built in the shape of a wave and has its own private beach.
Designed by an architect as his own retirement home – I’m sure you’ll agree a pretty impressive property – and one a Bond Villain could retreat to and plan his or own personal world domination!
Number two on the last would have to be Monkseaton School in the North East. One of our clients supplied the metallic silver aluminium façade that gives the building its impressive mirrored effect. The striking building has the appearance of the hideout of a highly sophisticated Bond Villain. We made some great front page articles with this one!
Thirdly, another school could provide a great hangout for someone needing to keep a track of James Bond. This Academy in West Sussex was inspired by HG Wells’ science fiction novel ‘War of the Worlds’. It has a great ‘lookout’ tower and even achieved a BREEAM Very Good – although not sure how much a Bond villain would be interested in that! We wrote about this for one of our fibre cement cladding clients, achieving some great coverage in the specifier titles.
So, if you are looking for any help to publicise your construction PR projects or to come up with exciting ideas for your Public Relations, social media or SEO in 2016, give us a call on 01709 300130 or email hello@dragonflypr.co.uk