Fictional castles inspired by real-life structures
Imagine you could design and build your fantasy castle. Would your walls be made of ice? Would your roof soar till the clouds or be snug and low like a cave? Our mental pictures of fantasy castles may come from our favourite books and films. But imagination often has some roots in reality, and many fantastic fictional castles are inspired by actual buildings.
Stave Churches of Norway
Remember Elsa and Anna's castle in Frozen? Did you know that the basis for this picturesque setting with fjords and snowy mountains is Norway? The castles and buildings in the film were inspired by Norway's wooden architecture, particularly stave churches.
Stave means a vertical wooden plank and these 12th century churches were built primarily of wood. The sloped, pointed roofs were supported by vertical posts and the interiors had wood carvings. Norway once had over 1000 such churches but only 28 remain today. One of the best-preserved is the Borgund Stave Church. The series of roofs decreasing in size with dragon head decorations gives it the effect of a castle.
Neuschwanstein Castle in Germany
This castle, located in the foothills of the Alps in Bavaria, Southern Germany, is often dubbed the 'Disney Castle', since it was a key inspiration for Walt Disney for his fantasy universe. You can spot similarities to this real-life castle in Sleeping Beauty in Disneyland and in the logo at the beginning of every Disney movie.
King Ludwig II, an eccentric king who loved the arts, built this grand, whimsical castle in 1869 not for defence or politics, but purely for fun. The interiors have some fairytale elements like a secret door that leads to a stone grotto (a cave), with an artificial waterfall and a rainbow machine!
University of Oxford, England
While the Harry Potter movies were filmed at several castles, manor houses and churches across England including the Durham Cathedral, Gloucester Cathedral and Alnwick Castle, the layout and architecture of Hogwarts was strongly influenced by the universities, Oxford and Cambridge, with their stately Gothic buildings with pointed arches, intricate carvings and stone facades. The libraries, grand dining halls and common rooms have wall tapestries, fireplaces and portraits of important people that inspired some scenes to be filmed at Oxford, while others were used to recreate film sets. For example, the Great Hall of Hogwarts was recreated based on the dining hall of the Christ Church College at Oxford.
If you had to draw your own fantasy castle, what would your real-life inspirations be?
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