The world's greatest adventurers tell their best story from the road. Each episode is cut documentary style and set to music and cinematic effects to create an immersive storytelling experience. 'Best travel podcasts 2020'- The Guardian, 'Thrilling Stuff'-Sunday Times, 'Ear Candy for Listeners' - Washington Post
ACCIDENTALLY WES ANDERSON: Night in the Asylum
In today’s episode, we’re traveling in style. You probably know the film maker Wes Anderson. He makes those stylized, slightly absurd movies like the Royal Tenenbaums, Grand Hotel Budapest, Life Aquatic and more. His sets transform the real world into peculiar, perfectly symmetrical scenes that look like a cross-between a stage play and an acid trip.
Accidentally Wes Anderson has flipped that idea on its head. They set out into the real world to find places that look like they belong in one of his films, places that are accidentally as bizarre and beautiful as his imagination: the unique, the symmetrical, the atypical, the most interesting, idiosyncratic locations on Earth. Since 2017 they’ve built a community of millions, with best-selling books, exhibitions and an utterly beautiful Instagram page.
In this episode, host Aaron Millar takes you inside one of those images to spend a night in an asylum. Voluntarily. Recorded entirely on location, the episode tells the story of the former Buffalo State Asylum for the Insane, a vast, castle-like 19th-century building that has been partly restored as a hotel. The rest still lies abandoned, untouched since the last patients left in 1974 (creepy wheelchairs and all).
But this isn’t a ghost story. It’s a story about how what we build shapes how we feel.
Join Aaron as he explores both sides of this extraordinary building, climbs a single ladder to the top of a terrifying tower, and tries to make it through one night in the asylum.
Did he sleep with the lights on? Curtains, please.
PLAN YOUR NEXT ADVENTURE:
Discover more of the world’s most interesting, idiosyncratic places, find location guides and submit your own photos at accidentallywesanderson.com
Join the AWA Community on Instagram and Facebook @accidentallywesanderson
Find out how to stay at the Richardson Hotel yourself at richardsonhotelbuffalo.com
THANK YOU TO TODAY’S GUESTS:
Paris Roselli, President of the Richardson Center Corporation: richardson-olmsted.com
Derek Noble, Principal at Shepley Bulfinch: shepleybulfinch.com
KNOW SOMEONE WHO NEEDS THIS?
If you enjoyed this episode, send it to one person who’d love it. The friend who photographs every symmetrical doorway. The one who reads hotel histories for fun. Maybe they’ll buy you a cheeky pint.
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CREDITS:
Written and presented by Aaron Millar
Produced by Wally Koval for Accidentally Wes Anderson and Aaron Millar for Armchair Productions. Armchair-productions.com
Field recording and audio production by Jason Paton
Check out the new Smart Travel Podcast
This episode is supported by Smart Travel a new podcast from Nerd Wallet. Travel smarter — and spend less — with help from NerdWallet. Follow Smart Travel wherever you get your podcasts.Smart Travel Podcast
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