'Black Panther' Production Designer Explains the Film's Aesthetic Influences

The success of Black Panther has been huge, with the film breaking Marvel records and having a huge opening weekend. More information has now been revealed about some of the influences and inspirations for the film, with production designer Hannah Beachler — who has also worked on Moonlight and Beyoncé‘s Lemonade – discussing the ideas that shaped Wakanda’s architecture.

Speaking to Dezeen, Beachler gave a disparate list of architects and buildings that played a role. This included the work of late architect Zaha Hadid: “That’s what I wanted people to feel for the modern architecture in Black Panther. Very voluptuous, very curvy, no hard edges and the spaces feel both very large and intimate at the same time.”

Another influence came from London’s Buckingham Palace — which Beachler described as “the perfect size for what a palace should be” — and traditional South African rondavel huts, which are referenced in Wakanda’s skyscrapers. Despite this broad range of influences, Beachler explained that the overall architectural inspiration came from one source: “You can look to afrofuturism for the aesthetic. It was really about blending things that were existing in a lot of different African cultures and then creating them as if they had evolved over time and inserting that into our fictional nation.”

In related news, Black Panther‘s Chadwick Boseman recently surprised fans of the film on Jimmy Fallon.