Bruce Wayne has always been a fan of using futurist technology to aid his crime-fighting alter ego but his lake house getaway, as seen in Batman vs Superman, proves his modernist tastes extend to his home life as well.
Since his inception as a superhero in the 27th issue of the comic book Detective Comics in March 1939, Batman has gone on to become one of the most popular and influential characters of modern popular culture. It would be safe to say Batman has risen to become a pop culture icon and is a persona that is recognised around the world.
This impact has stretched across industries, aside from the many films and television series there have been more than 50 video games featuring the Caped Crusader, across all platforms, from the original Batman released in 1986 to 2017’s Batman: The Enemy Within.
There is any kind of merchandise you can think of from clothing to lunchboxes, paintings and card games. There is even a slot game that can be found on 888casino – which is one of the biggest brands in the UK according to this 888 casino review and many others.
From the high-tech Batmobile to the fact that Wayne Enterprises’ biggest division was the technology sector, whose list of roles includes secretly producing gadgets for Batman, Bruce Wayne has always clearly been a fan of modern and futuristic technology.
However, it wasn’t until he was forced to spend an extended amount of time at his lake house in the film Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice that fans learned this stretched to his personal life as well.
In the film, which performed well at the box office despite not being particularly well-received by critics, Wayne Manor has been burned to the ground so Bruce moves out to the lake house to continue his crime-fighting endeavours.
The house was built especially for the film and is located 40 miles north of the American city of Detroit and is a spectacular modernist marvel with sharp angles, and lots and lots of glass. In the build-up to the release of the film Warner Bros, in conjunction with Google maps, released a 360 tour of the house. Unfortunately, it is no longer live but you can see a time-lapse of the construction of the house here:
The design of the beautiful house was clearly inspired by the modernist work of classic German architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Mies is most famous for his work on the Villa Tugendhat in Brno, Czech Republic, but Batman’s lake home took inspiration from another of his works, the highly-praised Farnsworth House which finished construction in 1951 southwest of downtown Chicago.
The influence is shown further in the décor and furnishings of the house from the sleek Brno chairs – designed by Mies for the Tugendhat House – covered in gorgeous black leather to the elegant glass table they sit at around.
The home also looks very similar to The Glass House, a modernist home designed and built by Philip Johnson in 1949. It is well known that Johnson was a huge fan of Mies and his designs were greatly influenced by him. Johnson dubbed The Glass House his signature work.
The really interesting thing about The Glass House is that it was designed to include a nearby underground safety bunker, where Bruce Wayne’s lake house is connected to the high-tech underground Bat Cave, where the Bat Mobile and all Batman’s gadgets are stored.
Despite the beautiful home by the water, opinions about Batman vs Superman were split, with critics typically not rating it very highly. However, it still performed relatively well at the box office bringing in more than $870-million against a budget of around $300-million.
