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The Design of the Throne Room in Minas Tirith

posted 2 years ago by MAGolding (1096)
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I wonder if anyone conncted with the design of the Throne Room in Mnas Tirith has commened on the design of it.

I am annoyed that the Throne room in The Return of the King(2003) lookes considerabley different than described in chapter 1, "Minas Tirith".

“Pippin looked into a great hall. It was lit by deep windows in the wide aisles at either side, beyond the rows of tall pillars that upheld the roof. Monoliths of black marble, they rose to great capitals carved in many strange figures of beasts and leaves; and far above in shadow the wide vaulting gleamed with dull gold, inset with flowing traceries of many colours. No hangings nor storied webs, nor any things of woven stuff or of wood, were to be seen in that long solemn hall; but between the pillars there stood a silent company of tall images graven in cold stone. Suddenly Pippin was reminded of the hewn rocks of Argonath, and awe fell on him, as he looked down that avenue of kings long dead. At the far end upon a dais of many steps was set a high throne under a canopy of marble shaped like a crowned helm; behind it was carved upon the wall and set with gems an image of a tree in flower. But the throne was empty. At the foot of the dais, upon the lowest step which was broad and deep, there was a stone chair, black and unadorned, and on it sat an old man gazing at his lap.”

I know enough about architecture to understand architetural descriptions. And presumably the designers of the throne room in The Return of the King(2003) also could undersand them.

The description leaves many details unmentioned, such as the colors of the walls and the floor, whether the columns support a cornice or arches, what type or types of vault(s) are in the ceiling, if the throne is in an apse, and so on.

There are many possible designs of the throne room with would not differ from any part of Tolkien's description. So why did the designers design a space which is clearly different from some important aspects of the description in the novel?

[–] Otter (24464) 2 years ago

Time and budget might have been problems, it takes more time and costs more money to build sets full of "stone" carvings, much more than it takes to slap together vaulted arches and paint them to look like marble. I know there were time pressures in the making of the movies, it's possible that plans to make a Gothic hall of figured "stone" carvings were scrapped due to real-world concerns.

I didn't like the design of Minas Tirith as a whole because it was too small and not surrounded by farms and villages as any Medieval walled city should be, but I thought the Citadel worked pretty well. It looked more sophisticated and technologically advanced than any other place we'd see in Middle Earth, it looked expensive, but it also looked spare and lifeless, and that had to have been intentional. We were supposed to be seeing a monarch's hall at the end of it's glory, at a time when it was spiritually gutted and in need of renewal, a place on the point of collapsing from within as well as being under attack, but a place that would be completely reborn when Queen Arwen got a chance to redecorate.