The Design Museum's latest exhibition, “Wes Anderson: The Archives”, showcases approximately 600 pieces from the director's personal collection, many of which have been rarely seen outside of storage. The museum is pitching it as its most popular exhibition yet, and that's a very fair assumption given the popularity of last year's “Accidentally Wes Anderson” exhibition.
The star of the room is a three-metre-wide model of the Grand Budapest Hotel, which is the same model used for the exterior shots in the 2014 film, which means you finally get to see up close the thing that looked too perfect to be real on screen. Just nearby, you'll spot the vending machines from Asteroid City, which feel even cooler when you can walk right up to them.
Gwyneth Paltrow's fur coat from “The Royal Tenenbaums” will also make an appearance, sitting alongside Anderson's own notebooks filled with early ideas and doodles that eventually became fully fledged films. The famous “Boy with Apple” painting is also on show, the faux Renaissance painting that briefly overshadowed the entire plot of “The Grand Budapest Hotel”.
A good chunk of the show is dedicated to the stop-motion worlds of “Fantastic Mr Fox” and “Isle of Dogs”, complete with puppets and models. You can also watch “Bottle Rocket”, the short crime comedy that kick-started Anderson's career, which helps tie the whole thing together. The origin story sits quite neatly next to the mountains of props that inspired him to start archiving everything in the first place.
The London version of this exhibition builds on a smaller Paris iteration and adds approximately 100 additional items, many of which are being shown in the UK for the first time. Anderson himself helped curate it, and if you are planning to go, booking ahead is definitely a must, as this one is going to get busy.