The Cultural Influences of Marvel’s Black Panther
Once T’challa’s ship enters the barriers of the hidden city, we are welcomed by a booming tribal chant as we are seeing the many sights of Wakanda. Upon the Vibranium rock sits a towering city of technological wonder that one could only dream of. In an interview with Fastcodedesign.com, Production designer Hannah eachler reimagines Wakanda to be an amalgamation of “all the cultures that came together while they’re still individual. They have found a way to combine their aesthetic to create a Wakanda aesthetic.”
From the city’s skyline you can see a diverse set of structures from both indigenous architecture and to more contemporary ones. The most familiar looking one in the picture would be what resembles to be structutres from the ancient city in Timbuktu or perhaps similar characteristics in Sudano-Sahelian architecture. Speculation wise, the skyscraper-like structures may have been influenced by a mix of stone Shona towers or modern Johannesburg architecture as Beachler referenced that it was one of the cities in Africa she has travelled to for architectural inspiration. Native huts may have taken inspiration as well as they are one of the earliest forms of indigenous architecture in Africa (namely in Uganda or Kenya). More so, the coconut like prism structures seemed to resemble Mityana Pilgrims’ Centre Shrine in Uganda by swiss architect, Justus Dahinden.
From Left to Right: Zaha Hadid’s Learning Center in Vienna, Mityana Pilgrims’ Centre Shrine, The Ancient City of Timbuktu, Buganda Hut
Most of Beachler’s work in Black Panther is dedicated to the late Iraqi-British architect, Zaha Hadid. Hadid is known to many as the greatest deconstructivist architect of the modern era. Known characteristics of the deconstructivist architecture that plays around the surface of a certain building, non-rectilinear shapes, unpredictable ways of distorting or dislocating of structures. Most notable example would be the exterior of Shuri’s Lab, which appears to have been influenced by one of Hadid’s work for Vienna’s University of Economics and Business library and learning centre.
Lastly, if you notice that in Wakanda there are so many circular design elements whether it’d be Shuri’s lab, the Elders’ meeting room, and even some buildings in the Wakandan skyline are dominantly circular. It does in fact take inspiration to what makes Wakanda and it is its vibranium. In an interview with Collider.com, Beachler’s analyzation with these circular structures had to do with “vibration and sound”.
“Vibranium is about vibrations and soaking that vibration in. — Vibration and sound as communication and sound as life, as well as water and air. So, bringing that in really was a part of creating—bringing that tradition—and creating its own tradition.
Source:
GP Manalo
