A Hearst Castle tennis court in San Luis Obispo County, California
This carefully curated Instagram page maps out where you can find real-life buildings, interiors, and landscapes that look like they came from a Wes Anderson film.
Pastel colors, kitschy details, and extensive symmetry have come to define director Wes Anderson’s widely celebrated aesthetic. Films such as The Life Aquatic, Moonrise Kingdom, and The Grand Budapest Hotel are well-known—and commonly loved—for transporting viewers to impeccably stylized worlds. But the popular cinematic settings dreamed up by the director have often been embellished by incredible set and costume design.
Herein comes @accidentallywesanderson. This Instagram account spotlights destinations around the world that look like they’ve been specially crafted for one of Anderson’s film sets but are actually everyday locations that can be visited in real life.
Inspired by a Reddit thread named AccidentalWesAnderson, the Instagram account’s curator, Wally Koval, created the page just one year ago. The travel-, architecture-, and (of course) Anderson aesthetic–enthusiast originally aimed to create an online community where people with similar interests could marvel over Anderson-inspired imagery. But after a month of sorting through the #AccidentallyWesAnderson hashtag and reposting photos including only the destination names in each caption, Koval became curious about the stories behind the visually distinctive locations.
So he shifted his focus: The account would not just be a place for Wes Anderson fans to ogle over real-life manifestations of the director’s signature aesthetic. It would also become an online resource where curious people could learn unique information about unassuming locations around the world, such as the Eastern Columbia Building (pictured below), a 13-story art deco landmark widely considered to be Los Angeles’s greatest surviving example of the iconic architectural style.
Today, Instagram users submit photos for consideration alongside details about the location featured (building name, country, etc.), at which point Koval puts his detective hat on, sourcing information from any historical records he can find. Each image posted to the Instagram account includes a detailed caption outlining the background of the particular building, interior, or landscape on display.
Sure, the account’s 457K followers (and counting) might initially be drawn to the page for its elegantly curated grid of aesthetically pleasing places. But what turns an Anderson-esque photo submission into an @accidentallywesanderson feature, Koval says, is the discovery that the location pictured holds more than meets the eye.
“In my opinion, the narrative of each location’s history is just as important—if not more important—than the picture itself,” Koval says. “The background story in each caption is intended to provide the context for which you can further appreciate what you’re looking at.” For example, the beautiful bookstore pictured below, known as Cărturești Carusel, is housed in a 19th-century building in Bucharest, Romania, that was almost destroyed before it was refurbished. If that information were not provided alongside the image featured on Instagram, most of the account’s followers would probably never know the fact, although it adds to the building’s historic significance.
For those who travel frequently, the Instagram account can serve as a colorful “lookbook” to inspire a future trip, Koval notes. For those who aren’t often on the road, Koval hopes the page will help foster the realization that you don’t need to go far to see—and learn from—amazing sights.
“Many people wouldn’t sit down and read a dense book on the history of a destination,” Koval says. “But if you put a really cool picture book together with significant facts about the place, people might do more than just learn about the location; they might be inspired to visit it themselves.”
